Architecture and Modernity : A Critique

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möglich Positives: dass die Trümmer in einen anderen Raum schafft—wider den gewohn-
ten Zusammenhang. Montage im Spätbürgertum ist der Hohlraum seiner Welt, erfüllt mit
Funken und Überschneidungen einer ‘Erscheinungsgeschichte’, die nicht die rechte ist,
doch gegebenfalls ein Mischort der rechten. Eine Form auch, sich der altem Kultur zu
vergewissern: erblickt aus Fahrt und Betroffenheit, nicht mehr aus Bildung.”
139 Alexander Schwab, born in 1887, was a communist writer and journalist. In 1930 he pub-
lished Das Buch vom Bauen, in which he analyzes all aspects of architecture and dwelling.
In 1933 he was arrested by the Nazis “as an enemy of the state.” He died in 1943, still in
prison. Das Buch vom Bauenwas reprinted in 1973 (Düsseldorf: Bertelsmann) with a fore-
word by Diethart Kerbs.
140 Ernst Bloch, Spuren(1930; Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1985), p. 163: “Ein höchst heiteres
Kreisen ging fühlbar zwischen Drinnen und Draussen, Schein und Tiefe, Kraft und Ober-
fläche. ‘Hören sie’, sagte da mein Freund, ‘wie gut das Haus in Gang is’. Und man hörte
die Ruhe, das richtig Eingehängte, wie es läuft, die wohlbekannte Kameradschaft mit den
Dingen, die jeder Gesunde fühlt, die Lebensluft um sie her und die taohafte Welt.”
141 See also Taub and Wieser, eds., Gespräche mit Ernst Bloch, p. 206.
142 See Architectural Design Profile 59(supplement to Architectural Design 55, no. 5/6
[1985]), realized by guest editor Luciano Semerani, special issue entirely on the Istituto
Universitario di Architettura. For a survey of the activities in Tafuri’s own department, see
Paolo Morachiello, “The Department of Architectural History: A Detailed Description,” in
ibid., pp. 70–71.
143 See the illuminating introduction by Patrizia Lombardo, “Introduction: The Philosophy of
the City,” in Cacciari, Architecture and Nihilism, pp. ix–lviii.
144 Dal Co, Figures of Architecture and Thought,p. 9.
145 Manfredo Tafuri, Architecture and Utopia: Design and Capitalist Development,trans. Bar-
bara Luigia La Penta (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1976), p. vii; translated from Progetto e
utopia. Architettura e sviluppo capitalistico(Bari: Laterza, 1973).
146 Ibid., pp. 86, 88.
147 Ibid., p. 88.
148 Ibid., pp. 84–86: “all the historical avant-garde movements arose and succeeded each
other according to the typical law of industrial production, the essence of which is the con-
tinual technical revolution.”
149 Ibid., p. 89.
150 Ibid., pp. 55–56.
151 Ibid., p. 56.
152 Ibid., p. 93.
153 Ibid., p. 95.
154 Ibid.
155 Ibid. Tafuri is referring to the congress of constructivists and dadaists held in Weimar in



  1. Among those who attended were Theo and Nelly van Doesburg, Kurt Schwitters,
    Tristan Tzara, Hans Arp, László and Lucia Moholy-Nagy, El Lissitzky, Hans Richter, Hannah
    Höch, Cornelis van Eesteren, Karel Maes, Alfréd Kemény, Werner Gräff, Alexa and Peter
    Röhl, and Max and Lotte Buchartz. One distinguished example of the “merging” of Dada
    and De Stijl is of course Theo van Doesburg, who wrote Dadaist poems under the pseu-
    donym of I. K. Bonset.
    156 Ibid., p. 96.
    157 Ibid., p. 98.
    158 Ibid., p. 100.
    159 Ibid.
    160 Ibid., p. 107.
    161 Ibid., p. 119. The opposition between “town” and “large city” refers to the notions of
    Gemeinschaft(community) and Gesellschaft(society), derived from Ferdinand Tönnies, a
    conservative German sociologist (1855–1936), whose book Gemeinschaft und Gesell-
    schaftdates from 1887.
    162 Ibid., p. 124.


Notes to Pages 123–135
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