233Verkehrswege, das nur durch Notwendigkeit bestimmte Nebeneinander der Objeckte, ent-
hält doch—gleichsam unbewusst und im Rohstoff—Möglickeiten, wie wir später unsere
Städte offen und ohne Zwang starren Niveaubeibehaltung gestalten werden.” (Bauen in
Frankreich,p. 8.)
35 Bürger outlines the character of the avant-garde work of art as relying upon the principle
of “montage.” In traditional aesthetics, he argues, a work of art is regarded as constitut-
ing an organic unity: the whole and the parts should be linked with each other in a self-
evident relationship based on principles of balance and harmony. The avant-garde work on
the other hand is nonorganic: it does have a unity, but this unity does not come about in a
self-evident way. The avant-garde work contains discrepancies and dissonances because
it is constructed on the basis of a montage of fragments: elements that are separated out
from a contextual totality and are combined in a new relationship. Archetypal examples of
this are the cubist paintings of Picasso and Braque, and John Heartfield’s photomontages.
In literature one can refer to texts such as Le paysan de Parisby Louis Aragon and André
Breton’s Nadja.
36 Giedion, Space, Time and Architecture, p. vi. I am quoting from the ninth impression (1980)
of the fifth edition (1967). There were a number of revised editions of the book; on each
occasion it was enlarged and more recent material was added. The structure of the book,
however, and its line of argument essentially remained the same. For purposes of com-
parison I have also made use of the Dutch translation: Ruimte, tijd en bouwkunst(Am-
sterdam: Wereldbibliotheek, 1954). The latter is based on the first edition.
37 Giedion is not the first, nor was he the only person to be interested in relationships of this
sort. For a detailed study of the subject see Linda Dalrymple-Henderson, The Fourth Di-
mension and Non-Euclidean Geometry in Modern Art(Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 1983).
38 Giedion, Space, Time and Architecture, p. 14.
39 Ibid., p. 13.
40 Ibid., pp. 495–496. This most famous of Giedion’s analogies has been heavily attacked by
later critics. Colin Rowe and Robert Slutzky, for example, develop a critique of Giedion’s
claim that the space-time concept is operative within both architecture and painting, by an-
alyzing the different “modes” of transparency that are at stake in the Bauhaus and in L’Ar-
lésienne. See Colin Rowe and Robert Slutzky, “Transparency: Literal and Phenomenal,” in
Colin Rowe, The Mathematics of the Ideal Villa and Other Essays(Cambridge: MIT Press,
1976), pp. 159–183.
41 The text on Mies forms part of the additions made in 1954 for the third edition of Space,
Time and Architecture;that on Aalto was added in 1949 in the second edition; that on Ut-
zon constituted the bulk of the revisions for the fifth edition published in 1967.
42 Giedion, Space, Time and Architecture, pp. 496–497.
43 Ibid., p. 880.
44 Giedion, Building in France, pp. 190–191: “For the first time in history, not the upper class,
but the lower class is a factor in the creation of a style.” German text: “Zum erstenmal in
der Geschichte wirkt nicht die Schicht mit den grössten Ansprüchen, sondern die Schicht
mit den geringsten Ansprüchen als stilbildender Faktor.” (Bauen in Frankreich, p. 107.)
45 The phrase “the tradition of the new” was coined by Harold Rosenberg to describe mod-
ern art. See Calinescu, Five Faces of Modernity, p. 225.
46 Giedion, Space, Time and Architecture, pp. xxxii–xxxiii.
47 A good summary of these arguments, which Giedion often returned to in his later work,
can be found in Sigfried Giedion, Walter Gropius: Work and Teamwork(New York: Rein-
hold, 1954), p. 36: “The cause is, again, that grievous split between thinking and feeling
which affects all levels of society and which must never be underestimated. One highly
developed method of thinking (science) is valued in every quarter. Quite another attitude
is taken up in regard to the realm of feeling (art). The art of the ‘ruling taste’ as we have
termed it has now become part of the dream world of the masses and their representa-
tives. Here it lives on and gives rise to nostalgic images with which they oppose impo-232