1987 Yve-Alain Bois - Mondrian and the Theory of Architecture

8/18/2019 1987 Yve-Alain Bois - Mondrian and the Theory of Architecture

1/30

Mondrian and the Theory of ArchitectureAuthor(s): Yve-Alain BoisSource: Assemblage, No. 4 (Oct., 1987), pp. 102-130Published by: The MIT PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3171039 .

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2/30

Yve Alain

B o i s

ondrian n d

t h e

T h e o r y

o

Architecture

Yve-Alain

Bois s Associate

rofessorf

Art

History

t

the

Johns

Hopkins

Univer-

sity

and a

founding

ditorof Macula.

1

(frontispiece).

Collective

letter sent to Mondrian

by

the

participants

of a

ClIAM

meeting

in

Amsterdam

When

Mondrian arrived

n

New

York,

in

October

1940,

he

was

preceded by

a

reputation

as a

designer

rather han

as

a

painter.

The few

paintings

that had been exhibited

during

the

thirties at the

Gallery

of

Living

Art

(the

private

museum of A. E.

Gallatin)

or at the

Museum of Modern

Art

were not at first

recognized

as easel

paintings,

but

rather

were

seen

as

hypothetical

models that needed to be

applied.

"When I first ooked at Mondrian's

paintings,"

wrote

Charmion

von

Wiegand,

"I found

them barebut

beautifully

proportioneddesigns.

I could

see

their use for

industry,

for

typography,

or

decoration,

but

I

could

not

understand

why

he still considered

himself a

painter."'

The

young

artist

and

critic was

quick

to

modify

her

judgment

and to

discover the full

pictorial

richness

of

Mondrian's

work.

But the

importantpoint

here

is that

this "utilitarian"

interpretation

of

neoplasticistpainting

has for

quite

some

time

largely

dominated

the critical discourse.

It

is,

first of

all,

the

argument

of its detractors:

strictly

decorative

paint-

ing,"

wrote

T6riade;2

kind

of

painting

"barely

good

enough to serve as bathroomtiling for its patron,"said

ironically

another fashionable

critic after the first

public

appearance

of Mondrian's

paintings

in

Paris.3

But this

in-

terpretation apidly

became

the

reasoning

of Mondrian's

advocatesas well. No

doubt to

convince,

to

rally

the

votes

of the

Beotians,

almost

every

article that has

appeared

on

the

artist,

and

this until

recently

(it

seems

that he

is now

beginning

to be

seen as

essentially

a

painter),

has insisted

on

the

supposed

influence

that Mondrian

has

had on

our

environment. Until the

1970s,

no historianof modern ar-

103


3/30

LES

CONGRES

INTERNATIONAUX

D'ARCHITECTURE

MODERNE

INTERNATIONALE KONGRESSE FUR NEUES BAUEN

11/6/

,5

Ams+

rdtm

Jher

Piet,Mondriaan,

R4units

dans

une

assemblee

des

del4guees

des

Congres

internationaux

d'architecture moderne

a

Amsterdam,

nous

pensons

a

vous,

et nous

vous

envoyons nos

salutations cordiales,

sincerem.-Mnt

4 L

44okai..

k i 0 0 0 - b I e k


4/30

assemblage

4

.

..

I|.

I.

162

(52)

Doesburg:

Russian

163 (305)

Mi~is

an

dc

Rohe:

Pro-

dance,1918

(not

in

exhibition) ;

ject

for a brick

countryv

house,

plan,

(f.

Picasso,

fig.

27

1922

16 (20)

Gro is: rsor s

us. I)csau, 19"25-26:

c'f.

I),M

.

lfi igp.

1.t11.o

cr right

2.

Page

from Alfred

Barr's

Cubism

and Abstract

Art,

1936.

Barr

compares

not

only

van

Doesburg's

Rhythm

of a Rus-

sian Dance to Mies's

project

for

a

brick

country

home,

but

also

Gropius'sprofessor's

house

at

Dessau

to van

Doesburg's

Com-

position

VIII

The

Cow)

of 1917.

chitecture failed to

cite

him,

at

one moment or

another,

as

a

kind of

precursor

the

exception

being

Reyner

Ban-

ham,

whose evaluationof

Mondrian's

work took on a

po-

lemical value

in

its own

time

-

as

if

architecture

had

waited for

neoplasticism

to

glorify

asymmetry

or

horizontal/

vertical

rhythm.4

Such

a

position,

on the

one

hand,

neglects

to take

into account

the

work of Frank

Lloyd

Wright,

who from the

end of the last

century played

very

subtly

with

symmetry

and

dissymmetry

and

who had

him-

self a notable influence

on certain

De

Stijl

architects).

And,

on

the

other

hand,

it

ignores

that

architecture,

end-

ing

from the 1880s towarda

"moral"

xergue

of its anat-

omy

(the

word is

Berlage's),

quite

naturally

began

to exalt

the

majoropposition

of

weight

and

support:

an

opposition

that,

thanks

to

technical

developments

and the

appearance

of new materials

steel,

reinforced

cement)

was manifested

more than ever

in the

expression

"H/V,"

according

o the

sibylline

phrase

of Theo van

Doesburg,

that

is

to

say, by

the

relationship

"horizontal/vertical."'

Nevertheless,

it should not

be

assumed that

it is in

itself

incongruous

to examine the

possible

relations

between

Mondrian'sart and

theory

with

respect

to architecture.

De

Stijl,

after

all,

was

a

movement

that,

with van

Doesburg

as

one of its

pillars,

brought

painters

and architects

ogether

in

the

hope

of

attaining

a

collective creation. Nor should

one

ignore

that it was the architects

who were

especially

appreciative

of Mondrian's

art,

forming

de

facto

the most

important

social

group

of his

admirers,

as

well as his

most

faithful collectors

(to

name

only

a

few,

J.

J.

P.

Oud,

Philip

Johnson,

Sir

Leslie

Martin,

Charles

Karsten,

Th.

K.

van

Lohuizen,

Cornelis van

Eesteren,

Alfred

Roth,

Mart

Stam,

Pierre

Chareau,

Werner

Moser,

and

Benjamin

Mer-

kelbach,

each

of whom

possessed

at least one of the

paint-

er'sworksduringhis lifetime).It is simplynecessary o note

that the search for

Mondrianesque

"motifs"

n

such and

such a

skyscraper rofile,

in

such and such a

pattern

of

openings

in

the

facade

of a

contemporary

building,

is

much less

pertinent

than

is

generally

believed. To take one

example

that does not

directly

concern Mondrian but an-

other

De

Stijl painter:

he

comparison

hat has been made

a thousand times

between the

plan

of a

Country

House

by

Mies

van der

Rohe, 1923,

and the

Rhythmof

a

Russian

Dance, 1918,

by

van

Doesburg.6

Striking

hough

it

is,

this

104


5/30

Bois

3. Gerrit

Rietveld,

Schr6der

house, Utrecht,

1924.

The

first

of

a row of brick

houses,

reflecting

then

in a

pond

as

a

bridge

between

city

and

countryscape,

t

functions

as a

gate

to the town.

comparison

seems

essentially suspect.

It

is

typical

of a cer-

tain formalist

deology

of

design

-

the

principalshaper

of

which was without doubt the

Bauhaus,

although

unwill-

ingly

-

where

everything

s

thought

to

be

contained

in

everything

else

and

materialdifferencesare overlooked

n

favor of

morphological

analogies.

A

luxury

cigarette

lighter,

five centimeters

high,

can

be

compared

o a

sky-

scraper,eighty

stories

high,

a

plan

of a villa to an easel

painting:

he

argument

of

similitude is held to

prove

the

case.

Curiouslyenough,

it was Gerrit

Rietveld,

the architect

most

comparable

o Mondrian

(and

how can one

not,

in

effect,

be struck

by

the formal

resemblancebetween

the

polychrome

facades

of

the

Schr6der

House

and the neo-

plasticist

worksof the Dutch

painter?),

who

clearly

warned

against

this abuse of

analogical

relationships.Having

clari-

fied

that he

had,

in

fact,

never

met

Mondrian

an

ac-

knowledgement

hat

signifies

nothing

in

itself,

save for

indicating

the tenuous

nature of

the

personal

relationships

among

the

most

important

members

of De

Stijl7

Riet-

veld conceded that the

painter

had a "direct"

nfluence

on

architecture,

above

all

on that of

the

interior,

"including,"

he

wrote,

"all the

ignominies,

now

fortunately

oncluded,

perpetrated

n

the realm of

lead-glazing."8

But he also

added,

"I

see

in

every

direct

application

of the

composi-

tions of Mondrian

to architecture he

danger

of a

rapid

shift to decorative

prettiness,

and this

precisely

by

virtue of

the

very analytical beginnings

of

De

Stijl."

Even

though

he

did

not

deny

the existence

of a certain

superficial

nflu-

ence

of

Mondrian

on

architecture,

Rietveld

refused o

grant

the least

importance

to these

"applications."

Mondri-

an's

true

influence

in this domain could

not,

he

stressed,

be

analyzed

without

taking

into account the entire theoret-

ical work of De Stijl at its inception, founded on the

analytical separation

of the different

genres

of

plastic

art

(painting, sculpture,

architecture)

a

preliminary

epara-

tion

that,

according

to the members of the

movement,

would lead

by

its

very

rigor

to the invention

of

a

common

denominatorfor all the arts.

"At the

epoch

of De

Stijl,"

wrote

Rietveld,

"one

did

not

speak

of a

translationof

picto-

rial

experience

into

architecture;

n the

contrary,

one

spoke

of

the

separation

of

space,

color,

and form

as

the

point

of

departure

or the

analysis."9

That

said,

the

misun-

105


6/30

assemblage

4

derstanding

denounced

by

Rietveld,

still

current

enough

today,

would be of little

importance

in

regard

o the

work

of Mondrian if the

painter

himself

was not

in some

way

the first to have

generated

it,

engendering

in his

theory

many

more contradictions

on

the

question

of the

relation-

ships

between

painting

and architecture han on

any

other

matter.

In

the autobiographypublishedin the catalogueof his first

one-man exhibition

in

New

York

in

1942,

Mondrian

wrote: "Modern

architectureand

industry

responded

o our

influence,

but

painting

and

sculpture

were little

affected."'1

The

partisans

of a

"utilitarian"

nterpretation

f

Mondrian's

work

can

certainly

use this

declaration

n

support

of their

thesis,

but this would

ignore

the

context

in

which the

phrase

was uttered.

Mondrian was indeed

defending

him-

self,

but also

criticizing

what

he

saw as the

regressive

har-

acter of

contemporary

pictorial

and

sculpturalproduction.

Mondrian's

text

immediately

continues:

"They

seemed to

fear that

Neo-Plasticism

might

lead to

'decoration.'

Ac-

tually,

there

was no reason for

this fear

in

pure

plastic

art

any more than in any other artexpression.All artbecomes

'decoration'when

depth

of

expression

s

lacking.""

It was

to

fight

the

accusation of

decoration

hat Mondrian

ap-

pealed

to

architectureand

industry,

which

had not

failed,

he

stated,

while

obeying

their own

requirements,

o follow

developments

"parallel

f

not

equal"

to

neoplasticism.

His

great

disdain for

applied

arts

had not

diminished since

1930,

when he

had

responded

o the

unfavorable

udgment

of

Tdriade

(on

the

"strictly

decorative"nature of

neoplasti-

cism):

"Indeed

perhaps

no

tendency

has been more

wrongly applied,

more

vulgarized

n

advertisements,

n

decoration,

in

architecture,

etc."'2

"While Neo-Plasticism now has its own intrinsic

value,

as

painting

and

sculpture,

it

may

be consideredas a

prepara-

tion for

a future

architecture,"

Mondrian continued

in

his

autobiography.

3

Here

again,

the

"utilitarians"

eem

to

have the

right

to be

pleased;

and

nevertheless,

here

again,

despite

the

ambiguous

nature of

Mondrian's ormulation

a

"preparation"

an

in

fact be taken for a

model),

they

would

be

wrong.

For Mondrian did

not

in

any way

imply

the

simple

formal

application

of the

compositional

method of

painting

to

architecture. What

Mondrian calls

"neoplasti-

cism"is

a

group

of

principles

that

go

beyond

any

artistic

practice

in

particular:

form

of

painting

may

be its

realiza-

tion

in

painting,

a

hypothetical

building

its realization

n

architecture;

but these

visible manifestations

are

by

nature

imperfect

and

always

perfectible,

while

the

principles

are

in themselves

"intangible"

this

is a

leitmotiv of

his

writings).

As

early

as

1922,

Mondriannoted

that

the

realization

of

neoplasticism

n

architecture

was almost

impossible,given existingeconomic and technical condi-

tions,14

and declared

openly,

"What

was

achieved

in

art

must

for

the

present

be

limited to

art. Our

external envi-

ronment

cannot

yet

be

realized

as

the

pure

plastic

expres-

sion

of

harmony."'5

Certainly

this

text

precedes

by

twenty

years

the American

autobiography,

but

everythingsupports

the indication

that Mondrian

had

not

changed

his

mind

on this

point.

Until the end

of his

life,

Mondrian

thought

of the realization

of

neoplasticism

n architecture

as

something

that would

occur in

the

future.

While

he

often exhibited

his admiration

or certain

contemporary

architectural

reations,

he

accepted

none

without

qualifica-

tion,

not even those

of

Rietveld,

on which he

was

singu-

larly

silent. His

judgments

on

contemporary

rchitecture

were

always

comparative

and

relative.

The work

of Le

Cor-

busier,

for

example,

was

to

Mondrian

"already

beautiful

.

.

in

comparison

with

other

works . .

,

already

very

great

in this

epoch,

but it

is

not the

apogee

of

culture ":

his

art

was "still

too

naturalistic."16

Or

again,

if

he

wrote to

Oud,

at the

very

beginning

of

their

friendship,

that he

greatly

admired his

Project

for a

Factory

of

1919,

it was

only

to add:

"it is

the best

that

I

have seen

of its

kind.""7

This

"best"

tands

out,

but

it

was far

from

implying perfec-

tion.

In

brief,

no

architectural

ealization

ever

existed

(nor

could

have

existed)

that

represented

or

Mondrian

an

abso-

lute exampleof that "purearchitecture" f which he

dreamed.

It

is

appropriate

o

analyze,

in

the

remainderof

this

essay,

the

many

reasons,

stemming

from

the

contradictions n

Mondrian's

heory,

why

this

was so.

The

first

resides,

as

we

have

seen,

in

the

way

in

which

Mondrianthinks

of

(refuses

and

sometimes

admits)

the

possibility

of

a

"utiliza-

tion"of the

principles

of

neoplasticism

n

architecture

a

formulation

that

must be

examined

more

closely.

The

sec-

ond,

and more

essential,

concerns

the

verynotion,

found

106


7/30

Bois

4.

J. J.

P.

Oud,

project

for a

factory,

Purmerend,

1919

in

his

writings,

of

utility

in architecture

and,

beyond

this,

his

struggleagainst

the functionalist

conception

of

modern

architecture.The

third,

more serious

still,

and

directly

linked to Mondrian'sown

architectural

xperiments,

concerns his

blindness,

his absolute

refusalof the

spatial

givens

of

architecture.

Against Applied Neoplasticism

Mondrian,as we have said, refused the idea of appliedarts

as well

as of "decoration": The decorative

arts

disappear

n

Neo-Plasticism,

ust

as the

applied

rts."'8

r

again,

"Neo-

Plasticism

seemingly

lends itself to decoration

through

ts

planarity)

but

actually

the

"decorative" as no

place

in

the

Neo-Plastic

conception."'9

Mondrian's ole

contribution o

the domain of

the

"applied

arts"

if

we

except

the

cubist

plate

he conceived before the advent of

neoplasticism

n

1914)20

was

indeed a burden for

him:

the

layout

for the

cover of

the

unpublished

Polish translationof his

Bauhaus

book.21

And we

will

see that Mondrian's

nteriors

certainly

cannot

be classified

in

the

category

of decoration

those,

for example, of his own studio, his projectfor a Salon

pour

Madame

B

. . .

,

or his model for a

theatrical

"decor."

In

order

better

to understand

Mondrian's

position

against

the

application

of one art to

another,

and for the

applica-

tion,

in

each

art,

of the

principles

of

neoplasticism

a

posi-

tion

summarized

in

a

letter to

Alfred

Roth,

"It should not

be

believed that we

want to make

'art'

n

architecture"),22

we

should doubtless

return,

as Rietveld

indicated,

to

the

very

beginnings

of

De

Stijl,

when a true

analytic theory

of

the

differentarts was formulated

by

Mondrian,

Theo van

Doesburg,

and Bart van der Leck.

Although

he contentof all arts s

one,

the

possibilities

f

plastic

exteriorizationredifferentor each art. Eachart

discovershese

possibilities

ithin

ts own

domain

nd must

remain imited

by

its bounds.

Eachart

possesses

ts own means

f

expression:

he

transformation

f its

plastic

means

has to be discovered

ndepen-

dentlyby

each artand mustremain imited

by

its own

bounds.

Therefore

he

potentialities

f one artcannotbe

judged

ccording

to the

potentialities

f

another,

ut

mustbe considered

ndepen-

dently

and

only

with

regard

o the art

concerned.23

Such is Mondrian's

quotation,

in

1920,

of a

fragment

rom

107


8/30

assemblage

4

the

very

first

text

that

he had

published

in

De

Stijl,

in

its

inaugural

issue.24

Even

though

in this article he insisted

on

the

specificity

of each

art,

Mondrian

did not accord the

same status

to all:

painting

was "the freest

art";

t alone

could

give

rise to

"the

most

consequential

expression

of

pure

relations."

His claim for

specificity

was

thus encum-

bered from the outset

by

an evident

dissymmetry.

Now

in

the same issue of De

Still,

Bart

van der Leck

published

an

article, still more clearlyarticulated,on the relationsbe-

tween

painting

and

architecture.25

n

substance,

van

der

Leck

proposed

that

each artist

should

occupy

himself with

his own work so that no art

would

impinge

on the

preroga-

tives of another

(on

this

pont

evidently,

at

the

beginning

at

least,

the

theory

of the members

of De

Stijl

shares

nothing

with an

apology

for a

Gesamtkunstwerk).

Let each

art,

van

der Leck

stated,

search on

its own account

for what consti-

tutes its

specific

"essence."

And van der

Leck enumerated

the differences between

painting

and architecture:

latness

/

volume;

openness

/

closure;

color

/

absence

of

color;

exten-

sion

/

limitation;

plastic

equilibrium

/ constructive

equilib-

rium. But

if

van

der Leck claimed

with

insistence

this

separation

of

roles,

it was

not

in

order

violently

to

oppose

painting

and architecture o each

other,

rather he con-

trary.

In

a

second

text on the same

problem,

published

four

months later

in

De

Still,

van

der Leck offereda more

precise explanation:

"It

is

only

when the means of

expres-

sion of each art are

applied

in

all

their

purity,

that is to

say,

according

to the

characteristics

f its nature and

end,

so that

each art attains its

own essence as an autonomous

entity,

it is

only

at this moment

that an

interlinking,

a

dovetailing,

will become

possible,

which

will

demonstrate

the

unity

of the different

arts.'"26

And

why

will this

occur,

according

to van der Leck?Because

painting

and architec-

ture have a fundamental element in common, flatness, the

"degree

zero of their art"

in

wall or

picture

plane).

In

fact,

it

is because it has become

planar (pictorial

flatness s the

watchwordof all

the

painters

of

De

Stijl)

that

painting

"has

arrived

oday

at the

point

where it

may

be

admitted

to

a

collaboration with architecture. This has

happened

because

its

means of

expression

have

been

purified.

The

description

of time

and

space

by

the means of

perspective

has been

abandoned: t is

henceforth

up

to the flat

plane

to transmit

the

continuity

of

space.

. . .

Painting

is

today

architectural

because

in itself and

by

its own means it serves the same

concept

-

the

space

and

the

plane

-

as

architecture,

and

thus

expresses

the same

thing'

but

in a different

way.'"27

The

point

of

departure

was

the same for

van

Doesburg

in

the first

major

text that

he

published

on

architecture,

n

November

1918. For

him the division

of labor was

abso-

lutely

necessary:

"Each

art,

architecture,

painting,

or

sculpture,

requires

he whole

man."28

He

repeated

he

same recriminationsas

had van der

Leck

against

hose

architects

who

would

attempteverything.29

Van

Doesburg

would

reiterate

many

times this

express

demand

for a divi-

sion of

labor,

even

though

evidently, increasingly

nterested

in

architecture,

he no

longer

obeyed

it himself.

("Many

a

misunderstanding

r mistake

has resultedwhen

painter

and

architect

did not

sufficiently

respect

one

another's

ield.

On the one

hand,

architectsrestricted

painters;

on the

other

hand,

they

presented

hem

with too much

free-

dom.")30

But van

Doesburg's

naugural

ext,

in

place

of

stressing

he

planar

charactercommon

to the two

arts,

insisted

on one of the differences

between

painting

and

architecture hat van der Leck had articulatedwithout

elaboration:

"Architecture

oins

together,

binds

-

painting

loosens,

unbinds."

In

this text of

1918,

van

Doesburg

for-

mulated the

theory

that he was to

hold,

with some varia-

tions,

until the end of his life:

"Architecture

rovides

a

constructed, closed,

plastic

form,

by

virtue of its balanced

relationships.Painting

is contrasted

n

relation to

architecture.

31

In

this context Mondrianelaboratedhis first

writings

on

the

question.

His insistence on the

specificity

of the

arts,

his "each

specialty

demands

complete

attention

and

study,"32

irectly

echoed the "whole man" called for

by

van

Doesburg. In the first text where he spoketo some extent

about

architecture,

"Het

bepaalde

en het

onbepaalde,"33

published

in

December

1918,

Mondrian

in

fact took

up

a

number of ideas set forth

by

van der Leckand van Does-

burg,

ideas that

might

be

summarized

n

three

postulates:

(1)

Painting, having

evolved,

is

today ready

o come to

terms with

architecture

a

principal

dea

of

van

der

Leck's);

(2)

but it is

not,

for

this,

any

more an

accessory

of

archi-

tecture,

because

it is not

constructive

Mondrian

cited

van

der

Leck's text

in

a

note);

and

(3)

architecture

always

pre-

108


9/30

Bois

supposes

closure

and

limitation

(Mondrian

cited this

time

van

Doesburg's

text).

Now

Mondrian articulated

each of

these

theses in a

different manner than had van der Leck

or

van

Doesburg,

or

rather,

he corrected

each

by

additions.

To the

first

statement,

Mondrian added the idea that

archi-

tecture

has

always

"surpassed"

he

neighboring

arts

by

its

very

nature,

even

if in

an unconscious

way.

Architecture,

he

would write

later,

will have the shortest

part

of the

route to cover. This theme of architecture n the forefront

was

often to return in

Mondrian's

writing,

until he cor-

rected it

by

a

strange

evolutionist dialectic:

precisely

be-

cause architecture s too close to

"pure

vision"

-

that is to

say,

because it

expresses

tself

through

the relation "hori-

zontal/vertical"

architecturecannot attain it

fully.

But

this dialectical

"correction"was

already

present

in

embryo

in "Het

bepaalde

en het

onbepaalde": nly

painting

has

led

to the

expression

of

"pure relationships";

n

other

words,

the

"advance" f

architecture

serves and

will

serve

in

the

future for

nothing.

All the

subsequent

texts of

Mondrian

(but

also

those of

van

Doesburg)

would

insist on this inau-

gural role of painting.4

To the

second of

these theses Mondrian first

added the

remark,

repeated

several times

afterwards,

hat

architecture,

precisely

because it

is "constructive"s not free

(the

weight

of

materials

hinders

it).

Mondrian

opposed

it to

painting,

no

longer

constructivebut

"constructing"

construeerende].

But

this

opposition

opens up

an

entirely

differentside of

his

theory,

revealing

what differentiates

Mondrian

from

van

Doesburg

and

also,

more

radically,

what

distances

him

from

all modern architects:

architecture,

he

stated,

is con-

demned

to

volume,

its

"corporeality"

s its

curse,

its

ad-

verse

destiny.

The

only

solution is for it to be "as

planar

as

possible."It could not, in any event, avoid perspectiveor

abandon all

"naturalism.""35

The third thesis of

"Het

bepaalde

en het

onbepaalde"

was

linked to the entire

metaphysics

of

neoplasticism:

by

being

closed

in its essence

(because

it

always

remains a

shelter),

the

building

is

opposed

to

space,

to the

"continuity

of

space"

mentioned

by

van der

Leck;

it remains a

thing

apart.

By

contrast,

the

aim

of

neoplasticism

n all its do-

mains was an absolute

"neutralization"

f all

opposition,

a

dissolution of

everyparticular hing

into the whole.

From this

readjustment

of the ideas of van

Doesburg

and

van

der

Leck stem two

preoccupations

essential to the the-

oretical

work of

Mondrian:the interesthe

accorded to the

interior

and

this

interest is not

simply

theoretical);

and

the

myth,

increasingly

nsistent

in

his

writings,

of a

dissolution

of

art

in

life. We will see

that these two

preoccupations

are

linked.

To end

with the

question

of

"application,"

et us

note that

Mondrian

always

declared

himself a

subscriber o the

no-

tion of

the

specificity

of

the

arts,

even

going

so far

as to

praise

the new

architecture

because it

"excludes

painting

and

sculpture,

for it

is now

widely

admittedthat if each

one

did

not

perfect

itself

separately,

all

would

degenerate

into

decorative

or

applied

art."'36

Mondrian seemed

also to

hold to the

idea of the

common

denominatorof

architec-

ture and

painting

(the

surface)

as it had been formulated

by

van

der Leck:

this

common denominator

(the

planar)

could

permit,

should

the

occasion

arise,

the

union of these

two

plastic

domains,

because

it

was concerned

not with

a

superficial

application

but with a

common

root of the two

arts.

We must

nevertheless

recognize

that Mondrian

-

like

van

Doesburg

-

as

I

have

already

alluded

to,

did

not resist the

temptation

to

establish

a

hierarchy

of the arts. At the

very

end of his article

"De

Realiseering

van het

Neo-Plasti-

cisme,"

he

added,

in

effect,

that he had

judged

architec-

ture

from

the

point

of

view

of

painting, concluding

thus:

"The Neo-Plastic

aesthetic

originated

n

painting,

but once

formulated,

the

concept

is valid

for

all the

arts."37

This

affirmation,

a true

coup

de

force,

is, however,

in

contradic-

tion with

any

idea of

specificity,

that is

to

say,

with

the

point

of

departure

of the De

Stijl group.

It should

be

noted

that almost all the membersof De Stijl followed the same

development:

first inclined toward

collaboration,

by

virtue

of

a

common denominator

among

their

practices,

the

ar-

chitects and the

painters

decided little

by

little

to

work

alone,

but

precisely

and

paradoxically

because

they

could

not

respect

the

"specificity"

f their

domain,

because

they

could not be

prevented

from

trespassing

on that of

their

neighbor.

Thus it was

in 1922 that

Mondrian seemed

to

abandon,

whatever

he said to

the

contrary,any

idea

of

col-

laboration,

declaring

that "the

architect,

the

sculptor,

and

109


10/30

assemblage

4

the

painter

find

their

essential

identity

in

collaborationor

are all

united

in

a

single

person,"38

he

last

part

of the

statement

clearly

contradicting

he

principle

of the

division

of

laborto

which he had

earlier

subscribed.This

contra-

diction

stemmed

without

any

doubt

from the

sense of

de-

ception provoked

n

Mondrian

by

the architectureof

his

time,

as

manifested,

for

example,

in

the

attitude of

Oud

toward

neoplasticism:"Today,

because

the

architect

is not

an artist,he is unable to createthe new beauty,"he wrote

in

1925.39

We must

now

analyze

the

history

of

this

deception.

Against

Functionalism in

Architecture

When

Mondrian

began

to

assemble his

scattered deas on

architecture,

in

the

celebrated

"trialogue,"

s he

called

it,

"Natuurlijke

en

abstracte

realiteit"

Natural

reality

and

ab-

stract

reality],

he attributeda

kind of

unconscious

scouring

force to

practical

necessity

n

ordinary

architecture:

"We

see

pure beauty

arising

of

its own

accord

in

architectural

structures

built for

utility

and

from

necessity:

n

housing

complexes, factories,warehouses,etc. But as soon as 'lux-

ury'

enters,

one

begins

to think

of

'art,'

and

pure

beauty

is

compromised.

40

A

few

months

before

Le

Corbusierwas to

invent

the

"good

savage"

of

modern

architecture

n

his arti-

cles

for

L'Esprit

Nouveau,

Mondrian said

of

the

engineer

that

he was

(without

knowing

it)

in

advance of

the

artist.

"So

long

as we

are

incapable

of

conscious

aesthetic

plastic

expression,

it is

better

to

devote our

attention

to

utility,"

he

wrote in

"Realiteit."'41

And

Mondrian

acclaimed

objects

of

necessity,

exactly

as Le Corbusier

would

do: "A

simple

drinkingcup

is

beautiful

and so

is an

automobile or an

airplane.'"42

There

is,

of

course,

nothing very

original

in

this

formulation;

t is a

commonplace

of

the

epoch.

Writ-

ing

shortly

after

Mondrian,

in

the

same

terms,

and

draw-

ing

his

support

directly

from

the

texts

of Le

Corbusier,

van

Doesburg

advancedhis

plea

on

behalf of

a

"mechanical"

aesthetic

and

refuted

the

"Gothic"

arguments

of

Berlage.43

More

interesting

s to

see how

Mondrian

little

by

little

de-

tached

himself

from

this

"functionalist"

ision.

The

first

text

that

he

devoted

exclusively

to

architecture,

he

two-

part

"De

Realiseering

van

het

Neo-Plasticisme,"

dated from

1922.

Dedicated to

the

question

of

the

"function"

of

archi-

tecture,

of

its

practical

necessities and

technical

problems,

the article

grew directly

out

of a

long epistolary

debate

be-

tween the artistand

J. J.

P. Oud

(then

in the

process

of

breaking

with

van

Doesburg

because of

the latter's

ntru-

sions

into the domain of

architecture).

ElsewhereMon-

drian thanked

his friend

for

havinghelped

him,

through

his

letters,

to

reflect on

architecture.44

his

correspondence

must be

examined in

detail,

because in it

is

revealed

the

entiregenesis of Mondrian'sarchitectural heory.

Everythingbegan,

in

fact,

with

a

lecture

by

Oud

entitled

"Over

de Toekomste Bouwkunst

en hare

Mogelijkheden,"

given

in

February

1921 and

published

the

following

June.

Oud's

text,

immediately

translated

nto German

and

two

years

later into

French,

under the

title

"L'Architecture

e

demain

et ses

possibilit6s

architectoniques,"

was to

gain

considerable

attention.45

t

articulated,

doubtless

for

the

first

time,

whatwas

to become the

credoof the

architects

belonging

to what

is now called

the

International

Style.

If

most of Oud's

theses seem

today extremely

banal,

it is

pre-

cisely

because

they

were

immediately

taken

up

by every

architectof the Modern Movement, and because, above

all,

his text

anticipated

by

a

number

of

years

the

multipli-

cation

of

manuals

and manifestoes

producedby

the

archi-

tects of the

1920s. Oud

denounced the

anachronism

of

contemporary

architecture

with

regard

o its technical

pos-

sibilities

(while,

by

contrast,

the

engineers

knew

how

to

exploit

the new materials

such as

glass

or

metal).

He

de-

cried

the

leprosy

of

ornament,

since

its

origins

the

veritable

sign

of the decadence

of architecture.

And he

articulated

the need

for a

transparent

rchitecture,

n

the double

sense

that architecture

hould

no

longer

seek

to hide its

con-

struction,

"beautiful

n

itself,"

and

that,

utilizing glass

in

wide,

glazed bays,

it should

open

itselfto

the

light.

Noth-

ing

is more common to the historianof this

period

than

these

maxims;

in

any

event,

Oud innovated

ess in

the

ideas

themselves

than

in

their

conjugation.

But

what is

less

known,

and what

seems to

have

escaped

even

Mondrian,

is the

similarity

of

language

between

this text

by

Oud

and

the first articles

by

the

painter.

(Oud

even

speaks

of

the

"tragic,"

principal concept

of

neoplasticist heory.)

The

architect

was

visibly

a

great

reader

of Mondrian

during

this

period;

whence

Mondrian'sown

astonishment

n

discover-

ing

that Oud did

not mention

neoplasticism

n

his

lecture.

110


11/30

Bois

5. J. J. P.

Oud,

Spangen

VIII,

Rotterdam,

1921.

Oud's

refusal

of his coloristic

design

for

this

housing

complex prompted

van

Doesburg

to

break with the

architect.

Instead,

taking up

an idea that had been dear to

him

from

1916,

Oud made

of cubism one of the sources of the ar-

chitecture

of the future.46Even

though

he characterized t

as "the

tragic image

of

an

epoch

in

transition,"

Oud wrote

that cubism

led

to

an art that was

"essentiallypictorial"

a characterization

ollowed

by

a

description

hat evoked

neoplasticism

more than

it did cubism.

Cubism,

he

avowed,

was an art

whose works"lose their

right

to exist

as

paintings

but

gain

a considerable

nterest

n

anticipat-

ing

the role that color

will

play

in

the architectureof

tomorrow.

"47

"Allow me one

remark,"

wrote Mondrian to the

architect,

"you

write

very prudently

of

a

new

art,

purer,

that is

in

the

process

of

developing

out of cubism. Would

it not have

been better to

clearly

define

neoplasticism

as the

principle

of all artistic

expression

at

this

epoch).

.

.

. You

would

have even been able to

remain outside the

argument

by

referring

imply

to

my

brochure,

where

I

have transferred

the

principles

of N.P. to

architecture."48

Mondrian,

we

note,

still

thought

that a

transferral

f the

principles

of

neoplasticism o architecturewas possible.A little laterin

the

correspondence,

he would

say

he

did

not understand

that

Oud

did not

accept

an

application

of these

principles

to Bouwkunst.49

He

still,

some

months

later,

even dreamed

of

being

able to

put

these

principles

into

practice

himself:

"Even as

you

like

my painting

(which

is a close

enough

reflection of

neoplasticism

n

painting),

so,

I

hope, you

would like a

building

of mine

-

if

only

I could realize

it."750

ut he was

gradually

o

abandon such fantasiesof

immediate

application,

and his

correspondence

with

Oud

must have counted

for

something

in this evolution. What-

ever the

case,

the architect had

doubtless

responded

o

Mondrian's

reproaches

with an initial

justification

of the

kind,

"neoplasticism

s

impossible

in architecture or

prac-

tical reasons."Mondrian

announced to

Oud,

indeed with

a certain

jubilation,

that

he seemed to have found

the the-

oretical

solution

for

their difference:

After

having

ead

your

etter,

suddenly

nderstood here he

difficulty

was.

We

can

be

pure

only

if

we see architecture

[bouwkunst]

newas art

[kunst].

t is

only

as art that

t

can

fully

respond

o the aesthetic emands

f

neoplasticism.

rchitecture,

or,

above

all,

the

'construction

nd

coloring'

hatmustbe accom-

plished

or thatwhich s

already

xistant,

an be

purified

y

the

111


12/30

assemblage

4

6. Theo van

Doesburg,

photo-

montage

of various

views of

the model for a

Maison d'art-

iste he realized and

exhibited

with

Cornelisvan

Eesteren at

the Galerie de "L'EffortMod-

erne,"

1923

GALERIE

"L'EFFORT

MODERNE"

LtONCE

ROSENBEItG

19,

Rue de La

Baume

-

Paris

(vxxi~)

rez-de-chaussde

Les Architectes

u

Groupe

de

Styl"

(HOLLuNDE)

PROJETS ET

MAQUETTES

AR

THQOVAN

DOESBURG,

C. VAN

EESTEREN,

HUSZAR

W.

VAN

LEUSDEN,

J-J.

P.

OUD,

G.

RIETVELD,

MIES VAN

DER

ROHE,

WILS.

Exposes

du 15

Octobre au

15

Novembre 1923

de

10

h.

&12 h. et

de

14

h.

17

h.

30

INVITATION

(dimanches

et

fdtes

exceptis)

7. Invitation or De

Stijl's

architectural how in

Paris,

1923

N.P.

but

scarcely

more.

Certainly

ot

attain

beauty.

The Neo-Pl.

demands

oo

much,

and

this s not

yet

possible

ecausemen are

not

yet

ready.

Your ecture

was herefore

ery

good,

n

this

sense,

concerning

onstruction

het

bouwen],

nd in

general

ou

would

be

right

o continue

working

n

this

way.

Let us call

this,

for

example,

Architectuur'

nd

the other

Bouwkunst'

this

distinc-

tion is

possible

etween

us,

but

I think hat he two have

he

same

meaning,

hus,

officially,

t is not

possible).

.

.

The solu-

tionis to be found

n this distinction

hat

I

make,

his eliminates

thedifficulty.As forthe bouwkunstskunst,I already ada

solution,

and

I

described

t

in De

Still

and

n

the brochure.

[Mondrian'smphasis]51

This is an

important

etter,

despite

its

obscurities,

because

it

enunciated

for the

first time a radical

distinction

between

a

"practical,"

useful"

architecture

construction,

het bou-

wen,

architectuur)

nd an

experimental

architecture

(bouwkunst).

This

distinction,

which Mondrian

did

not

yet

dare to formulate

n

the same

terms as Malevitch

("Archi-

tecture

begins

where

there are no

practical

aims.

Architec-

ture as

such."),

was essential

for

the evolution of

modern

architecture.

2

We

know,

in

effect,

that the

audacity

of

pure experimentation, hat the elaborationof theoretical

models

(such

as the two

final

projects

hat

Theo van Does-

burg

and

Cornelis

van Eesteren

realized

for the

exhibition

of

De

Stijl

architects

at the Galerie

de

"L'Effort

Moderne"

in

1923)

did

as

much,

if

not

more,

for the evolution

of the

"practical"

rchitecture

of

this

century

as the demands

of

necessity.

J. J.

P.

Oud

felt himself

condemned,

if

not

excluded,

by

such

a distinction

between two

types

of architectural

work,

and refused

t

categorically:

"I

am

convinced that one

should

construct

nothing

that

-

in

one

sense or another

-

is not

art,"

he

responded

o

Mondrian.53

Certainly,

Mondrianreplied,but then neoplasticismwill never be

reached this

way:

"The so-called

practice

could never

pro-

duce an architecture

as

N.P.

Only

an

entirely

new

practice

could do this.

And this

practice

s

completely

inaccessible

to

us

in

the

present

circumstances."

And earlier

in

the

same

letter,

Mondrian reaffirmed

hat

"concerning

he dis-

tinction that

I

made between

practical

and

pure

architec-

ture,

I

do not

think that for

the moment

there is

any

other

solution."54

For some time after this

exchange,

Oud and Mondrian

112


13/30

Bois

seemed

to abandon furtherdiscussion of this

point.

Oud,

in

fact,

had

just

quarrelled

with

van

Doesburg,

and as

their

sharp argument

had

begun

after their collaboration

on an

architectural

project,

it is

probable

hat

Mondrian

(who

nevertheless ook van

Doesburg'spart)

did not want

to worsen

things.

He even tried to reconcile the architect

and the

founder of De

Stijl,

but

apparentlypreferred

o

leave

on

one

side,

provisionally

at

least,

the

burning

issue

of architecture. The discussionwas renewed after the pub-

lication of

an interview that

Mondrian had accorded a

Dutch

journalist,

in

which

he

declared,

"In

Holland,

there

are no

longer

any

artists

who like and follow

my

work."55

Though

he mentioned van

Doesburg

(then

in

Weimar)

and

Vantongerloo

(then

at

Menton),

Mondrian

made

no

allusion to Oud:

"I

still do

not

know,

in

effect,"

Mondrian

wrote to

him,

"if

you

are

in

agreement

with

me

and

if

aesthetically

you

search

in

the

same

direction.

.

. this is

why

I

did not cite

you."56

As

early

as

the

appearance

of

the first

part

of

"De

Reali-

seering

van

het

Neo-Plasticisme,"

Oud

had

explained

his

reactionsto his friend. He did not want to limit himself to

neoplasticism,

he said

(just

as

later,

in

1925,

he would

say

that

he did not wish

to

limit

himself

to

the functionalist

credo of

the Modern

Movement

in

architecture,

of

which

he

had

been

one of

the

principal artisans).57

he

statement

provoked

Mondrian's

wrath.

Not to

want "to

be

limited to

neoplasticism"

was

not to

understand

t,

Mondrian

wrote

in

substance

("By

this

limitation,

I

do not

feel

myself

infe-

rior

-

on

the

contrary,

t is

my strength"),

becausethe

principles

of

neoplasticism

did not

admit of

limitation.

58

His next letter

clarified

the

painter's

houghts

a

little

more:

"Neoplasticism

s

in advance

of us

because

it

is

entirely

pure.

This

is

the

reason

why

it does

not need

to

change,

and

cannot

do it.

Only

its realization

can

evolve."59

Oud

had

by

then read the second

part

of Mondrian's

ext,

and

had

certainly

made

known to the

painter

his views

on

the

question

of

technique.

Mondrian

responded,

"All

these

technical

difficulties

you speak

about

cannot debase

the

plastic

idea, but,

on

the

contrary,

hey

construct

it.

...

But

if

you

wait

in

order

to

accept

the

truth,

you

will

lose

yourself

in

technique

alone.'"60

here were thus for

Mon-

drian two

possible

attitudes

n

the face

of constructional

technique:

an active

attitude

(which

would

oblige

tech-

nique

to

renew

its

methods,

to

improve

itself

by

new

in-

ventions

that,

in

return,

would

enlarge

the

possibilities

of

the

"plastic

dea")

or a

passive

attitude

(to

follow

in

the

wake of

technique),

a stance that

held no interestfor him.

Theo van

Doesburg

was to

formulate

the

same idea

two

months later.61

Again

Oud showed

his irritation.

The tone

of the

letters between the

two friends

grew

increasingly

sharp. In the following letter, Mondrianwrote, "It is evi-

dent that

neoplasticism

should

envisage

a

union

between

technique

and

aesthetics;

his is also the

idea of

N. P.

That

you

end

up

in

affirming

the

opposite

is for me

an

enigma."

And he added that it

was useless to continue to

correspond

on the

question

of architecture:

"We now know

more or

less our

reciprocalpoints

of

view and we

should

let

time do

its

work.'"62

Oud,

nevertheless,

could not

prevent

himself

from

reopen-

ing

the

debate,

in

a

letter

of recrimination

on an

entirely

different

subject

(a

picture

that

he wished

to

buy

from

Mondrian).

After

having

accused

van

Doesburg

of

every

sin, and having stigmatized"hisdestructivearchitectural

prophesies,"

Oud

wrote:"Your

ife

is

to

paint,

mine to

construct."63

Confronted

with

this laconic

phrase

Mon-

drian

was

flabbergasted,

hough

it in

no

way

contradicted

the

analytic

program

of

De

Stijl

at its

inception,

to which

the

painter

had subscribed.

"I

do not

know how

you

arrive

at the traditional

dea of

separating

construction

and

paint-

ing "

cried Mondrian

-

who said

he did

not understand

either the

persistence

of

the technical

arguments

advanced

by

Oud

against

neoplasticism

in architecture

"when

I

have done

everything

to

explain

to

you

that

my

ideas

will

be

possible

in the

future.'"64

This

suspended

the

correspon-

dence

between the two

friends

for

nearly

a

year,

and

defin-

itively

closed the discussion

of

these

questions.

Let

us now return to

the

article

around

which this corre-

spondence

was

woven,

Mondrian's

"De

Realiseering

van

het Neo-Plasticisme."

The

first

part,

which

he

had charac-

terized for

Oud

as

"idealist,"65

as

in

some

way

a

summary

of his

theory

about the

context

of life as

a

whole,

the

func-

tion of art

in

society,

the

"unshakable

volution"

of human

civilization.

Mondrian

elaborated

irst on

the

"metropolis,"

the dreamland

and

breeding

ground

of

modernity,

but also

113


14/30

assemblage

4

on the "liberation

of labor

by

the

machine,"

on

the

provi-

sionally

reactionary

role

of "the

masses,"

on the dialectical

necessity

for

destruction

n

every

historical

process.

He se-

riously

criticized the

conception

of art as a

luxury,

which

he

replaced

with that of art as

surrogate:"Throughout

he

centuries,

art has been

the

surrogatereconciling

man with

his

outward

life.'"66

He

developed

at

length

the

(mythical)

theme of

the end of

art,

of

its

dissolution

in

life,

and this

was the only theme within which he evokedarchitecture: t

will be

founded,

Mondrian

stated,

in

the same

way

as

painting,

sculpture,

and the

decorative

arts,

in

a

much

vas-

ter

totality,

a

new

category,

"architecture-as-environment."

But this would concern

only

the future.

"The end

[of

art]

now would be

premature.

Since its

reconstruction-as-life

s

not

yet

possible,

a new art

is still

necessary.'"67

Art,

includ-

ing neoplasticist painting,

was indeed a

surrogate

or

Mon-

drian. He concluded

-

a

direct echo of

his

long

epistolary

dispute

with Oud

-

with an evaluation

of cubism as an

art of the

past

and with a

hommage

to

van

Doesburg

as

the founder

of the De

Stijl

group.

In

the

second,

"practi-

cal"

part

of

"De

Realiseering,"

Mondrian

entered

immedi-

ately

into the

subject

announced

by

the full title of the

article:

"The Realization

of Neo-Plasticism

in

the Distant

Future and

in

Architecture

Today."

He raised

many

kinds

of

problems

-

to

which we shall return

including

the

"point

of

view"

of

the

"spectator"

n

architecture,

and the

opposition

of the

neoplastic

work of artwith the unhar-

monious

totality

of the exterior

environment.

But

the es-

sential text addressed he

questions

that Mondrian

had

discussed with

Oud

and

was intended as a direct

response

to

the architect's

"objections."

f

Mondrian

abandoned,

as

he had

foreseen,

the too subtle

distinction between

archi-

tectuur

and

bouwkunst,

it is

because

through

his

corre-

spondence with Oud he had found a bettersolution: the

bouwen

belonged

to the

world

of the

useful,

the bouw-

kunst to the

world

of

art.

"Some

[architects]

were

truly

convinced

of

the

necessity

of a new

architecture,"

wrote

Mondrian,

referring

o

his

friend's

ecture,

but

they

"doubt

the

possibility

that

the Neo-Plastic idea

can

achieve

real-

ization-as-architecture

oday."

We should

note

this

today,

already

ncluded

in the

title,

which

carries n

itself the

es-

sential contradiction

of his

text:

"The

architect

today

lives

at the

level

of

the

'practical-building'

of

bouwen] from

which art is excluded. Thus

if

he is

responsible

o Neo-

Plasticism

at

all,

he

expects

to

realize

it

directly

n that

kind

of

building

[bouwen].

But

...

Neo-Plasticism

has

first

to be createdas the 'workof art'

[kunstwerk]."68

n

sum,

the architect is too

busy,

desiring

immediate solu-

tions.69

According

to

Mondrian,

two

possibilities

remained

open

to

him.

The

first

was for the architect to abandon

all

aspirations

or

utility

and

to strive

to construct his

building

as a work

of

art

in

itself

This was

a

necessarystage

in

the evolution of

architecture,

an

experimentalpreface

to

the "dissolution

of

architecture-as-art"

n

the "environment-as-life." ut

this

alternative,

Mondrian

admitted,

was

at the

time almost

impossible:

oremost

for

reasons

that

were

economic

(those

who

had the

power

and the

money

were,

with rare

excep-

tions,

hostile to

the

new);

but also because to

put

an end

to the work of art

required

a

long

preparation

we

again

encounter the

term used

by

Mondrian

in his

retrospective

text

of

1942).

An

"experimental

nstitute"

was

needed,

a

technical and

formal

laboratory

Mondrian

would

claim

later that he was unaware of the existenceof the Bauhaus

when he wrote these

lines);

while,

instead,

architectswere

condemned

to

dream

of

their

projects

on

paper:

"How

can

[they]

solve

every

new

problem

a

priori?"

e asked

(a

ques-

tion whose theoretical

implications

are

considerable,

since

it

concerns no less than

a

fundamental

criticism of

every

form

of

projection).

Architects

should

be able to make

large-scale

models

in

wood and

metal,

advised

Mondrian;

a

small monochrome

plaster

model that showed

only

mass-

ing

was

ridiculously

nsufficient

for

an

interior

project.70

The second

possibilityopen

to

the

architect

was to

correct,

today,

taking

into account the

principles

of

neoplasticism,

the faultsof existingarchitecture.This concernedonly the

aspects

of the "Neo-Plastic

conception

[that]

can

already

be

realized

in

currentconstruction.""71The "all

or

nothing"

that Mondrian asked

of Oud was not

reciprocal:

one could

already

integrate

certain

"aspects"

f

neoplastic

principles

into architecture.This

was,

in

fact,

a concession that

Mondrian had

granted

Oud: the

"aspects"

n

question

were

precisely

the "traits" f modern

architecture

isted

by

the

architect

in

his

lecture,

the

most

essential

of

which

was the

abandonment

of ornament. To

this exact

proposition

114


15/30

Bois

Mondrian related once

more the

myth

of the

engineer

as

"noble

savage"

and of

unconscious

utilitarian

beauty:

"Utilitarian

objects

become

beautiful

through

their basic

form,

that

is,

in

themselves.

Yet

they

are

nothing

in

them-

selves:

they

become

part

of

the

architecture

hrough

their

form and color.""72evertheless

he renounced

the idea of

according

an

exclusively positive

role to

utility:

"It can

even limit

beauty."

Though

the

example

he

gave

of

the

wheels and circularforms of certainmechanical installa-

tions

in

factories

might

give

rise to

a

smile.)

Such

for

Mondrian in

1922

were the

two

options

offered

to the architect

by neoplasticism,

"in

present

circum-

stances."

But

Mondrian

did not

stop

his

discussion

there,

wishing

precisely

to address

hese "circumstances"

the

technical difficulties

invoked

by

Oud)

and

functionalist

theory. Many

assertions,

gently

contradictory,punctuate

the

painter's

ext

at

this

point.

The first is

the desire

of

neoplasticism

to

separate

tself from

the "anatomical" on-

ception

of

functionalism,

a

concept

that

stresses oo

much

the structureof a

building

and

lays

claims

to

its construc-

tive purity [constructiev uiverheid];t was doubtlesson this

subject

that Mondrian

penned

this

enigmatic

sentence to

Oud:

"I

believe

that

it is

dangerous

to search

exclusively

for

purity."73

On

these

lines,

it

is

interesting

o note

that

Mondrian

did

not

seem

at all adverse

to the

idea of

a con-

testation of

the constructive

givens

of architecture

by

color

("The

color

is

supported

by

architecture,

or annihilates

it,

as

required").

For

it is known that

the

principal

reason

for Mondrian'sdeclared

hostility

to

"elementarism"

the

elementarism

of

van

Doesburg,

which

displaced

the

right

angle

of

neoplasticism

to

forty-fivedegrees,

and

made a

bundle

of

dynamic

oblique

lines

out of the horizontals

and

verticals

would be that

it is

opposed

to architecture.

Now in

1926,

shortly

after

having

officially

takenhis

posi-

tion

against

elementarism,

Mondrian

stressed

his

anti-

anatomical

position

and

even

spoke

of

the need

for

a

counter-construction

the very

term

was

drawn

from

van

Doesburg)

that would

destroy

the

"natural

organism"

of ar-

chitectural

construction:

"This has

present

importance,"

he

added,

"because,

in

architecture

also,

the

new movement

sometimes

appears

oo

quick

to

follow

natural

organism."75

Thus

that Mondrian

was

so

opposed

to

van

Doesburg

on

this

point

is

uncertain.

Indeed,

in 1933

he wrote

to the

architect

AlfredRoth that

"to

give

architecture

an

'open'

aspect,

that is

something

already

striven for

today,

but this

problem

can

only

be resolved

to

a certain

point

by

archi-

tecture

itself,

because

of

its constructive

imitationsand

utility.

By

the

introduction

of

many

windows,

some

doors,

by

the

placement

of

furniture

and

equipment

for

light

and

heat, etc.,

much

can be

done

with

respect

to real

con-

struction,

but

why

not

make

use of a

fictive construction

that reinforcesreal construction,or else is opposedto

it . . .

destroys

t?"76

In

this

process

of consolidation

/

de-

struction,

the active

role

is reserved

or color:

"Neo-Plastic

architecture

requires

color,

without

which the

plane

can-

not

be a

living

reality

for

us.77

Following

examples

of

new

materialscited

in

Oud's

lec-

ture

-

iron,

concrete

-

and

a

depreciation

of

brick,

the

"national"

material

of

Holland,

Mondrian

asserted

hat

"the idea

. .

. that structure

must be 'revealed'

has

already

been discarded

by

'recent

technology.'"'7

Here, too,

there

is some

contradiction.

First,

because

Mondrian

gave

to ce-

ment

and to

metal

anticonstructive

and anti-anatomical

possibilities(he proposedas an example, the flat roof,

otherwise

favored

by

the theoreticians

of functionalism

for

its "structural

ruth"),

but at the

same time

held

that brick

remained

the slave

to

anatomy

(Was

Mondrian

here

mak-

ing

an

implicit

reference

to

Berlage?

Nothing

is less cer-

tain).79Secondly,

because Mondrian

also restated

what he

had written to

Oud,

to

the effect

that

technique

should

follow:

"If the

plastic

concept

demands

that the structure

be

neutralized

plastically,

then

the

way

must be found

to sat-

isfy

the demands

both

of structure

and of

plastic."80

Many

other

questions

are

raised

in this

article,

but its

im-

portance

lies

in

the

fact

that for the first

time Mondrian

was confrontedwith the architectural heoryof the zake-

lijkheid,

or

in

German

the

Sachlichkeit,

which would

lead

to

the

abuse of

the International

Style.

Mondrian

did not

develop

this

point

after

"De

Realiseering,"

he

only

rein-

forced

his

suspicion

of

"utilitarianism,"

simple

"adoration

of

function,"

according

to the

phrase

of Theo van

Does-

burg."s

Certainly,

Mondrian

admitted,

modern

architecture

is

"purified"

nder

the

pressure

of

necessity,

"but without

new aesthetic

insight

this

remains

accidental,

uncertain;

or

it

is

weakened

by impure

ideals,

by

concentration

on non-

115


16/30

assemblage

4

essentials"

1923).82

Or

again,

"Intellect

confuses

intuition.

Tradition also exerts

its

influence.

For lack of

plastic

un-

derstanding,

the new

materialsare

badly

used. For

exam-

ple,

reinforced concrete is

used

to

produce

'form,'

instead

of

being

used

'constructively'

o create

a

'composition

of

planes'

that neutralize one another

and

destroy

imiting

form"

(1924).83

Finally,

"At

present,

I see no chance

of

achieving

a

perfect plasticexpression

by simply

following

the structureof what we build and studyingits utility

alone"

(1927).

84

Mondrian

would

maintain

this

position

until his death. He

even

stressed,

in

his

last

texts,

the

distinction

between

practical

architecture"where

aesthetics has to be

largely

ex-

cluded,"8s

and

architecture-as-art,

earing

that the abuse of

functionalist

theory

tended

to

"suppress"

esthetic

feel-

ings."86

s

this

to

say

that the

appeal

to

architecture

and

industry

n

Mondrian's

American

autobiography

was

only

a

rhetorical

ruse,

a

defensive

argument?

Is

this

to

say

that

Mondrian

had lost all confidence

in

the

practice

of archi-

tecture?What then

are

we to make of Mondrian'sown

forays nto the architecturaldomain? To answer these

questions,

we must first return to

one

of the fundamental

axioms

of Mondrian's

theory

of

art,

one that

essentially

concerns the fu

Documents

1987 Yve-Alain Bois - Mondrian and the Theory of Architecture