Modern Arch Since 1900 Ch1

The Idea of a Modern Architecture in the Nineteenth Century

Around the turn of the 19th century there was a great restlessness in architecture. Many architects felt buildings were mere replicas from past cultures. New functions as well as new buildings materials and construction intensified a search for relevancy. Architects could not look to the past to solve certain problems. There was a desire and necessity to create architecture that would speak for a new age.

Architects followed certain prejudices. A camp of them advocating a one over the other.

1. natural science - Some advocated that the materials and structure would suffice to be studied alone, disregarding any decoration or symbolic language. It also proposed that things would evolve like living creatures.
   
   
2. spiritualism - There was a notion that forms of buildings will be part inspired by nature but the form will be this spiritual manifestation imposed on the building material.
   
   Instead of natural phenomena, some where infatuated with past civilizations. One picks a particular style and rejects all others. In many cases this was because one favored a particular culture. The idea would be to replicate the building style in order to inject that culture's way of thinking into current society.
   
   
3. Mathematics - Abstract patterns and symmetry would be fleshed out onto the materials. Not because it is necessary for the structure but for the sake of the abstract representation of abstract thought.
   
   Some advocated an approach based on chance but set in some limits. Building elements from many cultures would be compiled into one language. This method would be a free for all where elements of buildings would exist not for a particular reason but in many sense an arbitrary decision of the architect to place it there.
   

These modes of thinking were still just approaches. None of them as of yet had a robust portfolio. Their manifestations were still to come.