The pursuit of reform was combined with a search for the ... Italy, as a young nation (1861), was still finding its ... cultural and political emancipation. Thus in the ...
KADOC Artes 13
Regionalism and Modernity Architecture in Western Europe, 1914-1940 Leen Meganck, Linda Van Santvoort & Jan De Maeyer eds
Leuven University Press
Editorial board Urs Altermatt, Université de Fribourg Jan Art, Universiteit Gent Jaak Billiet, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven Jan De Maeyer, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven - KADOC Jean-Dominique Durand, Université Lyon 3 Emmanuel Gerard, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven - KADOC James C. Kennedy, Universiteit van Amsterdam Mathijs Lamberigts, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven Emiel Lamberts, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven Jean-Michel Leniaud, École pratique des hautes études, Sorbonne, Paris Patrick Pasture, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven Andrew Saint, University of Cambridge Liliane Voyé, Université Catholique de Louvain
Cover: see illustration on p. 19, 111 & 178 © 2012 Leuven University Press / Presses Universitaires de Louvain / Universitaire Pers Leuven Minderbroedersstraat 4, box 5602 B - 3000 Leuven All rights reserved. Except in those cases expressly determined by law, no part of this publication may be multiplied, saved in an automated data file or made public in any way whatsoever without the express prior written consent of the publishers. ISBN 978 90 5867 918 5 D/ NUR:
Contents
Introduction FRANCE Jean-Claude Vigato Between Progress and Tradition. The Regionalist Debate in France Hervé Doucet Searching for a New Image. An Idealized Regionalism in Lorraine BELGIUM Johan Van den Mooter German Reconstruction in Belgium during World War I. A Regional Experiment Leen Meganck Patriotism, Genius Loci, Authentic Buildings and Imitation Farmsteads. Regionalism in Interwar Belgium Benoît Mihaïl Traditionalist Architecture in Belgium between the Wars. The Obsession with National Culture and the French Influence Evert Vandeweghe Municipal Imagery and Regionalist Architecture in the Aftermath of the First World War. Branches of the National Bank of Belgium in Flanders Björn Rzoska Farmstead, Tribe, Soil and National Character. Clemens Victor Trefois, a Self-Made Farmhouse Expert in Flanders Lut Missinne Regionalism and a European View? Gerard Walschap on the “Heimatroman” GERMANY Kai Krauskopf Standardization and the Landscape. Traditionalism and the Planning of Housing Estates in Germany between the Two World Wars
5
ENGLAND Vanessa Vanden Berghe Oliver Hill. A Window on Regionalism in Britain during the Interwar Period ITALY Michelangelo Sabatino Toward a Regionalist Modernism. Italian Architecture and Regionalism Abbreviations Bibliography Index Colophon
6
Introduction
Leen Meganck, Linda Van Santvoort & Jan De Maeyer
Towards a more Inclusive Understanding Since the founding in 2002 of the research community “Cultural Identities, World Views and Architecture in Western Europe, 1915-1945”, the concept of ‘regionalism’ has been one of the sub-themes studied along interdisciplinary lines in this project. Since then, regionalism has become a subject that is increasingly intriguing and fascinating a growing number of researchers both in Europe and the US.1 The present collection of studies aims to reposition the regionalism of the interwar period, as it focuses on the complex interaction between regionalism and modernity in France, Germany, Italy, Great Britain and Belgium.2 The research presented here forms a sequel to the book Sources of Regionalism in the Nineteenth Century, published in 2008. We maintain the same interpretation of regionalism that formed the core of this previous publication: not as a well-defined style or stylistic issue but as a broad concept, an underlying idea that promotes the use of a local architectural vocabulary and local building materials, regionalism as an attitude that strives for a close interaction with the perception of the ‘genius loci’, the ‘spirit of the place’. We see the term ‘regionalism’ interpreted in some very diverse ways in the architecture of the interwar period. It is an approach that can accommodate highly contradictory interests and viewpoints. Both progressive schools of thought (such as standardization
and modernization) and reactionary ones (striving to restore an earlier state, or for a renewed appreciation of tradition) could sail their independent ways under the flag of regionalism. Jean-Claude Vigato’s article immerses us in regionalist discourse in France, showing the range of interpretations of the concept in one period in a single country. One also has to take into account that modernism too was not a fixed concept till after the Second World War. The accepted criteria for modernism from which most essays in one way or another ‘row back’ derive from the 1930s at the earliest. So regionalist discourse and architectural activity in the interwar period is nowhere taking place against a fixed backdrop of ‘modernist’ antithesis or opposition. Although this study examines regionalism in the context of architecture, regionalism is a much wider cultural phenomenon. This is why, as in the previous publication, we have tested the concept of regionalism in architecture against the concept in literature - which provides a refreshing comparison. As in architecture, the term ‘regionalism’ is frequently used in literature as a normative rather than as a descriptive concept, and often with a negative connotation of ‘provincialism’. In her analysis, Lut Missine rightly warns us “not to confuse level with genre”. Using the oeuvre of the Flemish writer Gerard Walschap (1898-1989), she shows that quality (level) is independent of literary genre. She also argues that thinking in formal and ideological oppositions threat7
1 For example the excellent book by Canizaro, Architectural Regionalism; the yearly conferences on “Die Neue Tradition”, organized since 2006 by the Institut für Baugeschichte, Architekturtheorie and Denkmalpflege of the Technischen Universität Dresden (IBAD); the interdisciplinary symposium “Regionalism and Identity in British Art: History, Environment and Contemporary Practice”, organized by the Royal West of England Academy and the University of the West of England in 2006. 2 This book focuses on Western Europe, specifically on France, Belgium, England, Germany and Italy, thus reflecting the contributions to the international conference “Regionalism and Modernity in the Interwar Period”, organized in November 2007 at the Ghent University.
ens a sound evaluation of such an oeuvre. Regionalism versus modernism; regionalism versus nationalism or cosmopolitanism; the regional and moral versus the urban and amoral: “in specific discursive contexts the concept of regionalism escapes from these binary schemes”(Lut Missine). Accordingly, the aim of this book is to contribute to a more inclusive understanding of regionalism and of the architecture of the interwar period in general. Only when we abandon the modernist perspective in historiography can we do justice to the multiplicity of approaches necessary to thoroughly understand it. We have illustrated the concept of ‘regionalism’ as just one of the narratives weaving through the architecture of this period - in a complex interaction with modernity, modernism, art deco and traditionalism. After all, as Evert Vandeweghe also states: “rather than a clearly defined art-historical style, regionalism emerges as a tendency which can be present in several architectural styles”. Benoît Mihaïl places regionalism in a wider framework of the tradition’s survival in interwar architecture, both in art deco and in monumental classicism. The latter in particular runs counter to expectations. In addition, we also approach regionalism as a means in the pursuit of continuity and innovation, of a national or a regional identity, tradition and modernity, and - not least - of architectural and urban beauty.
8
Continuity within Modernity Regionalism can be seen as a strategy for ensuring continuity within a modernizing society which compensates for the increasing loss of landscape and tradition particularly in the emphasis it lays on the rural and on the tradition of craftsmanship. Nineteenth-century regionalism, after all, arose partly out of resistance to the disappearance of the typical rural community, which was being harmed both visually and morally by industrialization and increased urbanization. After the First World War as well, the rural remained an important given in the interpretation of regionalism. What was left of the beautiful countryside had to be kept in as pristine a state as possible, and new buildings had to be integrated with respect for the rural aesthetic. Leen Meganck sheds some light on the substantial amount of literature in Belgium that originated as a “manual for building in the countryside”. The rural architecture and the vernacular building traditions were also regarded as a way to “get back to the source” in architecture. Michelangelo Sabatino shows us how in Italy, places such as Capri and the Amalfi coast became real pilgrimage sites for artists and architects interested in the vernacular. Nevertheless the relationship between regionalism and the countryside is often ambiguous, as is well illustrated by Hervé Doucet ’s narrative about the reconstruction of small rural communities in France just after the First World War. The interest in the picturesque elements of rural architecture and the economic drive to innovate farms are two perspectives that sometimes converged but that also could conflict with each other. In addition, one must beware of defining regionalism as exclusively rural, as the article by Evert Vandeweghe shows. In his contribution, about the architecture of the National
Bank of Belgium, he shifts the focus from a regionalism based on vernacular rural architecture to “an urban form of regionalism, based on guild houses, town halls and other buildings reflecting the rich history of the old Flemish towns”. Besides the rural, the artisanal is still an important component of continuity that is expressed in regionalism. Vanessa Vanden Berghe shows how in Great Britain, Oliver Hill pursued a connection with the local by employing local builders and craftsmen, in order to assure continuity with tradition. Hill also did so to consciously provide an education for a new generation of craftsmen (and women) - in order to safeguard the knowledge of traditional techniques for the future. A characteristic of his oeuvre is the importance attached to decoration; houses were given identity and ‘connection’ with a place through the incorporation of vernacular objects and decorative arts. This also took place in other Western European countries, and not only in regionalist interiors. Modernist architects were intrigued by the ‘modernity’ of vernacular objects and set them in modernist interiors. On the other hand, elements of the regionalist vocabulary were used in a standardized form, for example in housing projects in Germany and Italy - as shown in the contributions by Krauskopf and Sabatino. Thus regionalism keeps showing up, in all its contradictory forms.
Identity in a Globalizing World After the First World War, regionalism was used even more than in the 19th century as a means to construct an identity. To an increasing degree, the concept would be subject to manipulation. Regionalist forms and ideas would be used and abused according to the political-ideological body of thought. In his article, Johan Van den Mooter shows how reconstruction work strategically using ‘regional’ characteristics was begun in Belgium by the occupying Germans, even before the First World War was over. There was a distinct preference for local styles, characterized by the typical features of the ancient rural architecture that could be associated with the fictitious concept of ‘Germanic architecture’. This early reconstruction was an instrument with which to tighten the socio-cultural bonds between Germany and Belgium, and at the same time a form of propaganda: “every new building would be a monument in honour of the German victory and had to ensure that foreign journalists who came to testify of the German barbarity in this First World War were proven wrong”. In post-WWI reconstruction, regionalism attained a quasi-official status in the countries devastated by the war. The peculiar identity of a place, which had been threatened or destroyed by the attacker or occupier, had to be restored and celebrated. But how could people strive to restore their identity without it degenerating into the nationalistic formula of 19th-century nation states, now in discredit as one of the perceived causes of the war? The concept of regionalism offered a way out. Moreover, in an increasingly wide and more international environment, regionalism could also provide an answer to the search for ‘embeddedness’. 9
3 The denomination ‘um 1800’ is the equivalent in architecture of the more known term ‘Biedermeyer’, which applies to the artistic styles and living culture between 1815 and 1848, dominated by the middle-class.
Kai Krauskopf demonstrates how in Germany, the destruction of war was seen as an architectural ‘opportunity for purification’, ensuring a break with the eclecticism of the 19th century, experienced as a pastiche. The pursuit of reform was combined with a search for the architectural confirmation of the ‘Heimat’: through the analysis of the traditional, regional architecture, the typical German model was sought, and found in construction ‘um 1800’, in the bourgeois culture of the ‘Goethezeit’.3 In the building of new ‘Siedlungen’, often by architects from the pre-war Garden City or Heimatschutz movements, this basic type - actually a form of invented tradition - was repeated in an almost standardized way. Evert Vandeweghe sketches how in the reconstruction of the 1920s, regionalism was used to serve the image of the National Bank of Belgium, which was trying to gain consumer trust. In his contribution, he stresses the importance of perception when dealing with regionalism in architecture: “the scientific correctness or geographical range of a regionalist building is less important than its perception as regional by its contemporaries”. A new aspect in the interwar period was the marked link with ethnological interests. An extensive body of documentation of regional and rural architecture had been put together already in the 19th century by the promoters of regionalism, as evidenced by many well-illustrated studies. In the interwar period, regionalism was additionally fuelled by the scientific and systematic study of ‘the ethnic’ in all its aspects, especially the anthropological, but including the artisanal and architectural. Björn Rzoska’s article covers the work of the Flemish ethnologist Clemens Victor Tréfois, who achieved international fame in the 1920s by looking for regional types, differences and similarities in his studies of farmsteads. His work linked 10
up with one of the priorities of international ethnological research during the interwar period: compiling ethnographic atlases in order to establish ancient cultural borders. In contrast to conventional discourse, he argued that it was soil conditions and not the tribe that determined boundaries. Tréfois was driven by a mix of scientific and ideological goals, typical of interwar ethnology. The interweaving of the study of regional rural architecture and ethnology with racist theories ‘tainted’ regionalism as a concept, making it a highly charged subject for researchers for a long time. In the 1930s, the underlying theories of regionalism changed in a subtle but meaningful way. Regionalism as a positive form recognizing an equivalent diversity gradually turned into a ‘closed’ form of regionalism, a folding back on one’s own region as a defence mechanism in an economically and politically turbulent decade. There was an observable harking back to ‘permanent values’, often in the form of modern classicism for large public buildings and in the form of traditionalism and regionalism for residential and leisure architecture. Theories about ‘race’ and ‘[home] soil’ slipped into the discourse. Identity went from being a means to differentiate oneself from other equal identities, to a way to declare oneself superior. In Germany and Italy, regionalist architecture was used to support the new totalitarian regimes. Krauskopf describes how in the late 1930s and during the Second World War, efforts were being made to create a new Heimat through new forms of architecture and urban planning, in a new formal language that all Germans could identify with. Ironically, in Germany itself this imposed formal language often came at the expense of the ‘authentic’ architectural language of its regions, and moreover this new ‘Heimatstil’ was even
exported to the newly conquered territories of Poland and Russia. Italy, as a young nation (1861), was still finding its architectural identity. Michelangelo Sabatino argues the importance of the idea of Mediterraneità for modern architects. This ‘Mediterranean-ness’ was based on both classical Italian architecture and the anonymous vernacular of the Mediterranean countries. Under Mussolini the Tuscan ‘Casa colonica’ was adapted as a cost-efficient, easily repeated model of domestic architecture to house the tenant farmers, needed to realize Mussolini’s policies of ‘ruralism’ - an economic and social plan based on revitalising Italy’s agricultural resources. Benoît Mihaïl describes how studies were made in northern France of Flemish regionalism in order to support French nationalist claims. Leen Meganck analyses how in Belgium, cultural regionalism formed a component of the Flemish struggle for cultural and political emancipation. Thus in the 1930s regionalism became a way to protect oneself from the turbulent ‘modern times’, as well as somewhat a way to enclose oneself in the superiority of one’s own ‘race’ and ‘people’.
Regionalism as an Adaptation Strategy One of the central concepts needed for a proper understanding of regionalism in the early 20th century is that of adaptation. Regionalism was very consciously employed as a strategy to tone down modernity to an acceptable level. Regionalism is still often unjustly interpreted as a retrograde position, as pure nostalgia, as a rejection of all modernity. This interpretation ignores the strong and inherent ambition of the concept, namely to build a more harmonious society in which modern-day achievements were integrated. A prime example of this is at the level of the modernization of the countryside. Retaining a traditional and thus recognizable formal language served to make acceptable the rationalizations and reforms in farming, and of the countryside as a whole, drawing attention to improved hygiene, greater functionality, and standardization - as demonstrated in the contributions by Hervé Doucet and Leen Meganck. Combining a formal language referring to tradition with new developments/achievements and modern comfort is also seen in the reconstruction of the destroyed regions, in the new agencies of the Belgian National Bank and in the regionalist villas. There was a remarkable broadening, influenced by social and political changes, of the social ‘support base’ of the concept. In the 19th century, regionalist viewpoints were primarily found among the artistic and intellectual elite, who were striving for a return to rural life, and who had villas built in the leafy outskirts of the cities, on the coast or in the countryside. Although regionalist villas still exist as exclusive places of retreat (such as the villas by Oliver Hill, discussed by Vanessa Vanden Berghe), the regionalist design would penetrate to a broader 11
social stratum during the interwar period. There is an observable democratization of the concept in architecture that parallels the democratization of society. It was somewhat paternalistically driven, coming from a desire for ‘socialization in modernity’, or the desire to involve wider segments of the population in the modernization of society. There was an awareness that a locally rooted and thus familiar-looking formal language would be more readily accepted by the population than a modernist design. The success of regionalism in the reconstruction was living proof. Accordingly similar designs would be very consciously ‘used’ to facilitate innovations, particularly in social housing projects (Belgium, Germany, Italy) and - as mentioned above - in building farmsteads (France, Belgium).
4 See also Lampugnani, Die Architektur, die Tradition und der Ort, 12: “Kaum wurde schliesslich der klassischen Moderne in der vielbeachten Ausstellung ‘Modern Architecture: International Exhibition’ im New Yorker Museum of Modern Art der Status eines Internationalen Stils bescheinigt (1932), stellte sie sich bereits die frage nach möglichen regionalen Deklinationen, nach der Überwindung des Functionalismus durch emotionale Belange, nach Monumentalität.” 5 “Le régionalisme n’est que l’adaption de l’architecture moderne à la contrée ou elle se développe”. Clozier, L’Architecture éternel livre d’images.
12
Regionalism as a Means to a Moderate Modernism Lastly, we look at regionalism again, through the eyes of the architects who used the concept in the interwar period. In their view, regionalism constituted a ‘new phase’ within architecture. In the eternal dynamic of thesis-antithesis-synthesis, regionalism was for them the antithesis following the uncompromising, militant modernism of the so-called ‘International Style’.4 Regionalism had to be part of a new synthesis, in which modernism and tradition melded. After the ‘excesses’ of modernism, there would come a kinder, gentler architecture, achieving a new equilibrium, in which architecture would again be embedded in its location, the place of its origin. Or as the regionalist Clozier put it: “Regionalism is nothing more than the adaptation of modern architecture to the region in which it develops”.5 The resulting synthesis was to be a ‘moderate modernism’: a modernism incorporating the renewed interest in traditional materials and techniques, adapted to the people and their psychological needs, and to the ‘genius loci’. This opens up regionalism as a concept to a wider architectural philosophy, a design mentality in which the local, the particulars of a region, become the inspiring element. We get a glimpse of this in the contribution of Michelangelo Sabatino, who describes how traditional buildings realized by anonymous masons or peasants were ‘rediscovered’ or re-valued and appropriated by professional trained architects to construct Italy’s modernist image during the 1950s, and how this movement morphed into NeoRationalism (La Tendenza) during the 1960s and 1970s.
Regionalism and Modernity: Towards a First Synthesis Regionalism cannot be thought of separately from modernity. It is a way of dealing with it, and with all the contradictions and inherent tensions that go along with it. It is a striving for continuity within modernity, in which the rural clashes with the urban, craftsmanship conflicts with standardization. However, all of these aspects are simultaneously present in regionalist architecture. It is the search for an identity in a modernizing and globalizing world, in which within the concept, tensions arise between diversity and superiority, between science, aesthetics and ideology. It is the employment of forms and concepts as an adaptation strategy to facilitate modernity. In the area of architecture, it is also a means to a moderate architectural modernism, so that the local embeddedness again has a role in the design. The book makes it clear that we must reject the idea that regionalism is an anti-modern phenomenon. On the contrary: regionalism is a form of modernity and is therefore a continuous process.
13
