An Intertwined History: The Contribution of William J.R. Curtis ...

An Intertwined History:

The Contribution of William J.R. Curtis to

the Historiography of Modern Architecture

Macarena de la Vega de León

Dissertation submitted in fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of

Doctor of Philosophy in Architectural History

University of Canberra

November 2018

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Abstract

This dissertation explores the writing of history through the close reading of William

J.R. Curtis’s Modern Architecture Since 1900 (1982). Curtis’s book lies in a transitional

period in the history of modern architecture: between the establishment of research

degrees in North American schools in the 1970s; and the consolidation of the discipline

as the subject matter of historiographical research in the 1990s. These developments

culminated in 1999 with a major methodological reassessment of the history of modern

architecture, its education and its scholarly study in journals such as JSAH and JAE.

The study of postcolonial theories in architecture, also at the turn of the century,

challenged the previously accepted canon of architectural history by urging the

development of a global history of architecture (which remains today undefined).

Curtis worked on the first edition as a young researcher in North America in the late

1970s and on the definitive edition of the book in the early 1990s: Modern Architecture

Since 1900 is exemplary of, and contemporary to, these developments.

By discussing in-depth Curtis’s classificatory strategy, proposed definitions, and

position on the main protagonists of modernism, this dissertation is the first-ever

mapping of the historicity of the book, of its contribution, and of the experiences

which lead to its publication. It proposes a comparative textual analysis of the three

editions of the book and the related published research, contextualising it with other

contributions at the time. The thesis also draws on direct communication with Curtis

in which he shared with the candidate reflections and access to archival material. The

argument focusses on two themes which were simultaneously part of architectural

debate and introduced in Curtis’s text: regionalism and postmodernism. These notions

were, in his narrative, two sides of the same coin. They encompass his methodological

approach to the architecture of the late twentieth century, which he critiques based on

a criterion of authenticity; a nebulous category which he links to immutable

architectural values and on his own first-hand experience around the world.

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Despite Curtis’s underrepresentation, and sometimes misrepresentation, in subsequent

research on global history, this thesis positions him as a ‘pioneer’ in this developing

field. He can be understood as the first ‘cartographer’ who tried to map a modern

tradition, or traditions, inclusive and aware of the exchanges between the soon to be

politically incorrect terms of ‘the West’ and the ‘non-West,’ ‘Third World’ and

‘developing countries.’ Curtis addressed some of the main points in the critique of

postcolonial theories in architecture with the first edition of Modern Architecture Since

1900 and added a global approach to the modernist canon in the 1996 edition. His book

is closer to the idea of ‘intertwined history’ than subsequent synoptic histories of

modern architecture or the more recent global histories of architecture. Central to the

contribution of this dissertation is to bring forth the way Curtis’s writing of history

intertwines the modern and the global.

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Contents

Abstract ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………... i

Form B ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… iii

Acknowledgments ………………………………………………………………..……………………………………. vii

Chapter One_ Introduction …………………………………………………………………………………………. 1

Aim, Premises and Significance of the Study ......................................................... 2

From the Modern to the Global: A Theoretical Framework ……….…………………… 9

Positioning Modern Architecture Since 1900 in Historiography ......................... 26

Overview of the Study …………………………………………..…..…………………………………… 40

Chapter Two_ William Curtis and Modern Architecture Since 1900 ………………………..… 45

The Editorial ‘Life’ …………………………………………………………………………………………… 45

Critical Responses to the Three Editions ………………………………………………………… 50

Classificatory Strategies in the Three Editions ………………………….…………..……..… 62

The Story of the Writing ……………………………………………………..…………………………. 80

Chapter Three_ William Curtis and Regionalism ……………………………………………………… 97

Critical Responses to Curtis’s Approach to Regionalism ………………………………… 97

Turkey and Greece in Modern Architecture Since 1900 ………………………………..… 101

Australia in Modern Architecture Since 1900 ………..……………………………..………… 109

Contextualising Regionalism between the 1970s and the 1990s ……..……………… 119

Chapter Four_ William Curtis and Postmodernism ……………………………………………….… 137

Critical Responses to Curtis’s Approach to Postmodernism ……………………….… 137

Mapping Postmodernism in Modern Architecture Since 1900 ……………………..… 142

Postmodernism, Modernism and Authenticity …………………………………………..… 148

Contextualising Postmodernism between the 1970s and the 1990s …………….… 160

Chapter Five_ Rethinking William Curtis: Between the Modern and the Global in

Architecture ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 177

The Task of History and the Role of the Historian ………………………………………… 178

A Modern Tradition …………………………………………………………………………………….… 193

Conclusion: An Intertwined History ..……………………………………………………………………… 207

Bibliography ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 223

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Acknowledgments

The completion of this dissertation has only been possible with the generous guidance,

mentorship, and constant support in every endeavour of my primary supervisor

Professor Gevork Hartoonian. I also thank the invaluable help of my supervisory panel:

Associate Professor Scott Heyes and Professor John Macarthur from the University of

Queensland. I am grateful for the encouragement and the thoughtful feedback which

they provided at different stages in my candidature. I also acknowledge the generous

collaboration of William J.R. Curtis, who shared his archive and thoughts with me.

Having moved to Australia in 2014 to commence my studies, I received enormous help

and support from what today is wisely called the HDR Support team at the University

of Canberra and the HDR team at the Faculty of Arts and Design; especially Anushya

Kumar, Dr Joelle Vandermensbrugghe and Debra Hippisley. The thorough editing

work done by Dr Anika Quayle needs also to be acknowledged. I am grateful for the

generosity of the Centre for Architecture, Theory, Criticism and History at the

University of Queensland in making me part of their vibrant research environment in

the latest phases of my candidature in Brisbane.

My research experience in Australia has been supported, firstly, by my family, and later

on, by an Australian Government Research Training Program (RTP) International

Scholarship. I am extremely grateful for the full support of everyone who contributed

to strengthen my scholarship application, from my supervisory panel to the Centre for

Creative and Cultural Research and its director, Distinguished Professor Jen Webb.

However, I have received the most important support from my family and friends.

Thanks to my Spanish friends who have cheered me up in the distance, to the new and

dear friends from throughout the world, from whom I learned so much, and to all

#LittleHelpers on academic Twitter. Thanks to Klée, for your love and patience,

especially towards the end of this experience. The most special thank you to my Abu,

my sister Nuria, my brother Antonio and my parents for your love and support, and for

keeping me company always during this almost four-year-long exciting journey.

Introduction: Aim, Premises, Significance

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Chapter One_ Introduction

It was merely coincidental, but ultimately significant, that Modern Architecture Since

1900 was the book I chose, back in 2002, for my end-of-semester history assessment at

my university in Madrid, and the book which, in the end, became the subject matter of

my doctoral investigation, entitled ‘An Intertwined History: The Contribution of

William J.R. Curtis to the Historiography of Modern Architecture.’ Just as Curtis

finalised the manuscript of the first edition of the book on the Sunshine Coast, north

from Brisbane, it is also in Brisbane that I have finalised the writing of this text. This

dissertation discusses the long and complex history of Modern Architecture Since 1900,

which has been part of Curtis’s “life for more than a quarter of a century,” almost forty

years today, and somehow, of mine for more than fifteen years – an evident and

unavoidable generational gap.1

In this task, Curtis himself has played an important role: it was Jorge Sainz, translator

of Curtis’s work into Spanish and my former professor at the Polytechnic University of

Madrid, who informed Curtis of my intention to study Modern Architecture Since 1900

as part of my doctoral dissertation, and from early 2016 to mid-2017 we had a regular

communication via email, in which he shared with me not only comments and insight,

but also documents from his personal archive. This communication was intended to

result in an interview with Curtis, scheduled to take place in Cajarc, the South of

France, in July 2017, for which I was granted approval by the Human Research Ethics

Committee at the University of Canberra, however Curtis suddenly cancelled.

This dissertation is the result of three and a half years of research work, which is

evident in the text’s structure and in the way the argument unfolds and, even in the

way the writing develops. In the early stages of my candidature, I believed that Curtis’s

contribution was related to his formulation of authenticity, and then, more recently, to

his theorisation of a modern tradition; this was reflected in the working titles of my

1 William J.R. Curtis, “A Historian’s Perspective on Modern Architecture.” Transcript. English version of text “La perspectiva de un historiador sobre la arquitectura moderna,” translated by Jorge Sainz and read out by the author in Spanish on the presentation of the translation of the third edition of Modern Architecture Since 1900 at the Círculo de Bellas Artes, Madrid, January 2007. WJRC Archive.


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thesis, ‘The Search for Authenticity’ and ‘A Modern Tradition,’ respectively. Towards

the end of my candidature, it became obvious that Curtis’s contribution lies in the way

he builds a narrative that intertwines buildings, architects, countries, events and facts

from 1900 up until what for him was the recent past, i.e. the early 1990s. I organised my

argument thematically, with a focus, in general, on the content of Curtis’s book, and,

in particular, on the themes of regionalism and postmodernism, exemplary of the

architecture of the late twentieth century, which are theorised and introduced in

Curtis’s narrative around the same time. Instead of devoting a chapter to reviewing the

consulted literature, references to sources are made when appropriate throughout this

dissertation. The discussion resulting from this theme-focussed research revolves

around notions of authenticity, balance and tradition, which characterise not only

Curtis’s discourse in Modern Architecture Since 1900, but also his own approach to

history and his practice as a critic and historian.

This introductory chapter presents the aim of this study, its premises, and the

justification of the choices made throughout the three and half years. It also includes

an outline of the relevant events, facts and books related to the history, theory and

historiography of architecture from the years when Curtis was working on the book,

from the late 1970s until the 1990s. This outline of relevant literature results in the

theoretical framework sustaining the dissertation, upon which I build the conclusion.

Before presenting the summary of the content of the different chapters, this

introduction will also position the book Modern Architecture Since 1900 within the

tradition the histories of modern architecture. Finally, the content of the different

chapters of this dissertation is explained in the overview of the study.

1. Aim, Premises and Significance of the Study

The aim of this dissertation is to critically address the contribution of the historian

William J.R. Curtis (March 21, 1948-) and his history Modern Architecture Since 1900 to

the field of the historiography of modern architecture, as defined by Panayotis

Tournikiotis in his homonymous book, published in 1999. This dissertation follows the


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distinction between history and historiography outlined by Jean-Louis Cohen in the

bibliography of L’architecture au futur depuis 1889 (2012). Cohen regards as “histories”

the books written by Henry-Russell Hitchcock, Reyner Banham and Leonardo

Benevolo, among many others; and as “historiographies of the twentieth century,” the

books written by Maria Luisa Scalvini and Maria Grazia Sandri, Tournikiotis and

Anthony Vidler, among others. 2 I understand the need to be aware that “the

historiography of modern architecture” is arguably a field or category that has lost its

criticality today, as is “modern architecture.” However, I argue that it is the framework

in which to understand Curtis’s book and its writing. During the course of this

research, which used Tournikiotis’ Historiography as a starting point, this project

evolved into an exploration of more contemporary/current formulations and

periodisations in architectural history, in which Curtis’s arguments may still be valid.

Curtis published the first edition of the book in 1982; the second, with an addendum

on recent architectural works in 1987; and he fully revised, expanded and reorganised

the content for the third edition, published in 1996. The timeframe of this investigation

is therefore delimited by the time when Curtis was working on the different editions of

the book: from 1978 to 1993-1994. Within this timeframe, and prompted by the revision

and expansion of the content towards the third edition, this dissertation investigates

the many relevant differences between the three editions of Modern Architecture Since

1900. In his review of the third edition of the book in Spanish, Jorge Sainz finishes his

account of the changes Curtis introduced by claiming that “meticulously comparing

editions can often result in a fatiguing, but revealing task,” – which, I would add, is

exactly the task that this dissertation will undertake.3

Apart from discussing Curtis’s aims and premises, and the content of Modern

Architecture Since 1900, the focus of this dissertation are two main themes: regionalism

and postmodernism. Why? Firstly, because these themes reflect like no others Curtis’s

2 Jean-Louis Cohen, L’architecture au futur depuis 1889/ The Future of Architecture since 1889 (Paris: Phaidon, 2012),

494-495. 3 Jorge Sainz, “Arquitectura moderna: última edición,” review of Modern Architecture Since 1900 by William Curtis,

Arquitectura Viva, no. 49 (July-August 1996): 73. Author’s translation into English.


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stated aim of presenting a “balanced, readable overall view of the development of

modern architecture in other parts of the world from its beginnings until the recent

past,” while leaving the issue of ideology aside.4 Regionalism and postmodernism are

the two sides of the coin that Curtis uses to present the architecture of the late

twentieth century. His polemical writing on postmodern Classicism and on

regionalism, together with his many travels in Asia, Latin America and the Middle

East, and individual studies on architects, accompanied the transition from the first to

the third edition of the book.5

Secondly, I am focussing on regionalism and postmodernism because these two

notions were being formulated and theorised as a result of the architectural debate in

the late twentieth century, and were introduced in histories written at this time,

including Modern Architecture Since 1900. There is a difficult balance between the

position of the historian and critic, and Curtis’s attitude towards the recent past,

incorporating coverage of buildings and countries neglected by previous historians, has

been considered to be brave. It is interesting to note that the delimited timeframe of

this dissertation coincides which has been considered by some scholars to be the life

span of postmodernism: for Peter Osborne, postmodernism was an episode in the

history of criticism which lasted from 1979 to 1999.6

Furthermore, not only did Curtis frame regionalism as the modernist, or pro-modern,

response to postmodernism, and even postmodernism as having a certain continuity

with modernism, but he also discussed these two approaches towards architecture in

terms of their relation to its authenticity: the search for balance between modernity

and tradition; an appropriate understanding of both the old and the new, whatever

this may mean in different countries or cultural contexts. In Curtis’s opinion, an

authentic regionalist or authentic modernist would look for this balance without

conflict or resistance, while a postmodernist would indulge in facile exercises in

4 William J.R. Curtis, “Introduction,” in Modern Architecture Since 1900 (London: Phaidon Press, 1996), 13. 5 William J.R. Curtis, email message to author, August 31, 2016. 6 Peter Osborne, “The Postconceptual Condition: Or, the Cultural Logic of High Capitalism Today,” Radical

Philosophy vol 184 (March/April 2014): 19.


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revivalism and arbitrariness. Curtis was not the first one to refute postmodernist

claims that modern architecture is unrooted and anti-history, but it is a significant part

of his argument to redefine modern architecture as a tradition, developed,

disseminated, transplanted and transformed, and to highlight the significance of its

relationship with history.

Why is this research project significant? Firstly, because there is no previous

historiographical research on Curtis’s writings in general, or on Modern Architecture

Since 1900 in particular, although looking at his work is necessary, or at least

significant, in order to understand the writing of history in the late twentieth century.

There are mentions of his book in broader historiographical studies, and I have had

access to an analysis by a PhD student in the historiography of architecture at the

Universidad Politécnica de Barcelona. However, there is no monographic study of his

writing in the style of Sokratis Georgiadis’ and Detlef Mertins’ studies of Sigfried

Giedion, or Nigel Whiteley’s and, more recently, Todd Gannon’s books about the

writings of Reyner Banham.

Secondly, this project is significant because Modern Architecture Since 1900 has been

omitted from, or misrepresented in, recent catalogues and bibliographies, and, despite

the full revision the book underwent in subsequent editions, recent studies on the

history of modern architecture often still refer to the first edition of the book. As one

very illustrative case: on September 7, 2015 Curtis wrote an email entitled ‘Biennale XV

September 2015: A Discordant Echo!!’ which he addressed to Joseph Rykwert, Peter

Buchanan, and James Ackerman, among many others. In a long text, he gives his

opinion about the exhibition ‘Latin America in Construction: Architecture 1955-1980’

organised by the Museum of Modern Art in New York between March 29 and July 19,

2015 and about its catalogue, where Patricio del Real “pretends to give an overview of


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the literature on the subject” and resorts to a caricature of the first edition of Curtis’s

book.7 Curtis continues:

The third edition of Modern Architecture Since 1900 is not even mentioned in the bibliography which is quite some omission given its unparalleled treatment of Latin American architects and subjects, and given the fact that the book circulates widely in Spanish and in Portuguese. It is well known all over Latin America in its various language editions and in fact is read worldwide. Why is there no mention of it in its third edition in this Bibliography that pretends to be the most up to date text on the subject?8

With concerns about the reasons behind this absence, Curtis asks the addressees to re-

open the third edition of his book and consider all the chapters that deal with Latin

American architects and themes, and how “they are all placed in both local and

international context, and where possible, their guiding ideas are.”9 In the epilogue to

her edited book La arquitectura moderna en Latinoamérica (2016), Ana Esteban

Maluenda indeed re-opens the three editions of Curtis’s book and considers all the

chapters that deal with Latin America.10 Esteban shows how Latin American

architecture has been accounted for by different historians of modern architecture

from Hitchcock to Cohen, and concludes that it is Curtis, in the 1996 edition of Modern

Architecture Since 1900, who demonstrates the deeper knowledge, grounded in his own

experience, and who most thoroughly covers the development of modern architecture

in different countries of Latin America.

Furthermore, none of the essays that Curtis published in the intervening years between

editions, some of which are analysed in different chapters of this dissertation, appear

in the anthologies on architectural theory published in 1996 by Kate Nesbitt, in 1998 by

K. Michael Hays, or in 2010 by A. Krista Sykes.11 For example, Nesbitt’s stated

7 William J.R. Curtis, email message to several academic acquaintances on the occasion of the Buenos Aires

Biennale, September 7, 2015. Forwarded to author on July 7, 2016. 8 Curtis, email message on the occasion of the Buenos Aires Biennale, September 7, 2015. 9 Curtis, email message on the occasion of the Buenos Aires Biennale, September 7, 2015. 10 Ana Esteban Maluenda, “Latinoamérica en la historiografía moderna,” in La arquitectura moderna en

Latinoamérica, ed. Ana Esteban Maluenda (Barcelona: Reverté Editorial, 2016). 11 Kate Nesbitt, ed., Theorizing a New Agenda for Architecture: An Anthology of Architectural Theory 1965-1995 (New

York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1996). K. Michael Hays, Architecture Theory Since 1968 (Cambridge, MA.: The


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timeframe in Theorizing a New Agenda for Architecture, is 1965 to 1995 (although she

reproduces a 1963 essay by Giulio Carlo Argan, and the most recent ones are from

1993), which coincides in part with the delimited time period of this dissertation;

nonetheless, she does not include an essay by Curtis on the development of modern

architecture in the late twentieth century in any of the thematic sections. Hays’

Architecture Theory Since 1968, which follows on from Joan Ockman’s 1993 anthology

spanning the years 1943 to 1968, is organised chronologically rather than thematically,

but includes essays published up to 1993; Sykes follows on from Nesbitt’s work and

starts Constructing a New Agenda in 1993, although, following in the footsteps of Hays,

who also wrote the afterword, she orders the essays chronologically. Again, neither of

these scholars includes work by Curtis.

Curtis is also omitted from Detlef Mertins’ overview of architectural history writing in

the introduction to his book Modernity Unbound: Other Histories of Architectural

Modernity (2011). Mertins identifies how, during the 1980s, “the pantheon of heroes was

also expanded to include minor figures who had not fitted into previous master

narratives,” without mentioning Modern Architecture Since 1900 as one of these

inclusive narratives.12 However, even if these scholars do not include Curtis, some of

the essays that Nesbitt and Hays does include allow contextualising Curtis’s approach

within others written at that same time regarded as, one could argue, more successful.

Finally, taking note of these omissions leads us to the third reason why this

dissertation is significant: I posit that, at least in the Anglophone world, there is a lack

of acknowledgment of the changes Curtis introduced to the third edition of Modern

Architecture Since 1900, and, therefore, a lack of assessment of its relevance. The global

impact of the book in architectural history education, both in terms of sales and very

early translation into other languages, seems to have prevented the book from being

MIT Press, 1998). A. Krysta Sykes, Constructing a New Agenda: Architectural Theory 1993-2009 (New York: Princeton University Press, 2010). 12 Detlef Mertins, Modernity Unbound: Other Histories of Architectural Modernity (London: AA Publications, 2011),

7.


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considered a scholarly contribution to the historiography of modern architecture

worthy of study.

This dissertation proposes to understand histories of modern architecture, and Curtis’s

book in particular, through the study of their writing – that is, through historiography.

The historiography of modern architecture constitutes, therefore, not only the starting

point for this research, but also its methodology. In terms of methodology, this study is

qualitative in nature, a comparative textual analysis and close reading of secondary

sources: the three editions of Modern Architecture, and essays published by Curtis on

themes including regionalism and postmodernism in the intervening years between

editions. This dissertation also provides a thorough contextualisation of Curtis’s work

within the disciplinary discourses of architectural history, theory, and criticism from

the late 1970s to the early 1990s, and studies its possible resonances in today’s

discourse. The email correspondence with Curtis that commenced in March 2016 is an

original and primary source: his reflections, indications and recommended literature

add originality to this research.

Following Mark Jarzombek’s argument in his review of The Historiography of Modern

Architecture, this study focusses on the “historian,” on William J.R. Curtis.13 Between

the late 1970s and early 1990s, historians played a critical role in defining and

transforming the priorities, not only of the discipline of architectural history, but also

of the practice of architecture, and Curtis was one of these historians presenting his

narrative at this time. Following John Peponis’ argument, also in his review of The

Historiography of Modern Architecture, this dissertation has an exploratory character:

I, as a ‘cartographer,’ set myself to map the contribution Curtis made with the writing

of Modern Architecture Since 1900 and several essays between the late 1970s and early

1990s. Finally, following Iain Borden’s argument in Intersections: Architectural and

Critical Theory (2000), this study aims “to recognise the grounds on which the

13 Mark Jarzombek, review of The Historiography of Modern Architecture by Panayotis Tournikiotis, The Journal of

the Society of Architectural Historians vol 60, no. 1 (March 2001), 108.


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historical interpretation is being made.”14 Modern Architecture Since 1900 needs to be

studied in the context of the contributions to, and diverse debates on, the history and

theory of architecture taking place between the 1970s and 1990s, and then positioned

within the field of the writing of architectural history in the twentieth and early

twenty-first centuries.

2. From Modern to Global: A Theoretical Framework

Before studying the content of Curtis’s Modern Architecture Since 1900, it is necessary

to outline a theoretical framework delimited by the time in which he was working on

the writing of the book. Curtis’s book lies in a transitional period in the history of

modern architecture: between the establishment of research degrees in North

American schools in the 1970s, and the consolidation of the discipline as the subject

matter of historiographical research in the 1990s. These developments culminated in

1999 with a major methodological reassessment of the history of modern architecture,

its education, and its scholarly study in journals such as Journal of the Society of

Architectural Historians and Journal of Architectural Education. The study of

postcolonial theories in architecture, also at the turn of the century, challenged the

previously accepted canon of architectural history by urging the development of a

global history of architecture (which remains today undefined). Curtis worked on the

first edition as a young researcher in North America in the late 1970s and on the

definitive edition of the book in the early 1990s: Modern Architecture Since 1900 is

exemplary of, and contemporary to, these developments.

Paraphrasing Pierre Bourdieu, this dissertation is an attempt to explore the limits of

the theoretical box in which Curtis is imprisoned, or, at least, by which he is

influenced, even if he denies any theoretical debt – just as my exploration is

14 Iain Borden, “From Chamber to Transformer: Epistemological Challenges and Tendencies in the Intersection of

Architectural Histories and Critical Theories,” in Intersections: Architectural History and Critical Theory, ed. Iain Borden and Jane Rendell (London: Routledge, 2000), 6. This introductory essay was written by Iain Borden; the content is based on a two-way exchange of ideas between the two authors.

Introduction: From Modern to Global

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imprisoned in its own box.1 In order to improve the understanding of Curtis’s

contribution to the writing of history, it is necessary to discuss three shifts that I detect

in the history, theory and historiography of architecture from the 1970s to the 1990s.

Shift 1: Professionalisation of the Discipline of the History of Architecture

It was in the 1970s that the history of modern architecture was professionalised, as

multiple scholars agree. As early as 1988, Marvin Trachtenberg addressed the state of

the art of recent architectural history and concluded that “there are far more well-

qualified architectural scholars teaching in colleges than ever, and far more

architectural surveys and period courses being taught.”2 Curtis’s book is one of those

architectural surveys, and the result of the period courses he was delivering at the end

of the 1970s, which are discussed in the section on ‘The Story of the Writing of Modern

Architecture Since 1900’ in Chapter Two of this dissertation. Recently, Mark Jarzombek

still argued the importance of remembering that “until the 1970s modern architecture

did not have a dedicated scholarly ‘history,’ and how, as a proper historical field, it

looked exclusively into the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.”3

In 1989, Edward W. Soja talked about an “epochal transition in both critical thought

and material life,” since the 1970s to the late 1980s.4 Keith L. Eggener reflects on the

“vigour and range” that the study of architectural history developed during the 1960s

and 1970s.5 According to him, survey courses in architectural history became a

standardised part of the new postgraduate programs that had been established in both

fine arts departments and schools of architecture at American universities. Eggener

highlights the “intensified interdisciplinarity” of the development of architectural

1 Jorge Otero-Pailos, Architecture’s Historical Turn: Phenomenology and the Rise of the Postmodern, (Minneapolis

and London: University of Minnesota Press, 2010), 262. Quote from Pierre Bourdieu, The Field of Cultural Production: Essays on Art and Literature, ed. Randal Johnson (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993), 184. 2 Marvin Trachtenberg, “Some Observations on Recent Architectural History,” The Art Bulletin vol 70, no. 2 (June

1988): 208. 3 Mark Jarzombek, “Architecture: The Global Imaginary in an Antiglobal World,” Grey Room 61 (Fall 2015), 114. 4 Edward W. Soja, Postmodern Geographies: The Reassertion of Space in Critical Social Theory (London: Verso Books,

1989), 5. 5 Keith L. Eggener, ed., American Architectural History: A Contemporary Reader (London and New York: Routledge,

2004), 11.


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history in the 1960s and 1970s, and how this is “apparent in both the topics authors

choose to work on and the methods they use to study them.”6

The development of architectural history coincided with a theoretical reassessment of

modern architecture in the United States, at a time “when young architects were

almost without work.” 7 According to Mary McLeod, the deteriorated economic

situation “not only permitted theoretical speculation, but also further fuelled

perceptions of the architect’s diminished social role.”8 Starting in 1967, several

institutes for research on history and theory became active both in the United States

and in Europe. In 1967, Peter Eisenman founded the Institute for Architecture and

Urban Studies and, also in 1967, the Institute for the History and Theory of

Architecture (gta) was founded in Zürich, organising exhibitions, publications, and

becoming a place to generate theory, history and scholarly research networks. The

creation of new architectural history programs in key institutions in Italy, by Bruno

Zevi and Manfredo Tafuri, and the aforementioned in the United States, “was

paralleled by the hiring, in the 1970s, of historians by schools of architecture. ”9 From

the early 1970s, and because of a world recession, there was an increase in the

production of theory, a process that faded out in the 1990s; at this time, these takes on

theory started to be historicised in several anthologies, inaugurated, according to

Philip Ursprung, by Hanno-Walter Kruft’s Geshichte der Architekturtheorie (1985).10

The aforementioned anthologies of theory, which followed the path opened by Kruft,

are also the result of the work of a second generation of scholars, which emerged in the

1980s, and began to extend the premise of postmodernist intellection in the direction

6 Eggener, American Architectural History: A Contemporary Reader, 13. 7 Mary McLeod, “Architecture and Politics in the Reagan Era: From Postmodernism to Deconstructivism,”

Assemblage no. 8 (February 1989): 27. 8 McLeod, “Architecture and Politics in the Reagan Era...,” 27. 9 Mark Jarzombek, “The Disciplinary Dislocations of (Architectural) History,” in “Architectural History 1999/2000,”

ed. Eve Blau, Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians vol 58, no. 3 (September 1999): 489. 10 Philip Ursprung, “E-Flux Architecture presents ‘History/Theory,’” (colloquium, E-Flux, New York, November 14,

2017). Hanno-Walter Kruft, Geshichte der Architekturtheorie: Von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart (Munich: C. H. Beck, 1985). A History of Architectural Theory: From Vitruvius to the Present (New York: Princenton Architectural Press, 1994).


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of what is now called ‘theory.’11 Both generations of scholars contributed to an

increased dynamism between scholarly research and architectural production.

Interestingly, as Jarzombek points out, these generations of scholars writing in the

midst of the postmodernist debate, “mapped out a range of work which moved, on the

one hand, from a critique of contemporary postmodernist historicism toward a

renewed understanding of avant-gardist history, and, on the other hand, from a

critique of context toward a more vigorous understanding of postmodernist-avant-

gardist ontology.” 12 Jarzombek argues that, rather than signifying an abandonment of

modernism in favour of a postmodernist restructure of architecture, the expansion and

intensification of the history-theory discourse between the 1970s and 1990s “served to

bring modern architecture up to speed with its 0wn critical modernity, allowing for a

fuller exploration of issues relating to context, gender, and politics,” not only in the

practice, but also in the teaching of architecture.13

Shift 2: Change in the Readership of the History of Architecture

In the transitional period between the 1970s and 1990s, one of the “tremendous”

changes in the discipline of architectural history, according to Jarzombek, was how

“publishing houses have defined a rapidly growing readership of art and architecture

books.”14 Interestingly, it is an argument that functions both ways, because an

increasing quantity of published books reflects a growth in the readership, and this

growth in the readership also results in an increase in the offer made by publishing

houses to meet the demand. One of the examples that could be considered a turning

point towards a new readership in the field is Spiro Kostof’s A History of Architecture

(1985).15 In his review of the book, John E. Hancock points out that “textbook writing,

because the issues it raises have more to do with method than research, more to do

with literary style than footnoted documentation, has seemed both a lost art and a

11 Jarzombek, “The Disciplinary Dislocations of (Architectural) History,” 489. 12 Jarzombek, “The Disciplinary Dislocations of (Architectural) History,” 489. 13 Jarzombek, “The Disciplinary Dislocations of (Architectural) History,” 489. 14 Jarzombek, “The Disciplinary Dislocations of (Architectural) History,” 488. 15 Spiro Kostof, A History of Architecture: Settings and Rituals (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985).


13

thankless task in today’s academic environment,”16 and Curtis’s Modern Architecture

Since 1900, published three years earlier, raises similar issues: as discussed in the next

chapter of this dissertation, it has a readable style that avoids footnotes – a style that

may contribute to the aforementioned lack of acknowledgement by, or thanklessness

of, the academic, scholarly environment. However, as Leonard Eaton points out, a

textbook, regardless of its readable style, can also be “a synthesis of sound scholarship,

up-to-date interpretation, and excellent analysis.”17

Eaton highlights Kostof’s argument that “all buildings are worthy of study,” and that

historians have too often concentrated on major monuments.18 Sibel Bozdoğan agrees,

considering Kostof’s inclusion of non-monumental and non-Western traditions in his

architectural survey to have been “rightly recognised and celebrated as a monumental

step.”19 She notes that similar changes permeated histories of modern architecture,

and, although she does not refer directly to Curtis’s Modern Architecture Since 1900,

this dissertation looks at his inclusiveness of non-Western traditions in his narrative.

Kostof’s methodology for creating a successful textbook for students of history in

architectural schools is very similar to Curtis’s approach, including the fact that both

incorporate the first-hand experience of the architecture into their narratives;

“whenever possible, Kostof has taken pains to visit the places about which he writes.”20

In his review, Hancock reflects on Kostof’s methodological approach and on his aim to

write a book of unprecedented breadth:

Although in the preface Kostof writes that ‘all-inclusiveness’ was not one of the book's aims, there is enough reference elsewhere to ‘a broader, more embracing view,’ ‘the total context of architecture,’ ‘a more inclusive

16 John E. Hancock, Review of A History of Architecture: Settings and Rituals by Spiro Kostof, Journal of Architectural

Education vol 39, no. 3 (Spring 1986): 31. 17 Leonard K. Eaton, Review of A History of Architecture: Settings and Rituals by Spiro Kostof, Journal of the Society

of Architectural Historians, vol 39, no. 3 (March 1988): 76. 18 Eaton, Review of A History of Architecture,75. 19 Sibel Bozdoğan, “Architectural History in Professional Education: Reflections on Postcolonial Challenges to the

Modern Survey,” Journal of Architectural Education, vol 52 no. 4 (May 1999): 208. 20 Eaton, Review of A History of Architecture, 76.


14

definition,’ and the like, to conclude that inclusiveness is nevertheless the primary way in which this work is intended to differ from its predecessors.21

David Watkin’s A History of Western Architecture (1986) can be considered another

result of this change in readership, as a general manual on architectural history aimed

at students.22 In the preface to the fourth edition (2005), Watkin recalls how, since the

first edition, he considered the book to be the “first history of Western architecture to

have appeared since the demise of the certainties of the modern movement.”23 A

History of Western Architecture does not include an introduction stating the aims of

the author, but is organised chronologically in eleven chapters: Mesopotamia and

Egypt, Greek and Roman Classical architecture, Byzantine, Romanesque, Gothic,

Renaissance, Baroque, Classicism in the eighteenth century, the nineteenth century,

Art Nouveau, and the twentieth century and into the twenty-first. While the first half

of the book is titled with clear and well-established historiographical categories, the

author seems to reject labelling the last three centuries. It stands out that Art Nouveau

is given its own chapter and studied thoroughly in several countries, rather than being

looked at as part of the twentieth century.

In “Some Observations on Recent Architectural History” (1988), Trachtenberg, while

noting “the explosion of architectural literature in recent decades,” makes no reference

to this change in readership.24 He does mention that the growing interest extends to

not only the architecture profession, but also to part of the educated public. In

Trachtenberg’s opinion, architectural historians are at fault for wanting to keep

architectural history “at arm’s length,” making their writing “heavy, obscure, or

pretentious, and often concerned with technical matters understandably unpalatable

or irrelevant to readers devoted to drawings, paintings and sculptures.”25 While he

acknowledges that architecture is a subject not without difficulties, he criticises the

21 Hancock, Review of A History of Architecture, 31. 22 David Watkin, A History of Western Architecture (London: Laurence King Publishing, 1986). 23 David Watkin, A History of Western Architecture (London: Laurence King Publishing, 2005), 9. 24 Trachtenberg, “Some Observations on Recent Architectural History,” 208. 25 Trachtenberg, “Some Observations on Recent Architectural History,” 208.


15

majority of architectural literature for not attempting to clarify or reduce such

difficulties.

In the field that, for the purposes of this dissertation, is identified as historiography of

modern architecture, there is an even earlier contribution that could also be regarded

as exemplary of this change in readership. In the introduction to Storia

dell’architettura contemporanea (1974), Renato De Fusco explains how he aimed to

make the text accessible “to all students and to everybody that approaches for the first

time the history of the architecture of our time.”26 According to Esteban, “De Fusco’s

objective was ‘reduction,’ which resulted in a simple systematic approach to the

phenomenon, its meaning and structure.”27

Shift 3: Disciplinary Reassessments in the History of Architecture

Towards the end of the twentieth century, there was a certain urge to reassess the

discipline of architectural history from different points of view. Firstly, and from the

early 1980s onwards, there was a growing interest in the study of its writing,

culminating in 1999 with the publication of Tournikiotis’ The Historiography of Modern

Architecture. Secondly, at this time the first essays were published applying

postcolonial theories to architectural history, resulting in a growing interest in the

global from 1999 onwards. As John Macarthur and Andrew Leach point out,

“disciplines speak of customs, institutions, and genres – a whole set of conditions” – in

this case, conditions that sit anterior to architectural practices, which constrain the

architect’s creativity, and, I would add, the historian’s creativity.28 It is within these

conditions, customs, institutions and genres that these reassessments took place.

Indeed, towards the end of the twentieth century, an insightful inventory of new

perspectives and themes in architectural history was presented in special issues of the

26 Renato De Fusco, Historia de la arquitectura contemporanea (Madrid: Blume, 1981), 7. Author’s translation into

English. Originally published as Storia dell’architettura contemporanea (Roma and Bari: Laterza, 1974). 27 Ana Esteban Maluenda, “Latinoamérica en la historiografía moderna,” in La arquitectura moderna en

Latinoamérica, ed. Ana Esteban Maluenda (Barcelona: Reverté Editorial, 2016), 317. Author’s translation into English. 28 John Macarthur and Andrew Leach, “Architecture, Disciplinarity and the Arts: Considering the Issues,” in

Architecture, Disciplinarity and the Arts, ed. John Macarthur and Andrew Leach (Ghent: A & S Books, 2009), 11.


16

Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians and the Journal of Architectural

Education, both in 1999. The scholarly editorial work contained in the two special

issues of these major architectural journals can be understood as the culmination of

the theoretical reassessment process initiated by the preparation and publication of

theory anthologies.

Historiographical Research29

During the late 1980s and early 1990s yet another generation of historians shifted focus once more, this time to the writing of history itself and the construction of architectural discourse in the broadest sense. This foregrounded the inevitable biases of historical studies and the propensity of modernist histories to present narratives of internally coherent linear development when the reality was jagged, messy and included an ever-proliferating cast of figures and an ever-expanding field of contestations.30

Published in 1999, The Historiography of Modern Architecture is the main example of

this shift in focus. Panayotis’ book is the result of a doctoral dissertation defended in

1988, and informed by the structuralism of his approach. In the introduction to his

book, he includes the etymological definition of “HISTORIOGRAPHY: the writing of

history, written history.”31 Jorge Otero-Pailos still defends in the epilogue to

Architecture’s Historical Turn (2010), the idea that “the question is to properly account

historically that those claims were made, and to grasp the manner in which they were

put forth.”32 This dissertation aims to properly account historically for Curtis’s claims

in Modern Architecture Since 1900, and to reflect on the manner and the context in

which they were put forth, as part of the historicity of architectural intellectuality.

29 The research on Historiography was published as “The Historiography of Modern Architecture: Twenty-Five

years Later,” Athens Journal of Architecture vol 1, no. 2 (April 2015): 97-110. Also published in Architectural Theory and History edited by Stavros Aligragkis and Nicholas Patricios (Athens: Athens Institute for Education and Research, 2015), 3-17. Also published in Spanish as “Después de Tournikiotis,” post-script and bibliographical appendix to the re-edition of Panayotis Tournikiotis, The Historiography of Modern Architecture (Barcelona: Reverté Editorial, 2014), 263-275, 293-294. 30 Detlef Mertins, Modernity Unbound: Other Histories of Architectural Modernity (London: AA Publications, 2011),

7-8. 31 Panayotis Tournikiotis, The Historiography of Modern Architecture (Cambridge, MA.: The MIT Press, 1999), viii. 32 Otero-Pailos, Architecture’s Historical Turn..., 251.


17

Historiographical research reflects on the writing of history to propose a contemporary

theoretical framework for discussing histories and historians. Rigorous analysis about

the writing of the history of modern architecture began to be systematised in the

1980s, coinciding with the reassessment of modern architecture. David Watkin

proposed one of the first itineraries through architectural history in his book The Rise

of Architectural History (1980), a general overview of the field, by giving an account of

documents published from 1700 to 1980 and classifying them geographically.33 In 1981,

Demetri Porphyrios edited a special issue of Architectural Design ‘On the Methodology

of Architectural History.’ In Italy, Maria Luisa Scalvini and Maria Grazia Sandri,

analysed various histories in L’ immagine storiografica dell’architettura contemporanea

da Platz a Giedion (1984), from Gustav Platz’s Die Baukunst der neuesten Zeit to Sigfried

Giedion’s Space, Time and Architecture, finishing their overview in 1941. 34 In Spain,

Emilia Hernández Pezzi’s Historiografía de la arquitectura moderna (1988) focussed on

examples of even earlier historiography, from Adolf Behne’s Der Moderne Zweckbau to

Walter Curt Behrendt’s Modern Building.35 Similar interest emerged in the United

States, illustrated by Sande Cohen’s Historical Culture: On the Recording of an

Academic Discipline (1986) and Peter Novick’s That Noble Dream: The ‘Objectivity

Question’ and the American Historical Profession (1988).

Since then, the historiography of modern architecture has been the subject matter of

international conferences and disciplinary studies. Rethinking Architectural

Historiography (2006) synthesises enquiries into parameters and boundaries that arose

at the conference “Architectural History: Between History and Archaeology?” – hosted

by the Centre for Research in Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities and King’s College,

Cambridge, in November 2003.36 Diane Favro argues in her contribution to the

conference that, “after years with very little self-reflection, architectural history has

33 David Watkin, The Rise of Architecture History (London: The Architectural Press, 1980). 34 Maria Luisa Scalvini and Maria Grazia Sandri, L’ immagine storiografica dell’architettura contemporánea da Platz

a Giedion (Rome: Officina Edizioni, 1984). 35 Emilia Hernández Pezzi, Historiografía de la arquitectura moderna (Madrid: Universidad Complutense, 1988). 36 Dana Arnold, Elvan Altan Ergut and Belgin Tura Özkaya, eds., Rethinking Architectural Historiography (London

and New York: Routledge, 2006).


18

followed [history, art history and archaeology], producing vital publications exploring

the history of the field, methods and research trends,” including Tournikiotis’

Historiography.37

In Histories of the Immediate Present (2008), Anthony Vidler discusses four categories

and four historians who embodied the re-invention of architectural modernism:

Neoclassical Modernism through Emil Kaufmann; Mannerist Modernism through

Colin Rowe (the only historian not included in Tournikiotis’ corpus); Futurist

Modernism through Reyner Banham; and Renaissance Modernism through Manfredo

Tafuri.38 Vidler both praises and criticises Tournikiotis’ Historiography: on the one

hand, it is an “excellent analysis,” and “must form the basis of any serious study of the

works” of every historian in his corpus; on the other hand, he comments on the

“structuralist” character of Tournikiotis’ approach, and on the lack of context – context

which he provides in his study.39 According to Esra Akcan, Vidler’s driving force is the

“ubiquitous, yet interminable, question:” “where does history stand for contemporary

architecture?”40 Moreover, he ends up reflecting on history – or, in this case, on post-

histoire. Andrew Leach uses the term “usefulness,” to refer to Vidler’s work regarding

the possibilities of a direct relationship between history and theory.41

In The Mental Life of the Architectural Historian (2011), Gevork Hartoonian studies

three authors responsible for early histories of modern architecture: Nikolaus Pevsner,

Henry-Russell Hitchcock and Sigfried Giedion. 42 Hartoonian intends to examine the

true nature of these histories with two aims: first, to highlight connections and

differences between the history of architecture and the tradition of the history of art;

37 Diane Favro, “The digital disciplinary divide: reactions to historical virtual reality models,” in Rethinking

Architectural Historiography, ed. Dana Arnold (London and New York: Routledge, 2006), 200.

38 Anthony Vidler, Histories of the Immediate Present: Inventing Architectural Modernism (Cambridge, MA: The

MIT Press, 2008).

39 Vidler, Histories of the Immediate Present, 201, footnote 4.

40 Esra Akcan, Review of Histories of the Immediate Present: Inventing Architectural Modernism by Anthony Vidler,

Journal of Architectural Education vol 62, no. 3 Criticism in Architecture (February 2009), 89. 41 Andrew Leach, What is Architectural History? (Cambridge, UK and Malden, MA: Polity Press,2010), 119.

42 Gevork Hartoonian, The Mental Life of Architectural Historian: Re-opening the Early Historiography of Modern

Architecture (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2011).


19

and second, to establish analytical categories for these first histories, “to sharpen the

profile of a historical time that has been formative for a contemporary understanding

of the project of modernity.”43 Hartoonian explores his historians’ mental lives looking

at three different aspects: the influence that previous historians had on their work; the

links to contemporary theory of art and architecture; and the readings that Kenneth

Frampton and Manfredo Tafuri have made of their ideas and concepts. According to

Hartoonian, Tournikiotis “is the first one” – and it should be added ‘the last’ – “to take

into consideration the entire gamut of contemporary historiography of architecture.”44

Both Vidler and Hartoonian take into account exactly what Tournikiotis deliberately

left aside in his analysis: context. According to Akcan, Vidler’s “explanations owe less

to a detailed textual analysis of each historian’s works” – which is an integral part of

Tournikiotis’ methodology – “than to a thorough contextualisation of each writer

within the internal discourse of architectural history and criticism.”45 The same could

be argued of Hartoonian’s study. It is necessary to stress the use of this word,

‘historian,’ since, according to Jarzombek in his review of Panayotis’ Historiography,

this is the first book to include historians in the narrative of modern architecture.

Jarzombek writes: “Panayotis Tournikiotis’ book reminds us that even at this most

foundational level historians throughout the twentieth century played critical roles in

defining and transforming the priorities of the modern movement.”46 Akcan agrees on

the fact that, at least in Vidler’s book, “historians are treated as agents of architectural

change and as prisms through which a better understanding of the period can be

achieved.”47

Some of the historians of modern architecture have also been the subject matter of

recent monographic studies. For instance, in 2002 Nigel Whiteley presented an in-

43 Hartoonian, The Mental Life of Architectural Historian, 1.

44 Hartoonian, The Mental Life of Architectural Historian, 6.

45 Akcan, Review of Histories of the Immediate Present, 90. 46 Mark Jarzombek, Review of The Historiography of Modern Architecture by Panayotis Tournikiotis, The Journal of

the Society of Architectural Historians vol 60, no. 1 (March 2001), 108. 47 Akcan, Review of Histories of the Immediate Present, 90.


20

depth discussion of Reyner Banham’s writings; in 2007 Andrew Leach published his

research on Manfredo Tafuri; in 2009 Emmanuel Petit edited a volume on Philip

Johnson; and in 2011 Susie Harries articulated her discourse on Nikolaus Pevsner.48 The

most recent reassessment of Banham’s writing, by Todd Gannon, builds on earlier

interpretations: Tournikiotis’ anti-establishment Banham, Anthony Vidler’s futurist

Banham and Nigel Whiteley’s pragmatist Banham. Gannon claims that “where earlier

narratives focus on Banham’s well-known impatience with disciplinary conventions, I

draw attention to his simultaneous and seemingly contradictory embrace of the

traditional values inscribed in those conventions.”49 Gannon’s study adds to an existing

body of knowledge of Banham’s writing and explores a new point of view, which, in

turn, sheds new light on previous interpretations. This dissertation, in contrast, is, to

Curtis’s and my own knowledge, the first attempt at an interpretation of his writing.

Global Research

The point in architectural history is not to incorporate Indian, Chinese, Islamic and other architecture into the Western canon in some form of benign tokenism, not to discard the Western canon and replace it with works of the non-Western other. Rather, the point is to show what [Edward] Said calls “intertwined histories,” that is, to show that contrary to the basic assumption of traditional Eurocentric historiography, the Western canon and the cultural production of societies outside Europe and North America are not separate and independent. For one thing, the Western canon has been too deeply imprinted in the culture of the non-Western world for so long as to become as much their property as that of the West. At the same time, other cultures have been essential to the very definition of the Western canon: rational versus sensual qualities, tectonic versus decorative, evolutionary versus stagnant, among others.50

In the 1999 special issue of the Journal of Architectural Education, Sibel Bozdoğan

reflects on the need to apply postcolonial theories to the study and education of

48 Nigel Whiteley, Reyner Banham: Historian of the Immediate Future (Cambridge, MA. and London: The MIT Press,

2002). Andrew Leach, Manfredo Tafuri: Choosing History (Gante: A&S Books, 2007). Emmanuel Petit, ed., Philip Johnson: The Constancy of Change (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009). Susie Harries, Nikolaus Pevsner: The Life (London: Chatto & Windus, 2011). 49 Todd Gannon, Reyner Banham and the Paradoxes of High Tech (Los Angeles: The Getty Research Institute, 2017),

3. 50 Bozdoğan, “Architectural History in Professional Education,” 210-211.


21

architecture. It seems to Bozdoğan, and it is highlighted later on by Esra Ackan, that

“an emphasis on both difference and diversity is necessary – an emphasis as much on

what can be shared across cultures as on what is different,” in order to avoid discourses

of identity.51 She argues that it is “in subtler instances of cross-cultural exchange

through travel, trade and diplomacy as well that such intertwined histories unfold,”

enabling us to understand the boundaries without homogenising the differences

between cultures.52

Writing just after the turn of the century, Esra Akcan, reflects on this idea of diversity

and defines the term “global neither as the antonym of geographical/regional

difference, nor as the synonym of ‘generic (architecture).’”53 She frames global as a

result of a complex condition and process of globalisation that produces both

sameness and difference, both cross-cultural dialogues and hegemonic monologues,

and an increased emphasis on local values.54 As a result of this complex process, she

believes that scholars need to develop new categories and strategies, to “produce useful

explanatory devices that would help us refine our knowledge about these countries,”

and, I would add, incorporate them into a broad narrative of the development of

architecture, in general, and of the twentieth century in particular.55 For Ackan, one of

the challenges for future scholarship in the twenty-first century is to construct a new

understanding of universality, one that rightly includes everyone and everything

worldwide, making them feel represented by universally shared values that are not

necessarily Eurocentric.56

These calls for a reconsideration of the writing and teaching of architectural history

under the lens of postcolonial theories and the emergence of ‘global’ contributed to

generating an increasing number of publications, some edited volumes and some

51 Bozdoğan, “Architectural History in Professional Education,” 209. 52 Bozdoğan, “Architectural History in Professional Education,” 214. 53 Esra Akcan, “Critical Practice in the Global Era: The Question Concerning ‘Other’ Geographies,” Architectural

Theory Review vol 7 no. 1 (February 2002): 37. 54 Akcan, “Critical Practice in the Global Era,”37. 55 Akcan, “Critical Practice in the Global Era,” 51. 56 Akcan, “Critical Practice in the Global Era,” 54.


22

authored books, as well as the growing literature on diverse countries, as parts of what

was then referred to as the ‘Other.’ At this point, it is worth bringing up again Spiro

Kostof’s A History of Architecture: Settings and Rituals (1985), not only as a precedent

given his aforementioned inclusiveness, but also because some of the histories

discussed further on were written as a reaction against his work.

Kenneth Frampton and Luis Fernández-Galiano edited large and comprehensive

resources written by specialists on localised regions, the fragmented Mosaic (1999) and

Atlas (2008), respectively.57 Editors Elie Haddad and David Rifkin admit to the

unavoidable unbalance in the scope of their Critical History (2014): the first part

presents the major theoretical developments after modernism – namely,

postmodernism, deconstructivism, and postcolonial criticism in architecture, and

high-tech and sustainable architecture; the second part unfolds architectural

developments in different regions and countries around the world, each chapter

written by a specialist scholar. To devote only a chapter to Africa, or to Latin America,

does not avoid what Esra Ackan calls the homogenisation of the ‘Other.’

Broader approaches to ‘global,’ covering longer periods of time, appear in Mark

Jarzombek, Vikramaditya Prakash and Francis Ching’s A Global History of Architecture

(2006, second edition 2011) and Kathleen James-Chakraborty’s Architecture Since 1400

(2014). Jarzombek, Prakash and Ching established a periodisation that begins in 3500

BCE and has different intervals, discussing architectural examples of each period from

around the world until the end of the twentieth century and postmodernism.58 For

example, from 1400 to 1600, the Renaissance in Italy is discussed alongside

architectural movements in China, Korea, Japan, Thailand and Pakistan, the

production of the Ottoman Empire, and architectural production in New England and

by the Incas.

57 Kenneth Frampton, ed., World Architecture: A Critical Mosaic 1900-2000 (Wien: Springer, 1999). Luis Fernández-

Galiano, ed., Atlas Global Architecture circa 2000 (Fundación BBVA, 2008). 58 Mark Jarzombek, Vikramaditya Prakash and Francis D.K. Ching, A Global History of Architecture (New Jersey:

John Wiley and Sons, 2006).


23

Acknowledging the difficulty of doing justice to the complexity and variety of

architecture since 1400, James-Chakraborty presents “targeted discussions of

environments around the world, not privileging one continent over another as the

locus of modernity or of modernism, the aesthetic expression of modernity, at any

particular time.”59 Very recently, Kenneth Frampton referred to Architecture Since 1400

as a mega academic book.60 Despite its integrated inclusiveness, this survey present

absences, especially of the continents of Africa and Australia-New Zealand. During the

course of our communication, James- Chakraborty shared her reasons for writing the

book:

I wrote Architecture Since 1400 very consciously in opposition to Kostof, the text I was using for my own survey, and to the other texts that I was being approached by publishers to use or being asked to review in manuscript. Architecture Since 1400 arose as well out of a very particular class that covered that material, rather than my Modern Architecture survey, which I construct very differently. In particular I was furious about the coverage (or lack thereof) of work by women in all of these books and manuscripts and by the sense that, even when the so-called Global South was covered that they were still seen as in some way less modern.61

The latest re-assessment of the contributions to ‘global architectural history’

undertaken by Ackan and Jarzombek, among others, engages with two debates: on the

one hand, the methodological and disciplinary (meta)debate regarding architectural

history, and, on the other, the debate on the appropriate content of architectural

education at both the undergraduate and postgraduate level. While accepting that

challenging the Western canon it is not an easy task, Akcan reviews the growing

scholarly interest in rereading the history of architecture in the past twenty years,

namely from 1984 to 2014, and finds that most attempts have been unsuccessful. To

reshape the architectural canon in schools, and in literature, scholarship needs to go

59 Kathleen James-Chakraborty, Architecture Since 1400 (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2014), xviii. 60 Kenneth Frampton, “A conversation with Kenneth Frampton: Can there be a Global Architectural History today?”

CCA lecture at the Paul Desmarais Theater, delivered on April 6, 2017, accessed May 11, 2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QRWp5AqAZjs. 61 Kathleen James-Chakraborty, email message to author, June 8, 2017.


24

beyond the inclusion of a “few token examples from ‘non-Western’” architecture.62 She

still advocates for an improvement of the notion of universality, for “an architecture

better equipped for a global future, so that globalisation does not unfold as a new form

of imperial imagination.”63

Reviewing the global history that took shape roughly between 2005 and 2015,

Jarzombek points out that it “has thereby become a history through and across

“localities,” when it should be something completely different.64 Jarzombek advocates

for a more elastic use of ‘global,’ a concept already being reopened and rethought

“precisely because we have to face the challenge of what global means or could mean in

the future.”65 A global history is more than global practice, global travel and globally-

scaled education, and a first step towards it needs to be the challenge of “the false

duality between tradition and modernism,” being tradition and modernism “two sides

of the same phenomenon,” a fact of which, according to Jarzombek, scholars are well

aware – a fact which still contributes to legitimate Eurocentrism.66

Also recently, these explorations of the writing and education of a global history have

resulted in not only literature but also online platforms and resources which allow us

to break free from the canon and its categories. GAHTC had its origins in informal

conversations between Mark Jarzombek and Vikramaditya Prakash, while they were at

work on the second edition of A Global History of Architecture. It is a free, online

resource of global architectural history teaching materials created and curated by a

collaborative of teachers. The platform continues to develop, as has their book, which

had a third edition released in 2017. The Aggregate Architectural History Collaborative

is another example of platform dedicated to advancing research and education in the

history and theory of architecture, by generating, presenting, and publishing

62 Esra Ackan, “Postcolonial Theories in Architecture,” in A Critical History of Contemporary Architecture: 1960-

2010, ed. Elie G. Haddad and David Rifkin (London: Ashgate, 2014), 120. 63 Ackan, “Postcolonial Theories in Architecture,” 119. 64 Jarzombek, “Architecture: The Global Imaginary in an Antiglobal World,” 111. 65 Jarzombek, “Architecture: The Global Imaginary in an Antiglobal World,” 121. 66 Jarzombek, “Architecture: The Global Imaginary in an Antiglobal World,” 117.


25

innovative scholarship from multidisciplinary perspectives. The Routledge

Encyclopaedia of Modernism was launched on May 9, 2016, as a large and

comprehensive resource with over a thousand articles from experts in the field that

cover eight key subject areas, including architecture. The current 64 entries on

architecture cover mainly individual architects (a majority of them from Japan and

countries in Latin America), groups, movements, and schools.

Research concerning the global and world histories of architecture brings the

theoretical framework of this dissertation to the present. From 29 November to 1

December 2017, a workshop was run, entitled: ‘World Histories of Architecture: The

Emergence of a New Genre in the Nineteenth Century.’ The workshop was organised

by The Lorentz Center, and chaired by Christopher Drew Armstrong (University of

Pittsburgh), Martin Bressani (McGill University) and Petra Brouwer (UvA Amsterdam).

The aims were twofold: firstly, to contribute to contemporary scholarship of global

architectural history by enhancing historical and theoretical understanding of global

architectural narratives; and secondly, to recover the reflections of the original authors

on the original survey texts, and shed a new light on the origins of the genre. Both

James-Chakraborty and Jarzombek contributed to offering new perspectives on world

architectural history today by reflecting and commenting on issues raised at the

preceding sessions. During the course of my communication with James-Chakraborty,

she recalls:

The focus was on nineteenth century surveys and more particularly on those written in English, French, German and Dutch. The authors discussed included Louisa Tuthill and Banister Fletcher, Choisy and a number of Germans, including Lübke and Kugler. Issues discussed included the print technology of the time (Mari Hvattum gave a paper on popular journals) and exhibitions (Barry Bergdoll), but it was largely on how the world was covered (or not), on the approach taken and on who the audiences were. I was asked, along with Mark Jarzombek and Dell Upton, to contribute our perspective on the state of these surveys today, as, since the appearance of Kostof, there has been a revival of more inclusive texts.67

67 Kathleen James-Chakraborty, email message to author, December 03, 2017.


26

While the disciplinary debate looked into ‘interdisciplinarity’ or ‘transdisciplinarity,’

and the inclusion of new media and tools, Curtis was and still is an advocate for going

back to architectural principles and values, and of first-hand experience of the

buildings he includes in his narrative. While the inclusiveness of his historical

narrative was unprecedented in comparison to contemporary and subsequent

historians, Curtis’s Modern Architecture Since 1900 is not referred to or cited by the

aforementioned authors urging to challenge the Western canon and to write an

‘intertwined history.’

3. Positioning Modern Architecture Since 1900 in the Historiography1

Following on from the previously drafted general theoretical framework of the

historiography, history and theory of architecture at the end of the twentieth century,

this section situates Modern Architecture Since 1900 within the context of histories of

modern architecture written in the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. A brief

overview points out what the main contribution of each text is considered to be, and

what impact different theoretical trends have had on the writing of history. In

addition, Curtis’s commentary on the different histories, included in the book’s

bibliographical note, sheds light on his own reception of the histories; it may even be a

way to infer his unacknowledged theoretical debts. Most importantly, by emphasising

what previous histories lacked, Curtis highlights what he considers to be the originality

of his own contribution. This section’s starting point is the histories selected by

Panayotis Tournikiotis to be included in the corpus of his book, The Historiography of

Modern Architecture (1999).2 Tournikiotis’ work catalogues books written until the

1 Parts of this section were published as Macarena de la Vega, “A Tale of Inconsistency: The Absence and Presence of

Australia in the Historiography of Modern Architecture,” Fabrications vol 28, no. 1 (February 2018): 47-76. 2 Panayotis Tournikiotis, The Historiography of Modern Architecture (Cambridge, MA.: The MIT Press, 1999). My

take on the book and its subsequent impact has been published as Macarena de la Vega, “The Historiography of Modern Architecture: Twenty-Five Years Later,” Athens Journal of Architecture vol 1 no 2 (April 2015): 97-110. It was also published in Spanish as the postscript to the latest edition of the book.

Introduction: Positioning Modern Architecture Since 1900

27

1980s by historians based in Europe and North America, a list that has been extended

and updated by subsequent historiographical research.3

What we now call ‘modern architecture’ became visible as a phenomenon in Europe at

the beginning of the twentieth century and its naming was consolidated with an

exhibition held at the Museum of Modern Art in New York (MoMA) in 1932, entitled

‘Modern Architecture: International Exhibition’ organised by American architectural

historian Henry-Russell Hitchcock and American critic Philip Johnson. In the

introduction to the exhibition’s catalogue, the museum’s director at the time, Alfred

Barr, announces a “new style” disseminating around the world that has been called

International Style.4 However, ‘international’ at that time referred to works built

exclusively by central European, American, and Japanese architects.

Hitchcock and Johnson also co-authored the book The International Style (1932).5 In

the book, they included more architects than in the catalogue, and they also included

countries with an incipient modern architecture, at that time, like Spain, but excluded

Japan. Hitchcock himself revisited the significance of this book in his subsequent work

Architecture: Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries (1955) and in the prologue to the

later edition of The International Style.6 According to Hitchcock, the book’s

significance lay less in its content than in its timely appearance. Despite not being,

according to Panayotis Tournikiotis, a history of modern architecture The International

Style needs to be part of this overview as “a work of history” and one of the most

influential on subsequent interpretations.7

3 See Ángel Isac, “La historia de la arquitectura del siglo XX: modelos historiográficos,” in Lecciones de los maestros:

aproximación histórico-critica a los grandes historiadores de la arquitectura española, ed. Maria Pilar Biel Ibáñez and Ascensión Hernández Martínez (Zaragoza: Institución ‘Fernando El Católico’ y Universidad de Zaragoza, 2009), 35-58 and Ana Esteban Maluenda, “Latinoamérica en la historiografía moderna,” in La arquitectura moderna en Latinoamérica, ed. Ana Esteban Maluenda (Barcelona: Reverté Editorial, 2016), 291-339. 4 Catalogue Modern Architecture: International Exhibition (New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1932). 5 Henry-Russell Hitchcock and Philip Johnson, The International Style: Architecture Since 1922 (New York: W. W.

Norton, 1932). 6 Henry-Russell Hitchcock, Architecture: Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1958).

Reprinted with foreword and appendix by Hitchcock, The International Style (New York: W. W. Norton, 1966). 7 Tournikiotis, The Historiography of Modern Architecture, 142.


28

In fact, Hitchcock’s Modern Architecture: Romanticism and Reintegration (1929), 8 can

be considered the first history of modern architecture with an international ambition,

and, at the time of its publication, the only one written in English and not in German

as was customary during the 1920s.9 These previous histories, written in German and

copiously illustrated, included Walter Gropius’ Internationale Architektur (1925), Adolf

Behne’s 1923. Der moderne Zweckbau (1925), Walter Curt Behrendt’s Der Sieg des neuen

Baustils (1927), Ludwig Hilberseimer’s Internationale neue Baukunst (1927), Gustav

Platz’s Baukunst der neusten Zeit (1927), Sigfried Giedion’s Bauen in Frankreich (1928),

and Bruno Taut’s Die neue Baukunst in Europa und Amerika (1929). With the

exceptions of Giedion and the art critic Behne, these authors were all practising

architects. According to Curtis, Hitchcock and Johnson’s selection of buildings in The

International Style could have been influenced by this early historiography. He argues

that “Hitchcock and Johnson attempted to characterise the predominant visual modes

in a selection of modern architectural works, and to relate these to structural effects of

concrete and steel,” dismissing buildings which did not follow these premises.10 For

Curtis, their emphasis was purely stylistic.

In 1933, the Austrian art historian Emil Kaufman published Von Ledoux bis Le

Corbusier: Ursprung und Entwicklung der autonomen Achitektur.11 There is a lack of

consensus regarding its inclusion in the different historiographical studies discussed in

the previous section, however, a close reading of it suggests that, for the purposes of

this dissertation, the book should be reconsidered as a history of modern architecture.

The investigation into Von Ledoux bis Le Corbusier was the subject matter of my

Master’s dissertation, which demonstrated Kaufmann’s preference for the architecture

8 Henry-Russell Hitchcock, Modern Architecture: Romanticism and Reintegration (New York: Payson & Clarke,

1929). 9 This idea is fully explored in Macarena de la Vega, “A Historical Legacy: Henry-Russell Hitchcock and Early

Modernism,” Cuaderno de Notas no. 16 (July 2015): 73-78. DOI 10.20868/cn.2015.3119. It was also published in Spanish as the postscript to the latest edition of the book Arquitectura moderna: romanticismo y reintegración. 10 William J.R. Curtis, Modern Architecture Since 1900 (Oxford: Phaidon Press, 1996), 690. 11 Emil Kaufmann, Von Ledoux bis Le Corbusier: Ursprung und Entwicklung der autonomen Architektur (Vienna: Rolf

Passer, 1933).


29

of the Age of Reason, and in this case, for the architecture of Claude-Nicolas Ledoux.12

Writing in the early 1930s, Kaufmann claims that “an interpretation of current

architecture’s essence cannot be the object of historical research.”13 His work on the

architects of the Enlightenment opens a wider understanding of modernity and

establishes him as a transitional figure between the generation of art historians who

established fundamental concepts and principles, like Heinrich Wölfflin and Paul

Frankl, and others of his own generation who began considering modern architecture

as a subject of historical research.

Following the MoMA exhibition, the field of the historiography of modern architecture

began to gather momentum when the German art historian Nikolaus Pevsner

published Pioneers of the Modern Movement: from William Morris to Walter Gropius

(1936) in London, 14 after being forced to resign his lectureship at the University of

Göttingen by the Nazis. It took Pevsner thirteen years, a selection of new images, and

several corrections to publish the second edition, in which the main change was not to

the content but the title – changed Movement to Design.15 Pevsner substantially revised

Pioneers of Modern Design in 1960, including a new paragraph at the end summarising

what had happened since 1914, where his account of modern architecture ended.16

Indeed, he did not see the point in looking beyond 1914.17 According to Curtis, “Pevsner

traced the impact of Morris’ moral ideas and of nineteenth-century engineering on

formulations around the turn of the century,” implying that selected buildings by

Auguste Perret, Peter Behrens, Josef Hoffmann, Frank Lloyd Wright, and Gropius

12 A summary of the master’s dissertation is published as Macarena de la Vega, “Reconsidering Emil Kaufmann’s

Von Ledoux bis Le Corbusier,” Cuaderno de Notas no. 15 (July 2014): 110-118. 13 Emil Kaufmann, De Ledoux a Le Corbusier: Origen y desarrollo de la arquitectura autónoma (Barcelona: Gustavo

Gili, 1982), 94. Author’s translation into English. 14 Nikolaus Pevsner, Pioneers of the Modern Movement: from William Morris to Walter Gropius (London: Faber &

Faber, 1936). 15 Nikolaus Pevsner, Pioneers of Modern Design: from William Morris to Walter Gropius (New York: Museum of

Modern Art, 1949). 16 Third edition revised and expanded, Pioneers of Modern Design: From William Morris to Walter Gropius

(Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1960). 17 Nikolaus Pevsner, “Architecture in Our Time, the Anti-pioneers,” The Listener, no. 29 (December 1966).


30

“were part of a saga, resulting in what Pevsner felt was the true rational style of the

twentieth century.”18

When Swiss art historian and critic Sigfried Giedion published Space, Time and

Architecture (1941) the book expanded on Pevsner’s vision: first, it highlighted the

importance of engineering works, and, second, it considered modern architecture until

1940.19 Giedion’s account, like Pevsner’s, is characterised by his commitment to the

architecture of the early twentieth century, which he was historicising. For Sibel

Bozdoğan, the book is the “epitome” of the classical surveys of modern architecture,

and it perpetuated a position which represented “twentieth-century European

modernism as the unique and rational expression of modern industrial society and the

teleological destiny of architectural development everywhere else.”20 As Detlef Mertins

pointed out in 2011, “thirty or forty years ago, architectural history was dominated by a

few major books on modern architecture that provided narratives of epochal identity

along with introductions to major figures, movements and themes.”21 Giedion’s book

replaced Pevsner’s Pioneers as the history of modern architecture.

Two further editions of Space, Time and Architecture were published without much

modification in 1949 and 1954. The fourth edition appeared in 1962, with a new preface

where Giedion explained why he had refused to add a second volume with the more

recent works, and a brief introduction to the architectural climate of the 1960s. Four

years later, Giedion prepared a new edition with numerous changes to the entire text

and significant additions. Curtis observes similarities between Pevsner’s and Giedion’s

approaches. According to him, Giedion “believed it was the historian’s task to

characterise the ‘constituent’ facts of a period, those which supposedly represented the

18 Curtis, Modern Architecture Since 1900, 690. 19 Sigfried Giedion, Space, Time and Architecture: The Growth of a new Tradition (Cambridge, MA.: Harvard

University Press, 1941). 20 Sibel Bozdoğan, “Architectural History in Professional Education: Reflections on Postcolonial Challenges to the

Modern Survey,” Journal of Architectural Education vol 52, no. 4 (May 1999): 208. 21 Detlef Mertins, Modernity Unbound: Other Histories of Architectural Modernity (London: AA Publications, 2011),

5-6.


31

‘spirit of the age,’ and to ignore the rest.”22 Curtis comments on Giedion’s emphasis on

the role of new materials and a new concept of space. Although he is also very critical

of the latest editions of Space, Time and Architecture for being “selective tracts in

favour of a cause with which Giedion was directly involved,”23 Curtis regards the book

as “extremely powerful” for its influence on more than a generation’s view of modern

architecture.24

According to Curtis, the historian’s perspective changed after the Second World War

when a younger generation of historians “became conscious of the symbolic and

ideological flavour of modern architecture.”25 The first book of the post-war period is

Storia dell’architettura moderna (1950) by the Italian architect Bruno Zevi.26 His aim is

to address other strands of modern architecture – architects and buildings outside of

the canon established by the early historians. Zevi did not follow their methodology,

contesting without totally rejecting their positions. According to Jean-Louis Cohen, in

his Storia Zevi explores the relationship between architecture and politics, and

considers a wide range of buildings.27

Zevi revised and updated his history in subsequent editions, incorporating more facts,

comments, and images almost until his death in 2000. Despite his inclusiveness

regarding architects and buildings that had been neglected by previous historians, he

was not concerned with countries and regions outside of Europe and the United States,

with the exception of Brazil and their reception of Le Corbusier’s work. In Curtis’s

opinion, Zevi belongs to an entirely different historiographical tradition, and his book,

which gave previously neglected Frank Lloyd Wright a central role, “was pervaded by

the author’s strong commitment to dynamic spatial values as a measure of a

22 Curtis, Modern Architecture Since 1900, 690. 23 Curtis, Modern Architecture Since 1900, 690. 24 Curtis, Le Corbusier, 10. 25 Curtis, Modern Architecture Since 1900, 690. 26 Bruno Zevi, Storia dell’architettura moderna (Turin: Einaudi, 1950). 27 Jean-Louis Cohen, L’architecture au futur depuis 1889/ The Future of Architecture since 1889 (Paris: Phaidon, 2012).


32

supposedly ‘organic’ cultural synthesis.”28 Curtis understands Zevi’s polemics to be a

consequence of their time, and highlights the significance of underlying spatial

concepts in the Italian’s reading of modern architecture.

Hitchcock wrote the aforementioned Architecture: Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries

(1958) in London so that he could visit buildings throughout Europe. An interesting

feature of the 1958 edition is that the images in their entirety are grouped at the end –

organised by relations and similarities, not by countries – building a graphic discourse

as significant as the written one. The graphic discourse was suppressed in 1971 when

the images were integrated into the main body of the text. The last edition of

Hitchcock’s book (1977) included an epilogue on works and architects since 1958.

Architects “unknown internationally” in the mid-1950s whose work was “of rising

consequence” in the 1960s are not included in the main body of the text because

Hitchcock was not interested in merely listing names.29 According to Curtis, this book

constitutes “sound scholarship of an undaring kind” and belongs to “that tradition of

art history which concentrates on the description of stylistic movements.” Curtis

characterises Hitchcock’s approach to architectural history as “safe,” as one that

“tacitly assumes that one should group together things that look alike and trace the

influence of one architect’s style on the work of others.”30 While he criticises the book’s

neglect of the social role of architecture and the fact that “even individual artistic

personalities were blended into ‘phases’ and ‘developments,’” he also praises the good

bibliography and useful notes.31 Overall, Curtis describes Architecture: Nineteenth and

Twentieth Centuries as a “weighty reference work.”32

Meanwhile, the 1960s were characterised by a new historiographical perspective.

According to Tournikiotis, history became then the means to accentuate the

28 Curtis, Modern Architecture Since 1900, 690. 29 Henry-Russell Hitchcock, Architecture: Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1977),

578. 30 William J.R. Curtis, Le Corbusier: The Evolution of his Architectural Language and its Crystallisation in the Villa

Savoye in Poissy (Milton Keynes: The Open University Press, 1975), 9. 31 Curtis, Modern Architecture Since 1900, 690. 32 Curtis, Modern Architecture Since 1900, 690.


33

weaknesses of the modern movement and to search for a different architecture.33 One

of the best examples of this historiographic shift is Theory and Design in the First

Machine Age (1960) by British art historian Reyner Banham,34 a student of both

Pevsner and Giedion.35 Banham believed that modern architects had not been able to

make the best of the technology of their time. In Mertins’ opinion, Banham “took issue

with machine symbolism,” and for this reason, he focussed on rationalism, futurism

and the American inventor Buckminster Fuller.36 For Curtis, this book is “remarkable”

and grounded on “a sounder documentary foundation than its predecessors, as it was

based on theoretical texts of the first three decades” of the twentieth century and on

statements made by the architects, rather than on the analysis of forms.37 Curtis sees in

Banham a “far greater awareness of symbolic meanings,”38 which refuted Pevsner’s idea

of a “sort of universal ‘rational’ style of the twentieth century.”39 The criticism that the

book received for its Eurocentrism, its treatment of Wright and its almost total

avoidance of politics resulted, in Curtis’s opinion, from critics not properly

understanding Banham’s aims. The most recent reassessment of Banham’s writing by

Todd Gannon, “reveals another Banham, one committed not only to discrediting

entrenched conventions and dissolving disciplinary boundaries but also to maintaining

and strengthening core traditions and values.”40

The next historian in this overview, Leonardo Benevolo, had been educated as

architect and historian with the histories by Pevsner, Giedion, and even Zevi. In Storia

dell’architettura moderna (1960) Benevolo studies modern architecture’s origins in the

profound changes that occurred around 1750, and its consolidation around 1919 with

33 Tournikiotis, The Historiography of Modern Architecture, 169. 34 Reyner Banham, Theory and Design in the First Machine Age (London: The Architectural Press, 1960). 35 Mertins, Modernity Unbound, 6. 36 Mertins, Modernity Unbound, 6. 37 Curtis, Modern Architecture Since 1900, 690. 38 Curtis, Le Corbusier, 10. 39 Curtis, Le Corbusier, 11. 40 Todd Gannon, Reyner Banham and the Paradoxes of High Tech (Los Angeles: The Getty Research Institute, 2017),

3-4.


34

the Bauhaus.41 His aim is to address the present, and he updates the content in the

subsequent editions (the 32nd edition appeared in 2014, three years before his death)

with significant additions such as chapters on specific countries written by other

historians. Unlike Giedion’s, Benevolo’s book consists of two volumes, the second one

dedicated to the twentieth century. He places even more emphasis than Giedion on

the industrial vernacular and modern town planning, “subsuming leading figures and

high design within broader societal and environmental transformations.”42 Benevolo

extended both Giedion’s and Zevi’s treatments of the nineteenth century, highlighting

“the reformist roots of modern architecture and urbanism, and the crises following

from industrialisation,” according to Curtis.43 He argues that Benevolo’s Storia lacks a

close analysis of individual works and includes political debates surrounding the

modern movement.

Just five years later, the British architect and historian Peter Collins published

Changing Ideals in Modern Architecture (1750- 1950).44 In Collins’ account, the modern

movement crystallised in 1890 due to the appearance of the technological innovations

that formalised the ideas (and ideals) of Enlightenment, and not in the 1920s and 1930s,

as claimed by previous historians. As was the case with Benevolo, Curtis observes in

Collin’s work an emphasis on ideas, rather than forms. Furthermore, in this book,

Collins blames previous authors for having merely focussed on image and appearance.

Thus, Curtis claims that Collins’ Changing Ideals “must be counted among the seminal

works of modern architectural scholarship.” 45

The Italian architect and historian Manfredo Tafuri ended the decade with Teorie e

storia dell’architettura (1968). 46 He proposed a critique of architecture, which,

according to Tournikiotis, he understood as the means for a revolutionary education

41 Leonardo Benevolo, Storia dell’architettura moderna (Bari: Laterza, 1960). 42 Mertins, Modernity Unbound, 6. 43 Curtis, Modern Architecture Since 1900, 690. 44 Peter Collins, Changing Ideals in Modern Architecture (1750-1950), (London: Faber & Faber, 1965). 45 Curtis, Modern Architecture Since 1900, 691. 46 Manfredo Tafuri, Teorie e storia dell’architettura (Bari: Laterza, 1968).


35

aiming at a radical shift in the capitalist society. Surprisingly, Curtis does not even

mention this book in his bibliographical note.

The field of the historiography of modern architecture expands in the following decade

in the work of the American architectural theorist and landscape architect Charles

Jencks. Modern Movements in Architecture (1973) is the result of his doctoral

dissertation supervised by Banham, whose Theory and Design in turn was the result of

his (Banham’s) doctoral dissertation supervised by Pevsner.47 The book sets a new

critical standard and radically rejects the early historiographical interpretations of the

modern movement. Jencks adds a new label, ‘late modern,’ to classify works that did

not follow the Modern orthodoxy, but could not be considered postmodern.

When compared with previous histories, Renato De Fusco’s Storia dell’architettura

contemporanea (1974) was meant to be read by students and a generally unspecialised

audience, and is one of the examples of the change in readership experienced in the

field, which was discussed in the previous section of this dissertation.48 As a result, he

presents a reduced, basic, and systematic organisation of modern architecture, its

significance, and structure. Also in Italy, Tafuri and Francesco Dal Co published

Architettura contemporanea (1976) as part of a universal history of architecture

coordinated by Pier Luigi Nervi.49 This book, which Curtis regards as “lavish,” focusses

on the development of the modern industrial city mainly American and European,

rather than on buildings or architects.50 Curtis writes:

The authors were proud to announce their Marxist affiliations and to mar any pretence at objectivity in a social polemic. Even so, their treatment of American and Soviet city planning was most useful. However, the years after 1950 were given little coverage and next to nothing was said about architecture outside Europe and the United States.51

47 Charles Jencks, Modern Movements in Architecture (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1973). 48 Renato De Fusco, Storia dell’architettura contemporanea (Roma and Bari: Laterza, 1974). 49 Manfredo Tafuri and Francesco Dal Co, Modern Architecture (London: Academia Editions, 1980). Architettura

contemporanea (Milan: Electa, 1976). 50 Curtis, Modern Architecture Since 1900, 691. 51 Curtis, Modern Architecture Since 1900, 691.


36

Also in 1976, Pevsner published A History of Building Types (1979), whose new

approach is mentioned in this overview despite the fact that Curtis does not discuss it.

All in all, it can be seen that, although the different histories published between the

1930s and 1980 differ significantly in the definition, origin and key figures that they

ascribe to modernism, their authors, at least Pevsner, Giedion, Banham and Benevolo,

conveyed the belief that “modern architecture was a single unified historical

phenomenon.”52 Even if, in most cases, the intention was to challenge pre-existing

formulations, even to reject or contradict them, they ended up surrendering to the

codification of modern architecture. Just as a new generation of architects were

challenging the leadership of the masters, a new generation of historians began to

crack the monolithic construct of modern architecture. In Mertins’ historiographical

periodisation, Joseph Rykwert’s The First Moderns (1980), Tafuri’s The Sphere and the

Labyrinth (1980), and Anthony Vidler’s The Writing of the Walls: Architectural Theory

of the Late Enlightenment (1987) offered alternatives of great complexity and

irresolution. Mertins highlights Kenneth Frampton’s effort to include architectural

figures who did not fit previous narratives, such as Alvar Aalto, Giuseppe Terragni and

Erich Mendelsohn, in his history. He does not discuss Curtis.

The first edition of Frampton’s Modern Architecture: A Critical History (1980) covers

the period from 1750, which he identifies as the origin of modern architecture, to the

end of the 1970s.53 It has been considered “both a history and a collection of essays”54

and to have replaced Giedion’s book as the primary survey of modern architecture.55 In

the plenary talk at the 2018 conference of the Society of Architectural Historians,

Frampton reflected on the book, “which aside from being an operative history of the

rise and fall of the Modern Movement, was also the agency with which I first observed

the inroads made into architecture by the advent of high-speed film and the impact

52 Mertins, Modernity Unbound, 6. 53 Kenneth Frampton, Modern Architecture: A Critical History (London: Thames and Hudson, 1980). 54 Maluenda, “Latinoamérica en la historiografía moderna,” 319. Author’s translation into English. 55 Bozdoğan, “Architectural History in Professional Education,” 209.


37

that this invention had on both our reception and conception of architecture.”56

Frampton reflects on different concepts and relates them to build his discourse,

organised thematically and not chronologically. The second edition, appeared in 1985

with an extra chapter on ‘Critical Regionalism: Modern Architecture and Cultural

Identity,’ and the third appeared in 1992 with another chapter on ‘World Architecture

and Reflective Practice.’ In the introduction to the third revised edition, “Frampton

makes an apology for not having included recent work from India, Australia, Canada,

Latin America, and the Middle East.”57 Frampton added a chapter on ‘Architecture in

the Age of Globalisation: Topography, Morphology, Sustainability, Materiality, Habitat,

and Civic Form 1975-2007’ to the fourth edition of Modern Architecture: A Critical

History (2007). As with Curtis, there are differences between the three editions of

Frampton’s book, both of them being British architectural historians and critics

disseminating their research from American institutions. In Curtis’s opinion,

Frampton’s was another book, together with Tafuri’s and Dal Co’s Architettura

contemporanea, “which emphasised ideology at the expense of other matters and

which did not address the problems of ‘developing countries.’”58

As a result of his seamless relationship with the Spanish editorial scene, Curtis is aware

of the publication of Después del movimiento moderno, arquitectura de la segunda

mitad del siglo XX (1993) written by the Spanish architect and historian Josep Maria

Montaner.59 The book was first translated into Italian in 1996, but it is not available in

English. The author proposes a periodisation divided into three phases: revisions and

continuities between 1945 and 1965; postmodernism: and the different positions that

characterised architecture between 1977 and 1992. For Curtis, Montaner’s is one of the

first attempts to clarify the overall shape of the years since 1970, “but the closer it gets

to the present the more it relies upon questionable critical categories, and the less it

56 Kenneth Frampton, Plenary Talk at the 71st Annual International Conference of the Society of Architectural

Historians, in Saint Paul, Minnesota, delivered on Friday, April 20, 2018. Published on May 21, 2018. 57 Bozdoğan, “Architectural History in Professional Education,” 209. 58 Curtis, Modern Architecture Since 1900, 691. 59 Josep Maria Montaner, Después del movimiento moderno, arquitectura de la segunda mitad del siglo XX

(Barcelona: Gustavo Gili, 1993).


38

analyses actual buildings or specifically architectural ideas.”60 Although in subsequent

editions Montaner looks at minimalism and ecology in architecture, the book still

lacks coverage of the cultures of the third world.

The next two works embody the field of architectural historiography in the early

twenty-first century, and, hence, are not commented on in Curtis’s bibliographical

note. The British architect and scholar Alan Colquhoun wrote Modern Architecture

(2002) as emeritus professor of architecture at Princeton University.61 His aim was to

summarise the main ideas and most relevant works up to the year 1965, which means

that he did not attempt to clarify the situation of architecture after 1970. Still, even at

the beginning of the twenty-first century, Colquhoun continued the tradition of

writing about modern architecture focussing on experiences in central Europe, the

United States, Japan, and, very briefly, Latin America, and presented a succinct

overview of modern architecture, neglecting the architecture in developing countries.

Based in New York like Frampton, the French historian Jean-Louis Cohen wrote the

most recent history of modern architecture to date, L’architecture au futur depuis 1889

(2012).62 He is interested in expanding the field to include art, urbanism and

technology and to understand the ideas and narratives behind both built and unbuilt

architectural projects. Cohen’s narrative highlights the importance of everything that

has to do with France and the French colonies, beginning at “the title that marks the

beginning of what he confusingly names ‘the future of architecture’ in 1889 – year of

the International Exhibition in Paris which commemorated the storming of the Bastille

and the most iconic legacy of which is the Eiffel Tower.”63

60 Curtis, Modern Architecture Since 1900, 691. 61 Alan Colquhoun, Modern Architecture (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002). 62 Jean-Louis Cohen, L’architecture au futur depuis 1889/ The Future of Architecture since 1889 (Paris: Phaidon,

2012). 63 Luis Fernández-Galiano, “La óptica francesa: otra historia del siglo XX,” Arquitectura Viva, no. 144 (2012): 77.

Author’s translation into English.


39

One of the most recent contributions to the field is David Rivera’s La otra arquitectura

moderna: expresionistas, metafísicos y clasicistas 1910-1950 (2017).64 The book aims to

remind us of the range of architectural proposals during the first half of the twentieth

century, outside of the ideological orthodoxy of the modern movement, and even of its

opposite, a historicism which only copied the past. As Paul Goldberger points out in

the prologue to the book, “key figures such as Michel de Klerk, Edwin Lutyens and Jože

Plečnik used historical forms to create a completely new architecture, which, for all

intents and purposes, lacked any precedent.”65 Interestingly, de Klerk and Lutyens, as

well as Raymond Hood, whose work Rivera also highlights, are already present in the

first edition of Curtis’s book. The third edition of Modern Architecture Since 1900

presented an expansion of their analysis and the addition of Plečnik. Still, Rivera adds

Curtis, though to a lesser degree than Henry-Russell Hitchcock, to the list of most read

and influential historians whose work “diminished or underrated the vast majority of

the architectural production of the first half of the twentieth century.”66 No reference

is made in La otra arquitectura moderna to Curtis’s analysis and discussion of that

‘other’ modern architecture.

In summary, and for the purpose of this study, the difference between architectural

history and historiography is key. The history of architecture is a discipline initiated at

the beginning of the twentieth century, but ‘professionally’ established in the 1970s, as

claimed by Mark Jarzombek and discussed in the previous section of this chapter. In

this dissertation, the terms ‘history’ and ‘histories’ are also used to refer to specific

books written by historians who gave their accounts of modern architecture.

Historiography is understood in this dissertation, following Tournikiotis’ premise, as

the study of the writing of history, as well as the specific books written by scholars who

study the writing of different historians.

64 David Rivera, La otra arquitectura moderna: expresionistas, metafísicos y clasicistas 1910-1950 (Barcelona: Reverté

Editorial, 2017). 65 Rivera, La otra arquitectura moderna, 8. Author’s translation into English. 66 Rivera, La otra arquitectura moderna, 13. Author’s translation into English.


40

Firstly, before the post-Second World War era, the histories of modern architecture

were written by art historians with specific architectural knowledge and training, and

after it, by architects with specific historical knowledge and training. Curtis is one of

the exceptions, given that he – like, for example, Banham – received his early training

in Art History, followed by a postgraduate specialisation in architecture. As pointed

out by Jean-Louis Cohen, each history of modern architecture, as a narrative, “carried

its own particular biases,” in what he has called “the problem of inclusion.”67 In order

to study each particular bias, he refers to the previously discussed historiographical

studies, clarifying the difference between history and historiography that has been

used to construct this thesis. Modern Architecture Since 1900 is the history that the

historiographical study proposed in this dissertation attempts to map

4. Overview of the Study

The previous sections in this chapter lay down the foundations of this study of the

contribution of Curtis’s history Modern Architecture Since 1900 to the field of the

historiography of modern architecture, and clarify that in this dissertation the

‘histories’ are the books, and ‘historiography,’ is the study of their writing. Chapter Two

focusses, firstly, on the book’s editorial life, the different editions and very early

translations into other languages which have resulted in the book’s global impact as a

foundational text for architectural students worldwide. The first Spanish translation

appeared in 1986, followed by German and Japanese translations before the end of the

1980s. There are also translations of the third edition of the book into Italian, French,

Portuguese and Chinese. In Chapter Two, I discuss the different reviews of the three

editions and the main points they raise, not only in relation to the content of the book

but also to Curtis’s own experience of writing and, later on, rewriting the book. The

section ‘The Story of the Writing of Modern Architecture Since 1900’ summarises

Curtis’s own personal experiences, from the 1970s, when, as a recent graduate and

young scholar, was commissioned to write the book, to the 1990s when he prepared

67 Cohen, L’architecture au futur depuis 1889/ The Future of Architecture since 1889, 15.

Introduction: Overview

41

the revision, reorganisation and expansion of the content in preparation for the third

edition, with a special emphasis on the travels he made and the books he published in

the intervening years. Some points reviewers make are not accurate if confronted with

both the content of the book and Curtis’s recollections; on the other hand, some points

raised by reviewers are acted upon by Curtis in the revision and reorganisation of the

content for the third edition of the book.

In this dissertation I will look at the topics of regionalism and postmodernism, in two

thematic chapters, Chapter Three and Chapter Four, respectively. I will ask the

questions: How do reviewers respond to Curtis’s account of regionalism and

postmodernism in the book (if they do)? Secondly, what are the differences between

the three editions of the Modern Architecture Since 1900 regarding Curtis’s account of

regionalism and postmodernism? Thirdly, and since both notions were being

formulated and theorised at the time when Curtis was writing and including them in

his history, in what terms were other historians and theorists discussing regionalism

and postmodernism? Each thematic chapter concludes by contextualising Curtis’s

narrative in relation to other theoretical approaches or considerations debated and

published within the delimited timeframe, from around 1978 to 1993-94.

In the case of regionalism, I have studied these differences between the three editions

of Modern Architecture Since 1900 using as examples three countries outside of what

could be considered the ‘Western’ canon: Greece in the periphery of Europe; Turkey as

a region that receives influences from Asia, Europe and the North of Africa; and

Australia, in the Asia-Pacific region. In the first edition, both Turkish and Greek

architecture are merely mentioned as inspiration for modern masters and it is not until

the third edition that Curtis addresses Turkish and Greek modern architecture; by

contrast, in the case of Australia the account is relatively complete from the first

edition, although with important additions in the definitive one. In the third edition of

Modern Architecture Since 1900, Curtis develops his argument for a more inclusive

understanding of the notion of universalism, or for a ‘blend of universalisms,’ instead

of regionalism, to fight the peripheral character of the term.


42

There is also a certain development in Curtis’s argument on postmodernism between

the three editions: in the first edition, Curtis regards postmodernism as a mood; he

claims that those who view postmodernism as a distinct and significant movement are

claiming a degree of originality for it that is, in his opinion, excessive. Writing the third

edition in the early 1990s, and looking back at the intervening years, Curtis claims that

postmodernism proved to be ephemeral and was characterised by an arbitrariness that

resulted in a useless modernism/postmodernism debate. In his opinion, postmodern

critique was another crisis preceding a new phase in the consolidation of modern

architecture; it was yet another reorientation to re-examine certain core ideas of

modern architecture, hinting at a certain continuity.

The notions of regionalism and postmodernism are, in his narrative, two sides of the

same coin – he contrasts an authentic regionalism with the lack of authenticity in

postmodernist production. Curtis’s treatment of regionalism and postmodernism

exemplifies his methodological approach to the architecture of the late twentieth

century, which he critiques based on the criterion of authenticity, a nebulous category

which he links to immutable architectural values and on his own first-hand

experiences around the world. The Cambridge Dictionary defines authenticity as “the

quality of being real or true.” Curtis uses the notion of authenticity in architecture to

identify buildings as worthy of acceptance or not, by the standards of his own

definition. Curtis relates the authenticity of a building to the authorship/agency of the

architect, rather than to the building’s fidelity to a possible original, a different

understanding of authenticity to that used in the field of architectural preservation.

The discussion in Chapter Five revolves around two important issues that the

comparative thematic analysis raised: Curtis’s own understanding of history, and the

formulation of what he refers to as ‘a modern tradition.’ With regard to Curtis’s

understanding of history, I will look at his recurrent reflections on the task of history

and the roles of the historian in Modern Architecture Since 1900 and in his research

papers written in the intervening years between editions. The reflection on Curtis’s

mapping of the architecture of the late twentieth century, of the recent past, raises the


43

issue of balancing the role of the historian with that of the critic. By discussing Curtis’s

stance on the writing of history, this dissertation brings forth the specificity of his own

methodology, deeply rooted in the first-hand experience of architecture and in

dialogues with architects.

With regard to Curtis’s formulation of ‘a modern tradition,’ this dissertation presents

Curtis as a ‘cartographer’ who tried to map a modern universal tradition or traditions,

inclusive and aware of the exchanges between what should not be called ‘the West’ and

the ‘non-West.’ Some of the main points of the aforementioned critique of postcolonial

theories in architecture (theorised around the key year 1999), had already been

addressed by Curtis, even in the first edition, in 1982. Curtis never presented the ‘non-

West’ as an entity opposed to the ‘West;’ he understood that traditions are both diverse

and different. True, he uses expressions like ‘Third World,’ and ‘developing countries,’

criticised by postcolonial theorists in architecture, but this would no doubt have been

avoided in any subsequent edition published after 1999. However, it is not only about

inclusiveness and how many countries appear in Modern Architecture Since 1900, but

also, and most importantly, about how they were included in a cohesive and coherent

narrative.

The conclusion to this dissertation is built around a reflection on Modern Architecture

Since 1900 as exemplary of Curtis’s historical discourse, with regard to the

aforementioned three shifts discussed in my theoretical framework, which stand out in

the development of the history, theory and historiography of architecture, from

modern to global, between the 1970s and the 1990s. Firstly, there is ‘professionalisation’

of the discipline of architectural history in the early 1970s, with the introduction of

doctorate research programs in universities in Europe and the United States, as argued

by Mark Jarzombek – this makes Curtis’s book one of the first professional historical

narratives of modern architecture, and the only one that has been the object of a

thorough revision and reorganisation. Secondly, there is the change in the readership

of architectural history in the late 1970s and early 1980s, embodied in undergraduate

and postgraduate students of architecture, which led to a need for readability and


44

legibility, of which Curtis’s book is also exemplary. Finally, there are the disciplinary

reassessments that occurred in the late 1990s, and the studies of postcolonial theories

in architecture, which have had an influence on my reading of Curtis’s book. This

dissertation is the first historiographical assessment of Curtis’s historical discourse. As

a result of the arguments that unfold in the coming chapters, I posit that Modern

Architecture Since 1900 is closer to the idea of an ‘intertwined history,’ as formulated by

Edward Said in 1978, than are any of the other synoptic histories of modern

architecture. And there, I posit, lies Curtis’s main contribution.

Modern Architecture Since 1900: The Editorial Life

45

Chapter Two_ William J.R. Curtis and Modern Architecture

Since 1900

Modern Architecture Since 1900 was meant to be entitled Modern Architecture, 1900-

1975. Evidence of this is in a letter written on August 28, 1981 by James S. Ackerman, in

which he shares with Simon Haviland, director of Phaidon Press at the time, his

positive reactions to Curtis’s manuscript which are further disclosed in this chapter.1

Not having an end date in the title, Modern Architecture Since 1900 simplified for

Curtis and the publisher the possibility of updating the content of the book. The aim of

this chapter is, firstly, to outline the book, its different editions and translations into

languages other than English, and the critical responses that each edition, even some

translations, received. Secondly, this chapter investigates Curtis’s classificatory

strategies in organising, and later on reorganising, the content of the book and the

main definitions he proposed. Finally, and as a result of my direct communication with

Curtis and analysis of archival documents he provided, this dissertation presents the

story of the writing, and subsequent rewriting, of the content of the book. This chapter

should be considered to function as an exegesis of Curtis’s book.

1. The Editorial ‘Life’ of Modern Architecture Since 1900

Modern Architecture Since 1900 was the result of a commission from Phaidon Press to

Curtis in 1978. Curtis used research material he had collected for his own teaching

practice and during his trips throughout the world and wrote the book “between early

1980 and early 1981.”2 Some of the main ideas were first formulated in earlier

monographs and articles, and in subsequent broader outlines and essays. The aim was

to present a “balanced, readable overall view of the development of modern

architecture in other parts of the world from its beginnings until the recent past,”

1 James S. Ackerman, Prof of Fine Arts, Harvard University, Letter to Simon Havilan, Director of Phaidon Press,

August 28, 1981. William J.R. Curtis, Letter sent via email message to author, February 21, 2017. WJRC Archive. 2 William J.R. Curtis, “Preface to the First Edition,” in Modern Architecture Since 1900 (London: Phaidon Press,

1996), 6.


46

emphasising that “the stress of this book is less on the theoretical roots of modern

architecture than on its emergence and ensuing development.” 3 Curtis admits that this

was “quite deliberate.”4 For him, previous historians had neglected the later phases of

modern architecture, especially since the 1960s and around 1970. He also wanted “to

show what modern architecture may mean in remote parts of a rapidly changing

world” – a world which he was actively visiting and charting.5 He aimed at studying

that modern architecture “with a dispassionate distance,” placing authenticity at the

core of his research and leaving ideology aside.6

Curtis wrote the preface to the second edition, published in 1987, from Ahmadabad,

the sixth largest city in India, where he was writing a book on the Indian architect

Balkrishna V. Doshi, which was published the following year.7 For this second edition,

the book remained unchanged except for the addition of an addendum entitled ‘Search

for Substance: Recent World Architecture.’ Curtis claims to have fought against “the

drift of critical opinion then current, avoiding the usual, but misleading postures

concerning ‘modernism’ and ‘postmodernism,’” which are further investigated in

Chapter Four of this dissertation.8 Curtis based this final chapter on primary research

and the evidence of the buildings he had experienced first-hand. In 1995, from his

family house in Cajarc, South of France, Curtis admitted then that the time had “come

for some major additions and revisions.”9

The third and, so far, definitive edition appeared in 1996, and was the result of an

examination which started in late 1993. The revision process proved the book to be,

3 William J.R. Curtis, “Introduction,” in Modern Architecture Since 1900 (London: Phaidon Press, 1996), 13-14. 4 Curtis, “Introduction,” 14. 5 Curtis, “Preface to the First Edition,” 6. 6 Curtis, “Introduction,” 12. 7 William J.R. Curtis, Balkrishna V. Doshi: An Architecture for India (New York: Rizzoli, 1988). 8 William J.R. Curtis, Modern Architecture Since 1900 (Oxford: Phaidon Press, 1996), 691. 9 Curtis, “Preface to the Third Edition,” 9.


47

according to Curtis, an evolving project, a working hypothesis, which must be tested,

reordered and refined.10 He recalls:

The creation of the third edition has been a massive undertaking for all concerned – author, publisher, editors, picture researchers and designer – and represents something like a collective act of faith. When Richard Schlagman took over Phaidon Press in 1990, he and his new architectural editor David Jenckins immediately expressed interest in the long-term future of this book. The initiative for a new edition came at the right time, as there was just about the distance necessary to allow a major revision.11

Curtis’s aim with the third edition was to integrate new available knowledge and

experience into the existing structure of Modern Architecture Since 1900, focussing on

themes and notions which had been left underdeveloped. That new knowledge

included literature on modern architecture from the past more than fifteen years,

ranging from detailed monographic studies on individual buildings and architects, to

theoretical speculations on different aspects of architecture. As Marvin Trachtenberg

identified in 1988, most architectural writing produced since approximately 1960 had

been in the form of monographs on individual architects or buildings, even on building

types.12 Catalogues with critical essays and new information resulted from

retrospective exhibitions on most major figures of modern architecture, and became

Curtis’s source. “While the polemical oversimplifications of the earlier histories have

become less and less tenable” due to the publication of those monographic studies on

key modern architects in the intervening years between the three editions, “the need

remains for texts charting large-scale developments.”13 He argued that the intention

behind the revision of Modern Architecture Since 1900 was “to reveal more of the

original soul while giving a better shape to the body.”14

10 William J.R. Curtis, “Preface to the Third Edition,” in Modern Architecture Since 1900 (London: Phaidon Press,

1996), 9. 11 Curtis, “Preface to the Third Edition,” 10 12 Marvin Trachtenberg, “Some Observations on Recent Architectural History,” The Art Bulletin vol 70, no. 2 (June

1988): 208-241. 13 William J.R. Curtis, “Preface to the Third Edition,” in Modern Architecture Since 1900 (London: Phaidon Press,

1996), 9. 14 Curtis, “Preface to the Third Edition,” 9.


48

Apart from the aim of integrating new knowledge and completing the mapping of the

later decades of the twentieth century, Curtis was driven by his rejection of

contemporary ‘fashions’ or trends. During the course of my communication with

Curtis, he admitted that the “transition from first to second and above all third

editions of Modern Architecture Since 1900 was in part propelled by a refusal to accept

the dominant fashions whether postmodernism, deconstructivism, etc.,” which are the

basis of the last three chapters of the third edition.15 It is worth noting that the

rejection of dominant fashions was also present when preparing the first edition.

Curtis understands the book to be “a historical bridge [which] might be built across

the stream of passing intellectual fashions to a more solid philosophical ground, partly

with the hope that this might encourage a return to basic principles.”16

For Curtis, revising a book is just as difficult as writing a book in the first place, “as it

requires self-criticism and the desire to re-examine entrenched assumptions.”17 In

revising, Curtis took into account both formal and informal criticism by others. He

admitted:

On the whole, the first edition of Modern Architecture Since 1900 was given a warm reception by reviewers in its various language editions. But there were several useful criticisms. I did listen when told that not enough was said about Mies van der Rohe, about the city, about the inheritance of nineteenth-century ideas and about the architecture of the Spanish-speaking world.18

After the process of intensive re-examination, Curtis gave more emphasis to the

following themes: architecture and the city; interactions between personal and period

style; the transformation of the past in Western and non-Western contexts; the

interplay between individual inventions and technological or vernacular norms; the

tension between ‘local’ and ‘universal’ within modernism; the concept of a modern

tradition; the effects of modernisation; and the underlying structure of world

15 William J.R. Curtis, email message to author, June 6, 2017. 16 William J.R. Curtis, “Introduction,” in Modern Architecture Since 1900 (London: Phaidon Press, 1996), 17. 17 William J.R. Curtis, Le Corbusier: Ideas and Forms (London: Phaidon Press, 2015), 477. 18 Curtis, Modern Architecture Since 1900, 692.


49

architectures of the recent past. In spite of the thorough revision of the book, what

Curtis calls the underlying intentions of Modern Architecture Since 1900 and its basic

framework, remain unchanged. The way in which he adds these key ideas to the

outline of the book is analysed in the section on ‘Classificatory Strategies in the three

Editions.’ Similarly, Curtis’s aims, objectives and statements about the book, and his

success in living up to them, will be evaluated in the light of the critical responses to

the book from different reviewers, as well as with the actual content.

However, before moving on to these matters, it is necessary to acknowledge the

existence of Modern Architecture Since 1900 in other languages worldwide, itself a

global reality. The subsequent impact of Curtis’s book as a key academic textbook or

survey on modern architecture was the result not only of several editions and reprints,

but also of its translations into several other languages. The first translation into

Spanish, La arquitectura moderna desde 1900 appeared in1986, even before the second

English edition.19 Twenty years later, in 2006, an entirely new Spanish edition

appeared, which Jorge Sainz re-translated from the third edition of the book, a

translation which has been praised as “superb” by Curtis himself.20 The translations

into German and Japanese appeared soon after the publication of the first Spanish

edition, in 1989 and 1990 respectively.21 Interestingly, the title of the first German

edition, Architektur im zwanzigsten Jahrhundert, changed in 2002 to Moderne

Architektur seit 1900, again retranslated from the third edition.22 L’architettura

moderna del Novecento, the translation into Italian of the book’s third edition, was

published in 1999.23 In 2004, Phaidon published the French version, L’architecture

19 William J.R. Curtis, La arquitectura moderna desde 1900 (Madrid: Hermann Blume, 1986). Translated by Jorge

Sainz Avia. 20 William J.R. Curtis, La arquitectura moderna desde 1900 (Madrid: Hermann Blume, 2006). Translated by Jorge

Sainz Avia. Curtis, “A Historian’s Perspective on Modern Architecture.” Transcript. English version of text “La perspectiva de un historiador sobre la arquitectura moderna,” translated by Jorge Sainz and read out by the author in Spanish on the presentation of the translation of the third edition of Modern Architecture Since 1900 at the Círculo de Bellas Artes, Madrid, January 2007. WJRC Archive. 21 Kajima Shuppankai (Tokyo: 1990). Translated by Tomoko Goto, Akira Sawamura and Kaoru Suehiro. Architektur

im zwanzigsten Jahrhundert (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1989). Translated by Antje Pehnt. 22 Moderne Architektur seit 1900 (Berlin: Phaidon Press Limited, 2002). 23 L’architettura moderna del Novecento (Milan: Bruno Mondadori, 1999). Translated by Anna Barbara and Chiara

Rodriquez.


50

moderne depuis 1900.24 Finally, in 2008 Curtis’s book was translated into Portuguese as

Arquitetura moderna desde 1900.25 According to Curtis, “there is in fact a Chinese

version of the third edition of Modern Architecture Since 1900 published by China

Architecture and Building Press,”26 however, I have not been able to confirm this in

worldcat.org or at the publisher’s website. As with the English editions, which by 2013

had already been reprinted nineteen times, these translations have been repeatedly

reprinted over the last thirty years resulting in the book having a global impact.

2. Critical Responses to the Three Editions of Modern Architecture Since

1900

This section investigates the main criticisms of Modern Architecture Since 1900 raised

by influential art and architectural historians and theorists, and does so in relation to

Curtis’s aim, as stated in the introduction to his work, of presenting a balanced

readable overall view of the development, rather than roots, of modern architecture

from its beginning until the recent past; of showing what modern architecture may

mean in remote parts of the world; and of doing so with a certain dispassionate

distance and placing authenticity at the core of his research. The previous section

discussed Curtis’s acknowledgement of criticism’s usefulness in the process of

rewriting the third edition of Modern Architecture Since 1900, and the subsequent one

will look in detail at the consequences these criticisms had for the book’s structure and

content.

Influential art and architectural historians and critics – Stanislaus von Moos and Peter

Serenyi (specialists in Le Corbusier), Samuel B. Frank, Doug Suisman, Graham Hughes,

Brett Donham, Paul Oliver, Tom Heath and Aditya Prakash – reviewed the first edition

of Modern Architecture Since 1900 in key architectural history journals such as JSAH

24 L’architecture modern depuis 1900 (Paris: Phaidon Press Limited, 2004). Translated by Jacques Bosser and

Philippe Mothe. 25 Arquitetura moderna desde 1900 (Porto: Alegre Bookman, 2008). Translated by Alexandre Salvaterra. Source:

worldcat.org 26 William J.R. Curtis, email message to author, February 21, 2017.

Modern Architecture Since 1900: Critical Responses

51

and The Architectural Review, raising interesting issues. The second edition received a

review by Peter Blundell Jones, and was included in Marvin Trachtenberg’s overview of

architectural history in 1988. 1 Hans van Dijk also referred to it in Architectuur in

NederlandJahrbock 1991-1992.2 The third edition was acknowledged by Andrew Mead in

Architects’ Journal, Jean-Claude Garcia in L’Architecture d’Aujourd'hui, and Hans van

Dijk in Archis, and discussed in detail by Jorge Sainz in the Spanish Arquitectura Viva.

Curtis’s aims can be summarised in three concepts: balance, readability and

methodological distance. Regarding the first issue, balance, most historians reviewing

the book agree that, although Le Corbusier is doubtlessly a key figure in understanding

modern architecture, the excessive treatment of his work causes a lack of balance in

Curtis’s book. According to Von Moos, even if it unbalances the book as a whole, the

Le Corbusier’s detailed treatment “is particularly successful.”3 Frank highlights the

“unevenness of treatment in which we are offered, for example, several chapters on Le

Corbusier, but no single place to read about Mies.”4 It is worth noting that Mies’ work

is discussed in the book, though not in a monographic chapter as with the work of Le

Corbusier and Frank Lloyd Wright. Peter Blundell Jones even brings this lack of

balance to the title of his review: “Curtis’s Corbussian Bent.”5 Although Oliver notes

that Curtis is the author of two studies on Le Corbusier, he finds it questionable that

nearly a fifth of Modern Architecture since 1900 is devoted to the Swiss modern

architect. 6

1 Peter Blundell Jones, “Curtis’s Corbussian Bent,” review of Modern Architecture Since 1900 by William Curtis,

Architects Journal vol 187, no. 22 (June 1988): 79. Marvin Trachtenberg, “Some Observations on Recent Architectural History,” Art Bulletin vol 70, no. 2 (June 1988): 208-241. 2 Hans van Dijk, “Dutch Modernism and Its Legitimacy,” Architectuur in NederlandJahrbock 1991-1992 (Amsterdam,

1992). 3 Stanislaus von Moos, “Revising Modernist History: The Architecture of the 1920s and 1930s,” review of Modern

Architecture Since 1900 by William Curtis, Art Journal vol 43, no. 2 (summer 1983): 208. 4 Samuel B. Frank, review of Modern Architecture Since 1900 by William Curtis and Modern Architecture and Design:

An Alternative History by Bill Risebero, Journal of Architectural Education vol 36, no. 4 (summer 1983): 30. 5 Blundell Jones, “Curtis’s Corbussian Bent,” 79. 6 Paul Oliver, review of Modern Architecture Since 1900 by William Curtis, The Oxford Art Journal vol 5, no. 2

Architecture (1983): 55.


52

Curtis’s aim of balance is also intimately related to his choice to avoid the Marxist

ideological biases he noted in both Frampton’s and Tafuri’s histories. Does this mean

that Curtis is completely objective? Von Moos affirms that Curtis’s “aprioris” [sic] “are

those of a Harvard-trained art historian rather than of a critic actively involved in

architectural polemics and ideological controversy.”7 Moreover, for Von Moos, the role

of Harvard University in the establishment of the ‘new tradition’ of architectural

history in the United States is depicted in Modern Architecture since 1900 with clarity,

insight and fresh information. Surprisingly, Serenyi believes that Curtis successfully

and remarkably achieved balance. He defends the position that Curtis “achieves a

balanced view by establishing a hierarchy that clearly reflects the relative importance

of a given building, architect, or style.”8 Moreover, in Serenyi’s opinion, by focussing on

the developments and not the antecedents of modern architecture, Curtis “strikes a

new kind of balance in dealing with his subject,” a balance also related to his

formulation of notion of authenticity as the chief criterion of excellence.9

Modern Architecture Since 1900 is considered a perfect textbook for introductory courses

on architectural history as a result of Curtis’s aim to achieve readability. According to

Frank, Curtis aims at the “textbook gap” that he, Curtis, drew attention to in his own

review of Frampton’s and Tafuri’s histories in the Journal of the Society of Architectural

Historians (1981), and succeeds in improving on his contemporary competition. He is

not the only reviewer to mention that polemical review written by Curtis. However, it is

worth remembering that by 1981 most of the content of Modern Architecture Since 1900

was ready for publication, so the book’s first aims or intentions were not prompted by

the histories of Frampton and Tafuri. For Serenyi, Modern Architecture Since 1900 is

more readable than the early histories of modern architecture written by Pevsner,

Giedion and Hitchcock, which were not suitable for the college market, as well as than

its contemporary competitors written by Benevolo and Frampton. In Von Moos’ opinion,

7 Von Moos, review of Modern Architecture Since 1900, 209. 8 Peter Serenyi, review of Modern Architecture Since 1900 by William Curtis, Journal of the Society of Architectural

Historians vol 43, no. 3 (October 1984): 274. 9 Serenyi, review of Modern Architecture Since 1900, 274.


53

“Curtis succeeds in translating an overwhelming bulk of knowledge into a fluent and

never over-loaded text.”10

A textbook is a “strange beast” according to Frank, and problems arise when trying to

map comprehensively, and define the limits of, a field as diverse as modern architecture.

Curtis chooses to look at modern architecture, in the twentieth century and throughout

the world, as aforementioned when referring to his aims with Modern Architecture Since

1900. In Frank’s opinion, “since the first category [modern architecture] is vague, the

second [in the twentieth century] an arbitrary matter of choice, and the third

[throughout the world] doomed to tokenism,” these boundaries do not help Curtis to

organise the book, which lacks of a rigorous structure.11

The quantity and quality of the images that accompany the text are key to considering

Modern Architecture Since 1900 a perfect textbook. It is also one of the aspects praised

by some reviewers. In Martin Pawley’s opinion, the strength of the first edition of the

book “lies on its exhaustive selection of examples and the often careful use of

contemporary photographs.”12 Jorge Sainz also highlights the improvement in the

quality of the reproduction of the graphic material for the third edition, something

which differentiates Curtis’s book from other similar scholarly books. Sainz notes that,

in the third edition, “colour appears generously and abundantly not only in the

pictures of buildings (increased both in number and quality), but also in drawings and

paintings.”13 Andrew Mead considers the third edition to be “much enhanced, with

over 800, well-reproduced colour and black-and-white photographs which serve rather

than supplant the text (plans are still only occasionally provided.)”14

10 Von Moos, review of Modern Architecture Since 1900, 208. 11 Frank, review of Modern Architecture Since 1900, 30. 12 Martin Pawley, “Fish are Jumping,” review of Modern Architecture: A Critical History” by Kenneth Frampton and

Modern Architecture Since 1900 by William Curtis, The Architectural Review vol 174, no. 1041 (November 1983): 6. 13 Jorge Sainz, “Arquitectura moderna: última edición,” review of Modern Architecture Since 1900 by William Curtis,

Arquitectura Viva, no. 49 (July- August 1996): 73. Author’s translation into English. 14 Andrew Mead, review of Modern Architecture Since 1900 by William Curtis, Architects’ Journal vol 204, no. 10

(September 1996): 50-51.


54

Curtis’s book is still the first recommendation of a professor to students because it is

written at a better pace and illustrated in a sensible way. At least this is what Luis

Fernández-Galiano asserts when reviewing one of Curtis’s subsequent competitors,

Cohen’s The Future of Architecture Since 1889.15 Frank argues that Curtis’s book “earns

its place on the bookshelf” of the late historiography of modern architecture.16

Authenticity, again, shows up in relation to readability in Serenyi’s remarks:

Finally, it is a delight to see a textbook on the subject whose purpose is to show that even in the twentieth century the most lasting value of architecture is to move us and not to house or inform us. After so many books on the functional or informational aspects of modern architecture, it is refreshing to find a book whose author uses a highly selective approach to his subjects, focussing on the most enduring, and hence authentic, architectural achievements of our age. (...) In fact, no prior textbook on the subject has focussed so strongly on the notion that the architecture of the present, as of the past, is art, and that it deserves the same kind of scholarly treatment as architecture of the past.17

Even if Curtis’s book highlights the need for a scholarly treatment of the architecture

of the present, some historians doubt whether he actually provides it. A negative

consequence of his aim of achieving readability is that Von Moos, Frank and Serenyi

accuse Curtis of neglecting scholarship. The reason given by Frank is the few citations

in the text and the way they are referenced: “gathered at the end of the book with no

indication in the text.”18 Von Moos argues that the book is not academic enough, owing

to the “occasional indulgence in scholarly platitudes,” and the referencing system: “his

decisions to reduce quotations from sources to a minimum, to abolish footnotes and to

give general bibliographical references for each page at the end of the book.”19 Von

Moos refers to the existence of a whole series of “questionable judgements” in very

harsh terms:

15 Luis Fernández-Galiano, review of The Future of Architecture Since 1889, Arquitectura Viva no. 144 (2012): 77.

Author’s translation into English. 16 Frank, review of Modern Architecture Since 1900, 29. 17 Serenyi, review of Modern Architecture Since 1900, 277. 18 Frank, review of Modern Architecture Since 1900, 30. 19 Von Moos, review of Modern Architecture Since 1900, 208.


55

There is a problem, however, with an architectural theory (even though an unacknowledged theory) so axiomatically built around conceptions like ‘formal integration,’ ‘stylistic entity,’ and ‘personal authenticity,’ and even the ‘instinct’ of ‘great men.’ What can one do with such problems as the re-use of old buildings or urban rehabilitation within a system of architectural values built on such vaguely sensibilistic [sic] and psychological criteria? Should not an architectural terminology respond to the culturally and socially pressing issues of the day? It is perhaps no coincidence that Curtis, frustrated with the ideological “jargon” which he denounces in his colleagues, is relatively uninterested in urban design except for its artistic or aesthetic aspects, and that he leaves sociology and politics out of the picture altogether. (…) Yet, while Curtis’s genteel disdain for ‘negative or positive propaganda’ forces him into a critical distance from these masters, he rather uncritically adopts their criteria of judgement.20

Serenyi states his concern for Curtis’s judgement criteria by asking the following

question, one of the most difficult in architectural criticism: should a building’s

aesthetic qualities or institutional content be used as a basis of judging its ultimate

value?”21 In his review of Frampton’s Modern Architecture: A Critical History and of

Curtis’s book, Martin Pawley makes the following comparison: “where Frampton is

obscure, Curtis tends to be rash” – a synonym of unreflecting or careless, which can be

related to Curtis’s allegedly neglecting scholarship.

Also related to readability, the idea of the textbook and the debate regarding Curtis’s

scholarship is the consideration of Modern Architecture Since 1900 as a survey.

Trachtenberg lists Curtis’s book as one of the recent surveys which fill out the

chronological and geographical spectrum of modern architecture in a nearly complete

manner. He describes it as “the most comprehensive and ‘neutral’ of the modern

surveys, as against the more ideologically loaded histories by Tafuri and by

Frampton.”22 He also points out that most surveys, which cover a specific historical

period, depend on established material and ideas from secondary sources, whereas in

20 Stanislaus von Moos, “Revising Modernist History: The Architecture of the 1920s and 1930s,” review of Modern

Architecture Since 1900 by William Curtis, Art Journal vol 43, no. 2 (Summer 1983): 209. 21 Serenyi, review of Modern Architecture Since 1900, 276. 22 Marvin Trachtenberg, “Some Observations on Recent Architectural History,” The Art Bulletin vol 70, no. 2 (June

1988): 222.


56

Curtis’s case he combines this with his own first-hand experience of the buildings, and

his conversations with contemporary architects.

Trachtenberg’s description of the book as ‘neutral’ can be linked back to another of

Curtis’s aims: to approach modern architecture with a dispassionate distance.

According to Serenyi, Curtis also succeeds in fulfilling this aim with a few exceptions,

among them his treatment of the New York skyscraper, and of Russian revolutionary

architecture. How can Modern Architecture Since 1900 show distance when its author is

regarded as a modernist advocate? According to Serenyi, it is “refreshing to find an

author today who is deeply committed to this view” of modern architecture, at a time

when modernism is being criticised and rethought.23 In Serenyi’s opinion, Curtis fails

to treat postmodernism with the aimed dispassionate distance because he is a

convinced modernist. Brett Donham also considers Curtis to be a “confirmed

modernist.”24 The reviewers’ opinion on Curtis’s account of postmodernism is further

discussed in Chapter Four of this dissertation.

Some reviewers understand Curtis’s methodological approach – often referred to as

formalist – in relation to the tradition of art historians dealing with architecture at the

beginning of the twentieth century. Serenyi detects a link between Curtis’s discourse

and the tradition of art history of Renaissance or Baroque architecture at the beginning

of the twentieth century, and Von Moos argues that a link exists between Curtis, and

Giedion and Pevsner. Despite the fact that Curtis disdains Giedion and Pevsner for

being propagandists and ‘mythographers,’ “he rather uncritically adopts their criteria

of judgement.”25 Von Moos sees no difference between Curtis’s insistence on form and

meaning and Giedion’s and Pevsner’s fixation on progress and evolution, or on

Zeitgeist. For him, “Curtis manages to pilot his subject back into the quieter water of

an art history seminar room – from where, one is tempted to say, it had once started

23 Serenyi, review of Modern Architecture Since 1900, 275. 24 Brett Donham, “Revisionist Modernism,” review of Modern Architecture Since 1900 by William Curtis, Progressive

Architecture vol 65, no. 5 (May 1984): 185. 25 Von Moos, review of Modern Architecture Since 1900, 209.


57

off.”26 Richard Pommer adds to this argument and points out that with Curtis’s

approach, “modern architecture was brought into the fold of academic art history.”27

Curtis indeed rejects monolithic or simplistic definitions of modern architecture.

Having said that, pluralism becomes a relevant notion to widen the boundaries, both

in time and in space, of what could be considered modern architecture. Heath, for

example, regards Modern Architecture Since 1900 as “much needed” to correct careless

talk about the modern movement and to express its pluralism by “emphasising, as

Curtis does, the continuity of a variety of traditions into and beyond the emergence of

modernism.”28 However, as he points out, Curtis’s approach, which emphasises

pluralism, risks being considered incoherent. The risk of incoherence did not arise in

the work of Pevsner of Giedion given their programmatic selection, and the fact that

Curtis avoids it is, in Heath’s opinion, “a tribute to his professionalism and his critical

insight,” which also “serves to exclude editing the facts for polemic ends.”29 The way

Heath advocates for Curtis’s professionalism contrasts with aforementioned reviewers

who question his scholarship.

In his review of the Spanish version of the first edition of the book, Sainz highlights the

pluralism or variety of Curtis’s methodological tools to chart the modern tradition.

According to him, Curtis uses diverse intellectual media and approaches, which, “in

some cases, generate a general and distant overview of an entire stream of modern

architecture, whereas in others, present with a closer image of certain works or

architects.”30 Writing in 1996, Sainz again praises Curtis’s “characteristic style,” in this

case for approaching the architecture of the late twentieth century, which combines

general exposition of main lines of thought with detailed description of the most

26 Von Moos, review of Modern Architecture Since 1900, 209. 27 Richard Pommer, “Revising Modernist History: The Architecture of the 1920s and 1930s,” Art Journal vol 43, no. 2

(summer 1983): 107. 28 Tom Heath, review of Modern Architecture Since 1900 by William Curtis, Architecture Australia vol 73, no. 5 (July

1984): 26. 29 Heath, review of Modern Architecture Since 1900 by William Curtis, 26. 30 Jorge Sainz, review of Modern Architecture Since 1900 by William Curtis, Arquitectura (Revista del Colegio Oficial

de Arquitectos de Madrid) vol 266, no. 8 (May-June 1987): 8. Author’s translation into English.


58

emblematic cases.31 For Frank, the variation of scales of Curtis’s approach results in the

aforementioned unevenness of treatment between, for instance, Le Corbusier and

Mies.

For Donham, pluralism is what characterises the twentieth century, and, consequently,

old ways of looking at the history of architecture would no longer do. In his opinion,

what makes Curtis’s book “useful” is that it provides “a change in the way we look at

and understand the history of modern architecture,” which at the time, given the

modern-postmodern debate, is particularly significant.32 As a result of that change,

according to Donham, the book puts the history of modern architecture in context and

in perspective. Curtis sets in its historical context not only modern architecture, but

also its history, and he does not present modern architecture as “new-born, free and

pure, as previous historians would have us believe.”33 As Prakash notes, Curtis not only

narrates events, but also gives them meaning “with crystalline clarity.”34

Sainz is one of the reviewers who analyses the rewriting of Modern Architecture Since

1900; he does so by highlighting the additions and changes introduced to the 1996

edition. Mead agrees with Sainz that the third edition is considerably different, both in

content as appearance. In comparing the editions, Mead also points out what “remain

constant, and give this history its strength, are two things in particular: the relatively

extended treatment Curtis gives to certain key words, allowing him to develop his

argument by attention to specifies and to explore several layers of meaning; and his

marked distaste for ‘-isms’ in place of ‘authenticity.’”35 Only one reviewer, Jean-Claude

Garcia, highlights the significance of the built object in Curtis narrative, although this

is a key issue in understanding his approach to modern architecture, discussed further

in the next section of this chapter. For Garcia, it is a great book: “With a true gift of

31 Sainz, “Arquitectura moderna: última edición,” 73. Author’s translation into English. 32 Donham, “Revisionist Modernism,” 185. 33 Donham, “Revisionist Modernism,” 185. 34 Aditya Prakash, Design (India) (May 1983). Quoted from William J.R. Curtis short CV plus addendum with best

book reviews. WJRC Archive. 35 Mead, review of Modern Architecture Since 1900 by William Curtis, 51.


59

empathy he treats diverse examples, situating them in the context of the history of

ideas and forms.”36

Finally, some of the reviews coming from places such as Spain, Australia and Singapore

emphasise the book’s account of their own reality. For instance, Heath comments on

the breathless and racing pace and tone of the third part of the book and on how, as a

result, “signs of effort do appear, and occasional errors,” which reminds one of what

Pawley referred to as Curtis’s rashness.37 Heath points out how Curtis placed

Chatsworth in Sydney instead of New South Wales, and does not agree with Curtis on

the relevance of the ‘Wrightian’ influence on Australian architecture – though he

admits that these are “quibbles arising from local pride – or prejudice.”38 In his 1996

review, Sainz writes that Spanish modern architecture is one of the beneficiaries of the

revision of the book; he sees in Curtis a deep commitment to Spanish architecture, as

exemplified by the inclusion of Navarro Baldeweg’s Palacio de Congresos de Navarra in

the list of buildings which formed the modern tradition, together with Robie House

and Villa Savoye among others. He ends by stating: “You cannot ask for more.”39

Before moving on to a discussion of the content of the book, it is necessary to

acknowledge a previous historiographical study of Modern Architecture Since 1900

written shortly after the publication of the third edition. It is an unpublished research

project entitled “Arquitectura: entre Tradición e Invención” (Architecture: between

Tradition and Invention) written by the researcher Germán Hidalgo Hermosilla, now a

Professor at the Universidad Católica de Chile, but then, in 1997, a PhD student in

Historiography of Architecture at the Universidad Politécnica de Barcelona.40 The title

already gives an idea of the main focus of the paper: tradition and invention. Hidalgo

looks into these concepts by addressing Curtis as author of the book, and by looking at

36 Jean-Claude Garcia, review of Modern Architecture Since 1900 by William Curtis, L’architecture d’ujourd'hui

(December 1996). Quoted from William J.R. Curtis short CV plus addendum with best book reviews. WJRC Archive. 37 Heath, review of Modern Architecture Since 1900, 26. 38 Heath, review of Modern Architecture Since 1900, 26. 39 Sainz, “Arquitectura moderna: última edición,” 73. Author’s translation into English. 40 Germán Hidalgo Hermosilla, “Lectura del tratado La arquitectura moderna desde 1900: William J.R. Curtis,

arquitectura entre tradición e invención” (research paper, Universidad Politécnica de Cataluña, 1997).


60

his work on Le Corbusier as a main character in the narrative, and on Denys Lasdun as

a perfect example, according to Hidalgo, of the relationship between both innovation

and tradition.

As was the case with aforementioned reviewers Von Moos and Frank, Hidalgo

commences his study with some general and biographical notes, and quickly begins his

argument by discussing Curtis’s combined book review of Architettura contemporanea

(1976) by Manfredo Tafuri and Francesco Dal Co, and Modern Architecture: A Critical

History (1980) by Kenneth Frampton. Hidalgo also describes the book which Curtis

and Eduard F. Sekler co-authored, Le Corbusier at Work: The Genesis of the Carpenter

Center (1978). Interestingly, he does not mention the fact that this research resulted in

Curtis’s being awarded a PhD degree in an unconventional manner. In Hidalgo’s

opinion, Curtis needed to find what differentiated his own approach to the writing of

the history of modern architecture from Tafuri’s ideological focus, Frampton’s

criticality and Banham’s obsession with technology. Hidalgo writes: “His investigation

in the realm of foundational ideas of an architectural work and its realisation into a

specific form opened a fruitful exploration field.”41 Hidalgo highlights that Curtis’s

approach to history favours continuity rather than a rejection of the past, and that this

is what informs the historian’s notion of tradition, which will be thoroughly discussed

throughout this dissertation.

Even if he does not refer to any of the book reviews available at the time, Hidalgo’s

conclusion reiterates some points which have already been discussed: Curtis’s picture

selection, which in Hidalgo’s opinion is diligent; the significance of Le Corbusier as the

main character; and the rich descriptions with which Curtis interprets the ‘life’ of each

building, from its inception or invention. Hidalgo wrote his research paper in 1997, just

as the third edition appeared, without mentioning anything of the second edition and

its addendum. Hidalgo finishes his epilogue by reflecting on the change of cover for

41 Hidalgo Hermosilla, “Lectura del tratado La arquitectura moderna desde 1900…,” 7. Author’s translation into

English.


61

the 1996 edition rather than on the contents.42 Other points made by Hidalgo are of

more interest for this thesis, such as Curtis’s firm commitment not to write about

buildings which he had not visited first-hand, and the coherence which exists between

the aims and principles of Curtis’s writing, and the rigour of his methodology.43

Curtis’s emphasis on the recent developments of modern architecture led to the

establishment of regionalism and postmodernism as the main thematic issues of this

dissertation, and, therefore, specific comments from the aforementioned reviewers are

explored in the next two chapters of this dissertation. However, a consequence of

Curtis’s emphasis on ‘developments,’ which applies to the experiences in the post-war

era of both regionalists and postmodernists, is Curtis’s transition from historian to

critic throughout the book. The way in which Curtis balances the positions of historian

and critic is explored in Chapter Five of this dissertation. Curtis’s account of the later

phases of modern architecture is also the part of the book that reveals the most

differences between the three editions. Indeed, Sainz mentions in his review that “to

compare meticulously two editions tends to be a demanding but revealing task.”44 That

is precisely what I am to demonstrate through my work in this dissertation, analysing

the differences between the three editions in Curtis’s account of the development of

modern architecture in the late twentieth century, and discussing what they may

reveal.

42 Interestingly, during the course of our communication, Curtis did not mention the book’s cover. It may be that

Hidalgo wants to read more into the use of Mies’ brick house for the cover than is really there. As I learned from my conversation with Jean-Louis Cohen for this research, a book’s title, cover design and layout have more to do with the work of editors and publishers than with the author’s aims or intentions. Jean-Louis Cohen, meeting with Gevork Hartoonian’s PhD students, July 9, 2017. 43 Hidalgo Hermosilla, “Lectura del tratado La arquitectura moderna desde 1900…,” 29. Author’s translation into

English. 44 Sainz, “Arquitectura moderna: última edición,” 73. Author’s translation into English.

Modern Architecture Since 1900: Classificatory Strategies

62

3. Classificatory Strategies in the Three Editions of Modern Architecture

Since 1900

During the course of my communication with Curtis, he said that “much of the

structure and content of the book was anticipated by the course I [he] gave in Harvard

in the Fall of 1978 on Modern Architecture.”1 In this section of the dissertation, I

discuss the book’s premises, its structure and content, and the extent of its revision,

before moving on to ‘The Story of the Writing of Modern Architecture Since 1900.’ As

was the case in the previous section, it is necessary to keep in mind that Curtis’s aim

was to present a balanced readable overall view of the development, rather than roots,

of modern architecture from its beginning until the recent past; to show what modern

architecture may mean in remote parts of the world, with a certain dispassionate

distance and to place authenticity at the core of his research.

Premises of Modern Architecture Since 1900

In the introduction to the book, Curtis shares his firm belief in the idea that a historian

who sets out to write a history of modern architecture has to begin with a definition of

the subject.2 Therefore, this section begins by observing Curtis’s definition of both

architecture and modern architecture. For Curtis, “architecture is a complex art

embracing form and function, symbol and social purpose, technique and belief.”3 With

regard to its social purpose, he writes that architecture is not only deeply rooted in the

processes and paradoxes of society, but also transforms these into its own terminology.

Curtis does not aim for balance only in his writing. For him, the historian needs to find

a certain balance in his work between its disciplinary logic and the cultural forces

which influence it. The historian needs to find balance between “the unique order of

the individual invention,” and architectural rules and types.4 The fact that invention is

mentioned in the first lines of Modern Architecture Since 1900 is evidence of its

1 William J.R. Curtis, email message to author, August 31, 2016. 2 William J.R. Curtis, “Introduction,” in Modern Architecture Since 1900 (London: Phaidon Press, 1996), 11. 3 Curtis, “Introduction,” 13. 4 Curtis, “Introduction,” 13.


63

significance in Curtis’s narrative, as is noted in the aforementioned study by Germán

Hidalgo Hermosilla.

Even ‘modern architecture,’ which is the object of Curtis’s study, is defined as an

‘invention,’ in this case of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Modern

architecture was conceived as a reaction against the chaos and eclecticism of the

revival movements of the nineteenth century.5 According to Curtis, at the turn of the

nineteenth century, there was no consensus on the image of the new architecture.

Having established that, the role of modern architecture was to “proffer a new set of

symbolic forms more directly reflecting contemporary realities than had the rag-bag of

‘historical styles.’”6 Curtis continues by pointing out that, between about 1890 and the

1920s, a number of different positions in architecture emerged which claimed

‘modernity’ as their chief attribute. It was not until the end of the 1920s that an

allegedly broad consensus was achieved around the notion of the ‘International Style,’

overlooking other contemporary developments at the time. Curtis’s position on

‘International Style’ is very critical, as is noted in the analysis of the corresponding part

of the book, but suffice to say that, for Curtis, “no single tag such as the ‘International

Style’ will do justice to the range and depth of modern architecture produced between

the wars.”7

There is a key question that historians aim to answer in their narratives: when does a

specifically ‘modern architecture’ appear? Curtis describes this as a “tricky problem” to

which there is no easy answer, rather a different answer depending on the historian

you read. 8 In his case, setting the beginning of the book around 1900 or at the end of

the nineteenth century, is intimately related to his aim to investigate the development

of modern architecture, rather than finding and setting its origins in the Renaissance,

the Industrial or the French Revolution.

5 Curtis, “Introduction,” 11. 6 Curtis, “Introduction,” 11. 7 Curtis, “Introduction,” 15. 8 William J.R. Curtis, “Introduction,” in Modern Architecture Since 1900 (London: Phaidon Press, 1996), 14.


64

Central to Curtis’s discourse is the importance of buildings, and his own personal

experience of them, as Jean-Claude Garcia pointed out in his review of the book in

L’Architecture d’Aujourd'hui. That is why a key part in the process of structuring the

content of Modern Architecture Since 1900 was the choice of buildings. Curtis writes of

his aim to select buildings that are “outstanding works of art,” and “rich compounds of

ideas and forms, which achieve symbolic resonance beyond the level of mere ‘signs.’”9

In the first edition of the book, his selected buildings were those that display a “highly

articulated expression,”10 rather than the “symbolic resonance” he formulates in the

third edition. Moreover, in the preface to the first edition, Curtis claims that he is not

going to “make apologies” for concentrating on buildings that he considers to be of

high visual and intellectual quality.11 As discussed in the previous section on the

‘Critical Responses to the three Editions of Modern Architecture Since 1900,’ this was a

criterion harshly criticised by Stanislaus von Moos for its lack of theoretical foundation

and for not corresponding to the culturally and socially pressing issues of the time.12

In an essay published in 2007 on re-reading modern architecture, Curtis added a

nuance to his understanding of seminal buildings: he writes that important buildings

are that reveal “a new faith,” which “challenge existing assumptions and alter the

ground rules of the discipline” of architecture.13 Furthermore, he writes that

extraordinary buildings “have a rare power to move us through the action of forms,

light, space, material and the pressure of underlying ideas. Reliant upon modern

concepts, techniques, notions of space and conceptions of society, they constitute

microcosms, deep symbolic worlds, and possess a unique probity and authenticity.”14

In establishing his criteria, Curtis also considers the potential of these buildings to

9 Curtis, “Introduction,” 13. 10 William J.R. Curtis, “Introduction,” in Modern Architecture Since 1900 (London: Phaidon Press, 1982), 10. 11 William J.R. Curtis, “Preface to the First Edition,” in Modern Architecture Since 1900 (London: Phaidon Press,

1996), 6. 12 Stanislaus von Moos, “Revising Modernist History: The Architecture of the 1920s and 1930s,” review of Modern

Architecture Since 1900 by William Curtis, Art Journal vol 43, no. 2 (summer 1983): 209. 13 William J.R. Curtis, “Transformation and Invention: on Re-reading Modern Architecture,” The Architectural

Review vol 221, no. 1321 (March 2007): 36-40. Original essay written by Curtis in February 2007, 1, WJRC Archive. 14 Curtis, “Transformation and Invention: on Re-reading Modern Architecture,” 2.


65

transcend their own time and reveal their implications and relevance over time. He

adds that later architects can learn from the way these buildings solve existing

problems.15

In Curtis’s opinion, it is through a close analysis of individual works of “high intensity,”

as he puts it, – through a close study of their guiding ideas, their spatial structure, their

societal myths, their responses to culture, technology and nature – that a historian

may begin to sense, and to map, the deeper currents of a period. 16 However, in Curtis’s

narrative this concept of “a period” is broad, as he understands that buildings of

enough depth “occupy time on several levels, transmuting traditions near and far,

transforming other realities in inner and outer worlds.” 17 In January 2007, on the

occasion of the presentation of the Spanish translation of the third edition of Modern

Architecture Since 1900, Curtis mentioned that buildings “give material shape to myths

in expressive spaces and forms,” and that they require a subtle approach if an historian

is to attempt an interpretation.18 According to his way of writing history, for Curtis

buildings are not to merely be labelled as products of a particular movement or

architect, or placed in a particular period of time, but rather seen as individual

creations, or inventions. The notion of invention appears throughout the content of

Modern Architecture Since 1900, as Hidalgo’s study highlights, and it does so to define

modern architecture, buildings and even the task of the historian.

The ‘International Style’ is not the only label that Curtis rejects. If buildings are not to

be labelled by movements, neither then do movements define modern architecture.

With the intention of avoiding the “reliance on ‘movements’ of the stock-in-trade

survey” as part of his approach to the writing of history, which is discussed in depth in

Chapter Five of this dissertation, Curtis deliberately varies the scale of analysis “from

15 Curtis, “Transformation and Invention: on Re-reading Modern Architecture,” 3. 16 Curtis, “Introduction,” 17. 17 Curtis, “Introduction,” 15. 18 William J.R. Curtis, “A Historian’s Perspective on Modern Architecture.” Transcript. English version of text “La

perspectiva de un historiador sobre la arquitectura moderna,” translated by Jorge Sainz and read out by the author in Spanish on the presentation of the translation of the third edition of Modern Architecture Since 1900 at the Círculo de Bellas Artes, Madrid, January 2007. WJRC Archive.


66

chapter to chapter, sometimes to give a close-up, sometimes to give a long or broad

view.”19 The fact is that there are a number of chapters in Curtis’s book that are

dedicated to a single building or architect, as is the case with Le Corbusier, as pointed

out by several of the aforementioned reviewers.

Another choice made by Curtis in preparing Modern Architecture Since 1900 is to begin

every chapter, including the introduction, conclusion and even the addendum to the

second edition, with one quotation.20 It is interesting to note that Kenneth Frampton’s

Modern Architecture: A Critical History (1980) also commences each chapter with a

quotation; moreover, they are the only two historians in the field that is designated in

this dissertation the historiography of modern architecture to do so. Interestingly,

neither Alan Colquhoun in Modern Architecture (2002), nor Jean-Louis Cohen in The

Future of Architecture since 1889: A Worldwide History (2012) followed Frampton’s and

Curtis’s example in the writing of their histories of modern architecture. When asked

about the reasons behind it, neither Frampton nor Curtis can recall why they chose to

begin the chapters with quotations. However, in the course of our communication,

Curtis shared that he “chose very concise quotations reflecting appropriate general

themes and referring to favourite authors. Frampton uses quotations that are far too

long and which interrupt the flow of the text.”21 The comparisons with Frampton’s

Modern Architecture, which appear at different points in this dissertation, are

considered relevant because both Curtis and Frampton offer an account of recent

architecture, not only in the first editions of their histories, but also in the subsequent

ones.

Content of Modern Architecture Since 1900

Keeping Curtis’s premises in mind, this section discusses the content of the three

editions of Modern Architecture Since 1900. The first edition, published in 1982, is

19 William J.R. Curtis, “Preface to the First Edition,” in Modern Architecture Since 1900 (London: Phaidon Press,

1996), 6. 20 See Macarena de la Vega, “Revisiting Quotations: Regionalism in Historiography,” Quotation: What does History

have in Store for Architecture Today, Proceeding of the 34th Annual Conference of the Society of Architectural Historians, Australia and New Zealand, ed. by Gevork Hartoonian and John Ting (Canberra: SAHANZ, 2017), 125-134. 21 William J.R. Curtis, email message to author, May 2, 2017.


67

organised into three parts, to which, in 1987, Curtis added an addendum to the second

edition on recent architectural works. Apart from the introduction, conclusion and

addendum, he wrote twenty-eight chapters: seven for Part 1, eleven for Part 2 and ten

for Part 3. The third edition of the book, which appeared in 1996, presents the most

recent architectural developments in an entirely new fourth part, and completely

reorganises the content of the previous three parts. This time, Curtis includes thirty-

five chapters: nine in Part 1, twelve in Part 2, eleven in Part 3, and three in Part 4. Some

of the changes he introduces are simply products of the different times: for example,

he changes England and America in the first edition, to Britain and the U.S.A in the

third edition; developing countries to developing world.

The first part of the book addresses the problem of the origins of modern architecture,

from the nineteenth century until the emergence of the avant-garde movements.

Through his approach, Curtis claims to trace “the way inherited strands of thought

come together in various individual minds” during the period of time when “forms

were invented to express, simultaneously, a revulsion against superficial revivalism,

and confidence in the energies and significance of modern life.”22 These individual

minds belong to Victor Horta, Antoni Gaudi and Charles Rennie Mackintosh, as Art

Nouveau representatives; the Austrians Otto Wagner, Josef Hoffman and Adolf Loos;

Louis Sullivan, John Wellborn Root and Frank Lloyd Wright and their work in Chicago;

Peter Behrens, and Auguste Perret, among others. For Curtis, most future “modern

masters,” some trained by these individual minds, “were exposed to regionalist

formulations or versions of classicism during their formative years, and these

influences were gradually absorbed into their work through process of abstraction.”23

He writes:

Pevsner justly described it as the ‘pioneer’ phase of modern design, and this seems fair enough so long as one is not tempted to write off its creations as mere ‘anticipations’ of what came later, and so long as one does not imagine that, the path from this exploratory period to the 1920s to have been

22 Curtis, “Introduction,” 15. 23 Curtis, “Introduction,” 15.


68

straightforward. The future ‘modern masters’ both rejected and extended their immediate predecessors as they steered their way through a legacy of nineteenth-century dilemmas: how to reconcile old and new, mechanical and natural, utilitarian and ideal?24

The significance that Curtis gives to what he refers to as the balance between the old

and the new is present throughout his narrative; he includes it when he discusses

regionalism and architectural development not only in the late twentieth century, but

also at the beginning of the century. Looking at the period around the year 1900, he

already traces a struggle to achieve something new without entirely leaving the past

behind, rather than the tabula rasa argued for by early historians.

During the process of revising and rewriting the content of Modern Architecture Since

1900, Curtis acknowledges having done more to discuss the cultural role of

architecture and to deal with interactions between building and the wider

environment, meaning the urban environment. He gives the example of the chapter on

‘Industrialisation and the City: The Skyscraper as Type and Symbol,’ inserted near the

beginning of Part 1, which deals with the late nineteenth century industrial city and the

architectural and philosophical dilemmas posed by the skyscraper. According to

Curtis, “while this is largely an American story (even a Chicago story), it also serves to

outline some of the basic structures and generic contradictions of the capitalist city,”

which have to do with mobility and infrastructures, and with new building typologies

like libraries and train stations, and which he also finds in London and Paris.25 Another

addition to Part 1 is chapter 8 on ‘National Myths and Classical Transformations.’

Curtis studies both subjects at the beginning of the twentieth century and, in his

opinion, they “also explain some of the formative influences on the ‘modern masters,’

and hint at the later continuation of regional and classical influences within modern

architecture itself.”26

24 Curtis, “Introduction,” 15. 25 William J.R. Curtis, Modern Architecture Since 1900 (Oxford: Phaidon Press, 1996), 692. 26 Curtis, Modern Architecture Since 1900, 692.


69

As a result of the revision of the content of Part 1, Curtis gives more attention to the

inheritance of theories from the nineteenth century (e.g. the writings of Gottfried

Semper), and to diverse conceptions of nature. Even if he does not expressly admit that

these additions were an attempt to rectify a lack of theoretical grounding in his work,

they are precisely what some reviewers felt was missing in the first edition of Modern

Architecture Since 1900. Interestingly, Curtis emphasises the reviewers’ praise rather

than their critiques, when he talks about the revision process.

The second part of the book concentrates on ‘The Crystallisation of Modern

Architecture between the Wars.’ In Curtis’s narrative, several ideals and definitions of

‘the modern’ coexisted in the 1920s, sometimes overlapping, sometimes conflicting:

functionalism and ‘new objectivity,’ idealism, expressionism, and primitivism and

nature worship.”27 It is worth noting that the use of ‘–isms’ is acceptable to Curtis as

long as they are used to map the beginning of the twentieth century. In contrast, he

criticises the use of ‘-isms’ in the work of contemporary historians when it refers to

architectural developments of the 1970s and 1980s. The main characters of Part 2 are Le

Corbusier, Mies van der Rohe, Walter Gropius, Erich Mendelsohn, Gerrit Rietveld,

Konstantin Melnikov, Rudolph Schindler and Richard Neutra, to mention only a few.

They are part of Curtis’s survey because they “created buildings of such innovatory

force that they dislodged the hold of previous traditions, laying down a new definition

of architecture for the future.”28 This period has been given an epic character by

previous historians, and, in Curtis’s opinion, for this reason “one must be wary of over-

selective treatments,” and have an inclusive approach.29

This part of the book discusses how the ideological roots of the reform aspirations in

the modern movement, both in terms of social purpose and of architectural form, were

intertwined with a wide range of political agendas. Curtis explains in the introduction

to Modern Architecture Since 1900 that the middle part of the book analyses “the

27 Curtis, “Introduction,” 15. 28 Curtis, “Introduction,” 15. 29 Curtis, “Introduction,” 15.


70

problematic relationship between ideology and modern architecture in the Soviet

Union of the 1920s, as well as totalitarian reactions against modernism in the following

decade,” in the chapters on ‘Architecture and Revolution in Russia’ and on ‘Totalitarian

Critiques of the Modern Movement,’ respectively.30 In this part, Curtis also considers

the transformation of classicism in Fascist Italy and in social democracies like Finland

and Sweden, and the interweaving of nationalism, internationalism and regionalism in

several parts of the Mediterranean, Asia, Latin America and Africa. Curtis observes

conflicts in this period which constitute much more than a battle of styles:

“modernism challenged the status quo, articulated new social visions and suggested

alternative ways of life; it played an active role in the process of modernisation.”31

Part 2 also investigates how branches of the modern movement had been founded in

places as diverse as Finland and Britain, Brazil and South Africa, Mexico and Japan by

the outbreak of the Second World War. What Curtis refers to as a “second generation,”

which includes figures such as Alvar Aalto, Berthold Lubetkin, Giuseppe Terragni and

Oscar Niemeyer, “modified seminal ideas to fit new intentions and to deal with entirely

different climates, cultures, traditions.” 32 Meanwhile the originators of the modern

movement in architecture pursued their own researches, reacting to the political and

economic crises of the 1930s with less dogmatic versions of ‘machinism,’ and with more

accommodating versions of the ‘natural,’ the vernacular and the ‘primitive.’

Curtis not only added a chapter on ‘International, National, Regional: The Diversity of

a New Tradition’ to Part 2, but also reordered and reorganised the second half of its

content. His intention was “to emphasise the range and diversity of modern

architectural developments between the wars, to underline the various cultural,

political and aesthetic agendas of seminal figures like Wright, Le Corbusier, Mies van

30 Curtis, “Introduction,” 15-16. 31 Curtis, “Introduction,” 16. 32 Curtis, “Introduction,” 16.


71

der Rohe, and Aalto, and to re-evaluate individual architects who never fit period

pigeonholes, such as Schindler, Terragni and Mendelsohn.”33

For Curtis, it made more sense to discuss ‘The Continuity of Older Traditions,’

featuring works of architecture built by lesser-known architects between 1910 and 1930,

in places as diverse as Prague, Stuttgart, London, Nebraska, New Delhi, Melbourne,

Canberra, or Stockholm, after the chapter on Le Corbusier’s Villa Savoye. The chapter

addresses the themes of “extension, ‘naturalisation’ and cultural adaptation, in short,

the entire process of global dissemination” and the foundation of branches of the

modern movement in countries such as Spain, Denmark, Sweden, Japan, Brazil, South

Africa, Palestine and Mexico in the 1920s and 1930s. 34 Curtis changed the title of the

following chapter from ‘Wright and Le Corbusier in the 1930s,’ to ‘Nature and the

Machine: Mies van der Rohe, Wright and Le Corbusier in the 1930s.’ It can be argued

that this is a clear signal of acknowledging the critical response to Modern Architecture

Since 1900 regarding the work of Mies. Finally, he also decided to place ‘The Spread of

Modern Architecture to England and Scandinavia’ before his account of ‘Totalitarian

Critiques in the 1930s.’ Part 2 ends with the aforementioned chapter on ‘International,

National, Regional: The Diversity of a New Tradition.’ Regarding the revision of Part 2,

Curtis writes:

It was always an intention of the book to deal with the question of style in a deep sense, rather than abandoning the problem of style altogether as others have done. The first edition already expressed scepticism about the relative superficiality of the categories used in the formulation of a so-called ‘International Style.’ The third edition has gone further to clarify the underlying spatial concepts, mental structures and modes of organisation at work in the architectures of the 1920s. It delves into similarities and differences, generic types and particular variations, elements of personal and period style.35

The third part of the first edition of the book examines the global dissemination of

modern architecture from the 1940s to the late 1970s. Curtis frames this global

33 Curtis, Modern Architecture Since 1900, 692. 34 Curtis, Modern Architecture Since 1900, 692. 35 Curtis, Modern Architecture Since 1900, 692.


72

dissemination by identifying three phenomena; firstly, transplantation, as “modernism

was grafted into cultures quite different from those in which it began;” secondly,

devaluation, “as symbolic forms were gradually emptied of their original polemical

content, and cheapened by commercial interests or state bureaucracies;” and, thirdly,

regeneration, “as basic concepts were re-examined or rejected, and as new expressive

territories were opened up.”36

As well as the late works of the ageing ‘masters’ of modern architecture, this part of the

book considers the gradual modification of earlier Utopian models of urbanism; the

emergence of groups of architects such as Team X seeking a less absolutist approach to

planning; the development of new “strains” of modernism in diverse national cultures

(e.g. Spain, Australia, India, Japan); general themes such as ‘regionalism’ and the

reading of urban context; modernism’s adaptation to local climates and cultures in

developing countries; building types, like the high-rise apartment block and the glass-

box skyscraper; and individual designers such as Louis Kahn, Jørn Utzon, Luis

Barragán, Aldo van Eyck, Carlo Scarpa, Alejandro de la Sota, José Antonio Coderch and

Denys Lasdun.37

Curtis claims that when the book was first written, in the late 1970s, the literature on

the architecture of the years after the Second World War was “sparse and somewhat

distorted by an apparent obsession with (mostly illusory) ‘movements.’” 38 In the

intervening years between the three editions of the book, Curtis came across several

valuable studies of individual architects and building types, which he understands to

be more accurate than previous studies. Two chapters are introduced in Part 3 between

Curtis’s account of the work of ‘Alvar Aalto and the Scandinavian Tradition’ (‘tradition’

was changed for ‘developments’ in the third edition) and the chapter on Louis Kahn

and Monumentality. Firstly, Curtis adds the chapter, ‘Disjunctions and Continuities in

the Europe of the 1950s,’ on the European situation in the years of reconstruction

36 Curtis, “Introduction,” 16. 37 Curtis, “Introduction,” 16. 38 Curtis, Modern Architecture Since 1900, 692.


73

“which hopefully compensates for the thin treatment of Italy, Germany, Spain and

Scandinavia in the earlier editions,” and, secondly, he includes a chapter on ‘The

Process of Absorption,’ which portrays the significant contribution of countries in

Latin America and Asia. 39 Some reviewers of the first edition suggested that Modern

Architecture Since 1900 was one of the few general studies to broach the problems of

modernisation, urbanisation and identity in the “developing world;” the third edition

expands upon these themes, notably for India, North Africa and the Middle East.40 This

expansion is intimately related to Curtis’s own first-hand experience through extensive

travelling which is discussed in the next section on ‘The Story of the Writing of Modern

Architecture Since 1900.’

Before moving to the third edition and Part 4, it is interesting to examine the content

and main ideas of the addendum on ‘The Search for Substance: Recent World

Architecture (1987). Curtis begins the essay by contending that any description of the

recent past that relies on ‘-isms’ “runs the risk of blurring together seminal buildings

with weaker relatives that simply wore the approved period dress,” and that his

approach with the first edition was not as balanced as he had claimed when Mexico

and India had been ignored. 41 In his opinion, some of the best works of the six years

between editions were built in developing countries, very far from the transatlantic

centres where theory was being written. Curtis summarises the mid-1980s as a time of

evolution not revolution.

A brief update on the postmodern works introduced in the first edition allows Curtis to

confirm his thoughts on the Neue Staatsgalerie in Stuttgart. In the first edition of the

book, because the construction process was not finished, he only discussed the project

and the model of Stirling’s building, in the second edition he confirms his opinion of

the building as “more jocular than profound.”42 The main characters of the addendum

39 Curtis, Modern Architecture Since 1900, 692. 40 Curtis, Modern Architecture Since 1900, 692. 41 William J.R. Curtis, “The Search for Substance: Recent World Architecture (1987),” Modern Architecture Since

1900 (London: Phaidon Press, 1987), 389. 42 Curtis, “The Search for Substance…,” 390.


74

are Frank Gehry’s fragmentation; the high-rise as understood by Norman Foster; the

tension between the regional and the international in the work of Japanese architects

such as Arata Isozaki and Tadao Ando; the development of the notion of regionalism,

etc. Curtis also takes stock of contemporary works in Turkey, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia

designed by both local and international architects. In the case of Mexico, he

highlights the “lineage of modern architects who have attempted to combine the

regional and the international and who have also been concerned with drawing lessons

from the numerous layers of the architectural heritage” – a lineage of which architect

Teodoro Gonzalez de León forms an important part.43

In India, Curtis emphasises the importance of the recent works, at that time, of

Balkrishna Doshi in Ahmadabad, where Curtis was working on a monograph on the

architect and where he wrote the addendum and the preface to the second edition of

Modern Architecture Since 1900. In India, he had the opportunity to experience Charles

Correa’s work, also in Ahmadabad, and Raj Rewal’s work in and around New Delhi, in

which Rewal, in Curtis’s opinion, “penetrates beyond the particular historical example

to the geometrical and spatial principles that underlie past vocabulary, and tries to

make an equivalent for the present day.”44 The same blend of tradition and modernity

is identified by Curtis in the work of the Sri Lankan architect Geoffrey Bawa, who

brings together handicraft and architectural traditions while trying to build “in

harmony” with the tropical climate and vegetation.45 As noted in the next section of

this dissertation, in the intervening years between editions, Curtis published several

monographic studies featuring Teodoro Gonzalez de León, Balkrishna Doshi and Raj

Rewal.

In the addendum, Curtis investigates young architects who have understood and

extended the forms used by their predecessors, creating new vocabularies. Examples of

young architects transforming Louis Kahn’s architectural ideas are Mario Botta in

43 Curtis, “The Search for Substance…,” 396. 44 Curtis, “The Search for Substance…,” 398-399. 45 Curtis, “The Search for Substance…,” 399.


75

Switzerland, Anant Raje in Ahmadabad and Rafael Moneo in Spain. About Moneo’s

Museo de Arte Romano de Merida (1985), Curtis writes, “the forced theatricality of

postmodern classicism finds no place among these grave and sober forms in dim

light.”46 He admits: “it has been a guiding theme of this book that a tradition is formed

from a chain of inventions.”47 “Certain works of architecture seem to touch a timeless

core. To do this they have to emerge from the depths of the mind, giving shape to

myths that have a universal dimension.”48 According to Curtis, these architects’ works

are examples of this invention, especially those of Carlo Scarpa, whose Brion Cemetery

in Italy (1978) closes the addendum and the book, as it comes after the conclusion, in a

somewhat abrupt manner.

For the third edition, a fourth part, on ‘Continuity and Change in the Late Twentieth

Century,’ is added, which deals with the complex development of world architecture

since 1980. As previously discussed, Curtis tries to avoid “the self-inflationary rhetoric

of ‘isms,’” and the standard critical postures and largely fictional “movements.”49

Rather, he tries to single out buildings, tendencies and ideas that add to an

architectural culture of lasting value.50 Part 4 is intended to be a proposed outline of “a

preliminary historical map of the late twentieth century.”51 It explores Curtis’s assertion

in the preface to the second edition that lessons learned in the early twentieth century

were being extended and transformed to better address the issues of context, region

and tradition in many parts of the world. The three entirely new chapters examine a

broad range of recent works in countries such as Spain, Switzerland, Finland, France,

Japan, India, Australia, the United States and Mexico. Curtis organises the chapters

around such general themes as the re-evaluation of the past, the response to local

46 Curtis, “The Search for Substance…,” 402. 47 Curtis, “The Search for Substance…,” 400. 48 Curtis, “The Search for Substance…,” 402. 49 Curtis, Modern Architecture Since 1900, 692. 50 Curtis, “Introduction,” 16. 51 Curtis, Modern Architecture Since 1900, 617.


76

climates and cultures, the celebration of technology, and the re-emergence of

abstraction. Curtis writes in the introduction:

It seems that there are several ‘cultures of modernity’ in the recent past, and that these blend together long-term patterns and agendas with contemporary problems and preoccupations. Increasingly, architectural ideas are crossing frontiers, and this part of the book is concerned with the intermingling of new and old, local and universal.52

The buildings he chooses to illustrate the last part of the book were designed by Juan

Navarro Baldeweg, Norman Foster, Balkrishna Doshi, Juha Leiviskä and Tadao Ando.

In Curtis’s opinion, these architects draw meaning from their respective places and

societies, while contributing to a global architectural culture of substance. In addition,

Curtis argues in Chapter Three on regionalism that it is between those two realities,

regional and global, that these architects succeed in achieving a certain balance. He

states that these architects “remind us that modernism in the late twentieth century

possesses a complex identity; continuing to aspire to a certain universality, even as it

reacts to different territories and traditions; stimulating radical innovation even as it

reactivates its own generating principles; inspiring new visions for the future, even as it

transforms the past.”53

Conclusion of Modern Architecture Since 1900

The book’s structure reflects Curtis’s formulation of a modern tradition. Part 1 presents

multiple traditions of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries which were

formative for modern architecture – although this is not to say that Curtis investigates

the origins of modern architecture only in Part 1, as later in the text, when discussing

different architects and buildings, he traces their specific precedents. Part 2 sees these

old traditions crystallise into one modern tradition, which is still and, so is presented

by Curtis as being, diverse and multiple. Part 3, finally, discusses the most recent

developments, disseminations, absorptions and transformation of that modern

tradition. In his research on Curtis’s Modern Architecture Since 1900, Hermosilla draws

52 Curtis, “Introduction,” 17. 53 Curtis, “Introduction,” 17.


77

a beautiful metaphor. For him the book can be summarised in the image of two wide

nets, interwoven by different fibres, diverse in their length and width. One of the nets

would represent the realm of old traditions, and the other one, the traditions in recent

architecture. Hidalgo continues: “the different points of connection between both nets

would be the necessary steps from one realm to the next, through a set of names and

works that contributed to build the modern tradition.”54

‘Tradition’ is one of the key concepts of Curtis’s conclusion to Modern Architecture

Since 1900, which is entitled ‘Modernity, Tradition and Authenticity.’ He begins by

claiming that previous historians, “propagandists,” oversimplified the relationship

between modern architecture and tradition. 55 Even after the “cataclysmic event” that

was the Second World War, most of the early premises of the “heroic period”

remained, with its necessary revisions.56 Curtis writes:

This is not to denigrate such figures for a lack of originality: it is rather to emphasise that an inventor’s task may vary according to the point at which he enters a tradition, and to stress that creative individuals and traditions need one another if they are to stay alive.57

It is worth noting that, if Curtis discusses modern architecture in terms of tradition (or

traditions) and modern architects as inventors, there is a certain parallelism with the

task of the historian – Curtis himself is an inventor, part of the tradition of the writing

of history. Curtis regards tradition as diverse and dynamic and architecture as an art.

Having said that, tradition, for him, is built from creations or inventions of individual

artists of different aspirations, unique buildings with “a considerable regional variety

and a very broad spectrum of quality.”58 As for the inventors or modern architects,

Curtis urges them to rely on the “intervening chain of discoveries of the modern

tradition” and to rethink the past from their own perspective, taking into account

54 Hermosilla, “Lectura del tratado La arquitectura moderna desde 1900: William J.R. Curtis, arquitectura entre

tradición e invención,” 10. Author’s translation into English. 55 Curtis, Modern Architecture Since 1900, 685. 56 Curtis, Modern Architecture Since 1900, 687. 57 Curtis, Modern Architecture Since 1900, 687. 58 Curtis, Modern Architecture Since 1900, 687.


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present needs, tasks, techniques, and most importantly for him, meanings.59 Curtis

formulation of a modern tradition, its relationship with meaning, symbolic form and

authenticity, as drafted in the book’s conclusion, are further explored in Chapter Four

of this dissertation and discussed in Chapter Five.

There are interesting additions to the conclusion in the third edition of Modern

Architecture Since 1900, as Curtis reflects on the possibilities that are still open at the

end of the twentieth century. And, in fact, he could be referring to both architects and

historians, who can revise and reinterpret core ideas in their practice. Curtis includes

‘universalism’ in his process of revision and expansion of his own work in the third

edition. At the time when Curtis was writing, the universalising ambition of the

Enlightenment was still evident in the transformative character that he observes in

modern architecture. Regarding universalism in the Third World, Curtis writes that

“its ‘universalism’ was co-opted by nationalisms and imperialisms although it also

served as a refracting prism through which local traditions (some of them with a

universality of their own) could be re-examined in the postcolonial world.”60 Curtis’s

formulation of universalism will be further explored in Chapter Three of this

dissertation in relation to regionalism.

Curtis does not deny the regional component of recent architectural developments,

but he warns of the distortions that can be caused by political, and I would add

ideological, imperatives of internationalisation, on the one hand; and of regionalism,

on the other. For this reason, he urges historians to treat these issues with caution. He

claims that “the book has done its best to negotiate these difficulties, and to portray

the diverse strands of modernism in all their subtlety and complexity, in space and in

time.”61 These diverse strands form the modern tradition that Curtis sets himself the

task of mapping around the world, beyond the Western canon, not only in the last

decades of the twentieth century, but since the interwar period. Curtis describes a



79

process by which what he calls ‘modern tradition’ rethinks itself through both texts

and actual buildings and projects. This process, for him, encompasses “both an internal

inheritance of underlying types, and an active ‘rereading’ of seminal buildings and core

ideas.”62 Curtis writes:

There is a sort of accumulation of historical layers as prototypes are reinterpreted through later filters, and as potentials latent within are revealed. The resilience of a tradition is gauged by the capacity of its schemata to go on transforming in time, achieving new connections of myth and meaning, new synthesis of ideas and forms.63

Curtis adds to the conclusion of the 1996 edition his reflections on the way he included

recent architectural developments in the revision of the book’s content, with an

emphasis on re-examination. As with the re-examination of local traditions in a

postcolonial world, modern architecture in Curtis’s narrative entered a new phase in

the 1980s, where several of its generative principles were re-examined and re-activated,

and where identities and territories were redefined.64 He admits that, as a historian, it

is hard to write a conclusion about a process that is still unfolding, and of which he

considers himself to be part. Curtis sums up his intention with Modern Architecture

Since 1900 as explaining that there is nothing simple or predestined about the

development of modern architecture, and presenting its continuities and disjunctions.

His intention is rather a pedagogical one.

It is worth noting the change in Curtis’s vocabulary for the conclusion of the third

edition of Modern Architecture Since 1900. He uses verbs such as revise, re-examine,

reactivate, rethink, reread, and reinterpret. As previously discussed in Chapter One of

this dissertation, while mapping the development ‘From Modern to Global: A

Theoretical Framework,’ they are verbs which appear often in the disciplinary

reassessment of both art and architectural history at the end of the twentieth century,

including historiographical studies. Indeed, a certain parallelism can be drawn



80

between the way architects reinterpreted modern architecture and the way historians

and historiographers reinterpreted the writing of history.

4. The Story of the Writing of Modern Architecture Since 1900

This section has been written by assembling Curtis’s first-person account as it appears

in the essays “A Historian’s Perspective on Modern Architecture,”1 “The History of a

History: Le Corbusier at work, the Genesis of the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts,”2

and “Remembering Ackerman: Resonances and Reminiscences over Half a Century.”3

In addition, part of the communication between Curtis and the author has been

included, as well as references from the Bibliographical Notes at the end of the third

edition of Modern Architecture Since 1900, and the second edition of Le Corbusier:

Ideas and Forms4. The focus is on Curtis’s personal life experiences, which led to, and

had an impact on, his thinking and writing/revising process in preparation of the three

editions of the book. For this reason, it is written in the first person singular, with my

explanatory ‘interjections.’ It is interesting to include in this chronological overview

the other publications he worked on, especially in the intervening years between the

first and third editions, as they had an impact on the revision of Curtis’s book. The aim

is to contrast Curtis’s recollections with the discussion of the critical responses to, and

the classificatory strategies of, the book.

The writing of Modern Architecture Since 1900 was at points treacherous. In the preface

to the first edition, Curtis states that he was writing the chapter on ‘The Image and

idea of Le Corbusier’s Villa Savoye at Poissy’ in Beirut, and only “luckily escaped

1 William J.R. Curtis, “A Historian’s Perspective on Modern Architecture.” Transcript. English version of text “La

perspectiva de un historiador sobre la arquitectura moderna,” translated by Jorge Sainz and read out by the author in Spanish on the presentation of the translation of the third edition of Modern Architecture Since 1900 at the Círculo de Bellas Artes, Madrid, January 2007. WJRC Archive. 2 William J.R. Curtis, “The History of a History: Le Corbusier at work, the Genesis of the Carpenter Center for the

Visual Arts,” in Massilia 2013- Le Corbusier- Ultime Pensées/Derniers Projets- 1960/1965 (Paris and Marseille: Fondation Le Corbusier and éditions Imbernon, 2014), 112-151. WJRC Archive. 3 William J.R. Curtis, “Remembering Ackerman: Resonances and Reminiscences over Half a Century,” in James S.

Ackerman: Remembrances, 71-121. James Sloss Ackerman Memorial, Harvard, April 2017. WJRC Archive. 4 William J.R. Curtis, Le Corbusier: Ideas and Forms (London: Phaidon Press, 2015).

Modern Architecture Since 1900: The Story of the Writing

81

annihilation.”5 As a result, Villa Savoye is associated in his mind with the sound of

gunfire. In addition, the last third of the manuscript was “nearly lost at the bottom of

the River Hawkesbury in Australia when a canoe tilted over.”6 From my

communication with Curtis, I can add that it happened during a long weekend on his

second visit to Sydney in 1980, and that it was a handwritten manuscript. The final

chapter on ‘The Traditions of Modern Architecture in the Recent Past’ “was written in

a single twenty four hour session in a beach house on the Queensland coast in the

spring of 1981 [fall in the southern hemisphere] after which I [he] plunged into the surf

as the sun was rising over the sea.”7 This happened during his third visit to Australia,

and he still recalls that beach house, “about 70 miles north of Brisbane at a place called

Coolum Beach”8 at the Sunshine Coast: “a beautiful white house on stilts with tin

roof.”9 Most importantly and according to Curtis, the first edition of Modern

Architecture Since 1900 “was written in top secret and discussed with nobody.”10 In

January 2007, on the occasion of the presentation of the Spanish translation of the

third edition of the book, Curtis observed that it is “linked to many memories

connected to the places or writing and rewriting.”11 Apart from Beirut and the

aforementioned house in Queensland, Australia, Curtis lists the Peabody Library at

Harvard University “with fossils nearby,” and “a silent farm in the Ardèche in southern

France with owls hooting at night,” as locations intimately linked in his mind with the

writing of the book.12

However, the story of the writing of the book is also the story of how Curtis went from

being an undergraduate student in England to a postgraduate student and an early

career academic and lecturer in different institutions of the United States. From this

5 Curtis, “Preface to the First Edition,” 7. 6 Curtis, “Preface to the First Edition,” 6. 7 William J.R. Curtis, email message to author, June 03, 2016. 8 William J.R. Curtis, email message to author, March 03, 2016. 9 William J.R. Curtis, email message to author, June 17, 2017. 10 Curtis, email message to author, June 03, 2016. 11 Curtis, “A Historian’s Perspective on Modern Architecture,” transcript of the talk, January 2007. 12 Curtis, “A Historian’s Perspective on Modern Architecture,” transcript of the talk, January 2007.


82

point onwards, this section presents Curtis’s words, with notes by the author in italics

explaining the source of the information.

Becoming a Historian

Excerpts from “The History of a History: Le Corbusier at work, the Genesis of the

Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts,” 2014, unless specified otherwise.

In the event I was accepted by the Courtauld Institute of Art in 1967 to do a degree

in the History of European Art although I knew little about the place or the subject

in advance. The Courtauld was principally a research institute for graduates.

Undergraduates were expected to follow suit by writing and reading out essays,

which referred to primary sources and erudite articles. The history of modern

architecture scarcely existed as a subject at the Courtauld Institute but there were

occasional lectures by visitors, among them John Summerson and Reyner Banham. I

took the time to visit revered works of the 1930s such as Bexhill Pavilion (1934) by

Mendelsohn and Serge Chermayeff. The Courtauld basement was well lined with old

periodicals such as the Architectural Review dating back to the thirties, but it was the

direct experience of a building that steered me towards modern architecture: the

hovering white forms of the Royal College of Physicians in Regent’s Park designed

by Denys Lasdun in 1960. In the summer term of 1969, I organised two exhibitions

on contemporary architecture in the Courtauld Student common room, one on

Lasdun, another on the Smithsons, both with accompanying texts.13

Such then were some of the experiences and preoccupations I carried with me when

I arrived at Harvard in September 1970. As an incoming Graduate student, I was

required to enrol in four courses and chose Zen Art with Max Loehr, the formation

of Islamic Art with Oleg Grabar, a seminar on Leonardo da Vinci with James

Ackerman and a lecture course on 19th and 20th century architecture and urbanism

with Eduard Sekler. Professor Eduard Sekler who was from a Viennese background

and who was Director of the Department of Visual and Environmental Studies

housed in the Carpenter Center itself. He held a joint appointment with the Graduate

School of Design and among other things taught the core course in the history of

13 For Curtis unpublished introductory texts to both the Lasdun and Smithsons exhibits in student Common Room,

Courtauld Institute of Art, May/June 1969, see WJRC Archive. See also Curtis ‘The Royal College of Physicians in Regent’s Park, Denys Lasdun and Partners’, Connoisseur (August 1970): 284-5.


83

architecture running from Ancient Egypt up to the present in four components. He

combined the rigour of a trained art historian with a commitment to modern artistic

and architectural culture, a rare mixture. I was quick to realise that there were many

links to Germanic and central European culture at Harvard, especially in the history

of art and architecture.

After delivering a lecture in the formal lecture series of the school in January 1971,

Sekler, who had been in the audience, asked me to see him in his office in Carpenter

Center the next day saying that he had something which might interest me. When I

arrived, he broached the idea of a serious historical monograph on Le Corbusier’s

building. Sekler had collected a few key letters and asked me to look these over and

let him know my thoughts on the matter. This was a daunting challenge, but also a

golden opportunity.

Looking back at Le Corbusier at Work, I realise that my contributions to the book

constituted an apprenticeship in which I developed some of my guiding principles as

a historian and gained a deeper understanding of architecture itself. 14 The endeavour

left its traces on later works and contributed to an obsession with invention, meaning

and the interaction of ideas and forms. The historical text, like the building itself was

the result of a process, one combining intensive research, historical thinking and the

search for an appropriate literary form. When my parts of the book were first written

it was not my intention that they should be considered for a Doctoral Thesis. But by

a curious turn of fate, and with the addition of a catalogue raisonné of drawings and a

new Introduction (neither included in the book of 1978), that is precisely what my

work became, being awarded a PhD in the Fine Arts Department at Harvard

University in June 1975.15

During the course of our communication, Curtis referred to his exchanges with Von

Moos, contributor to Le Corbusier at work: “Also, between 1972 and 1975 Stanislaus von

14 Eduard F. Sekler and William J.R. Curtis, Le Corbusier at Work, the Genesis of the Carpenter Center for the Visual

Arts (Cambridge, MA.: HarvardUniversity Press, 1978). 15 William J.R. Curtis, The History and Design of Le Corbusier’s Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts at Harvard

University, A thesis presented by William Joseph Rupert Curtis to the Fine Arts Department in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Subject of Fine Arts. Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, May 1975.


84

Moos was teaching at the Carpenter Center at Harvard and we discussed modern

architecture and Le Corbusier in particular.”16

When I came to this project I was a young scholar, twenty-two years old, who had

not studied the history of modern architecture formally but had been exposed to the

exacting study of Renaissance painting, sculpture, devotional objects, urban spaces

and architecture - even to cutting edge developments in these areas - while still an

undergraduate in the University of London. I had already established certain

priorities and methods as a historian. In any event, in early June 1975 I joined my

colleagues in line in Harvard Yard to receive our degrees, in my case a Harvard

Doctorate in ‘Artes Elegantes’ (the amusing Latin translation of ‘Fine Arts.’)

At this same time, Curtis collaborated with the Open University and Tim Benton, and, as

a result, he published Le Corbusier: The Evolution of His Architectural Language and

its Crystallisation in the Villa Savoye in Poissy (1975) and English Architecture, 1930s

(1975).17

In September 1975, my visa was soon to run out, but I received a last minute offer

from the Art History Department at Boston University to teach twentieth century

North American art and architecture there for the academic year 1975-6. In the

spring of 1976 Wellesley College asked me to deliver a lecture course on the entire

history of modern architecture.

In “Remembering Ackerman: Resonances and Reminiscences over Half a Century” (2017),

Curtis gives more details about going back to Harvard: “In 1976 I moved back to

Harvard and taught for six years in the Visual and Environmental Department at

Carpenter Center in fall semesters only; the rest of each year I used to write, give

lectures, or travel. I organised several expeditions to places as diverse as Greece,

Turkey, Morocco, Egypt, Syria, Lebanon and India, with a particular interest in Islamic

16 William J.R. Curtis, email message to author, August 31, 2016. 17 William J.R. Curtis, Le Corbusier: The Evolution of his Architectural Language and its Crystallization in the Villa

Savoye in Poissy (Milton Keynes: Open University Press, 1975). English Architecture 1930s (Milton Keynes: Open University Press, 1975).


85

architecture. The photographs made during these trips became integral to my

teaching.”18

In the spring of 1977 Catherine [Curtis’s wife] and I were no longer in the USA, but

in Greece at the start of a long Mediterranean journey. Our wanderings that spring

took us back to the world of Antiquity – Ancient Greece, Asia Minor, Bursa,

Istanbul, and finally Egypt. In January 1978, we attended the presentation in

Carpenter Center of the book. Soon after the presentation, I set off on another

adventure, this time to the southern Morocco, which led eventually to a study on

mud-fortified dwellings of the sub-Sahara.

From 1976 to 1982 taught fall semesters in the Harvard VES (Department of Visual

and Environmental Studies) in Carpenter Center itself. Among my teaching

responsibilities were core courses such as ‘Towards an Integrated Theory of Form in

the Visual Arts,’ inherited from Rudolph Arnheim. I gave it the new title as well as an

amplified range, as Arnheim had tended to revolve around Gestalt psychology. The

course was intended to train students to see, analyse and interpret the environment at

all scales from objects, to buildings, to cities, while introducing them to basic

concepts to do with form, meaning, medium, representation, abstraction, style, type,

process, ideology etc.

In addition, I taught an array of history courses on subjects as diverse as twentieth

century architecture and the Renaissance. Then there was a graduate seminar in

theory with the title ‘From Idea to Form,’ which addressed questions to do with

invention, process, imagery, iconography and symbolism. There were memorable

student interventions by Doreve Nicholaeff on the meaning of spirals, by Thom

Mayne on eclecticism and by Alexander Ward on the creative process. Certain

perceptions first worked out in the microscopic study of Carpenter Center were thus

able to expand and prosper in dialogue with students, and in seminars or lectures of a

general philosophic nature which I referred to as ‘parables.’ There is no better way of

clarifying one’s ideas than being obliged to communicate them to others.19

18 Curtis, “Remembering Ackerman…,” 88. 19 For descriptions of courses given by Curtis at Harvard University, as Graduate Student in Fine Arts, 1971-5; at

Boston University and Wellesley College, as Assistant Professor and 1975-6; at Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts, Harvard University in the VES Department as Assistant Professor, 1976-82, see WJRC Archive and Harvard Course catalogues of the time. For general reflection on design process and interpretation of drawings throughout history


86

Publishing Modern Architecture Since 1900

The course I taught on ‘Architecture of the Twentieth Century,’ in which Le

Corbusier’s role was central was an opportunity to pull together nearly a decade of

research and reflection on the subject in a coherent and measured synthesis. The day

I handed in the grades, I received a letter from Phaidon Press asking if I might be

interested in writing a general book on the history of modern architecture. It was too

good to be true and I accepted. This was the starting point for Modern Architecture

Since 1900.

In an email sent to the author on February 2, 2017, Curtis provides more details about his

relationship with the publisher: “In many ways, the skeleton was established then. I

wrote the outline of the book and a trial chapter on Le Corbusier in the 1920s for them

in Summer 1979 when I was in London. The contract was signed and the first draft was

hand written between January and September 1980, then the second draft between

September 1980 and Spring 1981, also by hand and later on transcribed.”20

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

Excerpts from “Remembering Ackerman: Resonances and Reminiscences over Half a

Century,” 2017, unless specified otherwise. In this text Curtis refers often to James

Ackerman as Jim.

Except for Catherine, I said not a word about this project to anyone at Harvard: it

was a top-secret operation. Without going into detail, I basically cut the subject into

three sections: the emergence of the idea of a modern architecture in the 19th century

and developments pre-world war I; the crystallisation of seminal works in the so

called heroic years of the 1920s; and the world wide dissemination and

transformation of these founding principles over ensuing decades. In other words, I

was concerned with the structure of a tradition, the modern tradition, and in this

respect, I was certainly influenced indirectly by Henri Focillon (Vie des Formes, 1932)

and by George Kubler (The Shape of Time, 1962) but also by Gombrich’s idea of

‘schemata and style.’ Possibly, too my structure reflected subliminally that of Vasari’s

in this period, see for example Curtis, ‘Notes on the Genesis of Architectural Form’, unpublished paper 1977, WJRC Archive. 20 William J.R. Curtis, email message to author, February 2, 2017.


87

Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors and Architects, (1550). After all, Vasari also

worked with three ‘ages,’ each heralded by a key set of breakthroughs or new

paradigms, which shifted the game for followers.

This view of an unfolding tradition deliberately sidestepped the crude zeitgeist

determinism of writers like Giedion (Space, Time and Architecture) while also exploring

the debts of modern architects to the past. Throughout the book, I kept in mind my

‘integrated theory of design,’ attempting to hold multiple factors in balance. The

book terminated with Jørn Utzon’s extraordinary church at Bagsvaerd which I had

‘discovered’ by accident that summer of 1978 when visiting Copenhagen, a work that

was firmly in a modern tradition but which succeeded in doing all the things that

post-modernists claimed to do but in authentic and timeless forms.

Almost thirty years later, on January 2007, at the presentation of the Spanish translation

of the third edition of Modern Architecture Since 1900, Curtis reminisced: “I still recall

the many years leading up to the writing of the book including discoveries of key

buildings, lectures, discussions, visits, which provided the material for reflection. It

was the era of postmodernism and I was astonished to see how easily an insubstantial

trend could colonise minds of teachers and students. But, this book was not conceived

as a defence of tired and cherished notions. On the contrary, it was an attempt at de-

mythologizing modern architecture, at saving it from its own myths and apologists, at

avoiding the caricatures produced by both enemies and friends, at rendering things in

their complexity.”21

In 1981, after the wedding [when Curtis married Catherine] and before leaving

Cambridge [Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts], I had decided to give

my manuscript to a single reader for an honest assessment, and I deliberately chose

an individual whose primary activities were not in the field of modern architecture,

but whose ability to judge the intellectual worth and longevity of a text was beyond

doubt. Needless to say, all this pointed to Jim, so a day or so before we left for

Europe in late June I turned up at 12, Coolidge Hill Road with two large supermarket

bags carrying a total of 780 pages of typescript. I explained what this was about and

asked him how he felt about reading through the entire book in Barnet, Vermont

21 Curtis, “A Historian’s Perspective on Modern Architecture,” transcript of the talk, January 2007.


88

that summer. He said that he would be delighted to do so. I insisted that he be as

critical as he liked: no holds barred. Anyway, after our sojourn in Italy, Catherine and

I went to England. I phoned Phaidon Press in Oxford and arranged a meeting with

the director Simon Haviland. When I arrived, he stated outright: ‘We think that this

book is a winner and that it needs very little more work.’ I disagreed insisting that it

probably needed another year's work. Simon replied: ‘But didn’t you give a copy of

the manuscript to a well-known historian at Harvard?’ ‘Yes, to James Ackerman.’ ‘Do

you have a number for him? Here is the phone.’ So I called the number in Barnet,

Vermont. In those days, rural numbers in the USA made a sort of grumbling sound.

After several grumbles, Jim answered ‘Ackerman.’ When I said who I was, he asked

all about the wedding and then we got to the subject of the book. He said that he

thought it was a marvellous piece of work, liable to have a long life and that it needed

very little extra work. When I put the phone down, I recounted what I had just heard

to Simon who replied: ‘We told you so.’

Jim followed up with an extraordinary letter dated August 28th 1981 and addressed

to Simon Haviland. It started out as follows: ‘William Curtis has asked me to put

down my reactions to his manuscript entitled Modern Architecture 1900-1975, which I

do willingly because I have benefited greatly from our association over the years and

because I am enormously enthusiastic about the achievement. I think it is not only

immeasurably the finest work covering this field in existence but may very well be

the best survey of any field in the history of architecture written since the prime of

Nikolaus Pevsner and Siegfried Giedion...’ The letter then continued to discuss the

scholarly underpinnings and the wide geographical range: ‘Its historical method is

irreproachable; there is no evasion of documentary responsibility... I doubt whether

any other publishing historian in his field has encountered such a wide spectrum of

buildings at first hand: Curtis has ranged through Africa, the Near East, Asia and

Australia, as well as Europe, with an adventurousness quite untypical of his

profession.’

The letter then focussed upon the literary quality of the text and its ethical and

critical stance: ‘A truly distinctive virtue of the text is that it is admirably written

without wasted or obfuscating verbiage and with an assured and easy style. The most

distinctive aspect of the book is its critical posture, which is exceptionally open yet

absolutely firm in its priorities. He conveys a concept of the symbolic message of


89

architecture, its role as the carrier of culture that elevates the historical account to a

humanistic plane. Yet he is not a fashionable semiologist/structuralist. He perceives

architecture as an art; in the genesis of architectural works, he draws attention

repeatedly to the significance of structural technology in design. He is the model of

the committed humanist in that he combines scientific precision with ethical

responsibility and with critical sensibility...’ The letter expanded upon this aspect of a

critical stance towards contemporary architecture then stated: ‘In presenting

architecture as a culminating achievement of a culture and of the human imagination,

Curtis has chosen to maintain much of the traditional idealist critical stance, and in

this respect I would have written a different kind of book on the subject. But I say

this to demonstrate that one doesn't have to share all the premises of his work in

order to admire and learn from it.’

Needless to say, this letter is one of the most treasured documents in my possession.

Modern Architecture Since 1900 was published in September 1982 only weeks after I had

left Harvard (of my own accord). It became my international passport and opened

the way to 'wider latitudes': a much larger world than that of the university.

In the aforementioned talk in Madrid, Curtis further reflects on this idea of the book as

his international passport: “The book enjoyed a positive reception from the word go. It

crossed frontiers and enjoyed many thoughtful reviews. It won some awards, was

rapidly adopted as a basic text in many universities around the world, and was

translated into several languages including German, Japanese and of course Spanish.

For the author the book was like an international passport and it opened many doors.

But it also became part of an identity and corresponded with my decision to guard a

degree of distance from academia which so easily falls prey to intellectual fashions.”22

In the CV provided by Curtis to the author, he lists the awards that this book and

subsequent publications received: “Curtis has received several prizes and awards in

recognition of his scholarship, his critical writings and his role as an educator. The first

edition of Modern Architecture Since 1900 was awarded the Alice Davis Hitchcock

Medal of the Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain (October 1984) for

making “an outstanding contribution to the study and knowledge of architectural



90

history.” Curtis won both the Book Award (for Modern Architecture Since 1900) and the

Critic's Award (for “Principle versus Pastiche, Perspectives on Some Recent

Classicisms,” Architectural Review, August, 1984) of the Comité international des

critiques d'architecture, 1985. They listed the book as one of the five most significant

books on architectural criticism published between 1982 and 1985. He also won a Silver

Medal at the World Architectural Biennale, 1989 (for Balkrishna Doshi, an Architecture

for India, 1989); and a Historical Monograph Award from the American Institute of

Architects, 1997 (for Modern Architecture Since 1900, third edition).”23

During this time, Curtis also organised several exhibitions: one on modern architecture

at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston, held from 9 September to 26 October

1980, for which he wrote the catalogue, Boston: Forty Years of Modern Architecture;24

another on Le Corbusier at the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts, Harvard University

from 4 November to 29 November 1981, for which he also wrote the catalogue, Fragments

of Invention: The Sketchbooks of Le Corbusier.25Later on, in 1982, after his trips to

Australia, again at the Carpenter Center, Curtis organised and wrote the catalogue for

the exhibition ‘Forms and Functions of the Australian Aboriginal Spear-Thrower.’26

Towards the third Edition

In late 1982, Catherine and I left behind our Boston existence and set off on a grand

adventure involving several years of repeated travels through India and South East

Asia. I had visited India the first time in spring 1980 and had been transfixed by the

experience of sites such as the Tomb of Humayum, Fatehpur Sikri and of course Le

Corbusier’s Capitol in Chandigarh. For some time, I had been thinking that, it was

time to go beyond western, North African and middle eastern traditions in order to

experience and understand some of the primary examples of Buddhist, Hindu and

Indo-Islamic architecture. Initially we had a base in Bangkok and from there we set

off on several expeditions in Thailand, India and Indonesia travelling very light with

only the minimal clothing, sketchbooks, cameras and precious rolls of film. I can say

23 William J.R. Curtis, short CV plus addendum with best book reviews. WJRC Archive. 24 William J.R. Curtis, Boston: Forty Years of Modern Architecture (Boston: The Institute, 1980). 25 William J.R. Curtis, Fragments of Invention: The Sketchbooks of Le Corbusier (Cambridge, Mass.: Carpenter Center

for the Visual Arts, 1981). 26 William J.R. Curtis, Forms and Functions of the Australian Aboriginal Spear-thrower (Cambridge, Mass.: Carpenter

Center for the Visual Arts, 1982).


91

that this was one of the high points of our lives as we covered vast territories and

periods in India, all the way from the Buddhist stupa at Sanchi to the Sun Temple at

Modhera, from the Elephanta Cave to Le Corbusier’s Assembly Building in

Chandigarh, from the stepped wells of Gujurat to the Jain temple at Ranakpur.

In eastern Thailand, we explored tropical wooden vernaculars and discovered Khmer

architecture at Phimai as Cambodia itself was still inaccessible and under the rule of

Pol Pot. In Java, we visited Borobadour and in Jogjakarta immersed ourselves in then

active renaissance of traditional dance. It was a question of learning and absorbing

new visual languages of architecture and design at all scales from that of Balinese

canoes, to that of Thai temple roofs, to that of Indian lotas (brass water pots). In this

visual research, sketching was indispensable as a tool. Beyond individual examples,

one gradually absorbed the ‘sub structures’ of diverse traditions, the characteristic

types and forms. When we arrived in Ahmadabad in western India, it was above all

to visit Le Corbusier's and Kahn's masterpieces there but also to meet Balkrishna

Doshi who opened his doors to us. Along with Charles Correa, Raj Rewal and Anant

Raje, he was involved in a search for a modern Indian architecture attuned to climate,

tradition and culture. Eventually I wrote several texts on architectures of the Indian

sub-continent including ones about Kahn’s magisterial Capitol in Dhaka, one on Raj

Rewal and a monograph summing up Doshi’s philosophy and architecture: Balkrishna

Doshi: an Architecture for India (1988).27 This stay in India was the first of many: the

following year we explored southern temple cities and masterpieces in Sri Lanka, and

in 1985, I assisted Charles Correa and Raj Rewal in putting together exhibitions on

traditional Indian architecture.

During the course of our communication, Curtis gave more details about his work on Raj

Rewal. “In fact, at the end of December 1985, I wrote the introduction to the French

monography on Raj Rewal published by Editions Monituer, ‘Architecture Moderne,

Racines Indiennes: Raj Rewal.’”28

27 William J.R. Curtis, Balkrishna V. Doshi: An Architecture for India (New York: Rizzoli, 1988). 28 William J.R. Curtis, email message to author, February 2, 2017. Reference made to William J.R. Curtis, Raj Rewal

(Milan, Paris: Electa Moniteur, 1986).


92

At the end of the 1980s, Curtis published his very successful Le Corbusier: Ideas and

Forms which was very quickly translated into other languages (that same year into

Spanish, French and German), and had a second edition published in 2015.29

During the course of our communication, Curtis referred to his publications in the

intervening years between editions of Modern Architecture Since 1900: “Remember that

by then [his participation in the Regional Seminar sponsored by the Aga Khan Award for

Architecture, held at Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology in 1985] I

had been in and out of India a great deal, also Mexico. I was very involved in those

days with the ancient architecture of India, South East Asia and Mexico, and with ways

in which lessons from these were being transformed into modern forms.”30

During this time, Curtis wrote about Luis Barragán in Arquitectura Viva in 1988, about

Mexican ruins and modernity in MARCO’s catalogue Hechizo de Oaxaca in 1992, and

the introduction to a book on Teodoro González de León in 1993. Simultaneously, he

looked into Spanish architecture and architects: Carlos Ferrater (1989), Enric Miralles

and Carme Pinos (1991), Juan Navarro Baldeweg (1992), Elias Torres (1993).31

I insisted upon a distinction between theoretical ideas and architectural ideas, the

latter involving imagination, visual thinking and symbolisation in spatial concepts. In

the 1990s (and since, apparently) there has been a danger that dry theorising replaces

intelligent and learned insight into the visual and spatial qualities of buildings and

urban spaces. Great architecture communicates before it is understood and the

relationship between forms and theories is never straightforward. In the same period,

broadly speaking the 1990s, I was hard at work on literary projects. In 1994, I

published a major monograph, which again drew upon decades of reflection: Denys

Lasdun: Architecture, City, Landscape.32 In addition to charting the development of

Lasdun’s architecture from the 1930s to the present, this attempted to explain the

basic principles, generating ideas and architectural language of this outstanding

29 William J.R. Curtis, Le Corbusier: Ideas and Forms (Oxford: Phaidon Press, 1986) 30 William J.R. Curtis, email message to author, February 2, 2017. 31 William J.R. Curtis, Carlos Ferrater (Barcelona: Gustavo Gilim 1989). Enric Miralles, Carme Pinós: 1988/1991 En

construction = Under Construction (Madrid: El Croquis Editorial, 1991). Juan Navarro Baldeweg 1979-1992 (Madrid: El Croquis Editorial, 1992). Elías Torres (Madrid: El Croquis Editorial, 1993). 32 William J.R. Curtis, Denys Lasdun: Architecture, City, Landscape (London: Phaidon Press, 1994).


93

British architect who was also a close friend and who had also been a mentor. In fact,

part of the problem here was to create a sufficient distance from the subject.

In the CV provided by Curtis to the author, he mentions having organised an exhibition

on Denys Lasdun: Modernism, Nature, Tradition: The Architecture of Denys Lasdun

(European Investment Bank, Luxembourg 1995) (catalogue of same name).33

In 1996, Phaidon also published the third edition of Modern Architecture Since 1900 in a

thoroughly revised, extended and redesigned version. This gave the book a new life

and allowed me to incorporate my own and other people’s discoveries over the years

since the first edition of 1982. Needless to say, an inscribed copy was sent to Jim

who later told me that he had been intrigued to identify ways in which the book had

evolved since he read the first edition manuscript in 1981. Such an operation is risky:

one needs to alter the body while holding onto the essential spirit of the original

work. On occasion, I discussed this issue with Jim even wondering why he had not

updated his books on Michelangelo and Palladio in a similar fashion.

In the aforementioned talk in Madrid, Curtis shared further details on the rewriting

process. He writes: “Writing the third edition was hard as it involved reconsidering

many of my assumptions as a historian. But it was also an opportunity to improve the

book in any number of ways. Phaidon Press, under the new ownership of Richard

Schlagman, gave priority to the project. I was lucky to gain from superb picture

research, from the editorial skills of Bernard Dod and from the refined book design of

Isambard Thomas. Beyond these obvious changes, there were many less visible

adjustments throughout the book. I realized that I had oversimplified the contribution

of Mies van der Rohe, that I had not said enough about the extraordinary quality of

Erich Mendelsohn, that I had said next to nothing about the role of countries like

Spain and Portugal. Over a decade had gone by since I had written the first version of

the book and it was necessary to integrate both my own researches and those of other

people. A book like this is a working hypothesis, which requires adjustment in the face

of new discoveries and insights. But it is also a totality with a unity of its own. The aim

in writing subsequent editions is to modify the body without losing the essential spirit.

33 Curtis, short CV plus addendum with best book reviews. WJRC Archive.


94

The writing of history involves both reason and imagination and all propositions have

to be submitted to sceptical analysis. Theories play some role but a good book, like a

good building, is never just the demonstration of an a priori position. There is a special

chemistry which occurs in the process of writing itself. And even when some points are

proved wrong a work of depth continues to carry its messages for a long time to

come.”34

After the publication of the third edition of Modern Architecture Since 1900 Curtis

worked on Modern Architecture, Mythical Landscapes and Ancient Ruins and published

his own photographic work.35

Between 2011 and 2014 I undertook a major revision of Le Corbusier: Ideas and Forms

in an extended and totally redesigned second edition. Here again it was a delicate

balancing act which also involved the insertion of much new material, the addition of

five chapters and the inclusion of 150 of my own photographs for I was ever more

active as a photographer. The book came out in early 2015 and, of course, Jim was

one of the first people to receive a copy. At the end is an entirely new section entitled

‘Principles and Transformations’ containing four of the new chapters: ‘The Realm of

Architectural Ideas;’ ‘The Genesis of Forms;’ ‘The Unique and the Typical;’ and

finally ‘On Transforming Le Corbusier.’

I was amused as well to read the following [in an autobiographical interview with

James Ackerman in the 1990s]: “The most prolific person that worked with me, or I

should say worked alongside, because I don’t claim that I influenced him very much-

-he just was around, and not too evident at that--was William [J. R.] Curtis, who

writes on contemporary architecture and has been a freelancer and has made a living

out of writing books. He wrote a textbook on contemporary architecture [Modern

Architecture since 1900] which is excellent, a book on Le Corbusier [Le Corbusier’s Ideas

and Forms], and a book on a contemporary Indian architect [Balkrishna Doshi: An

Architecture for India].” Many years later, in April 2013, I gave a talk at the Boston

Society of Architects to mark the 50th anniversary of the opening of Le Corbusier’s

34 Curtis, “A Historian’s Perspective on Modern Architecture,” transcript of the talk, January 2007. 35 William J.R. Curtis, Modern Architecture, Mythical Landscapes and Ancient Ruins (London: John Soane’s Museum,

1997). William J.R. Curtis, Structures of Light: Photographs by William J.R. Curtis (Helsinki: Alvar Aalto Academy, 2007).


95

Carpenter Center. I chose as the title: ‘The History of a History: Le Corbusier at

Work. The Genesis of the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts.’ Both Jim Ackerman

and Eduard Sekler were in the front row and I thanked them both publicly for the

interest they had shown in me as a young and rather wayward student in the early

1970s when I had written my first book and established my identity as a historian.

To conclude, this chapter contrasts the opinion of the scholars reviewing Modern

Architecture Since 1900 with Curtis’s recollections of his aims and intentions with the

book and of his personal experience during those years. Furthermore, the content of

this chapter helps to discover discrepancies between Curtis’s account of the writing of

the book and the reading and interpretation of Modern Architecture Since 1900 exposed

in this dissertation. On the one hand, some of these discrepancies can be clarified by

focussing on the extensive timeline provided by Curtis and presented in the last

section of this chapter. While Stanislaus von Moos emphasises the importance of

Harvard in Curtis’s training, the author of Modern Architecture Since 1900 claims to

have navigated the institution in an independent way. While Mark Jarzombek refers to

Eduard Sekler as “a member of Curtis’s doctoral committee at Harvard University,” and

co-author of the monography on the Carpenter Center, Curtis claims the authorship of

most of the content of the book. 36 As this chapter has shown, it was not until after its

preparation, that James Ackerman suggested that Curtis’s research on Le Corbusier’s

building deserved to be awarded a doctoral degree.

In addition, among other reviewers, Von Moos and Samuel B. Frank begin their texts

on Modern Architecture Since 1900 by mentioning Curtis’s review of Architettura

contemporanea (1976) by Manfredo Tafuri and Francesco Dal Co and Modern

Architecture: A Critical History (1980) by Kenneth Frampton and by hinting at a

possible cause-effect relationship. It is worth noting that in 1981, by the time this book

review was written and published in the Journal of the Society of Architectural

Historians, Curtis had finished the writing of his own book. Therefore, it is not

accurate to imply that Curtis’s intentions and aims with this book were a reaction

against the flaws he finds in that previous historiography. However, it is feasible to

36 Mark Jarzombek, The Psychologizing of Modernity: Art, Architecture, and History (Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press, 2000), 30.


96

argue that, at the time when Curtis was writing the book’s introduction or the preface

to the first edition, he wanted to emphasise his interest in the notions of form,

expression and meaning, which, in his opinion, had been neglected by previous

historians. The idea of how Curtis may have reacted to previous approaches to history

is explored in Chapter Five of this dissertation.

On the other hand, other discrepancies are related to Curtis’s methodological

approach. Almost every scholar who mentions Curtis’s Modern Architecture Since 1900

refers to his formalist approach to architecture. Some have traced his emphasis on

form and questions of style back to the principles formulated by both Heinrich

Wölfflin articulated in Kunstgeschichtliche Grundbegriffe: das Problem der

Stilentwicklung in der neueren Kunst (1915) and Rudolf Wittkower in Architectural

Principles in the Age of Humanism (1949). When confronted with these possible

influences on his work, Curtis claims:

I had a very rigorous formation in Renaissance studies at the Courtauld Institute of Art London University between 1967 and 1970 and that I was part of a ground breaking group of students examining context and that the last thing we were interested in was 'Wölflinnian formal analysis'. (…) I have always been interested in matters of form and meaning but not at the expense of hosts of other considerations. As for Wittkower, I wrote a highly critical piece about his work when I was in my third year at the Courtauld.37

37 William J.R. Curtis, email message to author, August 31, 2017.

Regionalism: Critical Responses

97

Chapter Three_ William J.R. Curtis and Regionalism

This chapter investigates William J.R. Curtis’s approach to the notion of regionalism

and to broadening the geographical scope of what he considers to be modern

architecture across the three editions of Modern Architecture Since 1900. The aim is to

highlight the differences between editions, and thus demonstrate the significance of

the changes Curtis made in the major revision of the content prior to the publication

of the third edition of the book. Firstly, I will present and discuss the references to

regionalism made by the historians and theorists who reviewed the different editions.

Secondly, I will study the differences between the three editions in Curtis’s account of

two countries outside central Europe and the United States: Turkey, as an example

between Europe and Asia, and Greece, as part of the European periphery. I chose to

look at these countries because Curtis’s account of them show a clear development

between editions of the book. Thirdly, I will look at Curtis’s discussion of Australian

modern architecture because it is, similarly to Japanese, Mexican or Brazilian, an

example of a certain ‘completeness’ in Curtis’s account since the first edition of Modern

Architecture Since 1900. Finally, I will contextualise Curtis’s definition of ‘authentic

regionalism’ in the context of the different approaches to regionalism framed through

events and essays published and held mainly in the 1980s.

1. Critical Responses to Curtis’s Approach to Regionalism

Some of the historians and theorists who reviewed the different editions of Modern

Architecture Since 1900 made specific reference to the way that Curtis broadened the

definition and scope of what had been previously considered to be modern

architecture, presenting its development in countries outside central Europe and the

United States. However, their analysis focuses on the development of Curtis’s approach

to historiography and understanding of key notions such as traditions and

authenticity, largely ignoring the significant increase in the number of countries that

he includes in the book. Once again, it is necessary to recall Curtis’s aim to address

what previous historians had neglected: Curtis claims that “the historiography of

modern architecture has reflected a Western bias and continues to do so. This is not to


98

dispute that the primary inventions of modernism occurred mostly in Europe and the

United States. But it is to suggest that insufficient attention and credit have normally

been given to the contribution of places remote from the points of origin.”1

The first idea that can be extracted from the critics’ analysis of Modern Architecture

Since 1900 is the uniqueness of Curtis’s approach when writing both the first and the

third edition of the book. In his 1984 review, Peter Serenyi acknowledges that “no

textbook on modern architecture before this one included chapters on the eclectic

trends of the 1920s and 1930s, and on the innovative buildings of such countries as

Egypt and India of the late 1960s and 1970s.”2 On the occasion of the publication of the

second edition, Peter Blundell Jones welcomed the breath of coverage of Curtis’s book,

and linked it back to Curtis’s aim of addressing precisely what previous histories

lacked. Blundell Jones observes that Curtis’s corrections to his predecessors are

pertinent, “filling some lacunae of the older histories and tracing the post-war

dissemination of Modernism far and wide.”3

Most reviewers note that Curtis focuses “less on the theoretical roots of modern

architecture than on its emergence and ensuing development.”4 However, they also

point at some of the shortcomings that result from Curtis’s focus on the development

of modern architecture. For instance, Stanislaus von Moos declares the chapter on

‘Modern Architecture and Developing Countries since 1960’ among the most

interesting in the first edition, “although here the limitations of the author’s

idiosyncratically aesthetic point of view are most clearly felt.”5 Even if he does not go

into detail on those limitations, Von Moos, a specialist on Le Corbusier refers further

on to Curtis’s insistence on formal analysis and his resistance to political or

philosophical ideas in architectural discourse, which he sees as preventing balanced art

historical procedure. In his review, also of the first edition, Tom Heath discusses the

1 William J.R. Curtis, Modern Architecture Since 1900 (Oxford: Phaidon Press, 1996), 635. 2 Peter Serenyi, review of Modern Architecture Since 1900 by William Curtis, Journal of the Society of Architectural

Historians vol 43, no. 3 (October 1984): 274. 3 Peter Blundell Jones, “Curtis’s Corbussian Bent,” review of Modern Architecture Since 1900 by William Curtis,

Architects’ Journal vol 187, no. 22 (June 1988): 79. 4 Curtis, Modern Architecture since 1900, 14. 5 Stanislaus von Moos, “Revising Modernist History: The Architecture of the 1920s and 1930s (Summer),” review of

Modern Architecture Since 1900 by William Curtis, Art Journal vol 43, no. 2 (summer 1983): 208.


99

‘continuity’ rather than the ‘development’ of the modern tradition and agrees that the

theme of the book is pluralism in the twentieth century.6 Heath praises Curtis’s

selection of architecture in developing countries and the recent past as “impeccable.”7

In contrast, Peter Serenyi sees a positive outcome of Curtis’s stress on the development

of modern architecture. In his opinion, “the author strikes a new kind of balance in

dealing with his subject.”8

Despite Curtis’s effort at inclusion, and the presence in his narrative of Japan, Australia

and some developing countries, Paul Olivier recognises that in the first edition of

Modern Architecture Since 1900 the historian portrays modern architecture as mainly

[North] American and European. Regarding those other countries, and similar to

Heath’s remarks on the pace, Olivier notes “the signs of hasty writing and insufficient

familiarity with the nations concerned is very evident in his brief summaries.”9 Other

reviewers disagree with Olivier’s position. For example, Jorge Sainz believes that Curtis

examines in detail, not briefly, “the impact caused by modern Western ideas on other

cultures, especially on those of the so-called Third World.”10 Furthermore, Martin

Pawley begins his 1983 review by pointing out that Curtis “wrote Modern Architecture

Since 1900 all over the world.”11 As has been discussed thoroughly in the section ‘The

Story of the Writing of Modern Architecture Since 1900’ in Chapter Two of this

dissertation, Curtis was familiar with and had first-hand experience with the architects

and buildings of the countries he introduces in his narrative.

Inevitably, some reviewers mention the notions of ‘tradition’, ‘identity’ and

‘authenticity’ when referring to the development of modern architecture outside of

central Europe and the United States. In the opinion of Samuel B. Frank, in the last

chapter of the book Curtis shows how in the previous twenty years from the 1960s to

6 Tom Heath, review of Modern Architecture Since 1900 by William Curtis, Architecture Australia vol 73, no. 5 (July

1984): 26. 7 Heath, review of Modern Architecture Since 1900, 26. 8 Serenyi, review of Modern Architecture Since 1900, 274. 9 Paul Oliver, review of Modern Architecture Since 1900 by William Curtis, The Oxford Art Journal vol 5, no. 2

Architecture (1983): 56. 10 Jorge Sainz, review of Modern Architecture Since 1900 by William Curtis, Arquitectura (Revista del Colegio Oficial

de Arquitectos de Madrid) vol 266, no. 8 (May-June 1987): 8. Author’s translation into English. 11 Martin Pawley, “Fish are Jumping,” review of Modern Architecture: A Critical History” by Kenneth Frampton and

Modern Architecture Since 1900 by William Curtis, The Architectural Review vol 174, no. 1041 (November 1983): 6.


100

the early 1980s there was confrontation between “the disparate traditions of developing

countries and a revived urge toward regional identity in Europe and the United

States.”12 Frank highlights how Curtis uses the concepts of modernity, tradition, and

authenticity against postmodernism.13 But it is Serenyi who provides the most detailed

review of the way Curtis’s frames his ‘authentic regionalism’ in the book, which

features in the next sections of this chapter. Serenyi writes in his review:

In his treatment of regional developments, the author deals with the question of authenticity most convincingly in connection with the architecture of the developing countries. Curtis rightly believes that two kinds of architects are capable of creating an authentic architecture for these nations: the broadly educated native-born and those Westerners who have either a profound structural or cultural-religious link with the region. He singles out Hassan Fathy of Egypt and Balkrishna Doshi of India mong the native-born and Frei Otto and Denys Lasdun among Westerners as architects who have achieved authenticity in their work.14

On the whole, the reviewers’ references to regionalism are as varied as their responses

to Curtis’s book overall, as presented in Chapter Two of this dissertation, in the section

on ‘Critical Responses to the three Editions of Modern Architecture Since 1900.’ Having

said that, these historians and theorists point at interesting issues that are further

explored in this chapter, namely the absence of most non-Western world from

previous histories and its presence in Curtis’s book, and the relevance of Curtis’s

definitions of tradition, modernity, identity and authenticity in his understanding of

regionalism. My discussion of the chosen examples, Turkey, Greece and Australia,

revolves around these key concepts and their impact in Curtis’s narrative of the

development of modern architecture, not only at the end of the twentieth century.

12 Samuel B. Frank, review of Modern Architecture Since 1900 by William Curtis and Modern Architecture and

Design: An Alternative History by Bill Risebero, Journal of Architectural Education vol 36, no. 4 (summer 1983): 30. 13 Frank, review of Modern Architecture Since 1900 and Modern Architecture and Design: An Alternative History, 30. 14 Serenyi, review of Modern Architecture Since 1900, 275.

Regionalism: Turkey and Greece in Modern Architecture Since 1900

101

2. Turkey and Greece in Modern Architecture Since 1900

Turkey in Modern Architecture Since 19001

In the first edition of Modern Architecture Since 1900 ‘Istanbul’, not ‘Turkey’, appears in

the Index. There are two references regarding Istanbul in two different chapters, and

they both address the figure and work of Le Corbusier: the first appears in the chapter

on ‘Le Corbusier’s Quest for Ideal Form’, when referring to his voyage d’Orient through

Italy, Greece, and Asia Minor, and the second appears in the chapter on ‘Form and

Meaning in the Late Works of Le Corbusier’, when discussing the Parliament Building

in Chandigarh. Turkey, in the first edition of Curtis’s book, appears mainly as

inspiration in the work of Le Corbusier at different stages of his career; there is no

mention of any Turkish modern architect or modern building. It is not until the third

edition of book that Sedad Hakki Eldem and his work are mentioned in the context of

a ‘universalising’ modernism. As a result, from the first to the definitive edition of the

book, there is a shift in the understanding of the position of Turkey in Curtis’s account

of the development of modern architecture, from seeing this country as merely a

source of inspiration to seeing it as an example of the struggle to reconcile modernity

and national identity.

Le Corbusier’s long journey of 1911 was a search for the immutable or perennial values

of architecture and resulted in incisive thumbnail sketches. According to Curtis in the

first edition of the book, Le Corbusier’s sketches of traditional architecture – including

the mosques in Istanbul and Turkish vernacular buildings – helped him “to lock

images in his memory.”2 Le Corbusier’s attitude towards the past and tradition goes

beyond the copying of forms to an attempt “to cut through to the anatomy of past

architecture, to reveal principles of organisation and to relate plan shapes to the

dynamic and sensuous experience of volumes in sequence and in relation to setting.”3

Both a Turkish traditional wooden interior and Sinan’s Mosque of Suleyman in

1 The research on Turkey was presented at ARCHTHEO’ 15 IX Theory and History of Architecture organised by

DAKAM (Eastern Mediterranean Academic Research Center) held 5-7 November 2015 in Istanbul, Turkey. It was published as: Macarena de la Vega, “Turkey in Modern Architecture Since 1900,” in ARCHTHEO’ 15 IX Theory and History of Architecture Conference Proceedings, ed. DAKAM (Istambul: DAKAM Yayinlari, 2015), 520-529. 2 William J.R. Curtis, Modern Architecture Since 1900 (Oxford: Phaidon Press, 1982), 105.

3 Curtis, Modern Architecture Since 1900, 106.


102

Istanbul would raise his interest and would blend with his impression of Greek and

Roman ancient architecture “to become part of a rich stock of forms – the stuff of the

later Le Corbusier’s imagination.”4 Turkey appears again in the chapter on ‘Form and

Meaning in the Late Works of Le Corbusier.’ Curtis writes:

The choice of these forms far transcended utilitarian concerns (in fact, the solution was never entirely practical); they arose rather from the architect’s aim of creating a sort of modern equivalent to the dome – an emblem of state authority and rule. Among the early sketches, there were some showing the Chandigarh stack alongside a section of the dome of the imperial church of Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, and others showing the sun streaming down through the top in a manner inevitably recalling the Roman Pantheon.5

In the second edition of Modern Architecture Since 1900, it is again ‘Istanbul’ that

appears in the alphabetical Index, not ‘Turkey.’ Given that the content of the book

remains unchanged, there are again two references to Turkey in the aforementioned

chapters dedicated to the work of Le Corbusier. However, in the addendum ‘The

Search for Substance: Recent World Architecture (1987),’ the Turkish modern architect

Sedad Hakki Eldem is now mentioned in reference to modern architecture in

developing countries. Among other buildings, Curtis thought “of the work of the

Turkish architect Sedad Hakki Eldem, in particular of his Social Security Complex

(1970) in Istanbul which adjusts the concrete frame to the cadences of the wooden

house vernacular.”6 The addendum shows the beginning of an interest in ‘substance’ or

‘authenticity’ as Curtis updated his account of modern architecture for the second

edition, published in 1987. However, the great task of reorganisation undertaken by

Curtis in preparation for the third edition of the book can be understood as an attempt

to go beyond mere additions and updates towards a more ‘authentic’ overall view of

the development of modern architecture in other parts of the world.

The Turkish modern architect Sedad Hakki Eldem appears in the third edition of

Modern Architecture Since 1900 in reference to the struggle to reconcile modernity and

national identity. Turkey is part of Curtis’s conceptualisation of ‘International,



103

National, Regional: The Diversity of a New Tradition’, where he discusses modern

architecture in Switzerland, Italy, Spain, France, Tunis, Algeria and Greece. Eldem’s

thought and work are, according to Curtis, the result of rejecting “both a superficial

Orientalism of applied domes and arches, and a thoughtless importation of the

International Style. He wished instead to give a new life to basic Turkish traits but in a

widely applicable modern architectural grammar based upon reinforced-concrete

construction.”7 Curtis interprets Eldem’s works in the 1930s as oscillating between

national and international models, and he understands it in the context of broad

cultural dilemmas of the Turkish Republic. Turkey, as other countries in the non-

Western world, had to search for a “sound balance between the forces of

modernisation and secularism on the one hand and the weight of Ottoman and Islamic

traditions on the other.”8 Not only the picture of Eldem’s work in the Taslik Coffee

House in Istanbul, but also his ideas published in 1939 are used by Curtis as the

Turkish example of the conflict between tradition and modernity in the non-Western

world:

Although the same new architectural attitudes and elements are adopted and applied by many different nations, when it comes to ideas and ideals, they all look for ways of maintaining, developing and expressing their own identities. And for this they look back to tradition, they commit themselves to a new ideal or they try to synthesise the two.9

The oscillating process of Eldem’s work results in a ‘universalising’ modernism, with a

reference to local tradition, which is described in the chapter on ‘Modernity, Tradition

and Identity in the Developing World.’ In the third edition, Curtis includes an image of

the Social Security Complex in Istanbul built between 1962 and 1970. According to him,

this building exemplifies how “Sedad Hakki Eldem devoted his life’s work to the

formation of an authentic Turkish style blending national and international elements,”

blending reinforced-concrete standardised elements and local timber frames.10 Curtis

brings the importance of the context, a hill of traditional wooden houses, into his

analysis of how Eldem responds “to the dense scales and textures of the context while

7 William J.R. Curtis, Modern Architecture Since 1900 (Oxford: Phaidon Press, 1996), 381. 8 Curtis, Modern Architecture Since 1900, 381. 9 Curtis, Modern Architecture Since 1900, 381. 10 Curtis, Modern Architecture Since 1900, 578.


104

maintaining a coherent form.”11 However, the main issue, as pointed out in the

chapter’s title, is identity and how Eldem’s work represents Turkish identity going

beyond the play with traditional images and showing a deeper understanding of the

past.

Greece in Modern Architecture Since 190012

In the first edition of the Modern Architecture Since 1900 there are four references to

Greece as a source of inspiration for non-Greek architects. As in Turkey’s case two

references address the figure and work of Le Corbusier; the first appears in the chapter

on ‘Le Corbusier’s Quest for Ideal Form’, when referring to his voyage d’Orient through

Italy, Greece and Asia Minor, and the second appears in the chapter on ‘The Unité

d’Habitation at Marseilles as a Collective Housing.’ The third reference addresses Louis

Kahn, in the chapter on ‘Louis I. Kahn and the Challenge of Monumentality’, and the

last discusses Alison and Peter Smithson, in ‘Architecture and Anti-architecture in

England.’ Surprisingly, Greece is also mentioned as influencing Alvar Aalto, but this

does not appear in the index until the third edition. Conversely, the reference to

Kahn’s Greek influence disappears from the index in 1996, but not from the main text.

In addition to two references to Aalto’s work, the third edition has two new references

to Greece, which appear in the chapter on ‘International, National, Regional: The

Diversity of a New Tradition’, and in the chapter on ‘Disjunctions and Continuities in

the Europe of the 1950s.’

Thus, similar to Turkey, in the first edition of Modern Architecture Since 1900 Greece

appears mainly as inspiration. There is no mention of any Greek modern architect or

modern building. It is not until the third edition of the book that Dimitris Pikionis and

his work are mentioned in the context of a ‘universalising’ modernism. As with Turkey,

from the first to the definitive edition of the book there is a shift in Curtis’s

understanding of the position of Greece in the development of modern architecture,

11 Curtis, Modern Architecture Since 1900, 578. 12 The research on Greece was presented at the 6th Annual International Conference on Architecture organised by

ATINER (Athens Institute for Education and Research) held 4-7 July 2016 in Athens, Greece. It was published as Macarena de la Vega, “Towards Authenticity: Greece in Modern Architecture Since 1900,” Athens Journal of Architecture vol 3, no. 1 (January 2017): 7-20.


105

from seeing it as a source of inspiration for modern architects to an example of the

struggle to reconcile modernity and tradition.

Le Corbusier’s sketches of traditional architecture drawn during his long journey of 1911

– including the white cubic dwellings of the Greek coast– helped him “to lock images

in his memory.”13 As with Turkey, in the first edition of his book, Curtis points out Le

Corbusier’s attitude towards the past and tradition goes beyond the copying of forms,

and that Greek, together with Roman and Turkish impressions became part of his

imagination.14

But the greatest impression was made by the Acropolis at Athens. Curtis observes how

Le Corbusier visited the Parthenon every day, sometimes for hours, sketching it from

many angles. He was impressed by the strength of the underlying idea, by the

sculptural energy, by the precision of the forms (even then he compared the Parthenon

to a ‘machine’) and by the relationship to the site and the far distant views of mountain

and sea. In Curtis’s opinion, there was something about the ceremonial procession

over the rising strata of rock which Jeanneret, the young Le Corbusier, never forgot.

The Parthenon gave him a glimpse of an elusive absolute which continued to haunt

him.15 Curtis reiterates how, at the time he was working on the Unité d’Habitation at

Marseilles the memories of Greece were still in his mind: “this little acropolis of

resounding silent objects in light seems set up to celebrate a healthy balance between

the mental and the physical.”16

In addition to Le Corbusier, other modern architects were impressed by Greek classic

architecture, and this was recorded by Curtis in the first edition of Modern

Architecture Since 1900. In the early 1950s Louis Kahn stayed at the American Academy

in Rome and travelled through Greece and Egypt. In Curtis’s opinion, “his sketchbooks

of this period suggest he was trying to get back to basics – to probe the central

meanings of architecture.”17 Later on, in the early sixties, the “processional character”

13 William J.R. Curtis, Modern Architecture Since 1900 (Oxford: Phaidon Press, 1982), 105.



16 William J.R. Curtis, Modern Architecture Since 1900 (Oxford: Phaidon Press, 1996), 284-286.



106

of the Economist Cluster’s walkway designed by Alison and Peter Smithson “was

evidently inspired by a visit to Greece.”18

As previously mentioned, even if it does not appear in the index, Greece is also

mentioned in a chapter on the work of Alvar Aalto in the first edition of Modern

Architecture Since 1900. Firstly, Curtis discusses the Town Hall in Säynätsalo in terms

of egalitarianism and involvement. In his opinion, the curved profile of the benches

“recalled Aalto’s sketches of the mouldings in Greek theatres” and the rectangular state

chamber for council meetings was inspired by “ancient Hellenistic cities such as

Miletus or Priene.”19 Curtis describes the building as casual and civic, not monumental,

and as somewhere between the rural and the urban. He writes: “In Aalto’s private

terms it drew together the Greek democratic city in its ruined shape with the scraped

glacial contours of the north.”20 Secondly, Curtis writes that the Helsinki University of

Technology in Espoo had a source of ‘laws’ in nature, and was evidence of Aalto’s

interest in the relationship between the intellectual and the sensual in Greek ancient

architecture.

But whereas for the Swiss [Le Corbusier] the Parthenon was the prime example (a ‘pure creation of the mind’), for Aalto the chief inspiration lay in the way the Greeks arranged their urban sites with amphitheatres, stadia, and ceremonial platforms linked by paths and routes. It was an ‘irregular’ order of this kind – in which there was, nonetheless, a harmony of buildings, landscape and the spirit of place – that Aalto managed to evoke in his drawings of antique ruins, especially Delphi, and that he attempted to translate into his own architecture and urban designs. It may be that the final touchstone for the far shape which so obsessed him was the Greek amphitheatre, fractured and eroded by the time.21

In the third edition of Modern Architecture Since 1900, Curtis looks at the modern

architecture of Greece, along with that of other countries, in a discussion of

regionalism, universalism and the development of modern architecture in parts of the

world other than North America and central Europe. When discussing the relationship

between modernity and tradition, Curtis claims that the forms of modern architecture

18 Curtis, Modern Architecture Since 1900, 320. 19 Curtis, Modern Architecture Since 1900, 457. 20 Curtis, Modern Architecture Since 1900, 457-458.



107

were more likely to marry with local traditions where modern architects had found

some source of inspiration in those traditions, as was the case with Greek ancient

architecture. What Curtis characterises as ‘Mediterraneanism’ and ‘Hellenism’ in some

of Le Corbusier’s works in the twenties influenced Greek architects who rejected

revivalism and embraced modernism before the decade ended. They attempted to root

the new international language “in the social habits, spatial patterns and landscape of

their own country. Analogies between the cubic white volumes and flat roofs of

modern architecture and the vernaculars of the Greek islands were not so hard to

make.”22

Curtis highlights the work of Dimitris Pikionis in the elementary school on Lycabettus

Hill in Athens and the experimental school in the north Greek city of Thessaloniki as

an example of this marriage in the 1930s. Stamo Papadaki (Stami in Curtis’s book) and

Aris Konstantinidis are referred to as “Greek architects who wished to seek out some

common ground between a modernist simplification and popular roots.”23 According

to Curtis, Pikionis’ work around 1950 and, more generally, Greek architecture, together

with Spanish and Portuguese architecture, are examples of “more ‘culturally specific’

readings of peasant forms.”24 In Pikionis’ work at that time, with its aesthetic of

fragments and traces, Curtis finds a method, if not form, similar to Scarpa’s, both

architects showing an acute sensitivity to the genius loci.25 The pavilion next to the

Church of St Dimitris Loumbardiaris below the Acropolis in Athens, in Curtis’s

opinion, consolidated Pikionis’ “research into the supposed origins of Greek

Mediterranean culture by seeking out correspondences between the basis of classicism

(visualised through a species of primitive hut) and the archetypes of the house.”26 The

Philopappou Hill in Athens in 1950-7 incorporated bits of ruins, cyclopean slabs of rock

and crude chippings in a pattern of varying textures, rhythms and intensities;

according to Curtis, Pikionis wished to explore an archaic and timeless sense of space.







108

In brief, Curtis does not include works of modern architects from Turkey or Greece in

his account of the development of modern architecture until the third and definitive

edition of Modern Architecture Since 1900.

Towards Universalism

Regionalism, as it is explored in the last section of this chapter, was not a new notion

at the time when Curtis was writing his book. In the 1930s, it was the early

historiography of modern architecture setting the aims and objectives of modern

architecture itself through their writing. In the third edition of Modern Architecture

Since 1900, Curtis blames early histories and historians for formulating a

‘misunderstood’ account of modern architecture. Alberto Sartoris, Emil Kaufmann,

Henry-Russell Hitchcock, Philip Johnson, Walter Curt Behrendt, Nikolaus Pevsner,

Lewis Mumford and Sigfried Giedion built genealogies and lineages for modern

architecture relying mostly on their personal preferences and theories about history, as

was his case, one could argue: “Inevitably the early accounts reproduced some of the

rhetoric that modern architects themselves used to promote themselves and defend

their own work; inevitably too they reflected the biases, allegiances, even geographical

situation of their authors.”27 Giedion’s writings at this time are harshly criticised by

Curtis for having ignored regionalist or classicizing influences in the formation and

development of the work of the so called modern masters.

By reflecting on, and rethinking, the notion of regionalism, and by considering

‘universalism’ a more accurate way to refer to modern architecture, and its

understanding in diverse countries throughout the world, Curtis already did – or at

least attempted to do – what Esra Ackan was asking of scholars in 2002, as discussed in

Chapter One of this dissertation: namely, to construct a new understanding of

universality and to find universally shared values that represent everyone and

everything worldwide.28 Curtis writes:

It is not unreasonable to posit a ‘universalizing’ aspect to modernism in this period, so long as one strips away the Western bias and progressive


28 Esra Akcan, “Critical Practice in the Global Era: The Question Concerning ‘Other’ Geographies,” Architectural

Theory Review vol 7 no. 1 (February 2002): 37.


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assumptions which lurk behind this formulation, and so long as one also takes into account national and regional histories with their own logic and momentum. In the 1930s there was a species of ‘cross-fertilisation’ in which modern architecture was drawn into a variety of local agendas, and in which regional preoccupations were also given an international stamp. Sometimes the new simply collided with the old; sometimes there was mutual transformation. Modern forms made a break with what had gone immediately before, but they also allowed the substructures of national or regional cultures to be understood in new ways.29

As discussed in this section, in the first edition of Modern Architecture Since 1900

(1982), fifty years after the first accounts of modern architecture, and despite the

specific aim of completing the account of the development of modern architecture,

Curtis ignores, or fails to include, the work of Dimitris Pikionis and Sedad Hakki

Eldem, as well as modern architecture in Greece and Turkey more generally. It was not

until the definitive edition of the book that he provided readers and students with a

more complete account of the development of modern architecture beyond the

Western perspective, placing authenticity and a sense of universalism at the core of his

research. However, this is not the case with every country outside of the Western

canon of central Europe and the United States. As will be demonstrated in the next

section, Curtis’s account of modern architecture in Australia, among other countries

like Japan, Mexico and Brazil, was already relatively complete in the first edition of

Modern Architecture Since 190o.

3. Australia in Modern Architecture Since 19001

Compared to the additions and modifications of other post-colonial examples, there is

only a subtle difference in Curtis’s account of Australian modern architecture between

the first and the third editions of Modern Architecture Since 1900. Even in the third

edition the main reference to modern architecture in Australia is reserved for the

Sydney Opera House, though thoroughly complemented with the discussion of the


1 The research on Australia was presented at 4th International Conference of the EAHN (European Architectural

History Network) held 2-4 June 2016 in Dublin, Ireland. It was published as Macarena de la Vega, “Australia in Modern Architecture Since 1900,” in Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference of the European Architectural History Network, ed. by Kathleen James-Chakraborty (Dublin: UCD School of Art History and Cultural Policy, 2016), 295-301.

Regionalism: Australia in Modern Architecture Since 1900

110

work of Harry Seidler, Peter Muller, Peter Johnson, Rick Leplastrier and Glenn

Murcutt. The next section investigates the impact of Curtis’s own experiences on his

account of Australian architecture in Modern Architecture Since 1900.

Changes between Editions

In the first edition ‘Australia’ appears twice in the index: there is one reference to

‘Sydney’, and there are four references to the ‘Sydney Opera House.’ The opera house is

mentioned in the addendum to the second edition as a clear influence on Fumihiko

Maki’s Municipal Gymnasium in Fujisawa. In the definitive third edition, there are no

changes in the references to the opera house, and there are several new references to

‘Australia.’ In the chapter of the first edition of the book entitled ‘Modern Architecture

in the U.S.A: Immigration and Consolidation’, Australia is considered, together with

India, as an example of a country whose “modern architecture had to begin from

scratch,”2 or “virtually from scratch.”3 According to Curtis, some countries, including

Australia, had received “bastardised and stereotyped” images, and many of the

“standardised emblems of modernisation,” from the United States after the war as

proof of the international victory of modern architecture.4 Australia appears for the

second time in the chapter, ‘The Problem of Regional Identity’ together with countries

in Latin America and Japan, where, around 1960, “transformations, deviations and

devaluations of modern architecture had found their way,” and not the orthodoxy of

the International Style.5 Curtis relates these experiences to a ‘modern regionalism’

which had been imported from the west coast of the United States, citing domestic

strategies in California in the first edition; a reference which is made clearer in the

third edition when he discusses the Case Study Program.6

Before moving on to Harry Seidler, Curtis briefly mentions Walter Burley Griffin as

introducing ‘Wrightian’ influences to Australia, and discusses the particularities

regarding the aboriginal population and the debates on the problem of an Australian




5 Curtis, Modern Architecture Since 1900, 491. 6 Curtis, Modern Architecture Since 1900, 505.


111

cultural identity. First, it is noteworthy that Curtis changes the word ‘indigenous’ in

the first edition (p. 258) to ‘Aboriginal’ in the third edition (p. 503), and that he uses

the word ‘tension’ to refer to an Australian tradition (or lack thereof) complicated “by

the relatively recent arrival of Europeans and by the fact that the Aboriginal population

expressed its ideas through other means than permanent buildings.”7 ‘Indigenous’ has

a broader meaning, whereas the use of ‘Aboriginal’ shows a better understanding of the

Australian context and its specific social circumstances. Second, Curtis considers

Australia to be one of the countries asserting themselves after colonialism, like some

Third World countries where regional architectural tendencies frequently ended up

allied to nationalism.8 As a result and in Curtis’s opinion, the problem of an Australian

cultural identity made its appearance in the architectural debate and was not solved by

the international influences after the Second World War.

Curtis presents Harry Seidler as responsible for introducing universalizing ideas and

imitations of eastern American architectural language to Australia as a result of his

cosmopolitan education and training. Seidler makes merely slight adjustments to this

language, which in the author’s opinion is evidence of his uncompromising stance and

strong modernist position. This is one of the many critical judgements presented by

Curtis in the first edition of the book that are suppressed in the third edition. Curtis

substantiates his criticism by citing Paul Rudolph, who, like Seidler, was part of the

Graduate School of Design at Harvard, and, like Curtis, was also one of the critics

theorising regionalism at that time. Curtis refers to the fact that, in Rudolph’s opinion,

Seidler’s House is “the Harvard house incarnate transferred to Sydney without any

modification whatsoever.”9 In his own essay on regionalism, Rudolph posits:

It is difficult to believe that it would not have taken on a new significance if the principles which formed its prototypes were better understood. Regionalism is one way toward that richness in architecture which other movements have enjoyed and which is lacking today.10

7 Curtis, Modern Architecture Since 1900,503-04.

8 Curtis, Modern Architecture Since 1900,504.

9 Curtis, Modern Architecture Since 1900,504.

10 Paul Rudolph, “Regionalism in Architecture,” Perspecta vol 4 (1957), 13.


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Curtis briefly mentions Peter Muller and his ‘modern regionalism’, Peter Johnson and

his brutalist ideology and William Lucas when referring to the casualness of a new

suburban way of life in Australia. William Lucas appears in the first edition together

with Neville Gruzman as examples of architects working from Wright’s philosophy. In

the third edition, this reference to Gruzman is removed, while Ruth Lucas’s name is

added alongside her husband’s in the caption describing their Lucas House. According

to Curtis, their work embodied an attempt at producing a new Australian architecture.

In the third edition, the chapter is renamed ‘The Process of Absorption: Latin America,

Australia, Japan’, deleting the reference to regionalism and identity. Curtis introduces

the notion that, at that time, Australian modern architecture ran from

internationalism to a ‘species of regionalism’, and that urban society in the country –

like that in Latin America but unlike that in Japan – had a more automatic affinity with

the Western understanding of modernity.

The Sydney Opera House is, according to Curtis, more a result of the Scandinavian

tradition and its influence on Jørn Utzon’s design than a product of Australian

architecture. The main description and analysis of the building appears in a chapter

that in the three editions of Modern Architecture Since 1900 is called ‘Alvar Aalto and

the Scandinavian Tradition.’ Here Curtis focusses more on Utzon’s design than on the

actual result, giving more importance to the aims behind the section than to Arup’s

structural solution. There are three main ideas in Curtis’s discussion of this iconic

building: its originality, its symbolism and its significance. Firstly, the opera house is

considered a prototype, and given its newness it is regarded, as are most original works

of art, as having few sources or analogies. Secondly, Curtis agrees with Philip Drew in

Third Generation and with Utzon himself, in considering the building to be a modern

cathedral, consecrating its symbolism to a “supremely important national art.”11

Thirdly, the choice of this building as an icon of the architecture of the second half of

the twentieth century was, according to Curtis, in a sense premature. At the time that

this choice was made by Sigfried Giedion and other historians, it was not clear how

buildable Utzon’s design was. Curtis wrote:



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Long before this [becoming an Australian national icon], the Sydney Opera House had become part of the folklore of modern architecture. Sigfried Giedion published the design in late editions of Space, Time and Architecture, and conferred upon Utzon the mantle of the great tradition.12

According to Giedion, one of the aims of the third generation of modern architects was

the transformation of ancient monumentality. It does not come as a surprise, then,

that the next reference to the opera house appears in the chapter on Louis I. Kahn and

the ‘challenge’ of monumentality, where it was classed together with Hans Scharoun’s

Philharmonie in Berlin as an example of abstractions of classicism that created a new

monumentality. In the chapter on ‘Crises and Critiques in the 1960s,’ Curtis

understands the opera house together with Kenzo Tange’s Japanese town halls, as new

civic monuments. Curtis ends his first edition in 1982 with a reflection on the Sydney

Opera House as a powerful image, and he finishes the third part in the third edition in

the same way, showing no change in his position. Even in 1996, Curtis writes that the

opera house exemplifies the opposition and coalescence of different layers of polarity –

rational and organic, supporting and supported, stable and dynamic – adding

“however, imagery is not overplayed and is supported by form. Form in turn arises

directly from a simple structural means attuned to serve ideas.”13

Finally, in the last chapter of the first edition, entitled ‘The Traditions of Modern

Architecture in the Recent Past’, Curtis includes a detailed account of Romaldo

Giurgola’s entry to the competition for a new Australian Parliament building in

Canberra (1980). Curtis describes the project as “a virtual inventory of contemporary

preoccupations” and focusses his interest on Giurgola’s gesture of “blending the

building with its context.”14 Curtis presents the building as having an “appealing

collagist aspect.”15 Interestingly, the reference to the Parliament building competition

is removed from the revised chapter on ‘Pluralism in the 1970s’ in the third edition of

Modern Architecture Since 1900.



14 Curtis, Modern Architecture Since 1900 (1982), 382. 15 Curtis, Modern Architecture Since 1900 (1982), 382.


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Apart from the aforementioned differences between the three editions of the book

regarding Australia, there are two main additions to the content of the third edition

which relate to Burley Griffin and Glenn Murcutt. Burley Griffin’s plan for the new

capital city was “an organic conception blending a non-authoritarian monumentality

with a dispersed garden city,” while Newman College in Melbourne was “a hybrid of

modern skeletal thinking, abstracted Gothic motifs, and vaguely geological

metaphors.”16 It is interesting how Curtis places Burley Griffin’s work in the early

chapter on ‘The Continuity of Older Traditions’, identifying his relation to Wright and

the Prairie School, and then again in a later chapter on ‘The Crystallisation of Modern

Architecture Between the Wars’, even though the work he refers to is prior to the First

World War. It is a chapter which adds rare examples from Europe, the United States,

India and Australia to Curtis’s discourse.

At the other end of the twentieth century, Curtis includes Australia in his account of

‘The Universal and the Local: Landscape, Climate and Culture.’ It is necessary to

understand that Curtis wrote the book in the midst of the debates on post-modern

architecture and approaches to history. One of the aims of Curtis’s book was to

demonstrate that modern architecture is not the rootless phenomenon that previous

historiography, with its Western bias, has presented it as. It is relevant for him to

convey that modern architects did not reject history and tradition and that there were

modern architects outside of Europe and the United States. The interaction between

the international and the regional, between modernity and tradition in the post-

colonial world is a great example of the importance of roots.

Regionalism was a notion, Curtis wrote in 1996, which did no justice to the

developments it tried to characterise, as it could imply a sense of provinciality or

periphery. That is why Curtis uses the expression ‘blend of different universalisms’,

implying a new polarity between the regional and the universal. Examples of these

ideas are, on the one hand, the Australian domestic architecture of the 1970s and 1980s

and the work of Rick Lepastrier (whom Curtis met and with whom he discussed

Australian architecture in the early 1980s), and on the other, the response to different



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climatic zones given by Glenn Murcutt and Murcutt’s notion of ‘legible landscape’ that

links him back to the Aboriginal Australians.17

Landscape is the key not only to understanding Murcutt’s architecture but also to

framing Australian architecture within a tradition that includes Aboriginal Australia –

the Outback mythology. Curtis writes:

Before the arrival of the colonialists, the Aboriginal population of Australia had made shelters from the most minimal materials (...). In this largely nomadic culture, the landscape itself (both visible and invisible) had supplied a monumental framework and an extended hold of meanings. (...) In the mid-twentieth century a certain mythology of the ‘outback’ was developed by the largely urban population settled around the image of a temporary shed, often with a timber veranda and a tin roof.18

It appears that Curtis had, at the least, problems ‘locating’ the content about Australia

in the first edition of the book, both thematically and chronologically. However, as has

been shown, even having visited the country, Curtis focusses his attention on the work

of immigrant architects and on the import of modern forms. His general reflections on

regionalism, universalism and landscape are supported by brief descriptions of a few

examples. But what is even more interesting is how his brave judgments of Australian

complexities in the search for a national identity were suppressed when preparing the

definitive edition of Modern Architecture Since 1900. Despite these shortcomings,

Curtis’s account of Australian modern architecture is the most complete of the

historiography of modern architecture to this day.19

A Universal Tradition

To sum up, regardless of if we are referring to Curtis’s general discourse, his account of

Australia in the different editions of Modern Architecture or his notion of authenticity,

the key concepts that draw his ideas together are tradition and universalism. Modern

architecture is for Curtis a tradition, and with this definition the dichotomy between

modernity and tradition disappears.



19 I explore this issue further in Macarena de la Vega, “A Tale of Inconsistency: The Absence and Presence of

Australia in the Historiography of Modern Architecture,” Fabrications vol 28, no. 1 (February 2018): 47-76.


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It is also important to remember that Curtis characterises this modern tradition as a

phenomenon which embraces transformation. Curtis includes post-colonial or Third

World countries in his account of modern architecture by discussing the process of

absorbing and then transforming tradition. What tradition is there to be found in

Australia? On the one hand, Curtis admits that Australian architecture needs to begin

from scratch and that architects have been searching for a new Australian architecture.

On the other hand, this was done in a land that combined Aboriginal traditions with

imported influences, and, even if his account of Australia makes sense within the

book’s general discourse and Curtis’s understanding of regionalism, the examples he

chose that may not be ‘authentic’ enough, since they are mostly representative of the

imported tradition, in the case of Harry Seidler, or of a foreign tradition, in the case of

the Sydney Opera House.

Tradition is transformed everywhere in the world, not only in the post-colonial world.

Curtis’s argument defends the modern tradition in architecture as a universal

phenomenon that brings together Europe, the United States and the rest of the world.

That way he solves an undesirable consequence of the use of the notion of regionalism.

Regionalism implied a periphery from a ‘metropolis’ or centre embodied in the

Western tradition. And, why was not Australia at that time considered a clear example

of regionalism? It could be that Australia’s automatic affinity with the Western

understanding of modernity resulted in it being less ‘regional’ than India, Kuwait or

Bangladesh. However, these differences are not as relevant when the dichotomy

between international and regional disappears as a result of the notion of universalism.

And this is how, between 1982 and 1996, Curtis went from the search for an ‘authentic’

regionalism to framing his account of the development of a universal tradition, which

will be further discussed in the next section. However, this conception was hardly new.

As early as 1922, Marcello Piacentini – an Italian architect – rejected the use of

international and vernacular as opposed qualifiers for architecture, and Curtis later

claimed his refection of the opposition of modernity and tradition. Curtis writes:

‘It involves’, he [Piacentini] says, ‘basically resolving the debate between impersonal, international, standardised architecture and localised vernacular architecture. Are the two tendencies really antithetical? Is it


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possible to arrive at a vision of sane architecture, which will be neither old nor new, but simply true?’ I think that it is worthwhile to reflect on that specially given a certain style of thought, which insists on opposing modernity to tradition. This opposition arises from a false understanding of both ideas. The best within modernism can be profoundly rooted in tradition; and the best in tradition is to do with a dynamic process of rethinking certain central kernel ideas.20

In the tradition of the historiography of modern architecture, modernity and its

expression in architecture, were presented as aiming for a certain internationalism.

Likewise, regionalism has been understood from a historiographic point of view as

linked to tradition and the vernacular. Curtis empowers the notion of universalism

with the aim of returning to architectural principles, to the basic values. And, in doing

so, he dissolves the debate between modernity and tradition and between the

international and the regional. In understanding the development of modern

architecture as a ‘universal’ tradition, Curtis may have found the balance he aimed for.

The writing of Modern Architecture Since 1900 could be considered a ‘universal’ task, as

previously discussed in Chapter Two of this dissertation. In the case of Curtis’s account

of Australian modern architecture, it was a task grounded in first-hand experience,

and, as a result, in the use of varied and complete sources. In the case of the opera

house, he uses Giedion and Drew’s account of the third generation as a starting point

and also bases his interpretation in Utzon’s own writings.21 For a general treatment of

the arrival of modern architecture in Australia he proposes Goad and Willis’s

‘triumvirate’: John Maxwell Freeland’s Architecture in Australia – A History (1968),

Donald Leslie Johnson’s Australian Architecture 1901-51: Sources of Modernism (1980),

and the numerous writings of Robin Boyd on the Australian environment.22 “This is

not to suggest that such historiographical methodology is inherently flawed. Instead

the problem lies in the fact that these histories continue to form the backbone of

interpretation of architectural history in Australia” – and also the backbone of the

20 Curtis, “Regionalism in Architecture,” 73.

21 Jørn Utzon, “The Sydney Opera House,” Zodiac 14 (1965), 49. 22 John Maxwell Freeland, Architecture in Australia – A History (Melbourne/Canberra/Sydney: FW Cheshire, 1968).

Donald Leslie Johnson, Australian Architecture 1901-51, Sources of Modernism (Sydney, 1980).


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account of Australia in architectural historiography, as this essay has shown.23 To

understand the ideas behind the houses in Sydney area and how they reflect a concern

with ‘place’ and ‘identity’ Curtis endorses Jennifer Taylor’s An Australian Identity:

Houses for Sydney 1953-1963 and a paper published in Transition by Winsome

Callister.24 Curtis’s source on Burley Griffin is James Birrell.25 And, finally, he also

recommends Fromonot’s and Drew’s work on Murcutt. For useful observations on the

Sydney milieu of the 1970s, Curtis refers the reader to ‘Australie’, a special issue of

L’Architecture d’Aujourd'hui edited by Fromonot in 1993, and to Leon Paroissien’s and

Michael Griggs’s Old Continent, New Building: Contemporary Australian Architecture

(1983).26 Sadly, there are no notes in reference to Burley Griffin’s plan for Canberra or

to Giurgola’s plan for Parliament House, and thus, no mention of sources.

Curtis still has very vivid memories of his three visits to Australia between 1980 and

1981. During his first visit he gave several lectures, including in Canberra. During his

second visit he taught at the University of New South Wales while working “hard” on

the manuscript of Modern Architecture since 1900. “The last third of the manuscript

was nearly lost at the bottom of the River Hawkesbury in Australia when a canoe tilted

over”.27 In his third visit, Curtis gave the Power Lecture in several cities, and taught for

six weeks at Queensland Institute of Technology (now Queensland University of

Technology) where he met Tom Heath, Professor and Head of School of Architecture

at QIT. Moreover, he finished writing the last chapter of Modern Architecture, which

concludes with a reference to the Sydney Opera House, as previously mentioned, in a

beach house in Coolum Beach, 70 miles north of Brisbane. He recalls it being the result

of a single twenty-four hour sitting, and when it was finished he “rushed into the waves

and the surf as the sun was rising out of the Pacific... true creation myth.”28 Therefore,

23 Philip Goad and Julie Willis, “A Bigger Picture: Reframing Australian Architectural History,” Fabrications vol 18,

no.1 (June 2008): 18. 24 Jennifer Taylor, An Australian Identity, Houses for Sydney 1953-1963 (Sydney, 1972). Winsome Callister, “Dealing

with the ‘Sydney School’: Perspectives on Australian Architecture in the 1950s and 1960s,” Transition (September 1987): 6-12. 25 James Birrell, Walter Burley Griffin (Brisbane: University of Queensland Press, 1974). 26 Françoise Fromonot, ed., “Australie,” L’Architecture d’Aujourd'hui, no. 285 (February 1993). Leon Paroissien and

Michael Griggs, Old Continent, New Building, Contemporary Australian Architecture (Sydney: David Ell Press, 1983). 27 Curtis, Modern Architecture Since 1900 (1982), 6.

28 William J.R. Curtis, email message to author, March 11, 2016.


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it can be stated that the absence of more built examples of authentic Australian

architecture is not the result of lack of knowledge or experience, but may be a result of

the broader aims of the book. It is also true that some of these examples may be too

urban to fit the discourse of landscape and universalism.

Despite these remarks, Curtis provides a comprehensive narrative of Australian

architecture throughout his discourse on the development of modern architecture.

Although he visited Australia while working on the manuscript of the first edition, and

not while re-working on it, his understanding of Australian modern architecture

deepened between 1982 and 1996, between the editions of the book. In addition to this,

a relevant outcome of his research is the development of his own thinking, from his

ideas on ‘authentic’ regionalism in the early 1980s to his definition of universalism.

4. Contextualising Regionalism between the 1970s and the 1990s1

Framing Regionalism(s)

The decade of the 1980s was key to the framing of the notion of ‘Regionalism’, because

of a series of events and publications. The term ‘critical regionalism’ was first

introduced by Alexandre Tzonis and Liane Lefaivre in the essay “The Grid and the

Pathway,” published in Architecture in Greece in 1981.2 In 1982 Curtis published Modern

Architecture Since 1900 including a chapter on ‘The Problem of Regional Identity.’ In

1983 Peter Buchanan published “With Due Respect: Regionalism” in The Architectural

Review.3 In June 1983 the Royal Australian Institute of Architects (RAIA) organised the

conference ‘The City in Conflict’ in Sydney, looking at cities as buildings, as politics

and as history. Charles Correa and Demetri Porphyrios, among others, defended their

positions, and Kenneth Frampton “propounded critical regionalism.”4 Also in 1983,

1 Part of this research on contextualising regionalism was presented at the 34th International Conference of the

Society of Architectural Historians, Australia and New Zealand, held 6-8 July 2017 in Canberra, Australia. Published as “Revisiting Quotations: Regionalism in Historiography,” Quotation: What does History have in Store for Architecture Today, Proceedings of the 34th Annual Conference of the Society of Architectural Historians, Australia and New Zealand, edited by Gevork Hartoonian and John Ting, 125-134. Canberra: SAHANZ, 2017. 2 Alexander Tzonis and Liane Lefaivre, “The Grid and the Pathway: An Introduction to the Work of Dimitris and

Susana Antonakakis,” Architecture in Greece, no. 15 (1981), 164-178. 3 Peter Buchanan, “With Due Respect: Regionalism,” The Architectural Review, 1035 (May 1983). 4 Dinah Fisher, “The City as Culture,” Architecture Australia vol 72, no. 5 (September 1983): 72.

Regionalism: Context Between the 1970s and the 1990s

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Frampton published his essays on critical regionalism: “Prospects for a Critical

Regionalism” and “Towards a Critical Regionalism,” and only two years later, in 1985,

he added a chapter on ‘Critical Regionalism: Modern Architecture and Cultural

Identity’ to the second edition of his book Modern Architecture: A Critical History.5

1985 was also the year when the Regional Seminar sponsored by the Aga Khan Award

for Architecture was held at Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology,

with the participation of Curtis and Frampton, among others.6 In 1986 Curtis published

“Towards an Authentic Regionalism,” and 1989 was the year in which Frampton

participated in the first international Colloquium on Critical Regionalism at Pomona

University where he already re-visited the notion.

The regional seminar sponsored by the Aga Khan Award for Architecture held at

Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology in 1985 raised several interesting

issues. Firstly, some authors, without fully defining ‘regionalism’, move directly to

proposing classifications or categories within regionalism – that is, more categories,

more labelling. They followed in the footsteps of Harwell Hamilton Harris who in 1954,

as quoted by Frampton in his Critical History, differentiated between a Regionalism of

Restriction, practiced in New England, and a Regionalism of Liberation, practiced in

California.7 For example, Suha Özkan, in the introduction to the seminar’s proceedings

differentiates between two approaches to ‘vernacularism’ – a conservative one and an

interpretive ‘neo-vernacularism’ – and what he calls ‘modern-regionalism’, which are

materialised with different degrees of success. According to Özkan, “the line which

separates a solemn, praiseworthy regionalist achievement from a worthless pastiche or

a potpourri of the past is very thin and delicate.”8 In his paper, Habib Fida Ali makes

another classification. He argues that “when we talk of regionalism as a source of

inspiration we must make the distinction between regionalism as an ideology opposed

5 Kenneth Frampton, Modern Architecture: A Critical History (London: Thames and Hudson, 1980). Frampton,

“Towards a Critical Regionalism: Six Points for an Architecture of Resistance,” in The Anti-Aesthetic: Essays on Post-Modern Culture, ed. Hal Foster (Seattle: Bay Press, 1983). Frampton, “Prospects for a Critical Regionalism," Perspecta vol 20 (1983). 6 Robert Powell, ed., Regionalism in Architecture (Singapore: Concept Media/ The Aga Khan Award for

Architecture, 1985). 7 Frampton, Modern Architecture: A Critical History, 320. 8 Suha Özkan, “Regionalism within Modernism,” in Regionalism in Architecture, ed. Robert Powell (Singapore:

Concept Media/The Aga Khan Award for Architecture, 1985), 14.


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to universalism and regionalism as an objective analysis which focusses on specific

demands on architecture.”9 There seems to be a lack of consistency in some discourses,

with some authors using the notions of ‘internationalism’ and ‘universalism’

interchangeably, and others seeing nuances between them.

And, secondly, theorists reflect on the idea of whether regionalism, like identity, is

something you look for, or something you need to find a way to express. The idea of

countries and cultures which have undergone colonisation searching for an identity

does sound like a Western cliché or imposition. This issue was raised at the panel

discussion chaired by Frampton on spontaneous architecture, or architecture without

architects. Shamim Ara Hassan asked the participants this question: “I also wonder

whether regionalism is something which is to be consciously strived for or is it

something which grows into the architecture of a region without any conscious

effort.”10 Hasan-Uddin Khan put it in other words in relation to the idea of identity, of

these countries knowing already who they are: “I don’t think we need to look for

regional architectures but we do need to find ways and means that express some of

these feelings within us through the built form.”11

Three years later, in 1989, several scholars from Europe and the United States – with

four exceptions, from Israel, Mexico, Japan and Australia – gathered for the first

international Colloquium on Critical Regionalism at Pomona; especially relevant for

my discussion here is the participation of Lefaivre, Tzonis and Frampton. Apart from a

theoretical discussion, the meeting explored different ‘paradigms in practice’, different

case studies, and, interestingly, the applications of critical regionalism to education in

architecture. Two main ideas emerged from this meeting: firstly, these scholars

considered critical regionalism to have “re-emerged today”12 and to be worthy of being

9 Habib Fida Ali, “Regionalism as a Source of Inspiration for Architects,” in Regionalism in Architecture, ed. Robert

Powell (Singapore: Concept Media/The Aga Khan Award for Architecture, 1985), 92. 10 Kenneth Frampton, “Session II: Panel Discussion,” in Regionalism in Architecture, ed. Robert Powell (Singapore:

Concept Media/The Aga Khan Award for Architecture, 1985), 70. 11 Frampton, “Session II: Panel Discussion,” 70. 12 Alexander Tzonis and Liane Lefaivre, “Critical Regionalism,” in Critical Regionalism: The Pomona Meeting

Proceedings, ed. Spyros Amourgis (Pomona: College of Environmental Design, CSP University, 1991), 3.


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“re-visited;”13 secondly, there was significant use of the term ‘defamiliarisation’,

understood as a strategy or process used by critical regionalism to strengthen the

particular when emphasizing context, sensitivity to the environment, history and

culture.14 According to Lefaivre and Tzonis, critical regionalism ‘defamiliarises’ and

“turns buildings into objects with which to think” and create a renewed sense of

place.15 It seems that by the time regionalism was framed, and re-visited, it was already

being criticised, even by its own advocates. As Gevork Hartoonian points out in his

recent critique of critique of regionalism in architecture, Tzonis criticised Frampton’s

position in “authoritative words” for misusing the concept.16

In spite of these events and publications, theorists struggled to formulate a unified

definition of regionalism in architecture, resulting in multiple interpretations. Some of

them defined regionalism in terms of what it is not; for example, Paul Rudolph states

as early as 1957 that “‘climate control’ is not regionalism.”17 In 1958, Harris, whose

distinction between a regionalism of restriction and one of liberation is quoted by

Frampton in Modern Architecture: A Critical History, claims that “regionalism is ‘a

state of mind.’”18 In the different seminars and colloquiums of the 1980s, some authors

turned to ‘dividing’ regionalism into different classifications. This multiplicity of

definitions has been criticised as causing the notion of regionalism to lose its meaning

and becoming a ‘catchword’ or ‘slogan.’ Shortly after critical regionalism was re-visited

and had arguably re-emerged in the 1989 Pomona Colloquium; it was already the

object of fierce criticism; already in 1996, critical regionalism was defined by Jane M.

Jacobs as “a revisionary form of imperialist nostalgia.”19

13 Kenneth Frampton, “Critical Regionalism Revisited,” in Critical Regionalism: The Pomona Meeting Proceedings, ed.

Spyros Amourgis (California: College of Environmental Design California State Polytechnic University, 1991), 34-39. 14 Spyros Amourgis, “Introduction,” in Critical Regionalism: The Pomona Meeting Proceedings, ed. Spyros Amourgis

(Pomona: College of Environmental Design, CSP University, 1991), ix. 15 Tzonis and Lefaivre, “Critical Regionalism,” 3-4. 16 Gevork Hartoonian, “Critical Regionalism: Whatever Happened to Autonomy,” Fusion 4 (August 2014): 2,

accessed February 3, 2017, http://www.fusion-journal.com/issue/004-fusion-the-town-and-the-city/critical-regionalism-whatever-happened-to-autonomy. This is an updated and revised paper originally published as “Critical Regionalism Reloaded,” Fabrications 16, 2 (December 2006): 122-139. 17 Paul Rudolph, “Regionalism in Architecture,” Perspecta vol 4 (1957): 19. 18 Keith L. Eggener, “Placing Resistance: A Critique of Critical Regionalism,” Journal of Architectural Education vol

55, no. 4 (May 2002): 235. 19 Jane M. Jacobs, Edge of Empire: Postcolonialism and the City (London: Routledge, 1996), 14-15.


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Authentic Regionalism

In the chapter of the first edition of Modern Architecture Since 1900 entitled ‘The

Problem of Regional Identity’, Curtis presents a chronology of different approaches to

the subject of regionalism in modern architecture. In his opinion, there are differences

depending on when certain countries ‘received’, or imported, modern architecture, and

also on the attitude of the country towards modernity and tradition, and the

relationship between the two, which at that time influenced the quality of the

resultant architecture. For instance, Curtis observes pluralism and transformation in

many parts of the world in the late 1940s and 1950s; however, according to him, there

was a shift in attitude by the early sixties, when it became more usual to export

straightforward forms to provincial centres. Curtis writes, “it was as if the steel and

concrete rectangular frame, the air-conditioner and the property developer conspired

to reject national traditions overnight,” which led to what he calls the ‘international

corporation style.’20 As Curtis explains, this style’s bland buildings and its rejection of

local tradition produced a strong reaction which characterises the 1970s.

It is obvious from Curtis’s remarks that regionalism is intimately related to the attitude

towards modernity and tradition held not only by architects, but also by the society at

large. What he denominates ‘international corporate style’ is the result of a

straightforward exportation of the modern frame structure, among other features,

without an understanding of – or even consideration of – the underlying architectural

principles of the tradition of the importing countries. Curtis constantly mentions these

‘principles’ and ‘kernel ideas’ when discussing regionalism as part of a tradition which

needs to be kept alive and rethought, but does not list them in depth or detail. The

negative connotation Curtis gives to the frame structure in the ‘international corporate

style’ is the result of its misuse and misunderstanding.

Even if Curtis insists on a balance between tradition and modernity, this is not easy to

achieve. Brazil and Mexico in Latin America and Japan and Australia in the Asia Pacific

region are the countries where Curtis finds tensions between the new and the old:

there is ‘class’ tension in Mexico and Brazil, where architects cannot build without the



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support of the wealthy minority; tension in Japan where the relationship with the West

and its architectural ideas and influence has been ambivalent; and tension between

two different traditions in Australia – the white Australian culture and the culture of

the ‘indigenous’ population (as previously discussed in this chapter). Through the

selected examples of frame structures in these countries, Curtis seems to imply that

finding the balance between modernity and tradition needs the architect’s

engagement. He asks, “should one accept the avowed universality of modern design

and bow down before it: or should one perhaps seek some fusion between the best of

the old and new, of native and foreign?”21

Curtis’s formulation of regionalism around 1985 is presented in the same terms as the

account of the development of modern architecture in Third World countries that he

was preparing for the subsequent editions of Modern Architecture. Curtis places the

notions of modernity, tradition, identity and authenticity at the core of his research. At

that time, identity was being re-interpreted as a result of a new general human order in

relation to the territory, a new understanding of politics, new beliefs – in short, as a

result of new cultural paradigm. Post-colonialism, secularisation and the new self-

confidence of non-Western countries had an effect on the architecture – as on any

other artistic and cultural product – of not only those countries but also on Western

countries. In Curtis’s opinion, regionalism is not a marginal phenomenon affecting

only Third World countries, but a universal one, and thus needs to be subject to an

analysis based “on a sound philosophical basis. (...)Nonetheless I [Curtis] feel there is a

requirement for cleaning up the house of ideas and for laying the basis for theory.”22

Having characterised regionalism as hazy, Curtis tries to shed some light on the

notion, defining it in terms of a balance between or hybrids of struggling realities:

urban and rural, industrial and artisan, the ‘uprootedness of the metropolis’ and

peasant values, modernity and tradition, imported international and indigenous,

transient and immutable. An architect who wants to produce an authentic regionalist

work of architecture, according to Curtis, acknowledges these dichotomies from an

21 Curtis, Modern Architecture Since 1900, 331. 22 William J.R. Curtis, “Regionalism in Architecture Session III,” in Regionalism in Architecture, ed. Robert Powell

(Singapore: Concept Media/The Aga Khan Award for Architecture, 1985), 73.


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understanding of the new conditions of universal interchange and interdependence

which already characterised the world in the 1980s. He claims that there is more than

one way to read local tradition, but regionalists attempt to see the type, the general

rule, the originating principle. An architect who wants to produce an authentic work of

architecture, then, would absorb the generating principles and structures of the past,

go beyond the surface and incorporate the “memories, myths and aspirations that give

a society coherence and energy.”23 Having done that, the next step would be to give

form to those principles and aspirations in a building which provides an ‘authentic’

expression. Curtis defines this process in terms of cultural excavation, and, going back

to his definition of authenticity, it is through this process that the architect would

produce buildings that had a certain timeless character, fusing old and new,

traditionalism and industrialisation, and come up with pattern languages and common

usages or vernaculars of the past.

Just as traditionalism is a reaction against loss of continuity, so regionalism is a restorative philosophy in favour of supposed raw harmony between people, their artefacts and nature. Regionalism is not likely to appeal to the blatant technocrat, nor to the parvenu who recalls that working in fields for twelve hours a day in exchange for virtually nothing may not be the ideal life. Regionalist yearnings are especially appealing to sensitive intellectuals who are troubled by the fragmentation that seems to come with industrialisation, but who also wish to maintain the mobility, complexity of viewpoint and even wealth that industrialism affords.24

According to Curtis, regionalists understand the past, which is tradition, in terms of

layers: layers of inventions superimposed and layers that can be unravelled to see how,

on the one hand, the vernacular has been transformed by the foreign and, on the

other, how the foreign has been adapted to the existing. Curtis introduces an

interesting nuance in his discussion adding the possibility of transformation – present

also in Modern Architecture Since 1900. By fusing new and old, the new is transformed

by the old and the old transformed by the new. And, again, the challenge is to

maintain the trend introduced by Curtis and find the right balance between local,

national and international. And how do you achieve the balance? As aforementioned,

23 William J.R. Curtis, “Towards an Authentic Regionalism,” in Mimar 19: Architecture in Development, ed. Hasan-

Uddin Khan (Singapore: Concept Media, 1986), 24-31. 24 Curtis, “Regionalism in Architecture Session III,” 74.


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Curtis chooses not to provide a checklist to detect authenticity in architecture, but

claims that “‘authentic regionalism’ stands out against all hackneyed and devalued

versions of culture, whether these come from the international economic order, from

nationalist propaganda, or, more recently, from pan-Islamic clichés.”25

In Curtis’s argument the modern, urban, transient and imported is embodied in the

1980s understanding of the tradition of the International Style. It is worth emphasizing

that Curtis uses the notion of tradition also when discussing the International Style.

He argues that traditional structures, once understood and interiorised by the

architect, and not manipulated, could be blended with only the best of the modern

tradition, not with the worst. His judgment can be understood as both a defence of

modern architecture and a critique of the arbitrariness and superficiality of

postmodernism. He claims that a rigorous understanding of the past and the

vernacular is the path towards a non-arbitrary architecture.

It seemed as if the concrete frame and the air-conditioner were together conspiring to demolish local identity from architecture altogether. Understandably such buildings have been targeted as instruments of neo-colonialism and urban destruction, the opposite of traditional values of any kind. This may be true, but the answer does not lie in just changing the historical clothes of industrial buildings or in just pretending that modernisation will go away. Nor will anything of lasting value be created if Third World architectural beliefs simply pick up the latest fashionable tricks from the United States and Western Europe. Post-modernism is part of the disease, not the cure since it reduces the problem of tradition to a trivial manipulation of signs and references and since its trendy aestheticism masks a cynical and reactionary cultural stance.26

What is the result of this fusion of old and new, rural and urban, etc.? For Curtis the

result is the ‘true’, the ‘authentic’, and he explains clearly what authentic regionalism is

not: it is not a mere copy of vernacular or a pastiche of national cultural stereotypes. In

forgetting about the problem of style, the regionalist would achieve an authentic work

of architecture which translates immutable principles into a thoroughly modern

approach and which will be added to the stock of cultural memories and will be

modern and ancient at the same time. According to Curtis, the regionalist would

25 Curtis, “Regionalism in Architecture Session III,” 74.

26 Curtis, “Towards an Authentic Regionalism,”26.


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search for basic values and types well-suited to locale and to climate, and this does not

necessarily imply regression or nostalgia.27 However, it is not only about buildings and

local conditions, but also about articulating the philosophy which would address the

transformation “from rural and traditional to modern and imported. The former need

preserving, or, when new commissions emerge, re-invigorating; the latter need to be

‘regionalised’ but at a level that is much deeper than stylistic or ornamental

adornment.”28

It is through his notion of ‘authentic’ regionalism and the blending or fusion of old and

new that Curtis shifts from seeing the architecture of non-Western countries as a

source of inspiration to seeing it as part of the tradition of an authentic modern

architecture. As the term ‘tradition’ is used by Curtis to refer to both the regional and

the international, in a way the dichotomy between tradition and modernity disappears.

Instead of opposing modernity and tradition, the local, national and international, he

advocates for finding a balance between them, incorporating the best of each, and

understanding the ways they transform each other, reinvigorating tradition and

‘regionalising’ the modern and imported. Curtis locates the authentic regionalists in

the Middle East, Africa and some parts of Asia, in architects and countries visited by

him and neglected by previous historians. Curtis criticises the trend of thought which

opposes the two notions, claiming that “the best within modernism can be profoundly

rooted in tradition; and the best in tradition is to do with a dynamic process of

rethinking certain central kernel ideas.”29 These ‘kernel ideas’ are, for Curtis,

architectural principles that refer to an architectural value system, rather than a

political or ideological one. This is one of the main differences between his and

Frampton’s discourses on regionalism.

Critical Regionalism

Kenneth Frampton’s formulation of critical regionalism has some similarities to

Curtis’s authentic regionalism. During the 1980s, both Frampton and Curtis published

the first editions of their histories of modern architecture and their research on the

27 Curtis, “Regionalism in Architecture,” 74. 28 Curtis, “Towards an Authentic Regionalism,” 25.

29 Curtis, “Regionalism in Architecture Session III,” 73.


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notion of regionalism. However, the ways they introduced the subject in their

narratives of modern architecture, again, differ. While Modern Architecture: A Critical

History was published before Modern Architecture Since 1900, it was not until its

second edition, revised and enlarged (1985) that Frampton included a chapter on

critical regionalism.

In a recent lecture, Frampton mentions the significance of Ricœur’s essay “Universal

Civilisation and National Cultures” in his own approach to the notion of ‘critical

regionalism’ introduced by Alexander Tzonis and Liane Lefaivre in 1981.30 Ricœur’s

essay, recommended to him by Dalibor Vesely, admittedly influenced Frampton in

bringing together recent architectural examples and contemporary theories. To open

the chapter on critical regionalism, Frampton reuses a very long quotation (459 words,

excerpted here):

The phenomenon of universalisation, while being an advancement of mankind, at the same time constitutes a sort of subtle destruction, not only of traditional cultures, which might not be an irreparable wrong, but also of what I shall call for the time being the creative nucleus of great civilisations and great culture, that nucleus on the basis of which we interpret life, what I shall call in advance the ethical and mythical nucleus of mankind. The conflict springs up from there. (...)Thus we come to the crucial problem confronting nations just rising from underdevelopment. In order to get on to the road toward modernisation, is it necessary to jettison the cultural past which has been the raison d’être of a nation?... Whence the paradox: on the one hand, it has to root itself in the soil of its past, forge a national spirit, and unfurl this spiritual and cultural reivindication [sic] before the colonialist’s personality. But in order to take part in modern civilisation, it is necessary at the same time to take part in scientific, technical, and political rationality, something which very often requires the pure and simple abandon of a whole cultural past. (...)We are in a tunnel, at the twilight of dogmatism and the dawn of real dialogues.31

30 Kenneth Frampton, “A conversation with Kenneth Frampton: Can there be a Global Architectural History today?”

CCA lecture at the Paul Desmarais Theater, delivered on April 6, 2017, accessed May 11, 2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QRWp5AqAZjs. 31 Frampton, Modern Architecture: A Critical History (London: Thames and Hudson, 2007), 313. Also found in

Frampton, “Towards a Critical Regionalism: Six Points for an Architecture of Resistance,” in The Anti-Aesthetic: Essays on Post-Modern Culture, ed. Hal Foster (Seattle: Bay Press, 1983), 16. Also in Frampton, “Prospects for a Critical Regionalism," Perspecta vol 20 (1983): 148. All quoted from: Paul Ricœur, History and Truth (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1965), 276-277.


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Frampton refers to an “anti-centrist consensus” among the factors responsible for the

emergence of Regionalism. This is clearly illustrated in the chosen examples: the

idiosyncratic Catalan culture of Barcelona in the 1950s, Alvaro Siza’s work in Porto and

Tadao Ando’s work in Osaka (rather than Tokyo). Frampton presents the work of these

architects as a result of their peripheral character, as part of a ‘provincial culture’,

which has the capacity to be critical and resist the ‘destruction’ and ‘conflict’ identified

by Ricœur in the opening quotation. Frampton lists many more examples in Italy,

Greece, the United States and Mexico, and uses them to demonstrate the importance

of place and local materials, tactile and topographic form. Other countries in Latin

America are also mentioned, although merely by name and the name of one or two

architects. The fact that, apart from Mexico and Japan, the examples which Frampton

discusses most thoroughly are located in Europe or the United States is evidence of the

Western bias from which Curtis tries to distance himself.32 Curtis even connects this

Western bias with the introduction of ideology into the narratives of modern

architecture written by Frampton and other “historians who are happy to announce

their Marxist affiliations; but then one recalls that Marx too had an extremely

Europocentric view.”33

While Curtis develops his discourse on regionalism in subsequent essays, Frampton’s

chapter, ‘Critical Regionalism: Modern Architecture and Cultural Identity,’ is the result

of his previous research on the subject; the content of this chapter had already been

published in 1983 in Perspecta as “Prospects for a Critical Regionalism.” The list of

seven “features, or rather attitudes” 34 of critical regionalism found at the end of the

chapter is a summary of the content of Frampton’s “Towards a Critical Regionalism: Six

Points for an Architecture of Resistance,” also published in 1983. These points are

based on the paradox formulated in Ricœur’s opening quotation and are presented in

the form of binary oppositions of terms, a characteristic of post-colonialist discourse:

world versus regional values, placelessness versus place, typology versus topography,

32 Curtis, Modern Architecture Since 1900 (1996), 635. 33 William J.R. Curtis, review of Modern Architecture by Manfredo Tafuri and Francesco Dal Co and Modern

Architecture: A Critical History by Kenneth Frampton, Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians vol 4, no. 2 (May 1981): 168. 34 Frampton, Modern Architecture: A Critical History, 325.


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tectonic versus scenographic, tactile versus visual, and optimised versus mediated

technology. According to Frampton, these features and attitudes need to be

understood in the light of the fall of the avant-garde and the negative consequences of

progress, which is characteristic of his Marxist approach to the history of modern

architecture. It can be seen that Frampton’s discourse on regionalism developed

rapidly from the descriptive and theoretical to a more systematic approach. “From

‘prospect for’ to ‘towards’ a critical regionalism; Frampton outlined six themes

reflecting on both historical and contemporary issues.”35

Before the end of the 1980s, Frampton revisited critical regionalism in the international

Colloquium on Critical Regionalism at Pomona. Keeping the tectonic character of

architecture in mind, Frampton argued for opposing universal technology and for

resisting “the space endlessness of the megalopolitan development.”36 Conscious that

his points had been interpreted as categorical opposites, he defended them as “points

of dialectic interaction” leading to an architecture of resistance. In Frampton’s opinion,

“such a resistant architecture presupposes the recognition of a particular form of

culture politic, or, at the very least, the dependence of cultural and political practice on

a set of underlying ethical and spiritual values.”37

In the third edition of Modern Architecture Since 1900, Curtis states his opinion of the

formulation of ‘critical regionalism.’ In his opinion, “the regionalist discourse of the

early 1980s even served up some of the old wine of National Romanticism in new

bottles, but with the bitter taste of nationalism removed.”38 Curtis notes how several of

the architects considered to be modern masters, and several strands of modern

architecture, had already been cultivating for more than fifty years the local values and

images for which Frampton now advocated.

35 Gevork Hartoonian, “Critical Regionalism: Whatever Happened to Autonomy,” Fusion 4 (August 2014), accessed

February 3, 2017, http://www.fusion-journal.com/issue/004-fusion-the-town-and-the-city/critical-regionalism-whatever-happened-to-autonomy. This is an updated and revised paper originally published as “Critical Regionalism Reloaded,” Fabrications 16, 2 (December 2006): 122-139. 36 Frampton, “Critical Regionalism Revisited,” 37. 37 Frampton, “Critical Regionalism Revisited,” 38. 38 Curtis, Modern Architecture Since 1900, 637.


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This brief overview shows that there are some similarities (more than these authors –

or at least Curtis – would like to admit) and differences in Curtis’s and Frampton’s

discourses on regionalism. Both authors understand regionalism in architecture as the

result of an attitude which they first ‘draft’ for architects, and then judge or value in

their buildings. For Curtis this attitude is related to an ‘architectural value system’ and

for Frampton, with ‘ethical and spiritual values’; both authors describe this attitude in

a very vague way, but apply it when analysing certain recent developments in

architecture. While Frampton sees this attitude as being in opposition and resistance

to the effects of ‘internationalism,’ globalisation, and liberalism in a post-colonial

world, Curtis urges authentic regionalists to acknowledge – and even, accept – “that

conditions alter drastically and that the present world is one of increasing inter-change

and inter-dependence.”39 While Frampton searches for opposition and resistance,

Curtis aims to find dialogue and balance. In summary, these narratives resemble not a

different regionalism or a different modern architecture, but their authors’ general

approach to the history of architecture around 1980.

Historicising Regionalism(s)

Lastly, the conclusion of this section is grounded in one the idea behind one quotation

used by both Frampton and Curtis in their formulations of regionalism: Paul Ricœur’s

paradox between civilisation and cultures. It is used by Frampton to introduce the

chapter on ‘critical regionalism’ in Modern Architecture: A Critical History as well as his

previous research papers on the topic, and by Curtis when he refers to the dilemma of

the ‘developing world’ in the chapter on ‘Modernity, Tradition and Identity in the

Developing World’ added to the third edition of Modern Architecture Since 1900 (1996).

Curtis only quotes: “This is the paradox: how to become modern and return to sources;

how to revive an old, dormant civilisation and take part in universal tradition.”40

Subsequent criticism suggests that Frampton’s frequent reference to Ricœur’s essay

“Universal Civilisation and National Cultures,” “made evident the postcolonial

underpinnings” of his work around 1980.41 Curtis briefly uses Ricœur’s quotation in his

39 Curtis, “Towards an Authentic Regionalism,” 25 and “Regionalism in Architecture Session III,” 74. 40 Curtis, Modern Architecture Since 1900 (1996), 578. 41 Eggener, “Placing Resistance: A Critique of Critical Regionalism,” 234.


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formulation of authentic regionalism; therefore, the same could be said, to a smaller

degree, of Curtis’s discourse.

Sibel Bozdoğan argues that, in spite of “introducing his book with the terminology of

postcolonial criticism, Curtis still adopts some of the very same categories that are

questioned by postcolonial theory.”42 Bozdoğan bases her criticism in a superficial

analysis of the title of a chapter in the third edition of Curtis’s book, ‘Modernity and

Tradition in the Developing World.’ It is true that the binary opposition between the

linear models of history, developed versus developing, is present in his discourse, and

that these terms are “no longer tenable as identifiers of postcolonial and non-Western

[sic] trajectories in the twentieth century.”43 However, she argues that Curtis’s

discourse still operates with the binary opposition of modernity versus tradition, and,

as thoroughly discussed throughout this chapter, Curtis does not oppose modernity to

tradition.

The general discourse of regionalism in architecture has been criticised for being

imposed on developing countries in the post-colonial period. Already in 1985, Paul

Rudolph was advocating for regionalism to fuse with the great architectural models of

the twentieth century, and not to be something “superimposed from outside.”44

Following on from Harris’ definition of regionalism as ‘a state of mind’, a definition

which was quoted by Frampton, Keith Eggener argued that the literature on critical

regionalism lacks precisely this attention to the state of mind. “By heeding the voices

of those responsible for building a particular culture, architects among many others,

rather than imposing formulas upon them, we might come to understand better the

richness of internal, local discourses in their full range and complexity.”45 Even if both

Frampton and Curtis advocate for regionalism as a way to avoid arbitrariness in

architecture, their own judgements and analyses can be criticised as being arbitrary.

Given the importance of ‘attitude’ in their formulations of regionalism, what are

42 Sibel Bozdoğan, “Architectural History in Professional Education: Reflections on Postcolonial Challenges to the

Modern Survey,” Journal of Architectural Education vol 52, no. 4 (May 1999): 209. 43 Bozdoğan, “Architectural History in Professional Education,” 209. 44 Paul Rudolph, “Regionalism in Architecture: Session I,” in Regionalism in Architecture, ed. Robert Powell

(Singapore: Concept Media/The Aga Khan Award for Architecture, 1985), 45. 45 Eggener, “Placing Resistance: A Critique of Critical Regionalism,” 235.


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Frampton’s and Curtis’s own personal attitudes when addressing the relevant issue of

including other countries in the narrative of modern architecture?

Tzonis and Lefaivre contend that there are good reasons not to draw “checklists of

physical design criteria of how to be a critical regionalist.”46 Despite this, Frampton

gives a list of features or attitudes which should be seen as examples of critical

regionalism in architecture, and Curtis describes, not in the book but in his subsequent

papers, the attitudes he looks for before granting an architect the label of an authentic

regionalist. In his critique of Frampton’s fiction of place, Paul Walker uses an image

that can also be used to characterise Curtis’s position: “All these different hands have

been dealt from the same rather limited pack of shuffled cards. They constitute a single

game, a single universal argument.”47 Both Curtis and Frampton drafted their

positions, assumed them thoughtfully and disseminated them in a series of rather

repetitive essays published around 1985.

In the third edition of Modern Architecture Since 1900, Curtis criticises the use (or

reuse) of the term regionalism in the early 1980s. He argues that Liane Lefaivre and

Alexander Tzonis’ “1981 essay, critical regionalism designates a group of architects

whose work sought to formulate an alternative to the postmodernist simulation of

historical forms.”48 Likewise, Frampton used it to criticised postmodernist reduction.

For Curtis, “what Alexander Tzonis and Liane Lefaivre called a ‘critical regionalism’

seemed to imply an anxious recognition that most folk and vernacular traditions were

irretrievably lost, but that some modern manoeuvre must be set (or reset) in motion to

retrieve old knowledge at a distance.”49 According to Curtis, modern masters and

several trends of modern architecture were doing what they advocated since 1930s.50

Curtis advocates for buildings which respond “intelligently to climate, place, memory

and landscape, without ignoring social and technological change” regardless of where

46 Alexander Tzonis and Liane Lefaivre, “Critical Regionalism,” in Critical Regionalism: The Pomona Meeting

Proceedings, ed. Spyros Amourgis (Pomona: College of Environmental Design, CSP University, 1991), 22. 47 Paul Walker, “Kenneth Frampton and the Fiction of Place,” in Shifting Views: Selected Essays on the Architectural

History of Australia and New Zealand, ed. Andrew Leach, Antony Moulis and Nicole Sully (St. Lucia, QLD: University of Queensland Press, 2008), 77. 48 Hartoonian, “Critical Regionalism: Whatever Happened to Autonomy,” 1. 49 Curtis, Modern Architecture Since 1900, 636-637. 50 Curtis, Modern Architecture Since 1900, 637.


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they are built, and which “penetrate beyond the obvious features of regional style to

some deeper mythical structures.”51

The balance between modernity and tradition that Curtis proposes can be regarded as

a vague attempt to go beyond the oppositions of Frampton’s and others’ post-colonial

discourse of regionalism. Curtis acknowledges that tradition, like modernity, is

complex, and that “most vernaculars are in fact hybrids of indigenous and imported

types and these types also change and adapt.”52 Recent studies have looked at

reinterpreting tradition in the same way Curtis attempted to; for example Janet Abu-

Lughon proposes to transform tradition, a static concept, into ‘traditioning’, which she

sees as more active and better suited to referencing traditional environments that were

never isolated.53 The concept of ‘traditioning,’ “implies that while traditions may draw

on the past, they are ultimately created in the present for present needs. She [Abu-

Lughon] also warns against the concept of ‘tradition’ being used to reinforce or

maintain ‘traditional’ forms of dominance.”54

It has been shown how the discussion of regionalism and universalism gave Curtis the

perfect excuse to address a gap he detected in recent histories. In his opinion,

Manfredo Tafuri and Francesco Dal Co’s Modern Architecture said “little or nothing

(...) about either industrial or rural vernaculars, and next to nothing about the crucial

problems of the ‘developing countries,’” and in Frampton’s case “one gets not a

glimmer of the dramatic changes occurring in the Middle East, Africa and South East

Asia.”55 In the 1980s there was good reason to look to regionalism as a strategy to

broaden the scope of the historiography of modern architecture, as “one way toward

that richness in architecture” which had been lacking for some time.56

51 Curtis, Modern Architecture Since 1900, 637. 52 Curtis, “Towards an Authentic Regionalism,” 25 and “Regionalism in Architecture Session III,” 74. 53 Quoted in Carl O’Coill and Kathleen Watt, “The Politics of Culture and the Problem of Tradition: Re-evaluating

Regionalist Interpretations of the Architecture of Geoffrey Bawa,” in Architecture and Identity, ed. Peter Herde and Erik Wegerhoff (Berlin: Lit Verlag, 2009), 484. 54 O’Coill and Watt, “The Politics of Culture and the Problem of Tradition…,” 484. 55 William J.R. Curtis, review of Modern Architecture by Manfredo Tafuri and Francesco Dal Co and Modern

Architecture: A Critical History by Kenneth Frampton, Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians vol 4, no. 2 (May 1981): 168. 56 Rudolph, “Regionalism in Architecture,” 13.


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As this section has demonstrated, Frampton’s and Curtis’s discourses on regionalism,

or regionalisms, were being theorised – one could argue even imposed – and

introduced to the histories of modern architecture simultaneously. The lack of

historical distance between these two historians writing, in the 1980s, about

regionalism in the architecture of the late 1970s, is undeniable. However, it is only

now, in 2017, that Frampton admits that, in Modern Architecture: A Critical History he

“left out a big part of the world.” He says that “in the last revision [which he is

preparing for publication this year] I do not want to present a Eurocentric world:

architecture in China, India or Africa is also part of the planet.”57 Will he link the

notion of critical regionalism to examples from these countries? It could be inferred

from Frampton’s words that one of the issues raised in this paper, whether regionalism

should be ‘illustrated’ with examples from or outside Europe and the United States,

will be further clarified in this new edition of his history. However, Frampton may

drop the notion of regionalism, which he recently referred to as “embarrassing term”

and focus on writing a global history of architecture.58

The theories on regionalism, or the “many reiterations of the theory,” are regarded

today as multi-faceted: “it does not stand as a singular theory or practice to be

dominant.”59 In conclusion, while revisiting the notion of regionalism, this chapter has

attempted to historicise the development of Curtis’s understanding of the notion,

firstly, by discussing the critical responses to Curtis’s formulation of regionalism in the

different reviews of Modern Architecture Since 1900, and, secondly, by analysing the

differences in Curtis discourse on regionalism between the three editions of the book,

using the examples of Turkey, Greece and Australia. And, finally, this chapter has

attempted to historicise the development of Curtis’s understanding of regionalism by

putting it in context with other contemporary definitions and conceptualisations of the

notion, especially critical regionalism.

57 Anatxu Zabalbeascoa, “Kenneth Frampton: ‘Los rascacielos no son arquitectura, solo dinero’”, El Pais Semanal

(March 10, 2017), accessed March 14, 2017, http://elpaissemanal.elpais.com/confidencias/kenneth-frampton/?id_externo_rsoc=FB_CC. 58 Frampton, “A conversation with Kenneth Frampton: Can there be a Global Architectural History today?” 59 Nima Zahiri, Omid Dezhdar and Manouchehr Foroutan, “Rethinking of Critical Regionalism in High-Rise

Buildings,” Buildings vol 7, no. 4 (January 2017): 2.


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I would like to conclude by arguing that by understanding regionalism as an object

worthy of historical analysis, the idea has lost its critical capacity today – an argument

that applies to both critical and authentic regionalisms. As Hilde Heynen very recently

observed, “we should question whether we can get along in architectural history and

theory with the categories we have used thus far.”60The same could be said of

modernism and modernity. And that is precisely what Curtis did when defining

regionalism: he redefined modern architecture and modernity as a universal tradition.

Already in 1984, Hasan Uddin Khan, participant in the Aga Khan regional seminar,

praised Modern Architecture Since 1900 as a book of particular interest to Third World

readers “because it looks at development in non-Western architectures and the impact

of Western architecture on developing countries… This book, seriously written,

represents a significant attempt to understand emerging architecture (some in

developing countries) within the mainstream of architectural thinking.”61

60 Hilde Heynen, “Modernity and Modernities. Challenges for the Historiography of Modern Architecture,” in

Conceiving our Modernity: Perspectives of Study on Chinese Modern Architectural History, 2015, 20-34. Proceedings of the 1st Symposium of Chinese Modern Architectural History and Theory Forum. 61 Hasan Uddin Khan, Mimar, 1984. Quoted from William J.R. Curtis short CV plus addendum with best book

reviews. WJRC Archive.

Postmodernism: Critical Responses

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Chapter Four_ William J.R. Curtis and Postmodernism

This chapter explores William J.R. Curtis’s charting of postmodernism and the later

phases of development of modern architecture in the twentieth century across the

three editions of Modern Architecture Since 1900. The aim is to highlight the

differences between editions, and thus demonstrate the significance of the changes

Curtis made in the major revision of the content prior to the publication of the third

edition of the book. Firstly, I will present and discuss the references to postmodernism

made by the historians and theorists who reviewed the different editions. Secondly, I

will review the differences between the three editions in Curtis’s account: from his

early and preliminary impressions gathered in the late 1970s, to their confirmation in

the early 1990s. Thirdly, I will look at Curtis’s discussion of the lack of validity of the

debate on postmodern versus modern architecture and of the significance of tradition.

Finally, I will contextualise Curtis’s definition of postmodernism in the context of the

different approaches presented by well-known scholars in the intervening years

between editions, including Frampton’s account of the late twentieth century in

Modern Architecture: A Critical History (1980).

1. Critical responses to Curtis’s Approach to Postmodernism

Most theorists and historians who reviewed the three editions of Modern Architecture

Since 1900 agree that Curtis’s account of the recent past is a valuable contribution.

However, some are more positive about it than others. For Samuel B. Frank, Curtis

handles rather well the shift from historian to critic, and “uses modernity, tradition,

and authenticity as revealing lights to shine upon the empty pretensions of

postmodernism.”1 For Brett Donham, to give an account of the recent past is a

“dangerous occupation.”2 In his review of the third edition, Jorge Sainz praises the last

part of the book for its “brave” critical approach, given that most historians prefer to

allow enough time to elapse and enable them to discern between consolidated

1 Samuel B. Frank, review of Modern Architecture Since 1900 by William Curtis and Modern Architecture and Design:

An Alternative History by Bill Risebero, Journal of Architectural Education vol 36, no. 4 (summer 1983): 30. 2 Brett Donham, “Revisionist Modernism,” review of Modern Architecture Since 1900 by William Curtis, Progressive

Architecture vol 65, no. 5 (May 1984): 185.


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innovations and transitory fashions;3 in his opinion, it also “reflects the author’s

increasing tendency to combine historical investigation and criticism of the present.”4

Tom Heath also emphasises Curtis’s rejection of the “historical folklore” that leads

historians to avoid writing about the recent past.5

Despite the flaws that he identifies in the book, Peter Serenyi points out that “no prior

textbook on the subject has focused so strongly on the notion that the architecture of

the present, as that of the past, is art, and that it deserves the same kind of scholarly

treatment as the architecture of the past.”6 It is an interesting remark given that

Serenyi was one of the reviewers who criticised, though not harshly, Curtis’s criteria of

judgement and its lack of rigorous theoretical foundation, as discussed in Chapter Two

of this dissertation.

According to Heath, Curtis rightly understands the central problem of the period

charted in Part 3 of Modern Architecture Since 1900. In his opinion, Curtis’s selection of

works of the recent past is “impeccable,” as is the case with his account of the problem

of regional identity or architecture in developing countries.7 He points out how in

these last chapters of Part 3, Curtis opens up historical and critical issues rather than

settling them, which is especially so of the final chapter ‘The Traditions of Modern

Architecture in the Recent Past.’ Martin Pawley agrees with this idea that Curtis opens

new doors for interpretation, at a time when architectural thought was characterised

by a state of confusion.8 Von Moos writes that the last chapter of the book and its

introductory note are, for him, “among the more useful recent writing about

postmodernism,” although he admits that he does not share all of Curtis’s

3 Jorge Sainz, “Arquitectura moderna: última edición,” review of Modern Architecture Since 1900 by William Curtis,

Arquitectura Viva, no. 49 (July- August 1996): 73. Author’s translation into English. 4 Sainz, “Arquitectura moderna: última edición,” 73. Author’s translation into English. 5 Tom Heath, review of Modern Architecture Since 1900 by William Curtis, Architecture Australia vol 73, no. 5 (July

1984): 26. 6 Peter Serenyi, review of Modern Architecture Since 1900 by William Curtis, Journal of the Society of Architectural

Historians vol 43, no. 3 (October 1984): 276. 7 Heath, review of Modern Architecture Since 1900 by William Curtis, 26. 8 Martin Pawley, “Fish are Jumping,” review of Modern Architecture: A Critical History” by Kenneth Frampton and

Modern Architecture Since 1900 by William Curtis, The Architectural Review vol 174, no. 1041 (November 1983): 6.


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judgements.9 In his review, Von Moos mentions the role of tradition in Curtis’s

discourse, and Curtis’s formulation of a certain continuity in the architecture of the

twentieth century, as the ideas he found most interesting in his work. For him, the way

Curtis’s emphasis on the idea that every allegedly new architecture is related to past

experiences is related to his remark that there is some modern “pedigree” in

postmodern strategies such as quotation, allusion and mimicry. 10 Indeed, it was part of

Curtis’s aim to avoid the oversimplified definitions of modern architecture that were so

characteristic of architectural journalism at that time, as thoroughly discussed in the

next sections of this chapter.

Both Heath and Donham highlight the continuity drawn by Curtis between the

immediate past and the present, between modern and postmodern architecture. As

discussed in Chapter Three of this dissertation with regard to regionalism, traditions

are built and transformed, though not changed in a revolutionary way, and that is the

case with the emergence of both modern and postmodern architecture. In Donham’s

opinion, Curtis lays down “such a thorough and principled definition of the true spirit

of modern architecture that he can with confidence assess recent work and say which

work is in the mainstream, or, as he puts it, is a continuation of the ‘strands’ of

history.”11 Heath points out in his review of Modern Architecture Since 1900, Curtis

acknowledges that change has taken place, but the notion that it is revolutionary

change is firmly rejected. Heath summarises Curtis’s approach in what he considers to

be the conclusion of the book: “that current rhetoric has, ignorantly or deliberately,

failed to understand the variety of the past, substituting gross caricatures of both

theory and practice; in doing so it has, again perhaps deliberately, blurred or effaced

the continuity of the immediate past with the present.”12 Having said that, what if

Curtis is failing to understand the variety of the present, and presenting a gross

caricature of postmodernism?

9 Stanislaus von Moos, “Revising Modernist History: The Architecture of the 1920s and 1930s,” review of Modern

Architecture Since 1900 by William Curtis, Art Journal vol 43, no. 2 (summer 1983): 208. 10 Von Moos, review of Modern Architecture Since 1900, 208. 11 Donham, “Revisionist Modernism,” 185. 12 Heath, review of Modern Architecture Since 1900 by William Curtis, 26-27.


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Serenyi accuses Curtis, in his treatment of postmodernism, of not only disregarding his

aim to present the subject with a dispassionate distance, but, even worse, exemplifying

“those very traits that the architects of postmodernism ascribe to the modern

movement: being antihistorical and disregarding architectural content.”13 He writes

that “the final chapter, which traces ‘The Traditions of Modern Architecture in the

Recent Past’ reveals the basic conservatism of his position; William Curtis is not a

dependable guide to those paths which may lead to a new authentic architecture in the

closing years of the century.”14 Blundell Jones agrees with Oliver in considering Curtis’s

methodological approach to be tacitly conservative.15

As is further discussed in this chapter, Curtis’s critique of postmodern architecture is

based on its lack of meaning or authenticity. In his review, Oliver highlights that, in

spite of his interest in meaning, there is no indication that Curtis is aware of recent

studies in semiology and he is “swiftly dismissive of ‘linguistic analogies’ in a single

end-note.”16 The case of authenticity is not dissimilar, and, for Oliver, it is a “vaguely

defined concept (…) by which architects are appraised or dismissed.”17 In the words of

Richard Pommer, authenticity is Curtis’s “imaginative touchstone,” which rarely fails

him, and he adds: “so much for a method.”18 However, what some critics read as signs

of methodological weakness, others see as signs of strength. According to Andrew

Mead, what give this history its strength, are two things in particular: “the relatively

extended treatment Curtis gives to certain key works, allowing him to develop his

argument by attention to specifics and to explore several levels of meaning; and his

marked distaste for ‘-isms’ in place of ‘authenticity.’’19

Notwithstanding Curtis’s assessment of postmodernism, he can rightly be called a postmodern historian of modern architecture. His view of Pevsner,

13 Serenyi, review of Modern Architecture Since 1900, 276. 14 Paul Oliver, review of Modern Architecture Since 1900 by William Curtis, The Oxford Art Journal vol 5, no. 2

Architecture (1983): 56. 15 Peter Blundell Jones, “Curtis’s Corbussian Bent,” review of Modern Architecture Since 1900 by William Curtis,

Architects Journal vol 187, issue 22 (June 1988): 79. 16 Oliver, review of Modern Architecture Since 1900 by William Curtis, 55. 17 Oliver, review of Modern Architecture Since 1900 by William Curtis, 55. 18 Heath, review of Modern Architecture Since 1900 by William Curtis, 26. 19 Andrew Mead, review of Modern Architecture Since 1900 by William Curtis, Architects’ Journal vol 204, no. 10

(September 1996): 51.


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Giedion, and Hitchcock is not unlike the post-modern architects’ view of Gropius, Mies, and Le Corbusier. Moreover, his emulation of scholarly methods used by historians of such traditional fields as Renaissance or Baroque architecture is analogous to the admiration of post-modern architects for traditional architecture. Above all, like the postmodernists, Curtis views architecture not merely as a response to functional need but rather as a symbolic and mythic representation of a culture.”20

The reviewers of the subsequent editions of Modern Architecture Since 1900 raised

other interesting issues regarding postmodernism and Curtis’s account of the recent

past. In his review of the second edition, Blundell Jones claims that Curtis’s disdain for

the post-modern in favour of the modern, “won many friends” for the book.21 In his

review of the third edition, Andrew Mead acknowledges that Part 4 and its three

chapters show Curtis’s attempt at the most difficult task for the historian, to shift into

the role of critic and provide a judgement on the recent past. Given that it is only three

chapters, Mead understands that even if they read like a rapid tour d’horizon, they

substantiate Curtis’s belief that “‘the epic adventure of Modernism is clearly not over,’

that its central themes and ideas are interpreted and expressed anew.”22 Regardless of

whether they share his opinion or not, Meads, Donham and Heath consider Curtis’s

charting of what he calls the modern tradition, which is discussed in depth in Chapter

Five of this dissertation, and its continuity throughout the twentieth century to be

rigorously grounded.

The scholar Hans van Dijk agrees in highlighting Curtis’s formulation of a modern

tradition in ‘Dutch Modernism and Its Legitimacy.’ Van Dijk explains how Curtis

understands history as unfolding in a number of gradually developing traditions. He

emphasises the importance that Curtis gives to buildings, to great masterpieces,

because of their effect; “they can end traditions, bend them and summon new ones

into life.”23 Van Dijk adds that the assimilation, imitation and amendment of these

works can explain more of architectural history, and its writing by Curtis, than the

20 Serenyi, review of Modern Architecture Since 1900, 276. 21 Blundell Jones, “Curtis’s Corbussian Bent,” 79. 22 Andrew Mead, review of Modern Architecture Since 1900 by William Curtis, Architects’ Journal vol 204, no. 10

(September 1996): 50. 23 William J.R. Curtis, email message to author, June 16, 2017. Quoted from Hans van Dijk, “Dutch Modernism and

Its Legitimacy,” in Architectuur in NederlandJahrbock 1991-1992 (Amsterdam, 1992).


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verbal construction with which they are presented or criticised. In his opinion, that is

why Curtis does not understand modern architecture as arising out of avant-garde

polemics or demising in the early 1990s. At that time, architecture was not at the

beginning or end of an era, rather than in “the middle of the multiform tradition of the

modern.”24

2. Mapping Postmodernism in Modern Architecture Since 1900

In the introduction to the third edition of Modern Architecture Since 1900, Curtis

reflects back on his first impression of postmodernism and the way he presented it in

1982. He writes:

‘Postmodernism’ emerged with its arbitrary recipes and quotations, and was soon accompanied by a collection of revivalisms and mannerisms in which any period of the past was game. When the introduction to the first edition of this book was written in 1981 it stated: ‘Modern architecture is at present in another critical phase, in which many of its underlying doctrines are being questioned and rejected. It remains to be seen whether this amounts to the collapse of a tradition or another crisis preceding a new phase of consolidation.’ Despite the rhetoric about the ‘end of an era,’ postmodernism proved to be ephemeral. In reality there was yet another reorientation in which certain core ideas of modern architecture were re-examined but in a new way.1

This section, like the section on regionalism in Chapter Three of this dissertation,

explores the differences in Curtis’s account of postmodernism between the three

editions of Modern Architecture Since 1900. In the first edition, all references to

postmodernism appear in the last chapter, ‘The Traditions of Modern Architecture in

the Recent Past,’ highly praised by the reviewers of the book. Curtis organises his

argument typologically and begins the chapter by discussing examples of social

housing and office buildings built in the early 1970s. The first reference to

postmodernism appears when Curtis moves on to skyscrapers, in general, and those of

Philip Johnson, in particular. Curtis writes of Johnson’s supposedly “wholesale”

rejection of the modern glass box: “In fact Johnson had done little more than stick

24 Curtis, email message to author, June 16, 2017. 1 William J.R. Curtis, “Introduction,” in Modern Architecture Since 1900 (London: Phaidon Press, 1996), 16.

Postmodernism: Mapping in Modern Architecture Since 1900

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some historical quotations on to a standard office space: most of what was called ‘Post-

modern’ tended to be cosmetic.”2 (This reference is maintained in the third edition, p.

597).

The chapter continues with a discussion of museums, which in the 1970s offered a rich

variety of architectural approaches, comparing Renzo Piano and Richard Roger’s

Pompidou Centre in Paris (1974), Louis Kahn’s Kimbell Art Museum in Texas (1972),

and Landgon, Wilson and others’ Getty Museum in California (1974). Before the end of

the chapter, Curtis analyses different proposals presented to international

competitions, including James Stirling’s proposal for a museum in Stuttgart (1977),

Michael Graves’ project for the Fargo-Moorhead Cultural Centre (1978) and Romaldo

Giurgola’s proposal for the Australian Parliament building in Canberra (1980).

Through his critical stance in the conclusion, and as is the case with authentic

regionalist architects, Curtis has a recommendation for postmodern architects who

attempt to turn back to earlier phases of history to support their work. In his opinion,

not everybody can revive an earlier style without the work resulting in pastiche. Curtis

writes to the postmodern architect that “he must rethink the past in terms of present-

day tasks, techniques and meanings. Along the way he may discover that superficial

mimicry of past forms is really no better than skin-deep modernity and that past forms

had their own reasons for being, most of which no longer apply.”3 Curtis develops his

understanding of the notion of pastiche in subsequent research papers published

during the 1980s, which are discussed in the next section.

Curtis reflects on his own conclusion in the first lines of the 1987 addendum, written

six years after he wrote the first version of the final chapters of the book. He stands

proud of having predicted that the debate between modernism and postmodernism

would not contribute to understanding the architectural situation of the early 1980s.

For Curtis, “the issue then is not so much Modern versus Post-modern as principle

versus pastiche: the notion of authenticity outlined in the conclusion continues to hold

2 William J.R. Curtis, Modern Architecture Since 1900 (Oxford: Phaidon Press, 1982), 374. 3 Curtis, Modern Architecture Since 1900, 387.


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good.”4 Curtis criticises the various attempts to revive classical forms during the early

1980s for having indulged in games of quotation and irony, which resulted in

superficial realisations. Despite these brief remarks on postmodernism at the

beginning of the addendum, the rest of the text is devoted to what he considers to be

relevant architectural examples throughout the world, especially outside of the

Western canon.

In the third edition of Modern Architecture Since 1900, the first reference to

postmodernism appears in the introduction. Curtis discusses the arbitrary quotations

of postmodernism at its emergence, which were “soon accompanied by a collection of

revivalism and mannerisms in which any period of the past was game.”5 Curtis

considers his own judgement, in the first edition, of postmodernism as an “ephemeral”

phenomenon, to have been proven in the intervening years.6 In the main text of the

third edition, the last chapter of the third part is devoted to Curtis’s discussion of

‘Pluralism in the 1970s.’ As part of that pluralism, “the phenomenon called, loosely,

‘Post-modernism’ relied upon an obvious reuse of the past; but it did not have an

exclusive tenure of tradition, and the re-examination of history took several paths,

some of them extending discoveries already made in earlier modern architecture.”7

Therefore, in Curtis’s opinion, postmodernism was not only transient, but also showed

a certain continuity with modernism, an opinion which he also justifies with reference

to the postmodern use of modern design strategies such as fragmentation, collage and

planarity.

One of the main points of Curtis’s critique of postmodernist is what he considers to be

their attitude towards modernism, which they “reduced to a simplified demonology.”8

The target of the postmodernist animus emerged as a composite caricature combining

‘functionalism,’ simple forms, truth to structure, mute imagery and a belief in the

Zeitgeist.”9 Curtis also criticises their critique of modern architecture for being

4 William J.R. Curtis, Modern Architecture Since 1900 (Oxford: Phaidon Press, 1987),389. 5 William J.R. Curtis, Modern Architecture Since 1900 (Oxford: Phaidon Press, 1996), 16. 6 Curtis, Modern Architecture Since 1900, 16. 7 Curtis, Modern Architecture Since 1900, 589. 8 Curtis, Modern Architecture Since 1900, 602. 9 Curtis, Modern Architecture Since 1900, 602.


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superficial for “shooting at intellectual bodies which were already dead.”10 Postmodern

experiences were not only the result of a new design fashion or superficial play, but

also signs of the loss of confidence in the social and architectural project of modernity.

Curtis acknowledges the existence of a public mood of dissatisfaction with bad modern

buildings, which was reflected in what he calls ‘wholesale rejection,’ avoiding fine

distinctions. Curtis considers this new mood “traditionalist,” and not too worried

about rigor, and argues that it “often degenerated into eclectic candyfloss.”11 Curtis

continues by referring to postmodernism as “one of a number of revisionist tendencies

which came to the fore from the mid-1970s onwards; ostensibly, these too were in

favour of aesthetic and symbolic enrichment.”12 In the notes, Curtis identifies David

Watkin’s Morality and Architecture (1977), a book he harshly reviewed for the Journal

of Society of Architectural Historians, as exemplifying these revisionist tendencies.

Curtis is also deeply critical of the theoretical aspect of the postmodern approach to

architecture, which he sees as having no clear proposal. In his critique, Curtis refers

often to the linguistic characteristics of postmodernism, and the shift toward

understanding architecture “as a system of ‘signs.’” 13 He disagrees with the idea that a

multivalence of meaning plays part in architecture, and that buildings can be

understood as communication devices. For Curtis, postmodernism, like New Brutalism

in the 1960s, “was more a vague cluster of aspirations (or, at any rate, rejections) than a

blueprint for a clear-cut style.”14 This is a judgment that Curtis had already made in the

first edition, and which he maintained in the early 1990s after the realisation of most of

postmodern proposals, as is the case with postmodern theoretical production.

It seems contradictory, given that Curtis sees postmodernism as lacking theoretical

substance, that part of his account in Modern Architecture Since 1900 focusses on

theoretical approaches and proposals. He criticises the lack of concern for expressive

authenticity in Charles Jencks’ “book on the subject of Post-Modern architecture” –

10 Curtis, Modern Architecture Since 1900, 602. 11 Curtis, Modern Architecture Since 1900, 604. 12 Curtis, Modern Architecture Since 1900, 602. 13 Curtis, Modern Architecture Since 1900, 602. 14 Curtis, Modern Architecture Since 1900, 602.


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which, given the time he was writing and his reference to it elsewhere in the notes, is

probably The Language of Post-Modern Architecture (1977).15 According to Curtis, the

buildings chosen to illustrate Jencks’ book “shared a tendency towards superficiality

which took earlier architectural precedents as a sounding board for references and

quotations, but for little more.”16 Traditionalism and “nostalgic revenge” are the terms

Curtis uses to introduce Léon and Robert Krier’s formulation of Urban Space in Theory

and Practice (1975), whereas Curtis regards Colin Rowe’s and Fred Koetter’s Collage

City (1978) as more sophisticated. Curtis sees an almost automatic respect for the

existing context (sometimes verging on mimicry), in what he suggests calling the

postmodern idea of the city.17 All in all, for him, the late 1970s is a period of a

“changing intellectual atmosphere.”18

Curtis summarises his account of the architecture of the 1970s by acknowledging the

existence of a variety of beliefs and of several strands of a modern tradition that

“continued to extend in a vigorous way” – postmodernism being one of the several

concurrent tendencies of those years.19 He considers it relevant to end his cross-section

of the decade “with two works conceived outside the realms of fashionable doubt, that

were indisputably ‘modern’ yet steeped in the past; that were concerned with matters

of form without sacrificing human meaning; that articulated complex feelings and

ideas without forgetting the tectonic presence of construction.” 20 Those two works are

Carlo Scarpa’s Brion Tomb at San Vito d’Altivole in the Veneto (1969-1978) and Jørn

Utzon’s Bagsvaerd Church outside Copenhagen (1969 and 1978).

There are a few references to postmodernism in Part 4 on ‘Continuity and Change in

the Late Twentieth Century,’ in the third edition of Modern Architecture Since 1900,

but mostly they appear in Curtis’s discussion of what came after. He considers that

most postmodern obsessions were on the wane, and that most of its paradigms lost

their hold, by the mid-1980s. Curtis introduces deconstructivism into his account of

15 Charles Jencks, The Language of Post-Modern Architecture (New York: Rizzoli, 1977). 16 Curtis, Modern Architecture Since 1900, 602. 17 Curtis, Modern Architecture Since 1900, 608. 18 Curtis, Modern Architecture Since 1900, 603. 19 Curtis, Modern Architecture Since 1900, 610. 20 Curtis, Modern Architecture Since 1900, 610.


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the architecture of the recent past thus: “a new abstraction that had been waiting in

wings while postmodernism carried out its brief performance gradually insinuated

itself as the prevalent mode, sometimes in minimalist forms, sometimes in works

which made new claims on the interpenetrating section, the dynamic diagonal or the

plan made up from fragments set in a field of space.”21

Curtis also refers briefly to postmodernism when dealing with architecture in the 1980s

in different countries. For instance, he refers to the “slight though sensationalist”

impact of postmodernism with the example of the Spanish architect Ricardo Bofill’s

work around Paris and Montpellier.22 The case of Finland is also of interest, where

modern architecture was so associated with national identity that postmodernism

“only made a slight impact.”23 The American architect Steven Holl is, for Curtis, an

example of holding out against the fashions of, first, postmodernism, and then

deconstructivisim, by “pursuing lines of thought and feeling that drew together

personal interpretations of modern ‘mentors’ with a close concentration upon

mythical, poetic and tactile aspects of architecture.”24 Apart from the aforementioned,

Curtis considers postmodernism to be already out of the picture by the mid-1980s.

In the 1982 edition, and regarding the crisis of modernism, Curtis refers the reader to

Manfredo Tafuri’s Architecture and Utopia: Design and Capitalist Development (1976)

as a probing critique of the avant-garde although from a somewhat confused Marxist

standpoint. 25 He also mentions Charles Jencks’ “The Rise of a Post-Modern

Architecture” (1975) as a trial run of the ideas he later published in the book The

Language of Post-Modern Architecture (1977). Curtis refers to David Watkin’s Morality

and Architecture (1977) as exemplifying right-wing ideological criticism, the severe

limitations of which he pointed out in his review of the book for the JSAH. Colin Rowe

and his Collage City feature in Curtis’s explanation of the figure/ground urban analysis

21 Curtis, Modern Architecture Since 1900, 662. 22 Curtis, Modern Architecture Since 1900, 672. 23 Curtis, Modern Architecture Since 1900, 674-675. 24 Curtis, Modern Architecture Since 1900, 677. 25 William J.R. Curtis, Modern Architecture Since 1900 (Oxford: Phaidon Press, 1982), 419.


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method; in Rowe’s work he sees the influence of Popper’s ideas on the role that pre-

existing theories, and deduction, play in invention.26

Surprisingly, Curtis does not add that many new references regarding postmodernism

to the third edition of Modern Architecture Since 1900. The few additions include

Heinrich Klotz’s The History of Postmodern Architecture (1988), and some of Curtis’s

own publications such as ‘Principle versus Pastiche: Perspectives on Some Recent

Classicisms’ (1984), further discussed in the next section of this chapter. Klotz’s book

becomes a source for Curtis’s understanding of Aldo Rossi and Hans Hollein, among

others. For “ruminations on the modern project,” Curtis recommends Jürgen

Habermas’ writings on the incomplete project of modernity, and to explain neo-

conservatism he refers the reader to Mary McLeod’s seminal essay on “Architecture

and Politics in the Reagan Era: From Post-Modernism to Deconstructivism,” which are

discussed in the final section of this chapter.27

3. Postmodernism, Modernism and Authenticity

According to Curtis in the course of our communication, his critique of

postmodernism began in polemical lectures given at Harvard around 1979 and 1980,

and then “emerged in a string of articles,” which are explored in this section, where he

made the distinction between superficial transfers of the past and deeper

transformations.1 This string of articles is written in the intervening years between the

first and third editions of Modern Architecture Since 1900, using a more polemical

language. For example, in the book, Curtis refers to Colin Rowe’s approach as “more

sophisticated” than that of “the Kriers” (as he calls the brothers from Luxembourg),

whereas he describes their work in terms of “puckish cynicism” in one of the

aforementioned articles.2 The difference in the language is even more obvious when he

claims, in a 1984 article, that “the architectural present – or that version portrayed by

26 Curtis, Modern Architecture Since 1900, 420. 27 William J.R. Curtis, Modern Architecture Since 1900 (Oxford: Phaidon Press, 1996), 716. 1 William J.R. Curtis, email message to author, February 2, 2017. 2 William J.R. Curtis, “Principle versus Pastiche: Perspectives on some Recent Classicisms,” The Architectural Review

vol 176, no. 1050 (August 1984): 18.

Postmodernism, Modernism and Authenticity

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magazines and university pundits – is bedevilled by numerous ills: a bland

technocracy; disregard for human meanings in architecture; a narcissistic

preoccupation with architectural language as an internal system; a superficial concern

with past motifs rather than past principles.”3 It is precisely this dichotomy between a

superficial or a deep understanding of the past what shapes his discussion of the

modernism/postmodernism debate and his proposal of authenticity and

monumentality as an antidote to the uselessness of that debate.

The Modernism/Postmodernism Debate

In 1983, right after the publication of Modern Architecture Since 1900, and with the

notion of authenticity in mind, Curtis begins exploring the idea that postmodernism is

nothing more than a superficial and recent “propaganda,” which distorts the role of

modernism. 4 This is an argument that he explores in several of his critical essays (the

most relevant of which will be thoroughly discussed in this section), despite claiming

in those same articles that the “squabbles between ‘post-modern’ and ‘modern’ tend to

have limited critical value precisely because they oversimplify the relationship between

invention and precedent.”5 For him, both sides of the debate are guilty of not

differentiating between pastiche and principle. He argues that the debate is

detrimental to the quality of criticism that historians or critics offer to their readers:

that it is just as bad “to assert that an assemblage of concrete Doric columns or

coloured plywood pilasters is somehow automatically superior to a building using

pilotis or steel frame stanchions, or to assert the exact opposite,” if there is no attention

being paid to principles instead of fashion.6 Despite the fact that he seems to place

himself above the debate, I would argue that he is part of it, clearly advocating for

modernism and against postmodernism

3 William J.R. Curtis, “Modern Architecture, Monumentality and the Meaning of Institutions: Reflections on

Authenticity,” Harvard Architecture Review, no. 4 (1984): 65. 4 William J.R. Curtis, “Authenticity, Abstraction and the Ancient Sense: Le Corbusier’s and Louis Kahn’s Ideas of

Parliament,” Perspecta vol 20 (1983): 194. 5 Curtis, “Authenticity, Abstraction and the Ancient Sense…,” 182-183. 6 Curtis, “Principle versus Pastiche...,”11.


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Before moving on to the actual arguments, it is worth noting the way Curtis describes

the debate itself: as “tedious,”7 “a customary battle of caricatures,”8 which can (and

should) be avoided. In 1989, he describes it as “misleading” and degenerating quickly

into a confrontation of caricatures which lacks historical accuracy.9

Even if Curtis claims to reject the modernism/postmodernism debate, he repeatedly

resorts to this polemical dichotomy when writing his account of architecture in the

1970s and 1980s. He repeatedly argues for the need to make distinctions, to

differentiate between pastiche and principle, or between superficial pastiche and

authentic synthesis, which, in his writings, correspond to postmodernism and

modernism, respectively. At a time when architects were looking for something new,

Curtis proposes that a new style cannot be based on the arbitrariness that, according to

him, is characteristic of postmodernism. For instance, when he argues that innovation

consists of finding new relationships in pre-existing patterns, he makes it clear that a

“forceful new bond of form and content” is different from “a merely beguiling

collection of parts that have undergone no profound redefinition of meaning, no

revitalisation of expression.” 10 The distinction is also made between architects working

in the 1970s and 1980s: Renzo Piano’s museum for the Menil Foundation in Houston is,

for Curtis, a building that “extends earlier solutions without mimicking their style,”

while Richard Meier’s critique of modern architecture results in examples of “a

somewhat arbitrary character like merely pleasant exercises in formal manipulation.”11

In both cases, Curtis emphasises the understanding that these architects have of the

past.

In giving a critical account of the intervening years between the three editions of

Modern Architecture Since 1900, Curtis believes that it is necessary to differentiate

between different approaches to the past: between “powerful arrangements arising

from the penetration of the inner life and structure of past forms,” and “a thin,

7 Curtis, “Principle versus Pastiche...,”11. 8 Curtis, “Principle versus Pastiche...,” 11. 9 William J.R. Curtis, “Contemporary Transformations of Modern Architecture,” Architectural Record vol 177, no. 7

(June 1989): 108. 10 Curtis, “Principle versus Pastiche...,” 13. 11 Curtis, “Contemporary Transformations of Modern Architecture,” 111.


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illustrative pastiche, lightly adorned with historical jokes and ironies.”12 For Curtis,

Wright’s Unity Temple, Le Corbusier’s Villa Savoye, and Kahn’s Dacca Parliament are

examples in which the link to the past is strong, making it present, and making these

works, in turn, transcend: “Timeless but of its time.”13 Curtis believes that future

generations can still learn from modern buildings like Villa Savoye, the Robie House or

the Kimbell Museum, which, still in the 1980s and in his opinion, “articulate deeply

held beliefs about the human condition” and “possess the sort of symbolic pregnance

[sic] that guarantees longevity.”14 As Curtis understands it, profound works of

architecture are those that become part of a certain stock of architectural ideas and

principles that architects working at that time could absorb. 15

As with Curtis’s formulation of an authentic regionalism, and Paul Ricœur’s quotation,

the modernism/postmodernism debate presents a paradox that needs to be solved

with a certain balance: “How, in an increasingly industrialised world, to avoid both the

anomie of meagre functionalism, and the bogus ‘remedy’ of saccharine revivalism?

How to transform lessons from history in a way that is appropriate on many levels

from the organisational to the ornamental? How to achieve authenticity rather than

following the easy road of the ersatz?”16 Again, and as with regionalism, Curtis’s tone is

prescriptive: what architects should avoid, and what they should aim for.

The recent ‘rediscovery’ of the past can often be faulted on the grounds that it fails to achieve symbolic depth, that its craft is inelegant, its detail obtuse, that it is formally feeble and lacking in lasting resonance. There is more to history than wearing it on your façade; more to Classicism than tossing around columns, keystones and colossea.17

Again, Curtis bases his judgement on the postmodern understanding of the past, on a

symbolic depth, or resonance – criteria that, as discussed in the section on ‘Critical

Responses to the Three Editions of Modern Architecture Since 1900,’ he first drafts, and

12 William J.R. Curtis, “Modern Transformations of Classicism,” The Architectural Review vol 176, no. 1050 (August

1984): 48. 13 Curtis, “Modern Transformations of Classicism,” 48. 14 Curtis, “Contemporary Transformations of Modern Architecture,” 117. 15 Curtis, “Contemporary Transformations of Modern Architecture,” 110. 16 Curtis, “Modern Transformations of Classicism,” 48. 17 Curtis, “Modern Transformations of Classicism,” 48.


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then considers whether a work of architecture fulfils or not, without a strong

theoretical foundation. However, there are other keys that help ground his argument

about the understanding of the past, such as geometry, proportion and abstraction. In

Curtis’s opinion, the past is devalued by attempts at Classicism in the late 1970s and

early 1980s, when architects worked in a language in which they were not trained and

which craftsmen were not suited to realise.18 In 1989, Curtis’s use of language regarding

this idea is even more polemical when he writes: “Little wonder that recent

architecture smacks so often of visual glut, arbitrariness, and trashy confectionery. The

past is aped and distorted into grimacing shapes but nothing long-term is supplied.”19

Again, in a prescriptive tone, Curtis urges postmodern architects, so concerned with a

remote past, to “stop pretending that the past 80 years have not existed.”20

In addition, and even if Curtis claims to reject the use of ‘-isms,’ he repeatedly resorts

to them in his own writing, especially in the essays discussed in this section. In

“Principle versus Pastiche: Perspectives on some Recent Classicisms” (1984), Curtis

uses labelling terms as the titles of some sections, although not all the titles are labels

as is the case in Frampton’s Modern Architecture: A Critical History, which is discussed

in the next section. In “Principle versus Pastiche,” there are sections labelled

‘Macaronic Classicism’ and ‘Pop Mannerism,’ among other titles. At different points in

the texts published in the 1980s, he uses identifiers such as ‘eclecticism,’ ‘classicism,’ or

even ‘Saccharine Historicism,’ as well as ‘traditionalist’ or ‘preservationist’ to refer to

some architects.

In Curtis’s opinion, recent architectural theorists’ understanding of semiology (yet

another label, despite not being an ‘-ism’) reduces architectural meaning to a mere

sign and ignores symbolism, which “may infuse a form or space with meaning and give

expressive force and numinous presence.”21 In “Contemporary Transformations of

Modern Architecture” (1989), he continues using the aforementioned ‘-isms’ and adds

‘contextualism’ and ‘deconstructivism,’ to help classify the work of contemporary

18 Curtis, “Modern Transformations of Classicism,” 48. 19 Curtis, “Contemporary Transformations of Modern Architecture,” 108. 20 Curtis, “Modern Transformations of Classicism,” 48. 21 Curtis, “Modern Transformations of Classicism,” 48.


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practitioners. Deconstructivism is referred to by Curtis as “Constructivist Revival,”

where the “original political and ideological content is virtually ignored.”22 As with

postmodernism, he refers to contextualism in terms of a mimicking of colours and

textures, “a cosy packaging for the yuppie consumption city that helps to calm the

nerves of preservationists, but not a vital civic architecture.”23 Not even regionalism is

safe from critique, as Curtis argues that, in some cases, cases, where architects just

mimic a vernacular, this results in “a sort of easy vacation kitsch done up with

Mediterranean arches, thatched roof, or whatever.”24

A Criterion of Authenticity

Therefore, Curtis’s disapproval of postmodernism is evident in both the content of the

three editions of Modern Architecture Since 1900, and the essays published in the

intervening years. This part will investigate what Curtis proposes as an alternative to

the postmodern understanding of the past and of history, a proposal which he also

developed in the intervening years between editions. It will do so through looking at

the notions of authenticity and monumentality in Curtis’s discourse.

Having established what for him is the uselessness of the modernism/postmodernism

debate, Curtis proposes that authenticity should be the focus of the discussion of the

architecture of the 1980s. As was the case with regionalism in Chapter Three of this

dissertation, Curtis’s formulation of authenticity “implies the search for probity, the

blend of old and new, the search for a lasting symbolic interpretation of the social

sphere.”25 However, Curtis’s advocacy for blending the new and the old, fusing

tradition and modernity, not only applies to modern architecture in developing

countries, but also to countries where the ‘Western’ architectural canon had

originated. Moreover, it applies to architecture throughout the twentieth century,

22 Curtis, “Contemporary Transformations of Modern Architecture,” 111. 23 Curtis, “Contemporary Transformations of Modern Architecture,” 113. 24 Curtis, “Contemporary Transformations of Modern Architecture,” 114. 25 Curtis, “Modern Architecture, Monumentality and the Meaning of Institutions…,” 66.


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because, for Curtis, architectural quality has no ideological, temporal or territorial

frontiers.26

As discussed in Chapter Three of this dissertation, Curtis gives no clear definition of

what authenticity is. He claims that authenticity is that “nebulous quality which

confers symbolic and formal vitality on even a well-worn formula.”27 However, he

admits that there is no simple checklist given the fact that there can be no consensus

over artistic excellence.28 Even if Curtis argues for the lack of critical utility of the

modernism/postmodernism debate, authenticity helps him to differentiate or make

the distinction between genuine and fake, principle and pastiche, and, evidently,

between modern and postmodern. However, authenticity is not the only nebulous

category used by Curtis in his own modernism/postmodernism dialectic. He uses a

sense of “intuitive appropriateness” to emphasise the distinction between genuine

fusion and concoction or replication: between superficial and manipulated pastiche,

which lacks any bond between form and content, and “the vital expression of a deeply

felt idea.”29

It is possible to discern a certain definition of authenticity by looking at what Curtis

regards as authentic works of architecture. The historian admits to being tempted by

the idea of suggesting some essential values of architecture as a medium used by

‘works of principle’ regardless of their period. Also, he argues that, regardless of their

period, authentic works are characterised by a ‘temporal depth’ which allows them to

resonate with the present circumstances and needs. Authentic works do so, according

to Curtis, because they overcome convention and propose a “more lasting and more

universal symbolism.”30

In Curtis’s opinion, his use of authenticity as a classification criterion avoids the critical

dangers he sees in stressing “communal aspects of style” over the special synthesis of

26 William J.R. Curtis, “Transformation and Invention: on Re-reading Modern Architecture,” The Architectural

Review vol 221, no. 1321 (March 2007): 36-40. Original essay written by Curtis in February 2007, 3, WJRC Archive. 27 William J.R. Curtis, “Authenticity, Abstraction and the Ancient Sense: Le Corbusier’s and Louis Kahn’s Ideas of

Parliament,” Perspecta vol 20 (1983): 183. 28 Curtis, “Authenticity, Abstraction and the Ancient Sense...,” 184. 29 Curtis, “Authenticity, Abstraction and the Ancient Sense...,” 184. 30 Curtis, “Authenticity, Abstraction and the Ancient Sense...,” 183.


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the individual work. 31 For Curtis, there is a mythical dimension in the artist’s mind,

which through a deep work of synthesis produces authentic works.32 According to

Curtis, for architecture, communication is only possible after that conscious work of

synthesis between modernity and tradition, between new and old. Regarding the

relationship between period and personal styles, Curtis writes:

If the authentic symbolic form has a certain indivisible character, something similar is true of its relationship to personal and period styles: it blends together a number of stylistic strata from the past into a new and irreducible amalgam. Focillon has astutely written that the principle underlying a work of art is not necessarily contemporary with it: the imagination obeys no simple linear chronology and refuses to be trapped by a single time slot.33

Curtis positions Le Corbusier’s Parliament Building at Chandigarh (1953-63) and Louis

Kahn’s Parliament at Dhaka (1962-1970) as clear examples of his argument. On the one

hand, both are works of maturity that rely upon Le Corbusier’s and Kahn’s

architectural principles and languages; and on the other, both are works profoundly

rooted in Eastern and Western monumental traditions. Curtis argues for the need to

understand them beyond the surface, and, hence, to unearth “the transforming power

of authentic style.”34 Curtis’s discussion challenges the aforementioned false dichotomy

between modernity and tradition. In the case of Le Corbusier’s Parliament in

Chandigarh and Kahn’s building in Dhaka, he argues that “their prodigious power and

authenticity rely on a convincing response to the contemporary world and on a

restatement of age-old principles simultaneously.”35 The importance that he gives to

the notion of invention in his process of selecting and classifying relevant architects

and buildings for Modern Architecture Since 1900 is discussed in Chapter Two of this

dissertation.

Curtis’s assessment of the parliament buildings in Chandigarh and Dhaka, exemplifies

not only his formulation of authentic works of architecture, but also his approach to

31 Curtis, “Authenticity, Abstraction and the Ancient Sense...,” 183. 32 Curtis, “Authenticity, Abstraction and the Ancient Sense...,” 183. 33 Curtis, “Authenticity, Abstraction and the Ancient Sense...,” 183. 34 Curtis, “Authenticity, Abstraction and the Ancient Sense...,” 184. 35 Curtis, “Modern Architecture, Monumentality and the Meaning of Institutions…,” 83.


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monumentality. His position can be understood as a reaction against postmodernism’s

superficial understanding of the past, evident in the different variations on and

approaches to classicism. The period between 1950 and 1975 is, for Curtis, a time of

social change: transformations of architectural vocabulary: new fields of exploration of

abstract formal expression, structural technique, and symbolism: and a new kind of

relationship between building and setting, in which modern architecture “took on

some of the cultural roles of the established order.”36 Furthermore, he insists that

monumentality is a matter of a lasting or transcending presence, of authenticity, rather

than of the size or scale of the buildings. For Curtis, the situation of architecture in the

1980s showed a “present obsessed with transient imagery, the trash of consumerism,

fake theorising and formalistic tricks generated on the computer.”37 This problematic

situation, according to him, should remind everybody of the serious aims that

architecture pursues, which, in turn, can become the solution to arbitrariness.

Curtis supports the following idea: the best modern monuments are deeply rooted in

tradition. 38 According to him, in the 1980s, postmodernism used the historical

misconception that modernism is an “anti-historical monster,” to serve “the purpose of

inflating recent revivalist exercises.”39 In the essays on authenticity and monumentality

published in the intervening years between editions and discussed in this section,

Curtis uses the expressions ‘caricature of history,’ ‘postmodernist dogma,’

‘conventional wisdom,’ and ‘ritual incantation’ to describe the postmodernist

assumption that abstraction in modern architecture means rejecting the past. He

argues for modern abstraction, which “may become a device through which the artist

enters the past on a number of levels simultaneously and then transforms its lessons

into an authentic form in the present.”40 Postmodern architects, in Curtis’s opinion,

avoided understanding and learning from the variety of responses individual modern

architects give to the problem of precedent and context. He writes:

36 Curtis, “Modern Architecture, Monumentality and the Meaning of Institutions…,” 65. 37 Curtis, “Transformation and Invention: on Re-reading Modern Architecture,” 36. 38 Curtis, “Modern Architecture, Monumentality and the Meaning of Institutions…,” 66. 39 Curtis, “Principle versus Pastiche…,” 11. 40 Curtis, “Authenticity, Abstraction and the Ancient Sense...,” 182.


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It is a peculiar irony of the recent past that all the talk about meaning has produced so little architecture of profound content; that the obsession with form has led to so little truly three-dimensional coherence; that the cult of history has brought back so little wisdom from the past.41

As the book reviewers pointed out, it is ironic that Curtis does not recognise in his own

attitude towards postmodernism, the same problematic that he describes in the case of

postmodernism towards modernism. Curtis’s own stylistic preferences prevent him

from acknowledging any quality or authenticity in postmodernism. Curtis provides the

reader with a monolithic view of postmodern architecture based in the notions of

arbitrariness and pastiche, while defending the existence of a certain continuity in

architectural tradition throughout the twentieth century.

The essay “Modern Architecture, Monumentality and the Meaning of Institutions:

Reflections on Authenticity” (1984) is the result of a talk that Curtis gave “at Harvard in

Fall 1981 in congress at the Graduate School of Design on ‘Monumentality and the City’

with [Romaldo] Giurgola and Philip Johnson in front row.”42 In his talk, Curtis

“attacked openly” Johnson and Michael Graves, who was also present, as well as faculty

members of the Harvard Graduate School of Design “who were playing the

postmodern game, including the then chairman Harry N. Cobb who should have

known better.”43 At the end of the essay published in Harvard Architectural Review,

Curtis lists his reflections on Monumentality in nine points. Despite writing in the

paper that “it was only after the symposium that I realised, with embarrassment, that

Giedion’s statements on monumentality had also numbered nine,” in our

communication, and after over thirty years, Curtis admits the nine points to be “a wink

to Giedion”.44 In “The Need of a New Monumentality” (1944), “Sigfried Giedion saw fit,

before the war was even over, to conceive of the possibility of a new monumentality for

the post-war world. Typically, he maintained the hope that an avant-garde might be

able to read the true complexion of society and discover appropriate collective

41 Curtis, “Modern Architecture, Monumentality and the Meaning of Institutions…,” 82. 42 William J.R. Curtis, email message to author, June 17, 2017. 43 William J.R. Curtis, email message to author, February 2, 2017. 44 Curtis, email message to author, June 17, 2017.


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symbols.” This essay was published in the book of the symposium, ‘New Architecture

and City Planning’ edited by Paul Zucker.

‘Meaning’ is central to Curtis’s conclusion to Modern Architecture Since 1900, as it is

intimately related to his formulation of authenticity. It is ‘meaning’ that forms contain,

as a result of the architect’s personal style and interpretation of the world, which is, in

turn, basis of authenticity. Curtis opposes authenticity to fake, having in mind on the

one hand, regionalism and its interpretation of tradition, and, on the other,

postmodernism and its arbitrariness. For him, authenticity is suggestive of

genuineness and probity. What, for Curtis, is an authentic building, transcends

conventions, reveals hierarchy of intention and abstraction and cuts through “the

customary to reveal new levels of significance,” of meaning.45 Curtis argues that

modernity is not really the issue when mapping architecture, especially in the late

twentieth century, as it can distract from what really matters, which is authenticity.

When asked about his formulation of authenticity, Curtis refers to the issue of

Perspecta 20 where his essay on “Authenticity, Abstraction and the Ancient Sense: Le

Corbusier’s and Louis Kahn’s Ideas of Parliament” (1983) was published, and he claims

to have “inspired the editors in that direction at a talk I gave at Yale in 1980.”46 Later on

in our communication, he insisted on this point, mentioning some “key

correspondence with the student editors of Perspecta 20.”47 In the same volume of

Perspecta, Frampton published the aforementioned essay “Prospects for a Critical

Regionalism.”

One of the main points in Curtis’s critique of postmodernism is its alleged

arbitrariness, an issue which is also addressed by several of the other contributors to

Perspecta 20. According to Karsten Harries, for instance, to insist that the solution to

the problem of arbitrariness in architecture is to define it as an art is to misunderstand

the problem, and is related to discussions of the autonomy of architecture. Harries

does agree with Curtis that returning to what is essential, to the aforementioned

45 Curtis, Modern Architecture Since 1900, 689. 46 William J.R. Curtis, email message to author, March 11, 2016. 47 William J.R. Curtis, email message to author, February 2, 2017.


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principles, could solve the problem of arbitrariness in the architecture of the 1970s and

early 1980s. He urges architects to try to recover the origins, what is essential, and not

so much the past. Instead of authenticity, Harries uses the notion of an architecture

that carries conviction which he opposes to the postmodernist “aesthetic play with

elements drawn from the past.”48 He introduces an interesting nuance to the

discussion by arguing that just because some ideals are constructed more precariously

than others, it does not necessarily result in an arbitrary architecture.49 He suggests

that not every postmodern building is arbitrary and that not every modern building

avoids arbitrariness. Architecture needs to be committed to its present and

circumstances, to its tradition and context, to escape arbitrariness, making it an “an

ethical problem.”50

Christian Norberg-Schulz, on the other hand, agrees that it is necessary to go back to

the things themselves, to what is essential, but argues that this does not solve the

problem of arbitrariness. When he wrote this in 1983, architecture practitioners were

only at the beginning of proposing a “new architecture of images.”51 Norris Kelly Smith

agrees with Curtis in pointing out the importance of the symbolism and meaning

behind institutional buildings. Furthermore, he claims that “therein, I am persuaded, is

to be found the only basis for an authentic architecture.”52 What Smith calls the

postmodern ‘manner’ situates a building’s authenticity in its uniqueness or the

architect’s eccentricity, which, for him, is “to embrace madness.”53 In his essay on Le

Corbusier’s architecture, Peter Serenyi uses an expression that summarises Curtis’s

emphasis on how authentic works transcend its time: “timeless but of its time.”54 In

summary, this issue of Perspecta allows a first contextualisation of Curtis’s critique of

postmodernism and his formulation of authenticity in the 1980s, which will be

expanded in the next section of this chapter.

48 Karsten Harries, “Thoughts on a Non-Arbitrary Architecture,” Perspecta vol 20 (1983): 13. 49 Harries, “Thoughts on a Non-Arbitrary Architecture,” 16. 50 Harries, “Thoughts on a Non-Arbitrary Architecture,” 20. 51 Christian Norberg-Schulz, “Heidegger’s Thinking on Architecture,” Perspecta vol 20 (1983): 68. 52 Norris Kelly Smith, “Architectural Authenticity,” Perspecta vol 20 (1983): 219. 53 Smith, “Architectural Authenticity,” 219. 54 Peter Serenyi, “Timeless but of Its Time: Le Corbusier’s Architecture in India,” Perspecta vol 20 (1983): 118.

Postmodernism: Context Between the 1970s and the 1990s

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4. Contextualising Postmodernism between the 1970s and the 1990s

The previous sections of this chapter have shown Curtis’s account of postmodern

architecture in relation to the notion of authenticity, firstly in the three editions of

Modern Architecture Since 1900, and, secondly, in the research papers he published in

the intervening years. Regardless of the difference in the use of language, more

polemical and unrestrained in the journal articles, Curtis’s position is clear and very

negative towards postmodernism throughout his work. As with regionalism, his

criticism is based on a set of values or principles that he avoids explaining clearly, and

which he, in this case, does not find in postmodern architecture, as opposed to modern

or ‘authentic’ architecture. This section features possible definitions of postmodernism

by relevant theorists published between the 1970s and 1990s, when Curtis was working

on the three editions of the book, who are, in some cases, mentioned by him as sources

of his own narrative. More importantly, this section looks at the account of

postmodernism in Kenneth Frampton’s Modern Architecture: A Critical History, the

other major contribution to the historiography of modern architecture of that time.

Attempts at Defining Postmodernism

In her 1989 seminal essay, Mary McLeod understands postmodernism as a diverse and

pluralistic movement. She outlines the different attempts at defining it, which at that

time already “varied from broad-scale historical periodisation (Fredric Jameson), to

philosophical equations (postmodernism as the cultural equivalent of

poststructuralism), to specific stylistic trends or intentions, often at odds from one

field to another (autonomy and formalism, for example, are seen as modern in one

field, postmodern in another).”1 Writing around the same time, Alan Colquhoun states

that “the term ‘postmodern’ seems, by turns, empty or tendentious.”2

In Architecture After Modernism (1996), Diane Ghirardo identifies postmodernism as

an approach to architecture starting in 1965, initially in the United States. The notion

1 Mary McLeod, “Architecture and Politics in the Reagan Era: From Postmodernism to Deconstructivism,”

Assemblage, no. 8 (February 1989): 23-24. 2 Alan Colquhoun, “Postmodernism and Structuralism: A Retrospective Glance,” Assemblage, no. 5 (February 1988):

7.


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is, for her, diverse and unstable, and signifies different approaches in different fields.

Ghirardo points out that the connotations of postmodernism in architecture changed

“considerably” between 1970 and 1995, the time she was writing – and, it is safe to add,

between then and today, with the multiple re-readings and reinterpretations of recent

years.3 Writing around the same time, Kate Nesbitt uses the term “pluralist” to refer to

postmodernism, which she sees as a period, rather than a movement, characterised by

“the lack of dominance of a single issue or view point.”4 One of the many ways in

which Curtis takes a dismissive stance toward postmodernism in architecture is by

referring to it as ‘fashion.’ Nevertheless, Mark Jarzombek argues “that it was precisely

as fashion that it enabled intellectuals with different disciplinary backgrounds to

participate in the postmodernist processes of theory formation.5

A significant idea that is present not only in the aforementioned essays by Curtis, but

also in essays on postmodernism by other historians and theorists published in the

intervening years between the three editions of Modern Architecture Since 1900, is that

what the majority of postmodern approaches, or ‘currents,’ have in common is their

rejection of modern movement. Consequently, these theorists consider postmodern

architecture to have operated mainly within the formal realm, resulting in pastiche. In

1984, Hal Foster claims that the way to move beyond certain works of modernism is

through critique, rather than pastiche, writing that “yet nearly every postmodern artist

and architect has resorted, in the name of style and history, to pastiche; indeed, it is

fair to say that pastiche is the official style of this postmodernist camp.”6 McLeod

observes that, by rejecting the social engagement of modernism, postmodernism “can

be viewed as a return to architecture as a primarily formal and artistic pursuit,”

resulting in pastiche.7 Simultaneously, the postmodern simplistic vision of modern

architecture resulted in an alleged return to or rediscovery of history.

3 Diane Ghirardo, Architecture After Modernism (New York: Thames and Hudson, 1996), 7. 4 Kate Nesbitt, “Introduction,” in Theorizing a New Agenda for Architecture: An Anthology of Architectural Theory,

1965-1995 (New York: Princeton University Press, 1996), 16. 5 Mark Jarzombek, “The Disciplinary Dislocations of (Architectural) History,” in “Architectural History 1999/2000,”

ed. Eve Blau, Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians vol 58, no. 3 (September 1999): 492. 6 Hal Foster, “(Post) Modern Polemics,” Perspecta vol 21 (1984): 148. 7 McLeod, “Architecture and Politics in the Reagan Era...,” 24.


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Both McLeod and Foster question the return to or rediscovery of history in

postmodernism. Interestingly, they both use the expression ‘history of victors’ to refer

to the historical periods and styles to which postmodernists return – a history without

modernism, Foster adds. For McLeod, the postmodernist reading of the past is

reductionist of history itself, and, for Foster, it makes history appear “reified,

fragmented, fabricated,” and “highly edited.”8 Foster understands the postmodernist

attitude as a reactive reading of modernism, which he argues, in fact rejected

historicism rather than history. Foster seems to agree with Curtis that the modernist

approach to history (and tradition) intended to transform the past in the present, not

to foreclose it.”9

McLeod sees the postmodern rediscovery of history as a “flight from the present.”10 As

with most postmodernist main themes, McLeod sees a certain ambiguity in their

attitude: it is exhilarating and resigned simultaneously. According to her, “on the one

hand, it meant freedom and a chance to recoup lost values; on the other, it suggested

that the present was no better than the past, that aesthetic and political choices might

be arbitrary.”11 As discussed in the previous section, it is possible to have a

reinterpretation of those lost values and principles, of the essential, which does not

imply neglecting the present. However, for McLeod, the way in which postmodern

architecture alludes to history has more to do with “nostalgia, escape, or enjoyable

simulacrum,” with “cartooned exaggeration” or “mannered quotation.” 12 Overall, this

postmodern rediscovery results in the denial of history itself, in its scavenging.

Finally, there are other consequences of the postmodern rejection of modernism that

McLeod brings forth in her seminal essay. She links the postmodernists’ interest in

regionalism and tradition, and their historicist focus, to their rejection of modernism

and its universalising tendencies.13 In this case, their attitude is contradictory, in her

opinion, rather than merely ambiguous. McLeod argues that the postmodern

8 Foster, “(Post) Modern Polemics,”146. 9 Foster, “(Post) Modern Polemics,” 148. 10 Foster, “(Post) Modern Polemics,” 146. 11 McLeod, “Architecture and Politics in the Reagan Era...,” 34. 12 McLeod, “Architecture and Politics in the Reagan Era...,” 34. 13 McLeod, “Architecture and Politics in the Reagan Era...,” 34.


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“emphasis on style has generally precluded the investigations of sun orientation and

ventilation that were of such concern to modern architects.”14 On the other hand,

postmodern urban critique rejects the universalising, homogenising and dehumanising

proposals for a modern city and “it is in its rejection of the modern movement’s urban

vision that postmodernism has probably had its most positive social impact,”

according to McLeod.15

However contradictory its generating impulses, postmodernism’s interests in tradition and regional cultures emerged from more than a desire for novelty and spectacle; they embodied a genuine dissatisfaction with the course of modernisation, one that pointed to the failures of technology and artistic novelty as social panaceas.16

Even if hers is a fair point, there would have to be a second step to go beyond that

dissatisfaction to articulate a certain balance between tradition and modernisation and

technology, for which Curtis advocates. While everyone agrees that postmodernism is,

as McLeod describes it, a “the tendency that rejects the formal and social constituents

of the modern movement and embraces a broader formal language, which is frequently

figurative and historically eclectic,” nobody seems to agree on what it proposes or

endorses.17 For Jürgen Habermas, this is even obvious in the chosen term for the

movement, as the prefix ‘post’ makes it clear that they want to be differentiated from

modernism. For Habermas, the prefix post- expresses an experience of discontinuity

and different possible attitudes toward the past that is put at a distance. He seems to

agree with McLeod regarding the postmodern abandonment of the present, for which

there seems to be no name, and the problems of which have not yet been identified.18

Their lack of a clear theoretical proposal is one of the arguments used by the detractors

of postmodernists’ in architecture to fuel the aforementioned debate. For Habermas, it

14 McLeod, “Architecture and Politics in the Reagan Era...,” 36. 15 McLeod, “Architecture and Politics in the Reagan Era...,” 37. 16 McLeod, “Architecture and Politics in the Reagan Era...,” 38. 17 McLeod, “Architecture and Politics in the Reagan Era...,” 24. 18 Jürgen Habermas, “Modern and Postmodern Architecture,” in Architecture Theory since 1968, ed. K. Michael Hays

(Cambridge, MA. and London: The MIT Press, 1998), 416. Presented as a lecture at the opening of the exhibition ‘The Other Tradition: Architecture in Munich from 1800 up to Today,’ November 1981; published in a new translation in Habermas, The New Conservatism: Cultural Criticism and the Historians’ Debate (Cambridge, The MIT Press, 1989).


164

is not as clear as one would think to identify the fronts in this battle. He argues that

whoever sets him- or herself out “to continue the uncompleted project of a modernity

that is on the skids,” is going to be confronted by various opponents who only have in

common their rejection of modernism.19 Now, what the advocates of modernism view

as rejection and opposition, postmodernists view as pertinent critique. The debate is

just as pointless when pro-modern supporters try to encourage people to continue a

tradition they consider “irreplaceable” from a critical perspective, resulting in pro-

postmodernists proclaiming the death of modernism.20

Just as McLeod highlighted the value of the postmodern critique of the modern city,

Habermas acknowledges how postmodernism in architecture brought some issues

forward which had been left unsolved by modern architecture “– that is, the

colonisation of the lifeworld through the imperatives of autonomous economic and

administrative systems of action.”21 He emphasises that there is something to learn

from these opposition movements. Going back to the idea of balance, however, there is

no reason why a new architecture could not bring those issues forward, without

rejecting its precedents. And, again, as Curtis points out in his writings, some of the

postmodern strategies in architecture have their roots in the modern tradition. For

Habermas, “traditions live only through such moments” when allegedly opposed

approaches find a way to blend, find a certain balance.22

A characteristic of this debate, regardless of whether the point of view being put

forward is pro-modernism or pro-postmodernism, is its grounding in dialectical

thought. For Fredric Jameson, the identification of opposites is “one of the more

annoying and scandalous habits of dialectical thought.”23 He highlights the tendency of

this type of argument to reduce both seemingly opposed positions to just two sides of a

coin or a common problematic, overlooking the variety present in both. Jameson

19 Habermas, “Modern and Postmodern Architecture,” 418. 20 Habermas, “Modern and Postmodern Architecture,” 418. 21 Habermas, “Modern and Postmodern Architecture,” 425. 22 Habermas, “Modern and Postmodern Architecture,” 425. 23 Fredric Jameson, “Architecture and the Critique of Ideology,” in Architecture Theory since 1968, ed. K. Michael

Hays (Cambridge, MA. and London: The MIT Press, 1998), 460. Paper presented at the Institute of Architecture and Urban Studies, New York, 1982; published in Architecture, Criticism, Ideology, ed. Joan Ockman et al. (Princeton Architectural Press, 1985). 460.


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explains it in a more familiar language using the following expression: both positions

“represent the two intolerable options of a single double-bind.”24 It is apposite to

remember here Curtis’s position, which is presented in this dissertation as taking the

pro-modern side of the modernism/postmodernism debate, although he himself

proclaims the uselessness of the whole debate. Ironically, given Curtis’s defence of

variety and inclusiveness in his approach to modern architecture, he seems determined

to not be as generous with postmodernism.

McLeod also alludes to another interesting issue in relation to postmodernism in

architecture: meaning. While meaning, or more accurately lack of meaning, is one of

the main points in Curtis’s critique of postmodernism, for McLeod it is precisely in

meaning that postmodern practitioners seek ideological justification.25 However, she

points out the difficulties of arriving at a consensus regarding architectural meaning,

giving its shifting nature. Therefore, she regards it as problematic when a critic bases

his or her analysis on meaning, something that Curtis does when he exposes the

distinctions between modern and postmodern, between principle and pastiche, as was

discussed in the previous section. McLeod writes:

Architectural meaning is shifting and ambiguous, which inevitably results in ambiguous, and double-edged, political readings. Thus any analysis of architectural ideology must go beyond simplistic labels of good and bad, and must search to discover in this complex matrix instances of both social entrenchment and genuine critique.26

Curtis would argue that he is not concerned with any analysis of ideology, but rather

with architectural principles. As is discussed in the section on ‘Mapping

Postmodernism in Modern Architecture Since 1900,’ Curtis organises his account

typologically, going through types of buildings that were booming at the time he was

writing: office buildings, museums, etc. Even if he does mention the socioeconomic

circumstances of the late twentieth century, he does not include these in his analysis of

the buildings. For McLeod, the fact that the reassessment of modernism occurred in a

tight economy, while the emergence of postmodernism resulted from the boom

24 Jameson, “Architecture and the Critique of Ideology,” 460. 25 McLeod, “Architecture and Politics in the Reagan Era...,” 24. 26 McLeod, “Architecture and Politics in the Reagan Era...,” 30.


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economy of the early 1980s, needs to be acknowledged.27 She goes one step further and

claims that the reason that “contemporary architecture has become so much about

surface, image, and play, and that its content has become so ephemeral, so readily

transformable and consumable,” is not only due to arbitrariness, or to architects’ lack

of ethical commitment.28 With a very pragmatic view, rather than an idealistic one like

Curtis’s view, McLeod partially ‘blames’ the postmodernists’ “neglect of the material

dimensions of architecture – program, production, financing, and so forth– that more

directly involve questions of power.”29 Habermas also contends that postmodernism

became an “emotionally loaded outright political battle cry” in the 1970s, a notion or

expression which different power groups would use to fit their own agendas.30 He

opposes both the neoconservatives, who saw the revival of tradition as a way to fight a

subversive modernity, to “radical critics of growth,” who saw in functionalism only the

destruction resulting from modernisation.31

In summary, some of the points in Curtis’s critique of postmodernism were drawn

from the architectural debate in the intervening years between the three editions of

Modern Architecture Since 1900; conversely, some of the points raised by the

aforementioned critics and historians were ignored in Curtis’s account. The tone and

the depth in their analyses also differ: Curtis’s dismissive tone does not hide the lack of

theoretical foundation and judgement criteria in his assessment of postmodernism. In

1984, the year in which Curtis published two essays on recent classicism, Foster urged

theorists to go beyond the surface when approaching postmodernism as a historical

process: “we need to consider more deeply what (post) modernism might be.”32 And, in

addition, he urges the reader to do so while keeping in mind that the issues raised by

postmodernism are clear: the status of the subject and its language, and the status of

history, its understanding and representation.33 Admitting that at the time he was

27 McLeod, “Architecture and Politics in the Reagan Era...,” 29. 28 McLeod, “Architecture and Politics in the Reagan Era...,” 55. 29 McLeod, “Architecture and Politics in the Reagan Era...,” 55. 30 Habermas, “Modern and Postmodern Architecture,” 417. 31 Habermas, “Modern and Postmodern Architecture,” 417. 32 Foster, “(Post) Modern Polemics,” 153. 33 Foster, “(Post) Modern Polemics,” 153.


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writing postmodernism needed to be recognised as “remaining in some kind of

parasitic relationship with the extinct high modernism it repudiates,” Jameson urges

architects to explore the possibility that a “whole new aesthetic is in the process of

emerging.”34

After over thirty years, while Jameson’s possibility is still being explored, and

reconsiderations are still being made, some arguments remain. For example, writing in

2014, David Rifkind still insists on defining postmodernism in architecture “as diverse

and pluralistic as the theoretical and aesthetic concerns that animated its principle

advocates.”35 For Jorge Otero-Pailos, postmodernism in architecture was “both a

stylistic movement and an intellectual sea change that germinated in the post-war

period, took root in the 1970s, and flourished in the 1980s.”36 In his opinion, it is easier

to identify the movement stylistically than to discern its intellectual boundaries. Since

the 1980s and still today, there seems to exist a certain agreement that the definition of

postmodernism in architecture is, at least, ambiguous. In their catalogue for the 2011

Exhibition ‘Postmodernism: Style and Subversion’ at the Victoria & Albert Museum,

Glenn Adamson and Jane Pavitt suggest that it is “not clear what postmodernism was

or even if it ever really existed.”37

Szacka regards postmodernism as a “discontinuous entity,”38 characterised by

“incoherence and pluralism,”39 which has been rethought in recent years through

different lenses. She writes a summary of the recent contributions to the

understanding of postmodernism in architecture: It is in these recent readings that

some nuances have arisen. For instance, Petit “positions postmodernism not so much

as a negation of or a radical break from modernism but as an alternative reading of

34 Jameson, “Architecture and the Critique of Ideology,”460. 35 David Rifkind, “Post-Modernism: Critique and Reaction,” in A Critical History of Contemporary Architecture:

1960-2010, ed. Elie G. Haddad and David Rifkin (London: Ashgate, 2014), 32. 36 Jorge Otero-Pailos, Architecture’s Historical Turn: Phenomenology and the Rise of the Postmodern, (Minneapolis

and London: University of Minnesota Press, 2010), xii. 37 Léa-Catherine Szacka, “Irony; or the Self-Critical Opacity of Postmodern Architecture,” The Journal of

Architecture vol 19, no. 3 (2014): 457. 38 Szacka, “Irony; or the Self-Critical Opacity of Postmodern Architecture,” 460. 39 Szacka, “Irony; or the Self-Critical Opacity of Postmodern Architecture,” 463.


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modern dogma.”40 When Colin Fournier discusses Jencks’ book, The Story of Post-

Modernism, he argues that Jencks identifies as contemporary postmodern works

buildings which “do not follow the same design philosophy: they lead, on the whole, to

simplistic, autonomous, diagrammatic one-liners that have been almost completely

stripped of any trace of complexity, multiple coding, symbolic meaning, contradiction,

radical juxtaposition, contextual counterpoint, irony and pluralism. In their place, the

all too familiar traits of Modernism have been re-injected, in a form that is even more

extreme than in the original specimens, and are now being cloned on a global scale.”41

Therefore, Curtis is not the only one who has wanted to see a certain continuity, rather

than a clean slate, between what has been considered to be modern and postmodern

architecture. This idea of continuity, and Curtis’s formulation of a ‘modern tradition’ is

explored in Chapter Five of this dissertation.

Late Twentieth Century for Frampton

Before moving on to the final chapter of this dissertation, and as with regionalism, it is

interesting to compare the way in which Curtis introduces postmodernism into his

historical narrative with the approach of his contemporary undeclared “opponent,”

Frampton. For Curtis, “a critical method that relies too heavily upon the notion of

movements renders itself incapable of distinguishing buildings of a high order from

those that simply wear the acceptable period dress.”42 During the course of our

communication, Curtis denied that at any point his book was a reaction against

Frampton’s Modern Architecture: A Critical History. This claim is definitely valid in the

case of the first edition: by the time Frampton’s book appeared in 1980, or by the time

Curtis read it to write his review in 1981, the main body of Modern Architecture Since

1900 was already written. This is demonstrated by the aforementioned letter that James

Ackerman wrote to Phaidon Press’ director in August 1981, after having read the entire

manuscript of Curtis’s book.43 However, there are judgements and opinions expressed

40 Szacka, “Irony; or the Self-Critical Opacity of Postmodern Architecture,” 462. 41 Colin Fournier, “Reassessing Postmodernism: is the Movement Still Relevant 50 Years on?” The Architectural

Review vol 230, no. 1377 (November 2011): 112. 42 Curtis, “Contemporary Transformations of Modern Architecture,” 108. 43 James S. Ackerman, Prof of Fine Arts, Harvard University, Letter to Simon Havilan, Director of Phaidon Press,

August 28, 1981. William J.R. Curtis, Letter sent via email message to author, February 21, 2017. WJRC Archive.


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in the preface and the introduction that, in my opinion, were aimed at Frampton’s

book. Moreover, it can be argued that it is also the case with the 1987 preface, and both

the preface and the introduction to the 1996 edition of Curtis’s book. It should be

recalled that Curtis wrote the preface to the 1987 edition two years after the

publication of the second edition of Frampton’s Modern Architecture (1985), and that

the third edition of Frampton’s book appeared in 1992, just as Curtis was finalising his

own revision for the 1996 edition of Modern Architecture Since 1900. The publication of

a new edition of the book was advertised in 2017, but, to my knowledge, it has not yet

been released; therefore, it has not been considered in this dissertation.

A quick overview of the contents of the different editions of Frampton’s Modern

Architecture: A Critical History would suggest that he added a new chapter with every

new edition, leaving the existing content of the book unchanged. However, the preface

to the second edition (1985) draws the reader’s attention to the substantial

enlargement of the existing final chapter on ‘Place, Production and Architecture:

Towards a Critical Theory of Building’. He even changed the title to one that remained

unaltered until the most recent edition: ‘Place, Production and Scenography:

International Theory and Practice since 1962.’ He admits in the preface that “inevitably

one’s assessment of the recent past alters with a change of perspective,” even if

contemporary architecture had not taken any radically new direction during the

intervening four or five years.44 And Frampton continues to assess the recent past in

the subsequent editions. This section focusses on the aforementioned chapter, ‘Place,

Production and Scenography: International Theory and Practice since 1962,’ and its

revision in the subsequent editions of the book. Firstly, it presents Frampton’s account

of postmodern architecture in the fourth edition of Modern Architecture: A Critical

History, the most complete one to date. Secondly, it traces the changes between the

first four editions, as with Curtis’s Modern Architecture Since 1900.

Frampton begins Chapter 4, Part III of the fourth edition of Modern Architecture: A

Critical History (2007) on ‘Place, Production and Scenography: International Theory

44 Kenneth Frampton, “Preface to the Second Edition,” in Modern Architecture: A Critical History (London: Thames

and Hudson, 1985), 7.


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and Practice since 1962,’ by highlighting the ambivalent role of the architectural

profession since the mid-1960s. Frampton categorises architectural practice and theory

in the late twentieth century using a series of ‘-isms.’ Under ‘Populism,’ he discusses

new theoretical formulations of the urban environment such as Robert Venturi’s

Complexity and Contradiction (1966), Venturi and Denise Scott-Brown’s Learning from

Las Vegas (1972), and Colin Rowe’s Collage City (1979). In Frampton’s opinion, what he

calls ‘American Populism’ seemed to grow exponentially, and among other examples

he discusses Charles Moore’s Piazza d’Italia in New Orleans (1979). For him, Paolo

Portoghesi’s architectural section of the 1980 Venice Biennale is the result of the

“uncritical absorption of American Populism into the European mainstream.”45

Under ‘Rationalism,’ Frampton classifies the Italian Neo-Rationalist movement, the so-

called ‘Tendenza’ which was initiated by Aldo Rossi’s L’architettura della città (1966)

and Giogrio Grassi’s La construzione logica dell’architettura (1967). Frampton gives

credit to Manfredo Tafuri for being a major influence on the movement with his

writings, and points out the interesting fact that most realisations of the Tendenza

were built outside of Italy, in the Swiss region of the Ticino.46 The next label,

‘Structuralism,’ is used by Frampton to categorise what he refers to as “the Robert and

Leon Krier credo” that function follows form, and their insistence on the cultural

importance of place, which found a parallel in the work of Herman Hertzberger.47

Frampton acknowledges the notion of the ‘labyrinthine clarity,’ which is proposed by

Dutch Structuralism and Aldo van Eyck with a unifying aim to “overcome the reductive

aspect of Functionalism.”48

For Frampton, the works of Foster Associates exemplify ‘Productivism,’ because they

place all emphasis on the elegance of production. He defines ‘Productivism’ as a

modernist position, and hard to differentiate from the view that “an authentic modern

architecture can and should be nothing more than elegant engineering, or certainly a

45 Kenneth Frampton, Modern Architecture: A Critical History (London: Thames and Hudson, 1980), 293. 46 Frampton, Modern Architecture: A Critical History, 295. 47 Frampton, Modern Architecture: A Critical History, 297. 48 Frampton, Modern Architecture: A Critical History, 298-299.


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product of industrial design on a giant scale.”49 Frampton lists four precepts or criteria

of ‘Productivism:’ accommodating the building task in an undecorated shed or hangar;

maintaining its adaptability by the provision of a homogeneous and integrated

network of services; articulating and expressing both the structure and the services

following Kahn’s separation of served and servant spaces; and, all-importantly,

expressing all component parts as Produktformen, as defined by Max Bill.50 In

Frampton’s opinion, the skin or skeleton is the dominant mode of expression, and one

of the few basic variables in the Productivist approach.51

Finally, Frampton moves on to ‘Post-modernism,’ discussing how its emergence was

announced on a global level by the architectural section of the Venice Biennale of 1980.

He agrees with the aforementioned critics and historians that postmodernism is not

easy to define in either stylistic or ideological terms. For Frampton, “the fact that it

tends to proclaim its legitimacy in exclusively formal – not to say superficial – terms,

rather than in terms of constructional, organisational or socio-cultural considerations,

already separates it, as modus operandi, from the architectural production of the third

quarter of the century.”52 While Curtis claims to observe a certain continuity of

modernist strategies in postmodern architecture, Frampton notes the discontinuity of

postmodern architecture and the rest of the late twentieth century architecture.

Despite the proclamation of its own legitimacy in formal terms, for Frampton, two

things can be said to characterise postmodern architecture: the conscious ruination of

style and the cannibalization of architectural form. Frampton describes how

postmodernism is evidence of “the tendency of the production/consumption cycle to

reduce every civic institution to some kind of consumerism [and architecture to a

‘package deal’ arranged by the builder/developer] and to undermine every traditional

quality.”53 In the environment described by Frampton, the architect is reduced to

contributing a suitable seductive mask. For example, the development of cities in the

49 Frampton, Modern Architecture: A Critical History, 303. 50 Frampton, Modern Architecture: A Critical History, 303. 51 Frampton, Modern Architecture: A Critical History, 303. 52 Frampton, Modern Architecture: A Critical History, 305. 53 Frampton, Modern Architecture: A Critical History, 306-307.


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United States in the 1970s and 1980s is based on high-rise towers, which “are either

reduced to the ‘silence’ of their totally glazed, reflective envelopes or alternatively

dressed in devalued historical trappings of one kind or another.”54

Philip Johnson’s AT&T headquarters building in New York and Michael Graves’

Portland Building are a consequence of that development, as well as examples of a

certain “dematerialised historicism,” showing an impulse which is scenographic rather

than tectonic, as scenographic as the Populist format of Venturi’s decorated shed.55 “In

Post-Modern architecture classical and vernacular ‘quotations’ tend to interpenetrate

each other disconcertingly,” resulting in unfocused, disintegrated and mixed images.56

For Frampton, Graves has been a symptomatic figure in the development of

postmodernism and in his work “the discourse of a ‘dematerialised’ historicism has

been self-consciously embraced and virtually mixed at random with modernist

fragments.”57 Finally, and still as part of his account of postmodernism, Frampton uses

the following ‘-isms’: “Craft Aestheticism” to refer to Hans Hollein, whom he sees as

the only postmodern architect showing critical distance, and “Classical-Populism” to

refer to James Stirling’s work and his notable Stuttgart Staatsgalerie.58 He refers to

Stirling’s conviction, “derived no doubt from modern museum management, that

today the museum is not only an edifying institution but also a place of distraction and

amusement,” designed to appeal to the man in the street.59

Frampton mentions the repudiation of Frank Lloyd Wright by postmodern architects

as clear evidence of the eclipse of Late Modernism in America and of the rejection of

what Jürgen Habermas called the “unfinished modern project.”60 Frampton admits that

it is difficult to arrive at the fundamental character of the postmodern phenomenon,

which can “be acknowledged as an understandable reaction to the pressures of societal

54 Frampton, Modern Architecture: A Critical History, 307. 55 Frampton, Modern Architecture: A Critical History, 307. 56 Frampton, Modern Architecture: A Critical History, 307. 57 Frampton, Modern Architecture: A Critical History, 308. 58 Frampton, Modern Architecture: A Critical History, 308-309. 59 Frampton, Modern Architecture: A Critical History, 309. 60 Frampton, Modern Architecture: A Critical History, 306.


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modernisation.”61 He mentions Habermas and his Theodor Adorno Prize address of

1980, to point out that the disruption and disappointments rejected by postmodernism

are a consequence of “the speed and rapacity of modern development,” which is a

result of modernisation, not modernism.

The last label which Frampton uses to address recent architectural developments is

‘Neo-Avant-Gardism,’ used for the work of The New York Five. In his account of ‘Neo-

Avant-Gardism,’ 1983 is identified as a key year, when Rem Koolhaas and Bernard

Tschumi openly competed for the commission to realize the Parc de la Villette in Paris

as a prototypical urban park for the twenty-first century.62 Similar but not identical

‘Deconstructivist’ strategies were employed by other architects throughout the 1980s,

like Frank Gehry, Peter Eisenman, and Daniel Liebeskind.

It is interesting to see how the main figures and buildings discussed in subsequent

editions of Frampton’s book were already in the first one, with few exceptions. In the

first edition of Modern Architecture: A Critical History (1980), the argument more or

less flows from one building, architect or movement to another, without focussing

attention on’-isms’: ‘Populism,’ ‘Rationalism,’ and ‘Structuralism,’ in this case. It is in

the second edition (1985) that Frampton chooses to fragment his same account of

contemporary architecture into labels, adding ‘Productivism,’ to refer to the work of

Norman Foster, and ‘Post-Avant-Gardism,’ to refer to the most recent work of Michael

Graves, Philip Johnson, James Stirling and Hans Hollein. After discussing their work in

these terms, Frampton declares the “triumph” of postmodernism to be “apparent,”

however, in spite of this, he warns of the profound consequences of “a reduction in the

referential content of form itself.”63 Regarding the debate as to the appropriateness of

modern architectural form, Frampton understands it to be “irrelevant” given the

worldwide effects of the consequences of modernisation.64

61 Frampton, Modern Architecture: A Critical History, 306. 62 Frampton, Modern Architecture: A Critical History, 312-313. 63 Frampton, Modern Architecture: A Critical History (1985), 311. 64 Frampton, Modern Architecture: A Critical History (1985), 312.


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Surprisingly, Graves, Johnson, Stirling and Hollein are listed in the third and

subsequent editions under the label ‘Post-Modernism,’ leaving the formula ‘Neo-

Avant-Gardism,’ to analyse the work of the New York Five. In the preface to this third

edition (1992), Frampton acknowledges having expanded the bibliography and recast

and expanded the text. He writes that Chapter 4 of Part III “has been revised in order

to register the latest activities of the neo-avant-garde and to record the more specific

recent achievements of the high-tech architects and of that sector we have come to

recognise as structuralist.”65

As is the case with Curtis’s book, the aim of this quick overview of postmodernism in

the different editions of Frampton’s Modern Architecture: A Critical History is to

highlight the difficulty of addressing contemporary developments and including them

in historical surveys. The different issues involved in Curtis’s mapping of the late

twentieth century and his balancing of the positions of historian and critic are

investigated in Chapter Five of this dissertation; at this point, however, it is necessary

to highlight the impact of the use of ‘-isms’ in Frampton’s approach, which, at least

according to Curtis, is contrary to his own approach. As aforementioned in the section

on ‘Classificatory Strategies in the three Editions of Modern Architecture Since 1900,’

Curtis organised his account of the late twentieth century around such general themes

as the re-evaluation of the past, the response to local climates and cultures, the

celebration of technology, and the re-emergence of abstraction. He claims that, rather

than relying upon the usual transient ‘isms,’ he selects “individual buildings and ideas

that seem to add to an architectural culture of long-term value.”66

To sum up, it is interesting to see the difficulty theorists had in the historicising

postmodern architecture during the 1980s. McLeod argues that Peter Eisenman and

other young “neoconstructivists” could be considered “postmodern,” as they propose

an alternative reaction to the failings of modernism, and also engage in the debate

about meaning and its dissolution – although other categories, like deconstructivist,

65 Kenneth Frampton, “Preface to the Third Edition,” in Modern Architecture: A Critical History (London: Thames

and Hudson, 1992), 7. 66 William J.R. Curtis, “Preface to the Third Edition,” in Modern Architecture Since 1900 (London: Phaidon Press,

1996), 10.


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are also possible. So, while some of the theoretical essays discussed in this chapter

consider deconstructivism to be another of the postmodern currents, together with the

historicist/classicist approach, in the case of Curtis’s and Frampton’s histories they are

both presented as forms of neo-avant-gardism or neo-modernism. It can be argued

that it was premature of Curtis and Frampton to include an account of postmodernism

in their historical narratives, that it was too early for it to be accurate or objective.

There is a relevant nuance which both the aforementioned critical essays by various

scholars and Frampton’s chapter on architecture in the late twentieth century in

Modern Architecture: A Critical History add to the discussion: the effects of socio-

political and economic circumstances on architectural practice and theory. These are

absent from Curtis’s discourse, or only present as a mere context. This is a

foundational issue as it is not only a matter of exposing a certain ideology, but

determines the definition of architecture and the way to judge and historicise it. The

way in which Curtis criticises postmodernism in Modern Architecture Since 1900, based

on criteria such as expression, meaning, authenticity, and essential values or

principles, results in a subjective approach which disregards the forces responsible for

the material realisation of architecture, beyond the architect’s genius.

I would posit that, as this chapter demonstrates, between the late 1970s and early

1990s, Curtis provides a “unitary explanation” of postmodernism in architecture. It

tends to be the case that unitary explanations, “whether positive of negative, have

stood in the way of both historical understanding and sound critical evaluation.”67

Surely, although Curtis argues that the idea of a modernism presented in postmodern

critique is oversimplified and monolithic, the same could be said of his own reading of

postmodernism in architecture. Curtis’s approach to the tasks of history and the role of

historian, especially dealing with the late twentieth century, are thoroughly discussed

in the following chapter of this dissertation.

67 William J.R. Curtis, “Transformation and Invention: on Re-reading Modern Architecture,” The Architectural

Review vol 221, no. 1321 (March 2007): 36-40. Original essay written by Curtis in February 2007, 2, WJRC Archive.

Rethinking Curtis: The Task of History and Role of the Historian

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Chapter Five_ Rethinking William J.R. Curtis: Between the

Modern and the Global in Architecture

Modern Architecture, 1900-1975 could have been the title of Curtis’s book. It was the

working title at least during the summer of 1981 when James Ackerman read the

manuscript and wrote his support letter to Phaidon Press’s director.1 1975 was most

probably the realisation date of the most recent buildings included in the first edition,

which he was writing from 1978. However, Modern Architecture Since 1900 is a title

that not only allows the revision and update of the content, but also relates to Curtis’s

understanding of modern architecture and its history. As Peter L. Laurence points out,

“the very title of William J.R. Curtis’s Modern Architecture Since 1900 emphasised the

continuity of modern architecture into the present.”2 In the third edition of the book,

and looking back at the period between 1900 and 1995, Curtis sees traditions, or several

strands of a tradition, which gradually overrun “the inheritance of attitudes and

vocabulary” of the nineteenth century, transforming and being transformed in global

terms by different national and regional traditions.3 The continuity within modern

architecture outlined by Curtis could be considered relevant today in the light of

recent proposals for alternative periodisations of cultural production in the twentieth

century.

After having explored the writing of Modern Architecture Since 1900 in general, and

regionalism and postmodernism as particular forms of the development of modern

architecture in the late twentieth century, this chapter presents a close reading of the

content of Curtis’s book, looking directly at the question of how closely it aligns with

his stated aims. This chapter will also consider how Curtis’s work resonates with

architectural debate today. Additional literature which has been published more

recently, since the last edition of Curtis’s book, will be reviewed in this discussion as


August 28, 1981. William J.R. Curtis, Letter sent via email message to author, February 21, 2017. WJRC Archive. 2 Peter L. Laurence, “Modern (or Contemporary) Architecture circa 1959,” in A Critical History of Contemporary

Architecture: 1960-2010, ed. Elie G. Haddad and David Rifkin (London: Ashgate, 2014), 10. 3 William J.R. Curtis, “Introduction,” in Modern Architecture Since 1900 (London: Phaidon Press, 1996), 12.


178

appropriate, in relation to the themes of regionalism, postmodernism and tradition,

and to his methodological approach to history.

Curtis claims to perceive and present even the most recent realisations of modern

architecture with a dispassionate distance. Consequently, it is necessary to reflect on

what the task of history and the role of historian is for Curtis, from three points of

view: firstly, from the point of view of his proposed mapping of the architecture of the

late twentieth century; secondly, from the point of view of his attempted balance

between the roles of the historian and the critic when discussing the recent past; and

finally, from the point of view of Curtis’s own methodological approach to the

discipline. Curtis’s formulation of a modern tradition materialises the book’s aims, as it

encompasses the development, rather than the roots, of modern architecture until the

recent past.

1. The Task of History and the Role of the Historian

In January 2007, on the occasion of the presentation of the Spanish translation of the

third edition of Modern Architecture Since 1900, Curtis still maintained his position:

that one of the duties of the historian is to keep a certain critical distance from the

currents of his or her own time.4 Writing that edition between 1992 and 1993, he

considered that “there is now just enough distance from the 1970s to portray the crises

of the period without falling prey to the polemics.”5 In his opinion, the historian of the

present has “a unique and unprecedented opportunity to see his subject with a certain

dispassionate distance, and this should not be thrown away by indulgence in

propaganda.”6 In the case of the first edition, written in the late 1970s, he admits to

having pretended to be looking at the architectural production from a distance of a few

decades: “from such a vantage point, movements which claim opposition to one


perspectiva de un historiador sobre la arquitectura moderna,” translated by Jorge Sainz and read out by the author in Spanish on the presentation of the translation of the third edition of Modern Architecture Since 1900 at the Círculo de Bellas Artes, Madrid, January 2007. WJRC Archive. 5 William J.R. Curtis, Modern Architecture Since 1900 (Oxford: Phaidon Press, 1996), 692. 6 Curtis, “Introduction,” 12.


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another reveal underlying similarities” and continuities.7 Regardless the edition, the

claimed distance needs to be questioned when Curtis approaches the recent

developments of architecture, in general, and regionalism and postmodernism in

particular.

Mapping the Late Twentieth Century

A certain balance, rather than dichotomy, opposition or resistance, between the old

and the new, between innovation and tradition, between regional and universal, would

summarise Curtis’s understanding of regionalism since 1900. In the last pages of Part 4,

Curtis recognises the confusion about what constitutes a region in the early 1990s, a

period characterised by a “worldwide [the term ‘global’ was not yet in use]

standardization of products, images, fashions and ideas on the one hand, and by an

even greater pluralism of identities, factions, confederations and territorial allegiances

on the other.”8 For him, some of the best examples of architecture of the 1980s appear

unaffiliated with “the cliques in charge of media and schools” of architecture and “the

babble of their discourse,” and in developing countries or in parts peripheral of and

remote from the European and American industrialised world.9 Curtis claims to have

cast a wide net, balancing the Third World with the First, balancing examples from

places as diverse as Spain and India, Finland and Australia, France and Mexico, the

United States, the Middle East and Japan. Curtis prefers ‘universalism’ to a

‘regionalism,’ which, misused in the 1980s, resulted in not only kitsch imitations of the

vernacular in the European context, but also the death of most authentic vernaculars

while “the rest were under threat of extinction.”10 During the course of my

communication with Curtis, he recalled realising that regionalism risked becoming a

“lazy shorthand for a much more complex phenomenon concerning the realities and

myths of nations.”11

7 William J.R. Curtis, Modern Architecture Since 1900 (Oxford: Phaidon Press, 1982), 368. 8 William J.R. Curtis, Modern Architecture Since 1900 (Oxford: Phaidon Press, 1996), 636. 9 William J.R. Curtis, “Contemporary Transformations of Modern Architecture,” Architectural Record vol 177, no. 7

(June 1989): 108. 10 Curtis, Modern Architecture Since 1900, 639. 11 William J.R. Curtis, email message to author, February 2, 2017.


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In the introduction to Critical Regionalism: Architecture and Identity in a Globalised

World (2003), Alexander Tzonis agrees with Curtis on the misuse of the notion of

regionalism, reporting that regionalism as he and Liane Lefaivre formulated it in the

1980s, to indicate “an approach to design giving priority to the identity of the particular

rather than to universal dogmas,” was similarly misrepresented.12 Tzonis recollects how

regionalism was meant to be an alternative not only to postmodernism, but also to the

modernism/postmodernism debate widely criticised by Curtis. He argues that the

critical regionalist approach to design of the twenty-first century aims “to rethink

architecture through the concept of region,” and “recognises the value of the singular,

circumscribes projects within the physical, social and cultural constraints of the

particular, aiming at sustaining diversity while benefiting from universality.”13 So, even

if Tzonis rethinks regionalism in terms of “unresolved conflict between globalisation

and diversity,” confrontation and opposition “between international intervention and

identity,” he too sees something positive, or at least beneficial, in universalism. Rather

than prioritising conflict and opposition, or identity over universalism, Curtis, writing

around 1992-3, describes the architecture of the present as one which balances or

“oscillates between the unique and the typical,” characterised by diversity from both an

intellectual and a geographical point of view.14

In her own introductory text, Lefaivre presents Mumford’s reformulation of

regionalism, and points out that “with Mumford, regionalism becomes a constant

process of negotiation between the local and the global on the many different issues

that traditionally made up regionalism.”15 According to Lefaivre, Mumford sees

regionalism not as resistance, but as an “engagement with the global, universalising

world rather,” a position similar to the one previously defended by Curtis.16

12 Alexander Tzonis, “Introducing an Architecture of the Present: Critical Regionalism and the Design of Identity,”

in Critical Regionalism: Architecture and Identity in a Globalized World, ed. Liane Lefaivre and Alexander Tzonis (Munich, Berlin, London, New York: Prestel, 2003), 10. 13 Tzonis, “Introducing an Architecture of the Present,” 20. 14 Curtis, Modern Architecture Since 1900, 657. 15 Liane Lefaivre, “Critical Regionalism: A Facet of Modern Architecture since 1945,” in Critical Regionalism:

Architecture and Identity in a Globalized World, ed. Liane Lefaivre and Alexander Tzonis (Munich, Berlin, London, New York: Prestel, 2003), 34. 16 Lefaivre, “Critical Regionalism…,”34.


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In the introduction to Architectural Regionalism (2007), Vincent B. Canizaro

recommends Curtis’s Modern Architecture Since 1900 and the aforementioned 2003

essay by Lefaivre for an “excellent account of the history of regionalism.”17

Interestingly, Canizaro does not include in his Collected Essays any of the writings of

Curtis on regionalism discussed in this dissertation, and nor do Tzonis and Lefaivre

cite them. Canizaro includes in the introduction to his book one epigraph on

authenticity and another on modernism/postmodernism debate. For him, authenticity

measures our connection to things and places, an interesting idea that could be

applied to Curtis’s own understanding of the notion, as what measures his own

connection to the architecture he experiences.18 With regard to the dialectic between

tradition and modernity, Canizaro affirms that regionalism lies at the centre of it,

helping to achieve a certain balance, “between the necessary cultural continuity and

the desire for progress and innovation.”19

In the case of postmodernism, Curtis’s approach can be summarised as the

confirmation of an intuition. Writing the introduction to the first edition of Modern

Architecture Since 1900 in 1981, Curtis doubts whether postmodernist questioning and

rejection of modernism is a sign of the collapse of modern architecture or just another

crisis heading toward its consolidation. As early as 1979, as Curtis was beginning to

write the book, Joseph Rykwert was already criticising postmodernism as an alternate

modernist architecture, and “a diversion, from the serious business of reconsidering

the architect’s task.”20 Curtis frames his own critique of postmodernism in similar

terms, as a wake-up call for architects to rethink their role, and, in the 1996 edition,

declares with absolute assurance that postmodernism was “ephemeral,” just a new re-

examination of certain core ideas of modern architecture, advocating for a certain

continuity.21

17 Vincent B. Canizaro, ed., Architectural Regionalism: Collected Writings on Place, Identity, Modernity, and

Tradition (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2007), 446. 18 Canizaro, Architectural Regionalism, 26. 19 Canizaro, Architectural Regionalism, 22. 20 Joseph Rykwert, “Inheritance or Tradition,” Architectural Design vol 49, no. 5/6 (1979). 21 Curtis, “Introduction,” 16.


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Also writing in 1996, the landscape architect Tom Turner saw “signs of post-

postmodern life, in urban design, architecture and elsewhere.”22 However, more

recently, in 2007, N. Katherine Hayles and Todd Gannon claimed that “postmodernism

died” in 1995 due to expansion of the Internet’s global accessibility.23 Very recently, in a

lecture on January 2017, Peter Osborne declared the category of postmodernism “well

and truly buried,”24 after having referred to it as an “episode” which enlivened

theoretical debates between 1979 and 1999, and an “illusion” that dissipated.25 It is

interesting to note that the period of time established by Osborne as the ‘episode’ of

postmodernism is similar to the timeline of the writing of Modern Architecture Since

1900, from the late 1970s to the early 1990s. Building on these contributions, Nathan

Brown attempts to present a new periodisation related to Curtis’s defence of a certain

continuity within modern architecture, which is discussed in the next section on ‘A

Modern Tradition.’

In her recent account of Hans Hollein and Postmodernism (2017), Eva Branscome

argues that “postmodernism today has become a part of the past.”26 Branscome agrees

with Curtis that “even from its beginning, postmodernism echoed the notions of ‘style’

already present in modernism,” and that by the 1980s postmodernism had ossified into:

a style devoid of its original complexity and meaning.27 According to Branscome, as

was the case with regionalism, postmodernism had lost its original complexity and

meaning. She points out that postmodernism is being reassessed not only by way of

recent books mentioned in this dissertation such as the one by Jorge Otero-Pailos, but

also through conference panels organised by the European Architectural History

Network and the Society of Architectural Historians in the United States, and I would

add, in Australia and New Zealand and Great Britain. What Branscome refers to as a

“hybrid view” supported by recent historiography defends the idea that “many typical

22 Tom Turner, City as Landscape: A Post-Postmodern View of Design and Planning (London: E&FN Spon, 1996), 8. 23 Nathan Brown, “Postmodernity, not yet. Toward a New Periodisation,” Radical Philosophy vol 2, no. 1 (2018): 12. 24 Peter Osborne, “Crisis as Form,” lecture at Kingston University, London (12 January 2017). 25 Peter Osborne, “The Postconceptual Condition: Or, the Cultural Logic of High Capitalism Today,” Radical

Philosophy vol 184 (March/April 2014): 19-20. 26 Eva Branscome, Hans Hollein and Postmodernism: Art and Architecture in Austria, 1958-1985 (London: Routledge,

2017), 4. 27 Branscome, Hans Hollein and Postmodernism…, 5.


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features of postmodernism were in fact already present in the modernism of the 1950s,

and some features have even been suggested to go back as far as the 1920s” –

something that Curtis had already pointed out over twenty years ago, in his 1980s

writing and in the third edition of Modern Architecture Since 1900.28 For him, “the

reality of architectural production in the 1980s and 1990s had more to do with

evolution and reassessment than with revolution and radical breaks.” 29

While some argue that postmodernism lost its criticality around 1995, partly due to the

emergence of ‘global,’ regionalism is still relevant to the study of the present, at least

for Tzonis, precisely because of the “ubiquitous conflict in all fields – including

architecture – between globalisation and international intervention, on the one hand,

and local identity and the desire for ethnic insularity, on the other.”30 Both regionalism

and postmodernism are being rethought today in the light of postcolonial theories in

architecture, and of new periodisations of the twentieth century. They are two sides of

the same coin, as theoretical frameworks created to identify architectural works

emerging out of individual situations, and not terms used by architects themselves.

In general terms, Curtis’s mapping of the late twentieth century, which was praised by

most reviewers, as discussed in Chapter Two of this dissertation, can be characterised

by his alleged rejection of the use of labels in classifying the pluralism of approaches to

architecture, and his rejection, too, of the excess of theory in the writing of history. In

the introduction to the third edition of Modern Architecture Since 1900, Curtis writes

that his work “avoids standard critical postures and largely fictional ‘movements’ and

tries to single out buildings and tendencies of lasting value.”31 In his opinion, if we rely

too much on ‘-isms,’ it becomes difficult to distinguish between “durable creations and

weaker relatives.”32 Instead, he argues for architects to find a balance between

innovation and the social significance of buildings. At the end of Part 4 of the book,

Curtis writes:

28 Branscome, Hans Hollein and Postmodernism…, 6. 29 Curtis, Modern Architecture Since 1900, 619. 30 Tzonis, “Introducing an Architecture of the Present…,” 10. 31 Curtis, “Introduction,” 17. 32 Curtis, Modern Architecture Since 1900, 617.


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Architecture in the late twentieth century has evidently followed many channels, and has been characterised by both geographical diversity and intellectual pluralism. But this does not mean that the attempt at discerning broader patterns and longer lines of development should be abandoned. Little is gained by inventing fictive movements, especially when these are described or analysed using the rhetorical terminology of the participants themselves. Nevertheless, there may be communities of concern, overlaps of intention or shared territories of expression.33

According to Curtis, the architecture of the late twentieth century is characterized, not

by a single style of ideology, or terms used in the early 1990s such as ‘high-tech,’

‘Regionalism,’ ‘neo-Rationalism,’ ‘classicism,’ ‘contextualism,’ and ‘minimalism,’ but

rather by pluralism, or even “multiple modernisms.”34 However, even if Curtis refuses

the use of ‘-isms’ to map the late twentieth century, he does use some ‘-isms’ in his own

account when convenient: the ‘preservationism’ of the theoretical work of the Krier

brothers, the ‘revisionism’ of David Watkin’s work, or the ‘traditionalism’ of other

postmodern approaches.

In January 2007, on the occasion of the presentation of the Spanish translation of the

third edition of Modern Architecture Since 1900, Curtis reflected on the relationship

between theory and the writing of history. In his opinion, “the historian who identifies

with the interests of a single school or clique, sacrifices the possibility of a balanced

view,” and the result becomes “second rate.”35 If the historian is to achieve the aim of

penetrating the complexity of the past and explaining it intelligibly, what Curtis refers

to as ‘obscurantism,’ ‘false theorising,’ or jargon plays no part.36 Although Curtis

acknowledges the need for theoretical frameworks, historical thinking and the

understanding of architecture itself are, for him, the keys to the writing of history. 37

Curtis claims that his work cannot be linked to any particular ideology or school of

thought, and I add that this is evident in the book and its mostly balanced perspective.

Curtis agrees with Marvin Trachtenberg on blaming his predecessors for keeping

33 Curtis, Modern Architecture Since 1900, 657. 34 Curtis, Modern Architecture Since 1900, 683. 35 Curtis, “A Historian’s Perspective on Modern Architecture,” transcript of the talk, January 2007. 36 Curtis, “A Historian’s Perspective on Modern Architecture,” transcript of the talk, January 2007. 37 William J.R. Curtis, Le Corbusier: Ideas and Forms (London: Phaidon Press, 2015), 477.


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architectural history as a heavily obscure discipline, as discuss in Chapter One of this

dissertation.38

Most reviewers of the book dismiss Curtis’s claim that one should avoid an excess of

theory in the writing of history, and consider it detrimental to the scholarship of

Modern Architecture Since 1900. In The Psychologizing of Modernity (2000), Mark

Jarzombek goes one step further, arguing that Curtis’s decision is itself theoretical.

Jarzombek uses a quote in which Curtis advocates for a criticism “based upon the

experience and analysis of actual architectural objects in their precise setting,” Which

Curtis sees as especially relevant at a time when “architecture is once again being

buried under smoke screens of ‘theory;”39 Jarzombek does so to argue that “this

‘critique’ of theory is discredited by its attempt to pretend that it itself is not theory.”40

In other words, Jarzombek posits that ‘theory’ here might just be too well ‘digested,’

and that there are theoretical principles lurking behind Curtis’s discursive operations.41

According to Jarzombek’s reflection (though this is sketchy, as he himself admits),

Curtis as author functions “inside and outside established disciplines and indeed wants

that fluidity to be understood in a positive light as a break with entrenched models of

perception,” or even theorisation.42

Curtis’s mapping of the late twentieth century, from the tentative proposal of the first

edition to its extended and inclusive 1996 version, is one of the main strengths of

Modern Architecture Since 1900, and one of its main contributions to the

historiography of modern architecture, as most previous and subsequent historians

avoided including the recent past in their accounts. Curtis’s advocacy for continuity in

architecture throughout the world and the century is another strength of the book. In

drafting a continuous map, though, his methodology, that of a formalist art historian,

38 Marvin Trachtenberg, “Some Observations on Recent Architectural History,” The Art Bulletin vol 70, no. 2 (June

1988). 39 William J.R. Curtis, “Alvaro Siza: An Architecture of Edges,” El Croquis 68/69 (1994): 33. 40 Mark Jarzombek, The Psychologizing of Modernity: Art, Architecture, and History (Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press, 2000), 308. 41 Jarzombek, The Psychologizing of Modernity, 27. 42 Jarzombek, The Psychologizing of Modernity, 36.


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and his ‘theoretical’ determination to avoid obscure theorisations, appear as

weaknesses that risk his aim to balance the tasks of the historian and the critic.

Balancing the Historian and the Critic

Curtis claims to be aware of the risks and dangers that appear as Modern Architecture

Since 1900 draws closer to the present. In Curtis’s opinion, when the historian

champions some aspects while chastising others, or imposes a pre-established pattern

on recent events (architects and buildings), so that they point to the aspects he or she

admires in the architecture of his/her time, this causes history to degenerate into

polemic.43 In the first edition of Modern Architecture Since 1900, Curtis writes that it is

“a standard part of art historical folklore” that one should never attempt to write the

history of the recent past, in order to avoid biases.44 In the third edition of the book,

“standard” is replaced by “commonplace.”45 Curtis argues that this is false: if the

historian neglects the writing of the history of the recent past, propagandists or

architects themselves end up writing history.

At the time of writing his allegedly ‘dispassionate’ history of modern architecture, the

problem Curtis encountered was how to overcome the repeated refrain that modern

architecture was dead. Alongside the scholars proclaiming the death of modern

architecture, Curtis identifies others who cling to their established views and identity

as ‘modernists,’ and considers both positions to be extremes to avoid when dealing

with the recent past. In the third edition of Modern Architecture Since 1900, Curtis

argues that neither of these positions gives a nuanced account of invention and “its

usual debts to the past,” and that both present a simplistic and monolithic version of

modern architecture, and play down its continuities.46 According to Curtis, neither is

willing to admit that the balance between the old and the new results in profound

innovation, and “that the seminal works of the modern movement have value for the

future precisely because their principles transcend period limitations.”47

43 Curtis, “Introduction,” 12. 44 William J.R. Curtis, Modern Architecture Since 1900 (Oxford: Phaidon Press, 1982), 367. 45 William J.R. Curtis, Modern Architecture Since 1900 (Oxford: Phaidon Press, 1996), 617. 46 Curtis, Modern Architecture Since 1900, 589. 47 William J.R. Curtis, Modern Architecture Since 1900 (Oxford: Phaidon Press, 1982), 367.


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In the last pages of the three editions of Modern Architecture Since 1900, Curtis claims

to have achieved a certain balance between these two positions. And, yet, he

acknowledges that it is difficult to arrive naturally at a consensus about contemporary

(or current) developments. By including them in a long historical perspective and

stating clearly the basis of his judgements, he claims to fulfil the aim of presenting a

balanced picture of recent developments in architecture.48 Curtis disagrees with what

he calls “the contemporary cynic, protected from difficult social realities by the

dogmatic uncertainties of post-modern philosophy, surrounded by the ‘pensée unique’

of the globalized market, [who] thinks that all talk of grand historical narratives has

had its day.”49 In addition, he wishes to integrate the practical, the social, the technical

and the symbolic in his approach to architecture. Again, a certain balance is required

in the thinking and writing of history for what he refers to as the “constant oscillation

between fact and opinion, between detailed analyses and broad interpretations,

between induction and deduction.”50 At the end of the first edition, he writes:

Such a description [of pluralisms in the 1970s] is bound to be lopsided and incomplete, but I can at least claim that I have set out to portray the complexities – and contradictions – of recent pluralism. If I have, on occasion, adopted a critical position with regard to an idea or a building, I have attempted to lay bare the basis of the judgement.51

It is true that, while Curtis does not use the terms ‘objective’ or ‘objectivity’ to refer to

his writing, his emphasis on the balance and distance of his point of view results in a

grounded historical narrative, a kind of ‘truth,’ based on his own experience of modern

architecture. For Trachtenberg, when dealing with the history of modern architecture,

the distance is only relative, regardless if talking about the distant or recent past. He

believes that historians of modernism (and he considers Curtis one of them) have the

ambition “to alter, to shape, to affect somehow the course of current architectural

development with their writing (and justly so).”52 Reconsidering the historiography of

48 Curtis, “Introduction,” 17 49 William J.R. Curtis, “Transformation and Invention: on Re-reading Modern Architecture,” The Architectural

Review vol 221, no. 1321 (March 2007): 36-40. Original essay written by Curtis in February 2007, 5, WJRC Archive. 50 Curtis, “A Historian’s Perspective on Modern Architecture,” transcript of the talk, January 2007. 51 Curtis, Modern Architecture Since 1900, 368. 52 Marvin Trachtenberg, “Some Observations on Recent Architectural History,” The Art Bulletin vol 70, no. 2 (June

1988): 241.


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modern architecture in this light, then, Giedion was as committed to the beginnings of

modernism, as Banham was to New Brutalism or high-tech, and as Curtis was to his

long historical perspective of modern architecture against postmodernism.

According to John Macarthur, “criticism, no matter who makes it, is a claim to

expertise and authority, it is, by its nature, a claim that all should feel towards the

work as the critic does, and a differentiated naming of those feelings by reference to

issues and ideas larger than the work at hand.”53 Curtis’s authority is related to his own

experience of the ‘events’ he narrates, which happened in varied cultural, intellectual

and geographical settings, and which he incorporates into a longer historical

perspective. However, at the same time, he cannot refrain from conveying his

enormous displeasure regarding the ideas and materialisations of postmodernism. In

spite of the importance that Curtis gives to authenticity, or what Macarthur refers to as

‘meaningfulness,’ as judgement criterion, his own account of postmodernism, rather

than being history, degenerates into polemic criticism. Therefore, I argue that Curtis

achieves an unstable balance at crafting a longer historical narrative, credible, because

of his expertise and authority on modern architecture. Fundamental to Curtis’s

expertise on modern architecture is his first-hand experience, discussed extensively in

Chapter Two of this dissertation as a result of our communication and his generosity in

sharing archival information with me.

Experiencing Modern Architecture

There is one underlying idea in every argument put forward by Curtis on the task of

history and the role of the historian: Modern Architecture Since 1900 is, for him,

exemplary of what the historian should be doing at the end of the 1970s, and of what

previous historians neglected. When he started writing the first edition of Modern

Architecture Since 1900, it seemed necessary to Curtis “to avoid the various

determinisms [historical or social, as well as over-simplistic definitions] of some

previous authors, and to elaborate a more complex picture of both the internal order of

a modern tradition, and of longer-range debts to the past,” by showing how modern

53 John Macarthur, “Sense, Meaning and Taste in Architectural Criticism,” in Writing, Representation and Criticism

in Architecture/ Semi-Detached, ed. Naomi Stead (Melbourne: Uro Media, 2012), 235.


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masters had learned and transformed lessons from the past.54 Curtis does not “wish to

add some glowing extra chapters” to previous historians’ sagas, nor to add to the

growing number of ‘revisionist’ histories trying to demonstrate that “modern

architecture was some temporary fall from architectural grace.”55 In January 2007, on

the occasion of the presentation of the Spanish translation of the third edition of

Modern Architecture Since 1900, Curtis said:

One inherits from predecessors but does not accept their work passively. One lives in a critical tension with what has gone before and tries to keep a distance from the illusions and delusions of one’s own time. There is nothing more limiting and more provincial than the present.56

Curtis defines history as a communal activity, bound to draw on past models though

reinterpreting them. In addition, by presenting new facts and buildings, it is possible

to re-scrutinise and reconsider personalities and events that “once seemed to have

some immutable status.”57 He believes that history should aim to explain why certain

formal configurations and technical solutions are appropriate to a particular task, and

to decipher underlying meanings and intentions.58 There is, however, no simple

formula. A certain intuition, what Curtis refers to as “an act of historical imagination,”

is necessary for a historian to construct his or her own abstractions and form a “mental

picture of the past,” or of the intentions and processes of thought behind actual

buildings.59 It is precisely through the analysis of aspects of buildings beyond

appearance – of generating ideas and spatial organisation – that the historian may find

a balance between the concerns of a certain period, the personal style of a certain

architect, and the intentions of an individual work. Again, balance is key to Curtis’s

approach to writing:

I have attempted to hold in balance the many forces, decisions, intentions, events, even accidents, that influenced architectural results. To insist upon the genesis of forms and the initial sparks that give life to a project, is not to ignore the down to earth realities of resolving, constructing, even paying for

54 Curtis, Modern Architecture Since 1900, 691. 55 Curtis, “Introduction,” 12. 56 Curtis, “A Historian’s Perspective on Modern Architecture,” transcript of the talk, January 2007. 57 Curtis, “Introduction,” 12. 58 Curtis, “Introduction,” 14. 59 Curtis, Modern Architecture Since 1900, 692.


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buildings. To focus to some degree upon the ‘realm of architectural ideas’ is not to minimise the importance of client’s aspirations, sites, institutions, territories, culture, social forces and politics. Nor is it to underrate the role of collaborators, from architects in the atelier to engineers. But without these deep initial impulses, without the fixing of intentions and architectural ideas in sketches and plans, the architectural results would have been altogether different.60

The notion of balance is also necessary for historians in order to identify with

architects and agents in the building process while maintaining certain objectivity. In

Curtis’s opinion, the historian needs to find a certain balance between the analysis of

the individual work and reflection upon the architect’s language and formal thinking.

For him, “this constitutes an analysis of style in the true sense of the word: typical

elements and characteristic combinations embedded in recurrent patterns of meaning

and thought.”61 The historian’s task requires a rigorous differentiation between fact

and opinion, and a deep understanding of the individual works of architecture, which

are historical documents. It is the analysis of these works that Curtis places at the core

of Modern Architecture Since 1900, as discussed in Chapter Two of this dissertation.

Despite the importance that Curtis gives to scientific rigour and documentary

evidence, in his opinion they are no substitute for insight and interpretive skill, which

the historian must use to humbly test their historical hypotheses.62

During the course of our communication, Curtis told me that “first-hand experience of

architecture is crucial in my [his] way of operating,” and in his approach to the writing

of history.63 Curtis’s first-hand experience of buildings, and his relationship with

architects as traveller and photographer, is evident in the preparation of the book.

Apart from the travels aforementioned in the section on ‘The Story of the Writing of

Modern Architecture Since 1900,’ Curtis holds the copyright on at least fifty images of

the first edition, including the pictures in the chapter on ‘The Architectural System of

Frank Lloyd Wright’ leading to the type of the ‘Prairie House,’ Mies van der Rohe’s IIT

Crown Hall and Lake Shore Drive apartments in Chicago, and Le Corbusier’s work in

60 Curtis, Le Corbusier: Ideas and Forms, 480. 61 Curtis, Le Corbusier: Ideas and Forms, 478. 62 Curtis, Le Corbusier: Ideas and Forms, 479. 63 William J.R. Curtis, email message to author, August 31, 2016.


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Chandigarh, India. This number is increased in the third edition, and some of Curtis’s

pictures from the first edition are replaced by similar ones in colour. In his opinion, the

experience of the buildings themselves and the resulting fresh insights have a

“liberating effect” against dogmatic and deterministic approaches to the writing of

history, arid scholasticism and passing fads.64

Architecture speaks its own language in silence and touches the mind and senses on many levels. What no photograph can recapture is the feeling of moving through spaces of different intensity, the touch of material or the unfolding of views. Just when the historian is settling into lazy definitions it is as well that he be jolted by the unexpected discoveries in the realm of architecture itself.65

Furthermore, he refers to the experience of buildings as “one of the most direct and

enjoyable ways of having one’s prejudices upset.”66 By focussing on the analysis of

actual works of architecture, Curtis claims to avoid “the hazy and often pretentious

theoretical utterances of architects and sometimes half-blind sycophants and

commentators.”67 His emphasis upon the experience of buildings, of what Curtis refers

to as “high order,” is his response to writings “which manufacture movements,

fashionable trends and other ideological fictions.”68 The critical map of the recent past

that Curtis presents in Modern Architecture Since 1900 combines several deep readings

into a larger historical pattern.69 In his opinion, architecture should be allowed to

speak for itself, to not only the historian, but the reader:

Maybe too one of the functions of a work of architectural history is to open peoples’ eyes to the richness of architecture, to teach them to see. For eventually one must go beyond the text and the photograph to the thing itself. Architecture appeals to all of the senses, and touches both mind and body. It is embedded in daily existence, even in private and collective memories. Some realities exist well beyond books. People should go and

64 Curtis, Le Corbusier: Ideas and Forms, 480. 65 William J.R. Curtis, “Preface to the Second Edition,” in Le Corbusier: Ideas and Forms (London: Phaidon Press,

2015), 13. 66 Curtis, Modern Architecture Since 1900, 692. 67 Curtis, “A Historian’s Perspective on Modern Architecture,” transcript of the talk, January 2007. 68 Curtis, “A Historian’s Perspective on Modern Architecture,” transcript of the talk, January 2007. 69 Curtis, “Contemporary Transformations of Modern Architecture,” 110.


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experience buildings directly, their sites, their spaces, their unfolding sequences, their changing light and moods.70

Recalling his time as an undergraduate student at the Courtauld Institute, Curtis

remembers the impact that the buildings he visited had on him. Curtis refers to his

trips as “the lifeblood of architectural experience,” and highlights the key and very

early in his career trips to “California in late 1970-early 1971 and Chicago in the Spring

of 1971 when I [he] had the chance to experience first-hand the works of Schindler,

Neutra, Wright in California and Wright, Sullivan, Mies, Burnham and Root in

Chicago.”71 During the course of our communication, Curtis highlighted the

significance of experiencing Alejandro de la Sota’s Gimnasio Maravillas, which he

visited in Madrid in 1987; Erich Mendelsohn’s Hadassah Hospital, in Jerusalem in 1990;

Rick Lepastrier’s beach house in the northern suburbs of Sydney in 1980; and Jørn

Utzon’s church in Bagsvaerd in 1978.72 The experience of this last building was so

profound that Curtis decided to finish the first edition with it. He reflects on the

consequences of some of these encounters at the end of the Bibliographical Note of the

third edition of Modern Architecture Since 1900; he writes:

A few months living in the remnants of Schindler’s Pueblo Ribera Courts in Southern California helped me to realise how important ideas of ‘origins’ were to several architects of the 1920s. A visit to Mendelsohn’s Mount Scopus Hospital outside Jerusalem reinforced an existing interest in regional inflections beyond the International Style. A cold morning in Madrid looking at the Maravillas Gymnasium by Alejandro de la Sota set in motion a revised vision of an entire decade and led to a major engagement with Spanish Modern architecture since. Time living in Doshi’s ‘Sangath’ [his own office complex] in Ahmadabad, India, focused attention on a larger range of Asian continuities, and on creative tensions between countryside and city in the Third World.73

Just as architects are encouraged to balance old and new, tradition and modernity,

according to Curtis, there are instances, variables and circumstances that historians

need to balance in developing their role. I cannot but agree with him that historians

should aim to find a balance between the unique and the typical; the local and global;


71 Curtis, email message to author, August 31, 2016. 72 Curtis, email message to author, August 31, 2016. 73 Curtis, Modern Architecture Since 1900, 692.


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the architect’s work and the intentions and ideals behind it; innovation and the social

significance of buildings; and between fact and opinion, analysis and interpretation,

induction and deduction. Curtis proposes Modern Architecture Since 1900 as exemplary

of his suggestions to historians put into practice, and, after some time, the revision and

reconsideration of the content in preparation for the third edition of the book, allows

him to show how his stance on the writing of history remains unaltered. The

coherence between how Curtis judges the quality and authenticity of architecture and

how he understands the writing of its history is undeniable, and it is a first step

towards building a credible narrative.

2. A Modern Tradition

One of the first tasks of an historian is to provide a clear definition of the object of

their study. Following on from the discussion of Curtis’s understanding of the writing

of history, this section looks at his definition of architecture, and modern architecture,

and his formulation of a modern tradition. I will then discuss his proposal to chart that

modern tradition and its continuities, and its repercussions for current debates on the

periodisation of modern architecture. For Curtis, architecture is a “multi-layered

phenomenon fusing ideas and forms, social myths and poetic spaces, images and

materials, function and structure, past and present.”1 He also defines it as an art, as

part of his discourse on the return to principles. One is reminded of John Macarthur

and Andrew Leach’s assessment of the discipline, and their belief that “to speak of

architecture as an art during the last century has been an implicit call for a return to an

older, more inclusive concept of the arts and a common cultural space.”2 Today, it still

is difficult to find common ground for a disciplinary definition of architecture; “for

many contemporary scholars the preferred terms for this extraordinarily complex


perspectiva de un historiador sobre la arquitectura moderna,” translated by Jorge Sainz and read out by the author in Spanish on the presentation of the translation of the third edition of Modern Architecture Since 1900 at the Círculo de Bellas Artes, Madrid, January 2007. WJRC Archive. 2 John Macarthur and Andrew Leach, “Architecture, Disciplinarity and the Arts: Considering the Issues,” in

Architecture, Disciplinarity and the Arts, ed. John Macarthur and Andrew Leach (Ghent: A & S Books, 2009), 8.

Rethinking Curtis: A Modern Tradition

194

physical, experiential, and imaginative terrain are the built environment or the cultural

landscape.”3

The previous section discussed Curtis’s opinion on how previous historians, both early

‘mythographers’ like Giedion and Pevsner, and those influenced by the postmodern

critique of modernism, present a monolithic and simplistic idea of modern

architecture. For him, modern architecture is an invention and the most recent

historical revolution in the history of architecture.4 Curtis describes innovation in

architecture as working within a certain balance between the conventions and

possibilities of its time and the invocation of fundamentals; “‘radical’ is the word which

comes to mind: revolutionary while returning to roots.”5

Formulating a Modern Tradition

Given the Western and transatlantic bias of previous historiography, Curtis claims that

much needs to be done to discuss the “worldwide” dissemination of modern

architecture in places like Australia, the Middle East and South East Asia, by studying

“the intermingling and collision of ‘universalising’ types with national and regional

traditions.”6 Already in the 1930s, transfusions and transformations of ideas and forms

in diverse societies were occurring in places as varied as Finland, Japan, Palestine,

South Africa, Turkey and of course Spain. In this way, new strands of modern

architecture came into being. For Curtis, the historian of modern architecture should

show how the new models of cosmopolitan creation, modernisation and universalising

aspiration collide with, fuse with and transform existing national or regional traditions

with their own internal agendas. Furthermore, the historian of modern architecture

should, in Curtis’s opinion, preserve a balance between the unique and the typical, to

re-examine modern architecture in relation to various world-views and social projects.

Curtis discusses how the most interesting works of the multiple strands of modern

3 Keith L. Eggener, ed., American Architectural History: A Contemporary Reader (London and New York: Routledge,

2004), 1. 4 William J.R. Curtis, “Transformation and Invention: on Re-reading Modern Architecture,” The Architectural

Review vol 221, no. 1321 (March 2007): 36-40. Original essay written by Curtis in February 2007, 1-6, WJRC Archive. 5 Curtis, “Transformation and Invention: on Re-reading Modern Architecture,” 3. 6 William J.R. Curtis, “Preface to the Third Edition,” in Modern Architecture Since 1900 (London: Phaidon Press,

1996), 10.


195

architecture, from their very beginnings, resist being “confined to a movement or a

transient stylistic trend,” such as functionalism or the International Style.7

The historian who sets out to write a history of modern architecture, like Curtis does,

“will be describing and interpreting traditions which have not yet come to an end.”8 He

postulates the idea of “a modern tradition with several strands and considers diverse

ways in which ideas generated earlier in this century are being cross-fertilised and

transformed in response to context and cultural memory as well as to rapidly changing

social and technological conditions.”9 In his writing and in the course of our

communication, Curtis used the image of a delta to illustrate this modern tradition

with all its internal complexities and variations: “a delta with diverse channels;”10 “a

delta with the main currents still flowing down tributaries; some have silted up, some

have been renewed by deep sources, some are advancing with renewed strength;

overall the river continues to move.”11 In a 2007 talk, Curtis added that, in the

intervening years since writing the book, “some of the channels have sub-divided still

further, some have dried up altogether; others are flowing with renewed force,

nourished by deep springs.”12

Curtis understands tradition to “be ruled by dominant forms or governing principles,

but it may also contain diverse strands, regional emphases, internal loops, disjunctions

and continuities.”13 In addition, once a tradition is founded, firmly in place, it can and

should be transformed to adapt to changes in values, new possibilities of expression

and the emergence of new problems.14 Curtis advocates for “re-evaluations and re-

interpretations of canonical works and core concepts,” and warns of the risks of taking

7 Curtis, “A Historian’s Perspective on Modern Architecture,” transcript of the talk, January 2007. 8 William J.R. Curtis, “Introduction,” in Modern Architecture Since 1900 (London: Phaidon Press, 1996), 12. 9 Curtis, “Introduction,” 17. 10 Curtis, email message to author, June 16, 2017. 11 William J.R. Curtis, “Contemporary Transformations of Modern Architecture,” Architectural Record vol 177, no. 7

(June 1989): 117. 12 Curtis, “A Historian’s Perspective on Modern Architecture,” transcript of the talk, January 2007. 13 Curtis, “Introduction,” 15. 14 Curtis, “Introduction,” 16.


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for granted the ground rules of the established modern tradition.15 At the end of

Modern Architecture Since 1900, Curtis summarises:

This is said, not to denigrate inventiveness, or to insist upon a simplistic line of continuity, but to suggest a diverse and dynamic idea of a modern tradition. To speak of inheriting and extending such a tradition does not mean copying what has gone before, or enforcing stylistic norms. It rather implies the absorption of principles behind earlier solutions and their transformation to meet different conditions and fit new intentions. In the period under review, there were certainly crises and disjunctions, but diverse strands of modern architecture also continued to be extended, critiqued, mannerised, regionalised, even cross-bred with other traditions.”16

The depth of the architect’s comprehension of tradition, and the question of its use

and abuse, are key for Curtis. This goes beyond the issue of looking through the

‘useless’ modernism/postmodernism debate, and mapping the late twentieth century. I

would argue that tradition becomes for Curtis a way to articulate his choices and

judgements in his account of architecture in the entire twentieth century. Authenticity

is his criterion of judgment, and the modern tradition becomes his narrative of

architecture since 1900. For Curtis, the key to authenticity is the understanding

architects have of their own inherited tradition. Again, Curtis writes polemically on

this topic, describing a dichotomy between “a playboy promiscuity without

commitment” and a loving involvement with the spirit behind past forms which

transforms knowledge into vital new inventions; the first position cheapens tradition,

the second keeps it alive.”17

In Curtis’s formulation of a modern tradition there is a clear pedagogical element,

aimed towards the architects of the present. Writing at the end of the 1980s, Curtis

affirms that there are new paths for these architects to open if they understand

properly the modern masters and their tradition, penetrating into their substructures

and underlying principles, beyond the superficial effects.18 He refers to the many

15 Curtis, “Transformation and Invention: on Re-reading Modern Architecture,” 2. 16 Curtis, Modern Architecture Since 1900, 618-619. 17 William J.R. Curtis, “Principle versus Pastiche: Perspectives on some Recent Classicisms,” The Architectural

Review vol 176, no. 1050 (August 1984): 13. 18 Curtis, “Contemporary Transformations of Modern Architecture,” 116.


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architects of the present who respond to the complexity of current transformations

and “continue to draw sustenance from the seminal works created earlier in this

century in confronting the new tasks.”19 In Curtis’s opinion, architects who seek a

present in the past, or a past in the present, could, instead of misinterpreting

classicism, turn to outstanding works of the modern tradition, which have been rooted

in the transformation which occurs after an architect perceives and comprehends the

basis of the architectural languages of the past. 20

Curtis’s position on tradition has not changed since the 1980s. He still believes that,

instead of mimicking primary works of modern architecture, which are still present

today regardless the temporal distance, architects can submit them to critical analysis

and creative transformation. Since these works still communicate on many levels,

Curtis’s recommendation is to learn from them, rather than claiming that modern

architecture is dead.21 In 1987, when he wrote the addendum to the book, he

considered that what he had called the ‘modern tradition,’ seemed, after six years, to

be not only alive, but still continuing “to support unexpected combinations of new and

old, regional and universal.”22 In the aforementioned 2007 reconsideration of what

modern architecture means to him, Curtis maintains his pro-modern, anti-postmodern

attitude, and further reflects on the relationship between the architect and tradition:

The architects of each generation look at the work of predecessors with new eyes. What they see depends to some degree upon what they are looking for and this relies upon their orientation and their reading of the contemporary situation. But a distinction still needs to be drawn between superficial imitations and deeper transformations. The first remain at the surface level of style, the second penetrate to the underlying principles and processes of thought. A tradition is kept alive by fresh interpretations which often involve unexpected fusions of new ideas and old ones, of local matters and more universal ones. Even the distant past may be ‘read’ in unprecedented ways through the lenses of modern predecessors. A tradition is formed from

19 Curtis, “Contemporary Transformations of Modern Architecture,” 117. 20 William J.R. Curtis, “Authenticity, Abstraction and the Ancient Sense: Le Corbusier’s and Louis Kahn’s Ideas of

Parliament,” Perspecta vol 20 (1983): 194. 21 Curtis, “Transformation and Invention: on Re-reading Modern Architecture,” 6. 22 William J.R. Curtis, “The Search for Substance: Recent World Architecture (1987),” Modern Architecture Since

1900 (London: Phaidon Press, 1987), 389.


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a sequence of works of high intensity. These dig deeper than period concerns and refuse to fit the official uniforms of movements.23

Curtis formulated his definition of modern architecture – a definition couched in

terms of a balanced and unfolding modern tradition – in the late 1970s, a time when

most scholars were theorising about crises in, even death of, modernism,

postmodernism, regionalism, theory, historical narratives and even architecture itself.

As is the case with his stance on postmodernism, Curtis’s definition of a modern

tradition can be understood as an intuition that he expresses in the first edition, and

confirms in subsequent editions of Modern Architecture Since 1900.

Charting a Modern Tradition

Once he had formulated and established a modern tradition, Curtis took it upon

himself to reflect on how to chart it. As part of his focus on the development of

modern architecture, rather than its roots, Curtis writes of the ‘decolonization’ after

the Second World War as a period that stimulated the emergence of new hybrids of

the general and the local. He believes that Modern Architecture Since 1900 is one of the

few books “to have looked seriously at the emerging architectural cultures of places

like India or Mexico in the 1960’s and 1970’s for example.”24 This dissertation has

shown that Curtis’s book is indeed one of the few synoptic histories to have looked at

architectures from diverse regions throughout the world, including the Middle East

and South East Asia, among many others, and to have included them in the context of

a temporally longer and geographically wider historical perspective.

Curtis considers his work at attempting to chart a complex modern tradition with

many strands to be miles away from the simplistic and deterministic models of

historical development assumed by some of the early chroniclers/mythographers of

modern architecture, and also from the Eurocentrism and ‘Amerocentrism’ of writers

like Kenneth Frampton and Manfredo Tafuri. Moreover, he claims to avoid “the

regression into merely ‘localist’ ideological agendas which distort the picture another

way, sometimes to conform to post-colonialist fabrications of ‘identity.’”25 Such a

23 Curtis, “Transformation and Invention: on Re-reading Modern Architecture,” 2. 24 Curtis, “A Historian’s Perspective on Modern Architecture,” transcript of the talk, January 2007. 25 Curtis, “A Historian’s Perspective on Modern Architecture,” transcript of the talk, January 2007.


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complex, evolving and dynamic tradition, or range of traditions, not only allows

architects to learn from it, but also necessitates historians making fresh

reconsiderations in response to new realities and intentions. Analysing architecture

around 2007, Curtis still sees “further metamorphoses of core principles embodied in

earlier, seminal works of modern architecture.”26

When Curtis started writing the first edition of Modern Architecture Since 1900, “an

‘integrated’ approach” seemed desirable, an approach which “might address the

multiple aspects of the architectural totality without losing sight of the unique order

and presence of the individual work.”27 At the time, it was also clear to him that as a

result of the Western bias suffered by historiography, entire areas in the ‘developing

world’ remain to be charted and mapped. On the occasion of the publication of the

second edition, Curtis highlights how “in many parts of the world, primary lessons

learned earlier in the century are being extended and transformed better to deal with

the claims of context, region and tradition.”28

In preparation for the major revision of the content of the third edition of Modern

Architecture Since 1900, Curtis analysed the profuse amount of literature on the

modern movement published in the intervening fifteen years, mostly monographic

studies resulting from major retrospective exhibitions on architects being celebrated

on the centenary of their birth. In Curtis’s opinion, there was an obsession with detail

and even with speculation; he criticises the abandonment of any attempt at larger-

scale interpretation, and the lack of a satisfactory synthesis of the general and the

particular in this literature. I argue that he uses his criticism to differentiate his

account from early and contemporary historians, offering in the third edition precisely

what they abandoned: a historical narrative.

In the intervening years between the first and third editions, Curtis explored new

territories, both geographical and intellectual. As was thoroughly discussed in Chapter

Two of this dissertation, in his intensive travels Curtis opened dialogues with diverse

26 Curtis, “A Historian’s Perspective on Modern Architecture,” transcript of the talk, January 2007. 27 William J.R. Curtis, Modern Architecture Since 1900 (Oxford: Phaidon Press, 1996), 691. 28 William J.R. Curtis, “Preface to the Second Edition,” in Modern Architecture Since 1900 (London: Phaidon Press,

1987), 7.


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architectural cultures in Australia, India, Mexico, Spain, and Finland, among other

countries, resulting in research outputs published in the form of catalogue essays,

critical articles and book reviews on aspects of contemporary world architecture. As

geo-politically and socio-economically diverse as these countries are, in Curtis’s

narrative their architecture is presented in terms of exchanges of forms and ideas,

transformed to their own context, but united by timelessness, meaning and

authenticity. As a result of his dialogues with major architectural figures, Curtis tried

to translate or transform what he calls cultural ‘substructures’ in non-Western

traditions into modern terms, presenting the resonances between them.

Curtis claims that his research at that time, led him to reformulating the overall shape

of twentieth-century architectural history. During the course of our communication,

Curtis referred to his reformulation of the architecture of the 1930s as a “complete

breakthrough.”29 In addition, he pointed out how the chapter ‘International, National,

Regional: the Diversity of a New Tradition’ “is and was a crucial addition to our

understanding of that period.”30 However, as the research compiled in this dissertation

shows, his work is underrepresented and unacknowledged; with some exceptions, it is

not often cited today, just as it was not cited at the time of its publication. Even if

Curtis’s determination to avoid an excess of theory to support his writing of history has

been viewed as detrimental to his work, his intuitions and formulations of regionalism,

postmodernism and tradition have a certain resonance with recent research on

tradition by, for example, Juhani Pallasmaa, and new periodisations of the twentieth

century which are discussed in the next section.

Contextualising Continuity and Tradition

At the European Architectural History Network (EAHN) conference in Dublin, 2016,

both Jean-Louis Cohen and Sibel Bozdoğan in their key-note lectures urged us to look

for continuity in architecture, instead of sharp periods and segments of time or

fragments of land. Cohen argued against the “fragmentation,” not only of the object of

study but also of recent scholarly publications in the form of edited books, which

29 William J.R. Curtis, email message to author, August 31, 2016. 30 William J.R. Curtis, email message to author, June 16, 2017.


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results in the “miniaturisation” of history, in “microhistories.”31 Curtis did look for

continuities within the twentieth century and did attempt to offer a long historical

perspective, and he was not mentioned in these lectures.

It could be argued that Curtis’s emphasis on both the ephemeral character of

postmodernism, and on the lines of continuity in architecture since 1900, are signs of

him not grasping the importance of the changes occurred at the end of the 1960s, or of

him considering them merely crises, reconsiderations, rather than profound

transformations with structural causes that long predate them. I would say, though,

that, for Curtis, architecture is influenced but not defined by socio-political and

economic circumstances. That is why, in his account, changes in materials and

building technology are considered to be properly revolutionary for the definition of

architecture, as these have an effect on the creativity and invention of architects –

more of an effect, in his opinion, than the social uprising of 1968, for example. At the

end of Modern Architecture Since 1900, Curtis writes:

Despite vast changes in intention, ideology, function and technology, the invention of forms continued to rely upon the major revolutions that occurred earlier in the century. These exerted obvious and less obvious influence, since they affected the underlying structures of conception and perception, as well as actual forms. The lines of continuity turned out to be more complex, diverse and enduring than some had thought. As time moved on and as historical consciousness of earlier phases developed, the entire configuration reorganised itself into unexpected patterns and alignments, and new links were made to diverse cultures and past forms. But the most challenging architecture still emerged in the tension between individual intentions and collective myths, between unique ideas and universal aims.32

Curtis’s approach to the idea of tradition is very similar to the position defended by

Juhani Pallasmaa in an essay published in 2012, both pertinent in the age of

globalisation. Pallasmaa reflects on the significance of tradition, focussing on meaning

and innovation and their relation to what constitutes great, responsible and timeless

works of architecture. At a time when “newness” has become the main criteria of

31 Jean-Louis Cohen, “At the Crossroads: Perspectives and Impasses of Architectural History,” keynote lecture at the

4th biannual EAHN conference, Dublin, June 6, 2016. 32 Curtis, Modern Architecture Since 1900, 684.


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quality in architecture, Pallasmaa advocates for a sense of rootedness that lies in

architectural logic and its cultural structure, and for an architecture that “projects

comforting and enriching experiences of participation in a meaningful historical

continuum.”33 It is possible to see the connection between Curtis’s formulation of

authenticity and Pallasmaa’s phenomenological take on architecture in this idea that

there should be a sense of rootedness and belonging that links architecture with the

building of cultural identity. Pallasmaa writes that “the significance I am giving to

tradition, not only as a general sense of cultural history, but also as the need of

understanding the specificity and locality of culture, raises critical concerns of today’s

careless practice of designing in alien cultures merely for commercial interests.” 34

Pallasmaa uses Louis Kahn’s “powerful” Parliament Buildings in Dhaka, Bangladesh, to

exemplify the idea that “a respectful attitude to traditions does not imply regressive

traditionalism, but its acknowledgement as a source of meaning, inspiration and

emotional rooting.”35 In similar terms to Curtis, Pallasmaa refers to great works of

architecture that “restructure, sensitise and enrich our experiences of our encounters

with the world.”36 He does not use the term “authentic,” but writes that “true

architecture makes us aware of the entire history of building and it restructures our

reading of the continuum of time,” re-illuminating architectural history and making us

look at earlier works in a new light.37

It is interesting that Pallasmaa’s reflection on the relevance of tradition leads him to

question whether there is any identifiable progress in architecture, or whether there

are only changing approaches to fundamental existential motives – again, an argument

that sounds very similar to Curtis’s argument that there is a certain continuity within

the architecture of the twentieth century.38 For Pallasmaa, the continuum of culture is

33 Juhani Pallasmaa, “Newness, Tradition and Identity: Existential Content and Meaning in Architecture,”

Architectural Design vol 82, no. 6 (November/December 2012): 15. 34 Pallasmaa, “Newness, Tradition and Identity…,” 15. 35 Pallasmaa, “Newness, Tradition and Identity…,” 15. 36 Pallasmaa, “Newness, Tradition and Identity…,” 17. 37 Pallasmaa, “Newness, Tradition and Identity…,” 17. 38 Pallasmaa, “Newness, Tradition and Identity…,” 15.


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key to any individual creative work, and innovation arises from “the sense of humbly

and proudly acknowledging one’s role in the continuum of tradition.”39

Even the most original and revolutionary work that touches upon essential existential qualities, in addition to its initial novelty and shock value, ends up reinforcing the continuum of artistic tradition and becomes part of it. This is the basic paradox of artistic creation: the most radical of works end up clarifying and strengthening tradition.40

More similarities between Pallasmaa’s and Curtis’s understandings of tradition appear

in the emphasis they both place on great works of architecture grounded in the past, in

contrast to products of superficial and meaningless novelty; works of architecture are

part of “a true artistic tradition that halts time and reintroduces the already known

with a seductive new freshness and intimacy.”41 However, in spite of these similarities

in their interpretations of tradition, both based on T. S. Eliot’s definition of true

tradition as something to be reinvented and recreated, Pallasmaa does not use Curtis’s

writings on tradition or authenticity as references. As with his discussion of

postmodernism, Curtis’s formulation of a modern tradition is an intuition that time

and further research has demonstrated to be accurate, or at least to be strongly

grounded in its (allegedly non-existent) theoretical framework, but which is not

properly acknowledged or referenced today.

Curtis’s 1996 advocacy for continuity, his claim that postmodernism was a temporary

and localised phenomenon, is the starting point for an essay by Nathan Brown, in

which he presents a new understanding of the present situation, as much as a new

periodisation of the recent past. Through a thorough reconsideration of Fredric

Jameson’s theorisation of postmodernism, Brown proposes that a “minor

terminological shift” provides a more accurate historical account of the cultural

situation of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.42 By “aligning

modernity with capitalism, thus postmodernity with a post-capitalism yet to come, and

39 Pallasmaa, “Newness, Tradition and Identity…,” 18. 40 Pallasmaa, “Newness, Tradition and Identity…,” 18. 41 Pallasmaa, “Newness, Tradition and Identity…,” 21. 42 Nathan Brown, “Postmodernity, not yet. Toward a New Periodisation,” Radical Philosophy vol 2, no. 1 (2018): 12.


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thus late capitalism to late modernity,” 43 Brown argues for the continuity not only of

modernity, but also of its history; for understanding “the continuing history of

modernity as the history of capitalism.”44

Yet my sense is that the substitution of the term late modernity for postmodernity, and the shift in perspective this entails, opens a more lucid perspective upon Jameson’s famous claim that ‘it seems easier for us to imagine the thoroughgoing deterioration of the earth and of nature than the breakdown of late capitalism.’45

If modernity is the historical period from the Renaissance until today, then modernism

is its cultural production from around 1850 to 1950, and late modernism, from 1950

until today (and beyond). Rather than periodising the present “through the redoubled

application of a prefix marking it as after what was after what came before” – that is,

using the term post-postmodernism – Brown understands the present to be part of a

late modernity.46 Thus, postmodernism will be the cultural production of a historical

era that has not yet commenced.

Likewise, Peter Osborne revisits Jameson’s periodisation by displacing the perspective

“from a ‘late’ back to a ‘high’ capitalism in which we are perhaps only just beginning to

understand the depth of the mutations of social being that capitalism as a social form

involves.”47 For him, “the displacement of the postmodern by the contemporary as the

fundamental category of the historical present follows not merely from the discrediting

of the postmodern as a temporal and critical concept but, more importantly, from the

globalisation of the resurgent concept of modernity…”48

In the three editions of Modern Architecture Since 1900 and the research published in

the intervening years, Curtis presents the notion of tradition in general, and the

modern tradition in particular, very positively. One infers from his arguments that if

43 Brown, “Postmodernity, not yet…,” 14. 44 Brown, “Postmodernity, not yet…,” 19. 45 Brown, “Postmodernity, not yet…,” 22. 46 Brown, “Postmodernity, not yet…,” 12. 47 Peter Osborne, The Postconceptual Condition. London and New York: Verso, 2017. Originally published as “The

Postconceptual Condition: Or, the Cultural Logic of High Capitalism Today,” Radical Philosophy vol 184 (March/April 2014): 19. 48 Osborne, ““The Postconceptual Condition…,” 21.


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an architect understands and reinterprets tradition properly (according to him and

keeping in mind authenticity and the underlying principles that Curtis does not list)

then the result is always going to be architecture of the highest standard. He frames his

arguments in a way which avoids a reflection on tradition as a double-edged sword or

as constraining creativity and innovation.49 However, Curtis establishes a framework to

then classify and categorise architecture since 1900 within the boundaries and

limitations of tradition, in an exercise of coherent historical narrative.

To sum up the discussion presented in this chapter, Curtis contributes to the

historiography of modern architecture both in his methodological approach to history,

characterised by the emphasis on ‘balance’ at multiple levels, and in his definition of

modern architecture as a continuous tradition. His contribution is grounded in a sense

of the need for balance in the practice of architecture and its history, and of the

continuity of modern architecture, which he feels previous and contemporary

historians neglected. This dissertation has shown that it is a contribution

unacknowledged by subsequent scholars – not only those who look at the histories of

architecture in different regions and countries, as is the case with Latin America,

discussed in the introduction among other instances, but even those who defend their

positions on regionalism, postmodernism and tradition in very similar terms to Curtis.

This dissertation establishes a cause-effect relationship between the balance Curtis

tries to maintain in his work as a historian of the recent past and the way he includes

that past as a balanced part of a broader and wider historical narrative. Curtis presents

a narrative which balances the reconsideration of established past models and the

incorporation of new and more recent events. He believes architecture in the twentieth

century to be part of a grand historical narrative, not interrupted by postmodernist

reassessment, and that is how he presents it. Modern Architecture Since 1900 is the

historical narrative that exemplifies Curtis’s approach to history as well as his

definition of modern architecture, making it an example of coherence. It is a credible

narrative in that it is built on his own experience and mediated by his own judgment of

49 Joseph Rykwert, “Inheritance or Tradition,” Architectural Design vol 49, no. 5/6 (1979).


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architecture’s authenticity. In turn, authenticity becomes a way to measure Curtis’s

connection with the architecture he historicises.

I claim that Curtis’s emphasis on balance and continuity in their different forms is a

way to differentiate his narrative within the context of the historiography of modern

architecture, not only from earlier accounts, but also those contemporary to his own,

those which are built on strongly theorised frameworks, which prioritise the socio-,

economic- and political context over the building and its experience. For Curtis,

architecture is defined by the form which materialises the architect’s ideals and

intentions, rather than the circumstances of its time. By avoiding the reliance on

theories or schools of thought, which is in fact itself a theoretically charged world view,

Curtis contends that his view of modern architecture is more balanced than the views

of other historians.

Recognising Curtis’s determination to differentiate his discourse from that of any other

historian of modern architecture, as well as the fact that his work is indeed different in

scope and approach, is a first step towards reconsidering Modern Architecture Since

1900. The last pages of this dissertation reflect on Modern Architecture Since 1900 as

Curtis’s intertwined narrative in relation to the theoretical framework developed in

Chapter One. In these last pages I present my own narrative, built on the

reassessments that occurred in the fields of the history, theory and historiography of

architecture between the late 1970s and the 1990s, in which I place, understand and

reconsider the work of William J.R. Curtis and Modern Architecture Since 1900 as

exemplary of a transition between modern and global.

Conclusion: An Intertwined History

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Curtis’s aim of investigating the meaning of modern architecture outside the Western

canon, and of including the exchanges between different traditions in his historical

narrative of modern architecture, is presented in this dissertation through the lens of

postcolonial theories applied to architecture. This conclusion confronts the study of

the content of the three editions of Modern Architecture Since 1900, as well as the

personal circumstances which led to its preparation (mostly unpublished and

generously shared by Curtis himself for the purpose of this study), with the theoretical

framework, formulated in Chapter One of this dissertation.

Three shifts stand out in the development of the history, theory and historiography of

architecture, from modern to global, between the 1970s and the 1990s. Firstly, the

‘professionalisation’ of the discipline of architectural history in the early 1970s, with the

introduction of doctorate research programs in universities in Europe and the United

States, as argued by Mark Jarzombek, makes Curtis’s book one of the first professional

historical narratives of modern architecture. Secondly, and resulting from the

aforementioned shift, the change in the readership of architectural history in the late

1970s and early 1980s, embodied in undergraduate and postgraduate students of

architecture, led to a need for readability and legibility, of which Curtis’s book is

exemplary. Finally, the disciplinary reassessments that occurred in the late 1990s,

including the studies of postcolonial theories in architecture, have had an influence on

my reading of Curtis’s book. This dissertation is the first historiographical assessment

of Curtis’s historical discourse – as a result of it, I posit that Modern Architecture Since

1900 is closer to the idea of an ‘intertwined history’ as formulated by Edward Said in

1978, and discussed by Sibel Bozdoğan in 1999, than are any of the other synoptic

histories of modern architecture.1

Shift 1: Revising one of the ‘First’ Histories of Modern Architecture

The unusual and unprecedented revision of the content of Modern Architecture Since

1900, and hence the differences between the first and third editions, are justification

1 Sibel Bozdoğan, “Architectural History in Professional Education: Reflections on Postcolonial Challenges to the

Modern Survey,” Journal of Architectural Education, vol 52 no. 4 (May 1999): 210-211.


208

for the approach of comparing and contrasting Curtis’s account of the main themes

discussed in this dissertation, regionalism and postmodernism. Conversely, the

differences outlined in the analysis of both themes are evidence of the extent of the

changes introduced in the third edition. The comparison between the three editions of

the book also allows us to identify the positions and critical stances which Curtis

maintains, as is the case with his stance on the modern tradition. The conclusion of

this dissertation reflects, in part, on the implications of the rewriting process of

Modern Architecture Since 1900, one of the first results of what Jarzombek calls the

professionalization of the history of architecture in the 1970s.

The writing of history begins with a critical understanding of previous historiography

on the subject, in this case, on modern architecture. Even if historians have aimed or

claimed to present an ‘objective’ narrative of the events, it is complicated for them to

overcome the identification with their subject, with their own discourse. Curtis aims

for balance, to bring the best out of the almost unprecedented opportunity he believes

he has to write the history of modern architecture with dispassionate distance.

In addition to dissenting from the myths created by early historiography, Curtis

challenges contemporary historiography published around 1980. Curtis published

critical reviews on the work of contemporary historians at the time when he was

working on the manuscript of the book, accusing Manfredo Tafuri, Francesco Dal Co

and Kenneth Frampton of indulging in propaganda when writing their histories, and

when relating architecture to beliefs and ideologies. In an attempt to differentiate his

own approach from that of previous historians, Curtis plays the role of the new

historian, who should “avoid the temptations of either positive or negative

propaganda.”2 Curtis also understands that it is nearly inevitable to fall into some of

the previous historians’ weaknesses the closer you get to the present, but, for Curtis,

Modern Architecture Since 1900 is evidence of his attempt to avoid those weaknesses:

This book was written partly with the idea that a historical bridge might be built across the stream of passing intellectual fashions to a more solid

2 William J.R. Curtis, review of Modern Architecture by Manfredo Tafuri and Francesco Dal Co and Modern

Architecture: A Critical History by Kenneth Frampton, Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians vol 4, no. 2 (May 1981): 170.


209

philosophical ground, partly with the hope that this might encourage a return to basic principles. But such aims have been secondary: the first thing a historian ought to do is to explain what happened and why, whatever people may now think of it.3

It is inaccurate to say that the first edition of Modern Architecture Since 1900 is a

reaction against Tafuri and Dal Co’s, and Frampton’s work. Stanislaus von Moos and

Samuel B. Frank both begin their reviews of Curtis’s book by mentioning Curtis’s own

1981 JSAH review of Tafuri and Dal Co’s, and Frampton’s histories, but by the time

Curtis wrote this review, he had already sent the full manuscript of his work to both

the publishers and James Ackerman for their consideration. However, I posit that some

of the comments in the preface to the first edition read as critiques of these historians,

whose work Curtis presents as being in opposition to the task of the historian and the

role of history, as he understands it.

The preface to the second edition, together with the addendum, already present

Curtis’s objection to mapping the late twentieth century in terms of ‘–isms.’ He does

not criticise Frampton directly, but, as this dissertation has shown in Chapter Four,

that is precisely the way recent architecture is presented in Frampton’s Modern

Architecture: A Critical History: classified by ‘-isms’ which change between the 1980,

1985 and 1992 editions. Furthermore, Curtis’s rejection of these categories is further

developed in Part 4 of the third edition of his book. Since one of Curtis’s reasons for

expanding the book was to present a more complete account of the architecture of the

1970s and 1980s, it can be argued that the revision of Modern Architecture Since 1900

was in part motivated by this intention to give an alternative to a classification by ‘-

isms’ – to Frampton’s classification, to differentiate his discourse. If Curtis was writing

and rewriting from late 1993, it is safe to say that, at that time, the 1992 edition of

Frampton’s critical history was already out, and that Curtis had access to it. The

different comparisons drawn throughout this dissertation show how, even though

most of the time Curtis does not mention Frampton or his book specifically, he rejects

precisely what is present in Modern Architecture: A Critical History.



210

Even if changes appear as a result of Curtis’s revision of his work prior to the

publication of the third edition, his aims remain the same. He modifies the body

without losing the spirit, with a specific focus on developing themes that were left

underdeveloped, “to reveal more of the original soul while giving a better shape to the

body.”4 Curtis admits that writing the third edition was hard, as it involved

reconsidering many of his assumptions as a historian.5 Writing in 1995, he claims that

“the time has come now for some major additions and revisions,” of the architecture

produced in the intervening years, as well as revisions of his own approach to writing.6

More than twenty years later he writes:

The third edition was the result of a major self-critical revision taking into account my own and other people’s work over the intervening years. Among other things I wished to integrate findings and reflections based upon my individual studies in places as far apart as India, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, and of course several countries in South and Central America.7

Revision means, according to Adrienne Rich, “the act of looking back, of seeing with

fresh eyes, of entering an old text from a new critical direction.”8 In writing and

revising Modern Architecture Since 1900, Curtis looks back at architects, buildings and

interpretations, with a new perspective and fresh eyes, exactly what he argues the

architect and the historian of the present should do. As a result of the practice of re-

editing and re-publishing books, notions like value and originality operate differently

for written works than for, say, visual art works. In the case of books in general, and of

Modern Architecture Since 1900 specifically, first editions tend to be scarce and rare,

and, hence, more expensive; the third edition could be considered less valuable given

its availability and affordability. However, this is not the only way to look at it, and the

4 William J.R. Curtis, “Preface to the Third Edition,” in Modern Architecture Since 1900 (London: Phaidon Press,

1996), 9. 5 William J.R. Curtis, “A Historian’s Perspective on Modern Architecture.” Transcript. English version of text “La

perspectiva de un historiador sobre la arquitectura moderna,” translated by Jorge Sainz and read out by the author in Spanish on the presentation of the translation of the third edition of Modern Architecture Since 1900 at the Círculo de Bellas Artes, Madrid, January 2007. WJRC Archive. 6 Curtis, “Preface to the Third Edition,” 9. 7 William J.R. Curtis, email message to several academic acquaintances on the occasion of the Buenos Aires

Biennale, September 7, 2015. Forwarded to author on July 7, 2016. 8 Adrienne Rich, “When we Dead Awake: Writing as Re-vision,” in On Lies, Secrets and Silence: Selected Prose 1966-

1978 (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1979), 35.


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difference in the content in the three editions of Modern Architecture Since 1900 needs

to be taken into account in a historiographical analysis.

On the one hand, the third edition is the most complete and up-to-date for students to

deepen their understanding of the different strands of modern architecture. However,

on the other, there are some nuances and bold judgments made in the first edition that

are worth noting and knowing, which are suppressed in the third edition. Whether

additions or suppressions, those changes make it necessary to acknowledge both

versions almost as independent works. Curtis goes one step further and declares that

Modern Architecture since 1900 “does not pretend to be ‘definitive’: works of history are

working hypotheses which require testing and adjustment in the light of new facts.”9

Very recently, Curtis reflected on the idea of writing a fourth edition, for which “I shall

again do my best to integrate my own and other people’s findings into the overall

synthesis.”10

The writing of the three editions of Modern Architecture Since 1900 is the result not

only of Curtis’s reaction and response to the theoretical currents of the time when he

was writing, first of the late 1970s and then of the early 1990s, but also of the dialogue

he establishes with his own work, claiming to be aware of the strengths and

weaknesses of his narrative. In the first edition of the book, Curtis presents a

prospective attitude, anticipating positions that he later looks at from a retrospective

point of view, when he judges that discourse in the third edition. Curtis also

establishes a dialogue with the readers, both students and scholars, who need to be

aware of the differences between the editions and the historiographical implications of

the revision towards the third edition, and not refer to the three editions indistinctly.

Just as anticipated by Jorge Sainz in his review of the book, the meticulous comparison

between edition has been a revealing task.11

9 Curtis, email message on the occasion of the Buenos Aires Biennale, September 7, 2015. 10 Curtis, email message on the occasion of the Buenos Aires Biennale, September 7, 2015. 11 Jorge Sainz, “Arquitectura moderna: última edición,” review of Modern Architecture Since 1900 by William Curtis,

Arquitectura Viva, no. 49 (July-August 1996): 73.


212

Shift 2: Change in the Readership of the History of Modern Architecture

By confronting the discussion presented in the previous chapter with the outlined

theoretical framework discussed in Chapter One, this dissertation establishes a certain

parallel between Kostof’s A History of Architecture and Curtis’s Modern Architecture

Since 1900. A part from being published around the same time, 1985 and 1982

respectively, both books prioritise method over research, a readable literary style over

scholarly conventions such as footnotes. The interpretation and analysis undertaken

by both Kostof and Curtis are overlooked, resulting in a certain lack of

acknowledgement, less so with the former than the latter. As argued in Chapter Five of

this dissertation, Curtis’s emphasis on balance and continuity in their different forms,

both in the practice of architecture and the writing of its history, is a way to

differentiate his narrative from that of his contemporaries and predecessors, as is the

case with Kostof.

In considering Modern Architecture Since 1900 as an example of Curtis’s historical

discourse, as framed by Roland Barthes, I argue that the structure of the book,

discussed in Chapter Two of this dissertation, reflects the historian’s regard for the

reader.12 Curtis organises his narrative of modern architecture in a structure with three

chronologically distinct parts, and within these are thematic chapters in which

different ideas and countries appear intertwined. His emphasis on the readability of

the text is also part of his strategy to differentiate his discourse and approach from

those of more ‘obscure’ historians, as is also true of the revision of the content. This

dissertation has demonstrated that Curtis’s emphasis on the readability of the text has

resulted in a perception of negligence, or lack of rigorous scholarship, on his part. This,

I argue, is one of the reasons for the lack of acknowledgement of Curtis’s work that I

discovered during the course of my research – and justifies it –, from the initial

absences presented in Chapter One to the most recently discovered and discussed in

Chapter Five.

12 Roland Barthes, “The Discourse of History,” in The Rustle of Language (Berkeley: University of California Press,

1989).


213

Curtis’s stated aim of presenting a readable account of the development of modern

architecture, and his methodological approach to the writing of history, are intimately

related to the potential audience he saw for Modern Architecture Since 1900. The

importance of buildings in the book, reinforced for the audience by the size and

number of illustrations, “serve as effective devices for engaging the curiosity of

uninitiated readers.”13 The fact that the main audience of the book is architecture

students, is one of the reasons why the book is viewed as a ‘survey’ by several scholars

– and, it could be inferred, as a contribution to the field not worthy of rigorous

historiographical study. The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines a ‘survey’ as a broad

treatment of a subject – modern architecture, in this case – and as the result of

examining that subject with regard to condition, situation, or value, and of considering

it comprehensively. The Cambridge Dictionary defines it as a description of the whole

of a subject, and as the result of examining all of something, especially carefully.

Curtis’s account of modern architecture is without a doubt broad and comprehensive,

as well as inclusive, presenting what he considers to be the whole of modern

architecture from a fresh point of view.

In addition to displaying Curtis’s emphasis on the importance of first-hand experience

of buildings in his methodology and approach to history, most of his study of the

earlier phases of modern architecture synthesises and makes accessible previous

scholarship. However, his account of the more recent developments of architecture, in

countries such as India and Australia, adds more in the way of original scholarship, as

it is also based on his conversations with practising architects. Curtis defends his work

in the following terms:

The book relies upon detailed scholarship but it is not a compendium. It is an intellectual synthesis with an articulate structure and a clear literary form. It is written in such a way that it can appeal to the intelligent seventeen year old with an open mind who needs to discover modern architecture for the first time; at the same time it can stand the scrutiny of specialists.14

13 Peter Serenyi, review of Modern Architecture Since 1900 by William Curtis, Journal of the Society of Architectural

Historians vol 43, no. 3 (October 1984): 275. 14 Curtis, “A Historian’s Perspective on Modern Architecture,” transcript of the talk, January 2007.


214

In The Psychologizing of Modernity (2000), Mark Jarzombek disagrees, and considers

Curtis’s unwillingness to tackle theoretical issues to be “totally unsatisfactory” from the

perspective of rigorous scholarship.15 Jarzombek relates the lack of theorisation in

Modern Architecture Since 1900 to its potential audience: he explains that rigour is not

what is asked for in a book aimed at students, who, in his opinion, “are to be

transformed into the foot soldiers of modernity’s ongoing search for meaningful

aesthetic production.”16 However, he sees a problem in the lack of a “precise map of

engagement” of the relationship between the artist or architect; the viewer and

historian, Curtis in this case; and the reader, the young reader in particular.17

Curtis claims that he analyses the form of a work of architecture to understand how it

materialises the architect’s intentions, ideas and mental processes; ‘invention’ is the

notion he uses. For Jarzombek, Curtis’s Modern Architecture Since 1900 is exemplary of

the practice of psychologising, which Edmund Husserl criticises for being a “vague and

open-ended effort” to locate those mental processes.18 Jarzombek introduces the

nuance that in his persuasive attempt to reveal the mind of the architect, the historian

may end up manipulating the mind of the reader.19 In his opinion, critics such as Adolf

Behne, Herbert Read, Clement Greenberg, Vincent Scully and Curtis refuse for their

writing to be perceived as too scholarly, thus becoming part of the crisis of modernism

rather than its solution.20

The irony is that, with such tremendous emphasis being placed on participatory historiography, historians who want to enter the fray have to demonstrate that they can contribute in a positive way to the grand search for an age’s philosophical essence. And this, in turn, means that scholars have to position themselves in an antinomic [sic] relationship to their discipline. They cannot simply be ‘historians,’ but rather have to possess what Arthur Danto, the philosopher-turned-art-critic, calls ‘a tremendous synoptic vision.’21

15 Mark Jarzombek, The Psychologizing of Modernity: Art, Architecture, and History (Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press, 2000), 31. 16 Jarzombek, The Psychologizing of Modernity, 31. 17 Jarzombek, The Psychologizing of Modernity, 31. 18 Jarzombek, The Psychologizing of Modernity, 31. 19 Jarzombek, The Psychologizing of Modernity, 31. 20 Jarzombek, The Psychologizing of Modernity, 5. 21 Jarzombek, The Psychologizing of Modernity, 5.


215

Curtis draws his arguments mostly from secondary sources, something that has been

repeatedly pointed out by the scholars who reviewed the book, subsequent historians

and researchers on history and historiography, and, for instance, by researchers on Le

Corbusier.22 Jarzombek interrogates the space of exchange, the distance between Le

Corbusier’s work and Curtis’s analysis, between the architect’s frame of mind in the

1930s and the historian’ description of his supposed mental processes in the 1980s.

According to Jarzombek, the question to be asked is simple: “Where does the author

acquire his confidence and upon what does he ground his assumptions?”23 Jarzombek

makes the point that his intention is not to blame Curtis, but rather to highlight that

there is more at stake than just an interpretation of the architect’s work and ideas, for

example social and technological shifts, and other major changes that occurred

throughout the twentieth century. I believe that Modern Architecture Since 1900 is a

coherent account of the development of modern architecture, as Curtis frames it. The

issue is that, as posited by Jarzombek, a definition of modern architecture based

mostly on the materialisation of architect’s ideals and ideas, based on basic principles,

and of the writing of its history based mostly on the historian’s ability to reproduce the

structure of the architect’s choices – what Barthes calls reflexive history – is not

complete.24

Jarzombek points out that Curtis’s emphasis on the architect’s ideas and ideals, his

‘psychologised’ writing, could be intended as a form of primary source and validation,

but without Curtis theoretically justifying why that is necessary in the first place.25 He

argues that it is precisely Curtis’s determination to explain architecture in terms of the

creativity and innovation of the architects that results in subjective writing, in which

his own voice and ‘self’ is prioritised over the architects’ voice. Jarzombek reflects on

Curtis’s writing, and how “it is difficult to separate his desire to seem ‘authentic’ from

the practices of modernist history writing.”26 I agree with Jarzombek in that Curtis’s

22 Graham Livesey and Antony Moulis, “From Impact to Legacy: Interpreting Critical Writing and Research on Le

Corbusier from the 1920s to the Present,” LC 50 Years After Conference Proceedings (Valencia, 2015), 9. Recently published in Livesey and Moulis, Le Corbusier: Critical Concepts in Architecture (London: Routledge, 2017). 23 Jarzombek, The Psychologizing of Modernity, 25. 24 Barthes, “The Discourse of History,” 136-137. 25 Jarzombek, The Psychologizing of Modernity, 26. 26 Jarzombek, The Psychologizing of Modernity, 26.


216

emphasis on differentiating his narrative is, in the end, one of the features that links

him to the tradition of the writing of the history of architecture.

Extrapolating this analysis to the writing of Modern Architecture Since 1900 in the light

of what has been discussed in this dissertation, certain parallel again arise between

Curtis’s work as a historian and the way he portrays the work of authentic practicing

architects: firstly, that the writing of history, like architecture, is mainly a creative

practice involving the innovation of the creator’s mind; and, secondly, that Curtis

considers his arguments to be as authentic as the works of meaningful architecture,

rooted in the best of the modern tradition and addressing the circumstances of the

present. I argue that Curtis’s choice to focus, not on primary sources and theoretical

debates, but rather on describing the experience of buildings and the architect’s

process, and even his decision to avoid quotes and an excess of notes, enhances the

readability of Modern Architecture Since 1900. As discussed in this dissertation, by

emphasising the need for readability in his historical narrative, Curtis assumes a risk

that he may ultimately hide or disguise its potential scholarly value. Curtis claims that

the book is merely about architecture, but I would add that it is also about his

interpretation of architecture, and that it shows how crucial it is “to understand the

multiple levels of interpretation used in coming to terms with buildings and

architectural ideas.”27

Similarly, the historical narrative presented by Curtis in his book can be read and

interpreted on multiple levels: as a recommended reading, to further explore themes,

architects and buildings mentioned in undergraduate and postgraduate courses on the

history and theory of architecture; and, as with this dissertation, as the object of study

of historiographical research. Like Modern Architecture Since 1900, this dissertation is

mainly built on secondary sources complemented by first-hand experience, in this case

by communication with the Curtis. The argument presented is the result of a

personalised reading of Modern Architecture Since 1900 under the premises justified in

Chapter One, and it is shaped by my choice of sources and literature to include in the

discussion of the different themes. However, this dissertation contributes to

27 William J.R. Curtis, email message to author, August 31, 2017.


217

knowledge by interpreting Curtis’s writing in the context of its own time, and by

discerning and justifying a certain resonance of his discourse with today’s architectural

debates.

Shift 3: Pioneer of a Global Discipline

This dissertation has shown that it is possible to understand Curtis as a pioneer in the

field of global history in architecture, given his balanced and global approach to

modern architecture, and to the writing of its history. The book itself is a global reality

given its impact, its accessibility in many different languages, and the fact that

elements of it were written in different parts of the world. Curtis’s formulation of a

modern tradition that is inclusive, continuous, a result of transformations and

exchanges throughout the world and the twentieth century, makes it possible to argue,

as I do, that Modern Architecture Since 1900 is close to the idea of ‘intertwined history,’

as coined by Edward Said’s Orientalism (1978). I contend that Curtis’s book is

exemplary of the attitude change in histories of modern architecture, the addition of

non-Western traditions to the architectural survey, detected by Sibel Bozdoğan in

1999, even if she does not mention it. Also, it is exemplary of an inclusiveness that goes

beyond a growing list of countries and architects, including not only previously

neglected developed and developing regions, but also the periphery of Europe and the

United States where some regions had been equally overlooked.

The question is: does Curtis really challenge the Western canon or does he merely

incorporate diverse countries and realities into that canon without really challenging

it? Can we state that a White and male European historian challenges the dominance

of the discourse generated by White and male European and American historians and

architects? It is worth noting that the success of Modern Architecture Since 1900 makes

him an odd privileged ‘outsider’ with an extraordinary ease to travel and to challenge,

if not fully the canon, the institutions responsible for its generation, on which he does

not depend. In the letter written on August 28, 1981, by James S. Ackerman on his

positive reaction to the manuscript of Modern Architecture Since 1900, he refers to


218

Curtis as a “freelancer,” and to his methodology as “adventurousness.”28 Curtis’s view of

modern architecture is also influenced by his practice as a photographer and artist,

and, in his own words, as “a world traveller who uses his eyes”29 in an attempt to

understand the ‘substructures’ of diverse cultures and their manifestation in built

spaces and forms.30 In my conversation with Jean-Louis Cohen about this research, he

agreed on the significance of understanding Curtis as a traveller and ‘experiencer’ of

architecture, and the way this attitude differentiates his own historical discourse from

that of previous and subsequent historians.31 Not only is Modern Architecture Since

1900 a global history with a global impact, but Curtis can also be understood as a

global historian.

Curtis’s narrative, as well as his personal experience of architecture, shows a sincere

engagement with the problems and potentials of every country, within reason. Modern

Architecture Since 1900 is a first step towards undoing the established hierarchies,

consolidated as Western canon. When addressing the current situation around 1992-3,

and without using the word globalisation, Curtis writes that “the growing perception of

a shared planet offered hints of new conceptions of universality, while the appreciation

of local differences prompted new formulations of ‘modernity’ and revised schemes of

history.”32 Had he written a fourth edition after 1999/2000, he would have had the

linguistic and disciplinary tools to overcome what could be considered the

‘colonialism’ of his own approach, incorporating more politically correct terms and a

properly global framework into his writing.

Going back to Jarzombek’s 2015 reassessment of global, as discussed in Chapter One of

this dissertation, if the false duality between tradition and modernism and its

institutionalisation is one the problems that have perpetuated the Western canon,

then, Curtis’s permanent rejection of the dichotomy between modernity and tradition

is indeed a way of challenging the canon, as is his understanding of a universalism


August 28, 1981. William J.R. Curtis, Letter sent via email message to author, February 21, 2017. WJRC Archive. 29 William J.R. Curtis, email message to author, March 11, 2016. 30 Curtis, “A Historian’s Perspective on Modern Architecture,” transcript of the talk, January 2007. 31 Jean-Louis Cohen, meeting with Gevork Hartoonian’s PhD students, July 9, 2017. 32 Curtis, Modern Architecture Since 1900, 684.


219

non-homogenising. However, as pointed out by Hilde Heynen, since the 1980s the idea

“emerged that modernity can take on different forms and that it is not the same

everywhere,” making it necessary to understand the differences in the way architecture

is conceived, built and experienced in different parts of the world – this individualised

understanding is less evident in Curtis’s synoptic narrative than the willingness and

possibility to include examples from diverse countries and contexts.33

In The Postconceptual Condition (2017), Peter Osborne reflects on the relationship

between the alleged end of postmodernism and the emergence of the global. The

decline of the critical category of postmodernism was accompanied by, and followed,

the rethinking of modernity, or modernities: “a revival, deepening, multiplication and

complication of discourses of the modern – with ‘multiple,’ ‘alternative,’ and

‘postcolonial’ modernities at the fore.”34 To understand what Osborne calls “a singular,

complexly internally differentiated global modernity,” it is not enough to grasp the

present; in his opinion, modernity is portrayed more accurately through the notion of

“global contemporaneity.”35 However, I would argue that global modernity is a

category that helps to understand the situation of architecture at the end of the 1990s,

which resonates with Curtis’s proposal of a modern tradition. Osborne writes that “one

might understand global modernity more processually [sic] as a play of forces between

the abstractly unifying and temporally self-differentiation power of the universalisation

of exchange relations at the level of the planet and the persisting complexly interacting

multiplicity of relatively territorially discrete, immanently self-differentiating

modernities,” which again seems to expand on Curtis’s argument for the need to find a

balance between a certain universalism and the specificities of different regions.36

33 Hilde Heynen, “Modernity and Modernities. Challenges for the Historiography of Modern Architecture,” in

Conceiving our Modernity: Perspectives of Study on Chinese Modern Architectural History, 2015, 27. Proceedings of the 1st Symposium of Chinese Modern Architectural History and Theory Forum. 34 Peter Osborne, The Postconceptual Condition. London and New York: Verso, 2017. Originally published as “Global

Modernity and the Contemporary: Two Categories of the Philosophy of Historical Time,” in Breaking up Time: Negotiating the Borders between Present, Past and Future ed. Chris Lorenz and Berber Bevernage (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, 2013), 71. 35 Peter Osborne, The Postconceptual Condition. London and New York: Verso, 2017. Originally published as “The

Postconceptual Condition: Or, the Cultural Logic of High Capitalism Today,” Radical Philosophy vol 184 (March/April 2014): 20. 36 Osborne, “Global Modernity and the Contemporary…,”78.


220

In conclusion, Curtis’s formulation of a modern tradition, or traditions, that

encompasses architectural production throughout the twentieth century and the world

in an intertwined way, resonates with very recent attempts to formulate new and more

accurate historical periodisations and definitions of modernity. Curtis’s intuitions

about both regionalism and postmodernism, about their relevance and ephemerality

respectively, were not only proven when he wrote the third edition in 1996, but are also

relevant today for attempts at theorising the present and contemporaneity, at

theorising the global. In order to periodise the present, it is necessary first to

understand the late twentieth century and the relationship between modernity and

capitalism. Curtis’s book can be considered exemplary of the transition from a ‘colonial

modernity’ to a ‘global modernity,’ or, to use his own term, from a modern tradition to

a global tradition.

Finally, I want to acknowledge that I have built my conclusion on the idea of

considering Modern Architecture Since 1900 as Curtis’s historical discourse, or his

“discourse of history” as discussed by Barthes, recognising his authority as a historian

and his organisation of the narrative, when I am fully aware of the author’s rejection of

the term ‘discourse.’37 Curtis argues that his emphasis is on the analysis of buildings

based on his own experience, and on understanding them within a broader historical

perspective, though not within a particular discourse, as yet another way to

differentiate his approach from those of other historians of modern architecture. As a

result of this doctoral investigation, I posit that William J.R. Curtis’s Modern

Architecture Since 1900 is a credible and inclusive narration of the continuous

development of modern architecture, a narration that has its strengths and

weaknesses, but is coherent within the premises of Curtis’s own understanding of

architecture and of the writing of its history. The scope and depth of Curtis’s approach

made his book a starting point to be improved on in the development of the field of

the global history – at least, a narration to take into account. However, as with most

37 Roland Barthes, “The Discourse of History,” in The Rustle of Language (Berkeley: University of California Press,

1989).


221

themes discussed, his contribution to architectural discourse is yet to be fully and

properly acknowledged.

By acknowledging Curtis’s contribution to the writing of history, made in the early

1980s and culminating in 1996 with the third edition of Modern Architecture Since

1900, this dissertation has explored the limits of the theoretical and historical box in

which he is imprisoned.38 I argue that Curtis is a pioneer in the writing of a global

history of architecture because, in 1982 and again in 1996, he presented an alternative

and intertwined narrative of modern architecture built on the formulation of a modern

tradition, or traditions. However, this does not make Modern Architecture Since 1900 a

global history of architecture written in the late twentieth century. Precisely because of

the time when it was written, the book is a major contribution to the historiography of

modern architecture in comparison to contemporary and subsequent histories, but too

early a contribution to make it part of the new global understanding of, and approach

to, architecture. Despite the fact that the delimited timeframe in this dissertation

corresponds to the time when Curtis was writing Modern Architecture Since 1900,

between the late 1970s and early 1990s, both the discussion and conclusion inevitably

draw closer to the present, when yet new shifts are taking place. Through the writing

of this dissertation my own research interests have drawn closer to the present, from

the study of the writing of architectural history in the 1920s and 1930s to the late

twentieth century, from the historiography of modern architecture, to the

historiography of global architecture, which, is still to be written.

38 Pierre Bourdieu, The Field of Cultural Production: Essays on Art and Literature, ed. Randal Johnson (New York:

Columbia University Press, 1993), 184.

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