The Fountainhaus

Recently I watched The Fountainhead again. It's an extraordinary film in many ways, not least the bizarre manner in which the characters elaborately spout their philosophical world views during everyday conversation. In this it's also very faithful to Ayn Rand's book on which it's based, where Rand chucks in whole pages of dubious theorising on architecture and civilisation regardless of plot or character.

Throughout the book Rand attacks the continued use of classical and beaux arts styles in architecture. She specifically equates the use of these as being un-American and anti-freedom. Rand’s hero Howard Roark is an unyielding modernist whose designs challenge the orthodoxy of the prevailing taste for classicism. The opening scene of the film version shows Roark being thrown out of his Ivy League university because of the uncompromising modernity of his designs.

So much, so familiar. But Rand’s reason for this is that she believes that the innovation and energy of Modernism was a vehicle for singular artistic genius. For Rand, the learnt rules and accepted hierarchies of classicism were a way to subdue the desires of the individual genius in favour of the needs of the collective.

In his big court speech indicting Roark, the architecture critic Ellsworth Tooey explicitly states that he has attempted to destroy Roak’s career because Roark’s individual genius transcends and therefore ridicules the needs of the collective. Tooey advocates the rules of classicism in order to help impose his notion of socialism. A socialism which must crush individualism as it seeks to glorify the collective.

Oddly, this is exactly the opposite of the conclusion reached by Tom Wolfe in his 1981 book From Bauhaus to Our House. Wolfe’s book, which is mostly, unfortunately, total rubbish, hinges on the idea that the architecture of the International Style was inherently un-American. For Wolfe the International Style and modernism was born from European Socialism. It's use in America strikes him as not only inappropriate but somehow insulting to the achievements of American capitalism. He constantly refers to modernist office blocks and skyscrapers as ‘worker housing’ as in:

"Worker housing, as developed, by a handful of architects, inside the compounds, amid the rubble of Europe in the early 1920's [What rubble you might ask? I think he means the second world war which was when the cities of Europe were bombed to smithereens. But anyway....] was now pitched up high and wide, in the form of Ivy-League art gallery annexes, museums for art, apartments for the rich, corporate headquarters".

Those same Ivy League universities that rejected Roark's modernism perhaps? Wolfe dislikes modernist architecture because it is un-American and un-capitalist. It is socialist and European. For him, true American architecture and design lies in the beaux arts skyscraper and the baroque Cadillac tail fin.

Rand equates Modernism both with individual freedom and an explicitly American capitalist sensibility. Wolfe comes to exactly the opposite conclusion but from a sympatheticly right-wing starting point. I'm not sure what this tells us as both writers are clearly a little crazy and use architecture as the vehicle for their own ends. Rand's view at least has the benefit of being fairly unique. Wolfe's is a more routine and familiar piece of philistinism. Rand had the slightly more outre taste in hats too.

ManIFesto

I’m a bit baffled by this lot. They’ve got some big names endorsing their manifesto* (Will Alsop, Denise Scott Brown) which at first glance appears to be The Fountainhead re-written by Jeremy Clarkson.

The Manifesto Towards a New Humanism (or NewTowNHuman) is an odd piece of writing and worth unpicking a little. To summarise, it accuses contemporary architecture of meek compliance with our over beaurocratised society. It states that there are too many design targets and constraints and that originality, creativity and the old promethean fire cannot thrive in such circumstances. It criticises our contemporary inability to celebrate man’s (sic – see Denise Scott Brown’s backhanded compliment) achievements and have faith in progress. It also has a bit of a bee in its bonnet about both the language of sustainability (fair enough) and the fact of climate change (not so fair enough). Generally, it stresses that architects have lost their creativity in a welter of rules and regulations and a mealy-mouthed concern to consult with all and sundry (it’s quite easy to write this sort of stuff – I just kinda slipped into it by accident back then).

So, it seems to combine standard neo-liberal criticism of the 'nanny-state' with some good old fashioned faith in unfettered creativity. A few things bother me about this which are:

The assertions of the individual’s right to overcome mediocrity and the pernicious over-influence of the state seems obligatory anti-New Lab rhetoric these days. This is the default position of most neo-liberals, a belief that the ‘nanny state’ (and is there not something mysoginistic in the endless repetition of that phrase, a fear of smothering women or something?) is stopping our fun.

This kind of thinking occurs in a vacuum without any sense that there may be competing ideas as to what constitutes legitimate freedoms. The Boris Johnsons of this world will always feel that they occupy some common sense middle ground under threat from idealogues. It is a classic sleight of hand of conservatives to pretend that they have no ideology, or that they are not merely protecting their own vested interests. The fact that the rhetoric of freedom usually comes accompanied by attacks on the freedoms of others (kids on buses playing MP3's, drinking on the tube) never seems to occur them as being inconsistent.

The disregard of environmental issues seems bizarre, given that one quarter of the UK's carbon emissions come from housing.** Are the authors denying the reality of climate change or are they merely saying it has nothing to do with architecture? “Whatever happened to maximising one’s impact on the planet?” they ask at one point. Well, I don’t think that minimisation of our impact on the planet is exactly the problem right now is it?

Are they suggesting removal of all statutory controls on building or just some? Is there a period in time where they feel there was the right balance between legislation and freedom of creativity? When exactly did architects design without any restriction or control? The myth of a halcyon past is the hallmark of all conservative ideology.

They state; “We believe that a more critical, arrogant and future orientated cadre of architects and designers can challenge the….localising consensus”. Jesus, that sounds terrifying. And there’s more than a hint of one of Alan Sugar’s Apprentice candidates in that triumphant use of arrogance as a positive quality.

“It is humans – not disembodied abstractions – that have the capacity to create a meaningful world”. Their manifesto is full of endless abstractions. And some pretty craggy old shibboleths too, not least the declamatory manifesto itself with its hyperbolic exaggerations and it’s a-historical this-is-the-time-the-time-for-action rhetoric.

There is probably a lot of things wrong with architecture right now but lack of self-confidence doesn't seem to be one of them. It’s ironic they have written this at a time when there is such an outpouring of bombast from the profession. The last thing anyone needs in my view are more outpourings of the architect’s unfettered creative fire! That way this kind of vacuity lies!

*I have to say it seems a grand word for what is, in effect, a protracted moan.

** Figures from the Code for Sustainable Homes document.