architecture, with all its flamboyance and dynamism, with its organic figures that in-
tertwine as they strive upward, it is the longing for resurrection and for a transfor-
mation to a higher form of life that is the prime motif in its formal idiom. In contrasting
fashion, then, both styles refer to utopia, to the promise of a better world—the
Egyptian does it by striving for a perfect geometry that conforms to the order of the
cosmos, while the Gothic extols the form of life itself in an organic and total design.^117
Most other architectures, in Bloch’s view, are less extreme and contain references
to both aspects—both the geometrical and the vitalist are present in them as utopian
figures (Leitbilder). As for modern architecture, which he refers to as the architecture
of the New Objectivity (Neue Sachlichkeit), he has nothing good to say. According to
him, this is a manifestation of a culture that is completely bourgeois and which
makes use of a thoroughly misguided image of utopia; with its sobriety and lack of
ornament, all it does is glorify capitalism.
Washable Walls and Houses Like Ships
Right from the start, in his first book, Geist der Utopie(1918, 1923), Bloch attacked
a number of the principles of what was to become modern architecture. He took up
arms against the increasing dominance of technological culture that he saw as de-
priving things of their warmth and as surrounding people with cold appliances. Every-
thing has become cold and empty; everything has to be “washable”: “The machine
knew how to produce everything so lifeless and inhuman in detail, just the way our
new housing districts usually are. Its actual goal is the bathroom and the toilet that
are the most unquestionable and the most original accomplishments of this era....
But now washing-up reigns. Somehow water flows from every wall.”^118 An environ-
ment of this kind is typical of an age in which people seem to have forgotten what
real dwelling means. They no longer understand the art of making their houses feel
warm and solid: “At first, however, nearly everything looks empty to us. But how
could it be different and where should the vital, beautifully formed utensil come from
when nobody knows any more how to live permanently and has forgotten how to
keep his home warm and solid?”^119
Like Benjamin in “Erfahrung und Armut,” Bloch states that humanity has to
begin all over again: we are poor and have forgotten how to play. The conclusions
that Bloch draws from this perception, however, are very different from those of
Benjamin. He does not argue that the cold design that is typical of the age of ma-
chines should be elevated to a norm in order to clear the way for a new barbarism.
On the contrary, it is his view that cold design should be confined to those things that
by their nature are intended to be functional: “Surgical tongs for delivering babies
must be smooth, but sugar tongs certainly must not.”^120 There is a whole realm of
human design, Bloch argues, that occupies an interim position between that which
is strictly technical (obstetric forceps, chairs) and that which is art (statues). The ap-
plied arts have a crucial role here, even in the transitional phase to a socialist society.
3
Reflections in a Mirror