Architecture and Modernity : A Critique

33

Giedion’s fascination was nothing new or even out of the ordinary. The glass

and iron structures of the nineteenth century—exhibition halls, railway stations, ar-

cades, conservatories—provoked strong reactions right from the start. They were fa-

vorite subjects for modernist painters, from Manet to Delaunay (figure 6), and they

aroused fierce polemical debate, the Crystal Palace in London being a good ex-

ample.^21 Neither was it the first time that the importance of these constructions de-

signed by engineers had been acknowledged in an architectural discourse where

they were seen as the prelude to a future architecture. In the work of Scheerbart and

in Sant’Elia’s and Marinetti’s futurist manifesto, however, these statements sounded

like echoes of distant unattainable visionary dreams, while Giedion succeeded in

combining the lyrical character of his homage with an extremely convincing, sober

analysis of very real and realizable buildings and spaces.

Giedion treated these fascinating spatial experiences in a very specific way,

transforming them into a description of the new architecture that at the same time

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4 5

Pont Transbordeur, Marseilles.

(From Sigfried Giedion,

Bauen in Frankreich, fig. 61.)

Eiffel Tower (1889),

interior of pier.

(From Sigfried Giedion,

Bauen in Frankreich, fig. 2.)

Giedion comments:

“Instead of a massive tower, an

open framework condensed into

minimal dimensions. The

landscape enters through

continuously changing snippets.”