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May 19, 1997, 3:00:00 AM5/19/97

> ABSTRACT
>
> Against the Modern: Some notes on Continuity in the work of Adolf Loos and
> Aldo Rossi
>
> The advocate of ornament believes that my urge for simplicity is in the
> nature of a mortification. No, respected professor at the school of applied
> art, I am not mortifying myself! The dishes of past centuries, which display
> all kinds
> of ornaments to make peacocks, pheasants and lobsters look more tasty, have
> exactly the opposite effect on me. I am horrified when I go through a
> cookery exhibition and think that I am meant to eat these stuffed carcasses.
> I eat roast b
> eef.
> Adolf Loos
> Ornament And Crime
>
> "The poverty of contemporary architecture lies not so much in its results,
> as in its contents, in the lack of precise tendencies, in the paralysis of
> the theoretical assumptions poorly drawn from the modern movement . . . The
> constructi
> on of a logic of architecture cannot omit the relationship with
> history."
> Aldo Rossi
> Scientific Autobiography
>
> To "trace and expose the powerful forces of Modernist ideology in present
> day pedagogies" requires a rigorous assessment of what constitutes the
> 'modern project' -- a term wrought with multiple meanings and contradictory
> intentions. A
> closer examination of architects and educators who worked not only to
> understand the complexities of the modern project, but sought to plot against
> it might illuminate some of the motivating forces embedded in 'modern'
> professional and ac
> ademic endeavors.
> It is no coincidence that Aldo Rossi has written the introduction to
> two recently published texts on or by Adolf Loos (Adolf Loos: Theory and
> Works 1982 and Adolf Loos: Spoken into the Void 1981). In the silence and
> autonomy of Ros
> si's enigmatic forms is the spirit and desire of the calculating rationalism
> and sanctity of purpose Loos so desired to instill in his architecture . As
> if still searching for refuge from the frivolities of culture Loos fervently
> pursued
> through his buildings and texts, Rossi closes his eyes in order to look deep
> into his own memories of what architecture once was and longs to be. The
> obvious temporal and cultural differences only succumb to the same dilemma -
> that of lan
> guage, form and production as contemplated in the light of the desire for
> continuity.
> For Rossi and Loos, architecture is before anything else an effort to
> capture the authentic reality of form and place through rigorous
> investigations into the essence of culture, politics, and society. The
> deliberate attempts to funct
> ion beyond the exigencies of 'culture' are registered as reactions against
> the 'nervous vanities' of the beginnings or aftermaths of the rupture of
> so many 'Avant Gardes' - the proclamations of 'death', the reliance on
> petrified word
> s, and the 'turn' to the whims of 'style' and 'image', which could only
> ever be secondary to any sense of authenticity. The redemptive significance
> that many modern architects and educators over the course of this century
> assigned to
> their work, values which mythified relations embedded in industry and
> politics and fostered clear breaks with the traditions of architecture in the
> name of some 'higher' social good were equally problematic. The insatiable
> appetite for t
> he new created a multitude of underdeveloped vectors of thought and action -
> in essence, an excess of history. In the most general terms, we find in the
> buildings and texts of Rossi and Loos the desire for logical economy of
> thought and
> a rigorous approach to history which aims to avoid the waste of starting all
> over again from the beginning.
> At the base of the difficult simplicity of Loos and Rossi's
> architecture is a prescient criticism of the 'modern' movement, a precision
> of thought which unravels the dialectic between private and public, art and
> manufacture, cultur
> e and civilization. This becomes the key to interpreting their particular
> forms of nihilism - ultimately, to each, in the light of such 'redemption'
> and 'rupture' architecture must only stand silent . And yet concealed
> within the si
> milar conceptions of silence - in form, surface, and space, reside
> asymmetries of intent. This essay will examine the differences in language
> and production embedded in the similarities of their work as a means towards
> understanding two
> seminal positions against the modern project. . Adolf Loos's Otto Haas Hof
> , and Aldo Rossi's Gallaretese housing project will be the source for this
> comparison.
>
> References:
>
> Peter Arnell and Ted Bickford, Aldo Rossi: Buildings and Projects, New
> York: Rizzoli, 1985.
>
> Massimo Caccari Architecture and Nihilism: On the Philosophy of Modern
> Architecture, New Haven:Yale University Press, 1994.
>
> Benedetto Gravagnuola Adolf Loos: Theory and Works , New York: Rizzoli,
> 1982.
>
> K. Michael Hays Modernism and the Post Humanist Subject Cambridge: The
> MIT Press, 1990.
>
> Hans Krebitz "Adolf Loos, unbekannte Bauten", in Bau, 1966 v. 1-2.
>
> Adolf Loos, Spoken into the Void: Collected Essays 1897-1900,
> republished by Oppositions Books, Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1981.
>
> Adolf Loos " Die Uberflusiggen" (the Superfluous) (1908), in Loos
> Samtiliche Schriften , Vienna, 1962.
>
> Rafael Moneo "Postscript" in Aldo Rossi: Buildings and Projects, New
> York: Rizzoli, 1985.
>
> Rafael Moneo "Aldo Rossi: The Idea of Achitecture and the Modena
> Cemetary", in Oppositions 5, 1976.
>
> Manfredo Tafuri The Sphere and the Labyrinth: Avant-Gardes and
> Architecture from Piranesi to the 1970's, Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1990.
>
> Manfredo Tafuri A History of Italian Architecture, 1944-1985 translated
> by Jessica Levine. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1989.
>
> Manfredo Tafuri, ed. Vienna Rossa, . Milan: Electa Edifice, 1980.
>
> Manfredo Tafuri in Architecture and Utopia: Design and Capitalist
> Development Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1978.
>
> Aldo Rossi, The Architecture of the City, Oppositions Books, Cambridge:
> The MIT Press, 1982.
>
> Aldo Rossi, A Scientific Autobiography, Oppositions Books, Cambridge:
> The MIT Press, 1981.
>
> Aldo Rossi in "L'obiettivo della nostra recierca" quoted in Fifteen
> Years after the Publication of Architecture and the City: The Contribution
> of Urban Studies to the Autonomy of Architecture by Claudio D'Amato in The
> Harvard Archit
> ecture Review , 1984.
>
> Panayotis Tournikiotis, Adolf Loos, New York: Princeton Architectural
> Press, 1994.
>
> Detriech Worbs "Die Wiener Arbeiterterrassenhauser von Adolf Loos" in
> Architektur, Stadt, Politik, Giessen, 1979.
>
>
>
> <img src="sw-line.gif">
>
> <H3> <A HREF="response.htm">Respond</A></H3>
>
> </BODY>
> </HTML>
> <html><head>
<title>MODENA CEMETERY</title>
</head>
<body
> bgcolor="#dcca9e"<center>
<center>
<table width=600>
<tr>
<td
> colspan=2>
<center><img src="pic1.gif">
</center> 

MODENA
> CEMETERY: Modena, Italia.

>permanence

<center><a name="1"></a>
"Rossi insists, I don't
> invent I remember."<a
> href="modena_fn.html#fn0">[1]</a>

</center>
<ul>
Ty`pol`ogy (ti
> pal e je) n. {TYPO- + -LOGY} 1 the study of
types, symbols
> , or symbolism 2 symbolic meaning or
> representation;
symbolism.

De`sign (di zin') -n. {Fr
> dessein < It disegno < disignare
< L designare} 2 purpose;
> intention; aim 3 a thing planned
for or
> outcome aimed at
</ul>
<a name="2"></a>
typology is an
> analytical process, a means of separating the history of
architecture
> (designs or theories) into a system of classification such as
genealogy and
> cosmology. Typology, howeve
> r, bases its understanding of
architecture on forms which are classified into
> types based on specific
criteria. For Rossi it is the ideas of public and
> private, and rational design
and place.<a
> href="modena_fn.html#fn1">[2]</a>
The des
> ign is a creative endeavor which seeks new forms to express
a current
> moment in time. It is a work of inspiration and transformation, and
contains
> the possibility for new types.

Rossi defines architecture as designs
> (forms) which ha
> ve persisted over time to
become types. Those types constitute the history
> of the city or its memory,
and the culture of the present. Functions vary
> over time but form remains. It
is the desire for permanence that is so
> characteristic of h
> is work. The history
of the city is composed by those designs which persist
> over time to become
types. This permanence of memory (meaning) in the city
> is based on two
principles:
<ul><a name="3"></a>
memory - Urban
> facts which are
> permanent; those which withstand the
passage of time and eventually become
> monuments.

monuments - These give meaning to the life of the
> city through memory.
<a href="modena_fn.html#fn2">[3]</a>
<a
> name="4"></a>
"Change is
> within the very destiny of things, for there is a singular
inevitability
> about evolution ...The singular authority of the built object and
the
> landscape is that of a permanence beyond people."<a
> href="modena_fn.html#fn4">[4]</a>
</ul>
<a n
> ame="5"></a>
Following the ideas set down in Architecture of the City,
> we can
see how Rossi's architecture becomes one of re-presentation or a
> typological
design which seeks permanence. He wrote "All this allows for a
> representation
o
> f the past with a desire for the present. [For] the past of a man in
> whom
desire is dead ...the past paradoxically glows with the color of the
> future,
with those of hope."<a href="modena_fn.html#fn4">[5]</a> So, for
> Rossi, it is not a
lamen
> t of the past which he desires, but a recovery of it in the present
> which
establishes continuity within the history of the
> city.

representation
<dd>
Rossi perpetuates
> classical vocabularies through abstracted platonic
> forms
with all their latent ideologies disguised by reductive methods.
> The
transformation of the typologies of the past is a formal reduction of
> ornament
and detail to `pure' forms. But it is a stretch to refer to his
> designs as a
transfo
> rmation, it is potentially more accurate to refer to his process as
> a
translation of the past to a modern setting.<a name="6"></a><dd>
"It
> is certain that behind many of these structures we see the signs of
ancient
> misery, and we would li
> ke to overturn them. Yet we must also take hold
of these very dense images
> which will comprise the history of the new
> city."<a
href="modena_fn.html#fn4">[6]</a><dd>

For this reason he
> chooses to work from within the system as a way of

> transforming historical meaning. What Rossi sees as the
> essential
characteristics of historical models are represented in a form
> stripped of
ornament (and any significant detailing). These forms become
> highly emotive
for Rossi because their
> memory/meaning is one of extension from past monuments,
a transference of
> responsibility and meaning, while retaining enough of a
transformation to
> elude any specific historical reference.

We can see an obvious
> appreciation of the the
> ories of Le Corbusier within
Rossi's work. His axioms of architecture in
> Towards an Architecture clarify
the analogy:<a name="7"></a>
"Our eyes are
> constructed to enable us to see forms in light. Primary forms
are beautiful
> forms because
> they can be clearly appreciated."<a
> href="modena_fn.html#fn4">[7]</a>

<img src="pic7.gif" align=left
> hspace=10>
But where Le Corbusier's plastic forms were generated from the
> machine and
light, Rossi's are from a classical, more conve
> ntional signage, stripped of
detailing to bare surface. Light is not as
> important as shadows in Rossi's
architecture. The shadow, a ghost from the
> past, simultaneously conceals and
accentuates his volumentric designs . In
> this respect his
> architecture is more
similar to that of Boullee's in its monumental scale,
> historicist tendencies
and dramatic shadows. Boullee wrote:
<ul>"It does
> not seem possible to me to conceive anything sadder than a monument
composed
> of a smooth,
> naked and unadorned surface of a light absorbent
material, absolutely bare of
> details and of which the decoration is formed by a
composition of shadows
> still darker."
</ul>
In the end Rossi's architecture is a fusion between
> certain aesthe
> tic qualities
of both architects which is where his particular signage is
> read.

<img src="pic8.gif" align=right>
<dd>
For the Modena
> Cemetery he has created a translation of the Costa and Jewish
cemeteries of
> the 19th century. The
> original competition which Aldo Rossi won
in collaboration with Gianni
> Braghieri was held in 1972. The scheme was
reworked in 1976 before
> construction could begin in 1978. The construction is
less than 50% complete
> to this day.
<img src
> ="pic8a.gif" align=right><dd><a name="8"></a>
It is important to note an
> event that occurred just prior to the Modena
competition. Rossi was in an
> serious automobile accident which resulted in his
hospitalization for a
> period of time. "Whi
> le in the hospital he discovered
that the structure of his body resembled a
> series of fractures which had to be
put together again."<a
> href="modena_fn.html#fn6">[8]</a>
At this time he was also writing what
> would become
A Scientific Auto
> biography in which he expounded on this notion of
the fragment: <a
> name="9"></a> "the question of the fragment in architecture is very
> important
since it may be that only ruins express a fact completely ...I am
> thinking of a
unity, or a s
> ystem, made solely of reassembled
> fragments."<a
href="modena_fn.html#fn6">[9]</a> This fragment system is what
> we are presented
with at Modena. The osteological composition, concealed
> through the
orientation of its presentation and its frag
> mentation, is a literal translation
of his experience in the hospital, and
> this desire for an architecture of
fragments. It is simultaneously a sign of
> the body and the mimetic re-assembly
of the cemetery type.

There are
> two levels of
> fragmentation which can be read within the design:
precedent and a system
> of weak vs. strong. 

precedent
<dd>
There are two
> parallel levels of reference at work, one historical which has
been fully
> investigated by Euge
> ne Johnson in his article "Aldo Rossi's Modena
Cemetery - What Remains of
> Man." This article expounded on implicit references
to Boulee, Piranesi,
> Giorgio de Chirico and others. The other level which
Johnson's article
> didn't address is a mi
> metic one of the Costa and Jewish
Cemeteries which are site specific,
> historical allusions.
<dd>
By breaking down both the Costa/Jewish and
> Rossian cemeteries using various
criteria we can begin to see striking
> resemblance's in configurat
> ion of plan
and structure. Rossi has taken those fragments of formal
> composition found
within the Costa/Jewish cemetery and transformed,
> translated, or reduced
specific elements, representing them in his cemetery
> plan.

Siting and P
> roportion of Addition

<img src="pic12.gif" align=right><dd>
The
> rectangular outer boundary of Rossi's design placed on the other side of
the
> Jewish cemetery has an imprint similar in shape and proportion to
> Costa's
cemetery. The th
> ree story wall of housing that Circumscribes the design is
similar to that of
> Costa's minus the north wall.



 clear=all>
Axes

<img src="pic12axs.gif"
> align=right><dd>
The Costa Cemetery is a courtyard divid
> ed by a series of paths which set up
axes of movement between the zones of
> the cemetery. Each path terminates at
the wall in a formal
> articulation.
<dd>
Rossi, using a similar boundary wall sets objects
> within the space which
define a
> xes and break up the rectangle into a series of zones. The strategy,
similar
> to Costa's, has one important transformation: the wall articulations
at the
> end of Costa's axes pull away from the wall in Rossi's to become
> free
floating objects
> within the space.
 
Geometry
<img
> src="pic12cbe.gif" align=right><dd>
Rossi's ossuary cube is both a
> commentary on the cemetery as house of the dead
and a transformation, in
> positioning and proportion of enclosing
> structure to
void, of the two squares situated south of the Jewish cemetery.
> 

<dd>
The triangular composition of the Jewish Cemetery terminating
> on a funeral
structure is taken by Rossi into his design and transformed into
> a series o
> f
rib-like buildings terminating at a cone containing the communal grave.
> The
impression is the same, and even if the experience would be
> completely
different the similarities in planning are
> undeniable.
<center>
<img src="pic2.gif"></ce
> nter>

Rossi's housing of the coffins is also a minimal translation of
> the
configuration presented in Costa's Cemetery. The only essential
> differences
between the two are Rossi's use of stucco rather than brick, two
> levels instead
of one
> and a flat roof rather than pitched.

 
<img
> src="pic3.gif" align=right>
weak vs. strong<dd>
How does one
> understand the design of a fragment?<a name="10"></a>
"In my projects I
> have always thought about these
> things, and precisely in such
a way as to attempt to structure the
> opposition between what is weak and what
is strong."<a
> href="modena_fn.html#fn7">[10]</a><dd>
The strong in Modena becomes
> the datum or frame for that which is weak, the

> fragment. This notion can be read on several levels. The completed Costa
> and
Jewish Cemetery can be read as strong or complete while Rossi's, as of
> yet,
unfinished scheme becomes the weak, or the fragment. But this dialectic
> can
even be un
> derstood within Rossi's cemetery design itself.<dd>
Here, the strong
> becomes the wall housing for the dead which circumscribes the
Rossian
> Cemetery. It is a transformation of the `urban house' type as the
strong or
> complete. It is chara
> cterized by enclosed space, pitched roof,
windows, doors, walls and floors -
> all the elements which would ideologically
and physically complete a
> house.<dd>
The weak is characterized by the lack of completion
> (ideologically), missing
one
> or more of the systems which comprise the strong and make it whole.
> There
are three examples: The Cube, a house of the dead, like the house of
> the
living has no roof, floors, windows or doors. It is only a shell
> with
openings. Some openin
> gs for light, others for views, access, and even
containment of cremated
> bodies. The Arms and Ribs have a flat roof (therefore
no typologically or
> traditionally articulated roof), and one wall is an open
row of columns,
> breaking down the con
> tinuity of the wall. The Cone, a
translation of funerary precedents such as
> Boullee is marked incomplete due to
the open occulus at its
> top.
</td>
</tr>

<td
> align=center>
<img src="pic9
> .gif">
</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td colspan=2>
<dd>
So the fragment of the interior
> is understood in relation to the complete or
strong elements which wrap
> around the site. The interior pieces can then be
read simultaneously as a
> fragment of the h
> uman body and a play of forms between
fragmented and whole; or weak and
> strong.<dd>
My analysis of Rossi's architecture through the Modena
> cemetery has led to the
following conclusions. The fragment, for Rossi, is
> an element which can be
> st
translate the monuments of the past to the present. For Robert Habison
> in
</a>The Built, the Unbuilt, and the Unbuildable <a
> name="11"></a>"the ruin mentality
appears frivolous, fixated on surface not
> substance. It is in fact deep
> ly
pessimistic, counting more ancestors than descendants..."<a
> href="modena_fn.html#fn7">[11]</a>
While the ruin is the result of a
> process over
time, the fragment is a recreation of urban artifacts which deny
> time. Habison
elaborates how
> the admiration of the ruin leads to a admiration of symbols of
decadence.
> Rossi's fragments perpetuate a similar decadence about the built
environment
> but not a decadent lament for that which was once whole but a
decadent
> complacency with wh
> at is possible to be presented as an architecture
of the late 20th
> century.<center>
<img
> src="pic11.gif"></center>











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