opposed to every rational ordering of things. On the contrary, they argued for a more
thoroughgoing rationalization that combated the irrational remnants of the tradition.^11
It would be a conceptual misunderstanding, therefore, to identify the modern
movement as the architectural avant-garde of the twenties and thirties. Although the
movement’s most heroic phase nearly coincided with constructivism and dadaism,
and notwithstanding the fact that there existed historically well-documented rela-
tions between artists and architects, modern architecture showed in most of its
manifestations a face which was clearly distinct from the radicality and destructive-
ness of the artistic avant-garde. It is nevertheless productive to confront the concept
of the avant-garde with the ideas that were structuring the discourse of the modern
movement. For the movement was hardly a unified whole, but rather consisted of
widely differing trends and tendencies.^12 Some of these were clearly much closer to
genuine avant-garde sensibilities than others. That was, for instance, the case for the
left-wing tendency of which Hannes Meyer was an exponent.^13 Avant-gardistic im-
pulses which aimed at the “sublation” of architecture can also be said to have played
a decisive role in the movement’s initial phase. In later developments, however, this
moment of “sublation” was gradually neutralized and emasculated. The avant-garde
aspirations from the beginnings, which were influenced by a transitory concept of
modernity, became reforged into a fairly univocal program in which the need for a
permanent redefinition of one’s own aims no longer played a crucial role. A sympto-
matic manifestation of this evolution can be detected in the work of Sigfried Giedion.
Sigfried Giedion: A Programmatic View of Modernity
Sigfried Giedion (1888–1968) was first confronted with contemporary architecture at
the age of thirty-five, after an initial training as an engineer followed by a doctorate in
art history.^14 He himself said that his fascination was aroused by a visit to the
Bauhauswochein 1923 and by his encounter with Le Corbusier in 1925.^15 From that
moment on he devoted all his energies to the defense and propagation of these new
ideas. In his articles and books he committed himself uncompromisingly to the cause
of modern architecture. He often did this explicitly in his capacity as a historian: his
line of argument took the form of a historical writing that covered developments up
to and including his own time. Criticism of Giedion’s work has mainly been leveled at
this “operative” aspect of his work as a historian.^16 His outlook is based on the as-
sumption that a single vast evolutionary pattern underlies the history of architecture
and that this evolution develops more or less in a linear fashion, culminating in
twentieth-century modern architecture, which is presented by Giedion as “a new
tradition.”
This linear view of history and the programmatic and pastoral concept of
modernity that goes with it is particularly conspicuous in his major work, Space, Time
and Architecture. The two books on modern architecture that he wrote prior to this—
Bauen in Frankreich, Bauen in Eisen, Bauen in Eisenbetonand Befreites Wohnen—
2
Constructing the Modern Movement