The War on Architectural Ornament and the Emperor’s New Clothes
I have harbored subliminal, and usually negative, feelings
about the great changes in architecture that were wrought between the mid-19th
and mid-20th centuries – changes that have given us the field
today. I could sum up this period by
calling it a vast war on ornament fought with special fervor in Germany and
France after the beginning of the 20th century. This change was especially abrupt considering
the length of time our species has ornamented the built environment. And not superfluously but organically –
ornament growing from vast subterranean reservoirs of experience living in
nature. We have all seen photos or have perhaps
even visited the awesome frescos at Lascaux and Altamira; and the compelling
Mother Goddess sculptures from Lespugue and Willendorf etc. This ornament derived from the senses as we
dwelled in nature – internalized over millennia of shared experiences. Gradually these natural forms grew more
abstract and only suggested the actual natural features, once captured in
greater accuracy: a nautilus or a rams horn suggested the Ionic volute, wild
herbs/vines growing in clusters became the acanthus motif and etc. Human sculptures were also incorporated
illustrating our dominance over the world of form and our interplay with the
Gods. For many centuries human ornament
derived from the matrix in which we have been embedded: Nature, or this
particular life raft we call Earth.[i]
I have always appreciated the natural sources of molding
profiles and other architectural decoration – even as they are altered through
time and different cultures, Persian, Greek, Roman, Norman etc. But all clearly derive from nature like the
rinceau, guilloche, waterleaf, acanthus, anthemion (or honeysuckle) many others
too numerous to list – and not just western culture. Chinese, Japanese, Southeast Asian and Indian
decoration also derive from nature – just as directly (or in some cases more so). Witness the magnificence of Angkor Watt or
the incredibly exuberant sculpture of a Viking long ship.
Historians trace the roots of the modern movement to
Rationalist thought as interpreted at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris at the
end of the 18th century, when a simplification of detail and
ornament was promoted – suggesting or expressing the structure.[ii] Later in the 19th century Viollet
le Duc formalized Structural Rationalism where the structure replaced or became
the ornament.[iii] By the 1880’s this “style” had become quite
widespread and attracted influential adherents in the US including the
Supervising Architect of the Treasury who designed and built large government
buildings in every state.[iv] This formula to “express” the structure
influenced rapid changes in design and architecture including the curricula of
the Bauhaus where buildings would now be stripped of all ornament to only
expose the concrete, glass sheer surfaces and/or the steel structure. By 1936 Gropius exults in his total victory
over centuries of more human design with: “The morphology of dead styles has
been destroyed; and we are returning to honesty of thought and feeling”.
The hubris of the modernists (Ozymandius seemed demure by
comparison) helped effect the immense destruction and loss of cultural icons
like Pennsylvania Station in Manhattan – now replaced with the uber mundane
glass box of Madison Square Garden.
Influential designers like Frank Lloyd Wright, Gropius and Corbusier had
only disdain and ridicule for historic architecture. These feelings were passed on to their
students as they became the next generation of designers, architects and
planners who without qualms began in earnest the destruction of our historic
urban centers.
I failed to understand the broad sweep of this disdain for
the past until I became the historic preservation representative and fine arts
officer for the recent (2004-2013) renovations/restorations to the Old
Executive Office Building – now the Eisenhower Executive Office Building
(EEOB). Originally built as the State,
War and Navy Building it was configured so that the administrative office
suites for each department, where the Secretaries and staff sat, were located
on the 2nd floor, the piano nobile.
The highly decorated granite exterior expressed the importance of the
second floor. The interior decoration of
these executive suites was especially noteworthy. The Secretary of War’s Suite – the last to be
completed in 1877 was a particularly grandiose architectural vision and is well
recorded at the National Archives in College Park, MD where all the extant
records of the Supervising Architect of the Treasury, including plans,
photographs, letters, invoices and all correspondence are available for serious
researchers or dilettantes like myself.
A Venetian architect, Richard von Ezdorf, employed by the
SAT under Mullet became the prime government designer. Ezdorf had received his architectural
training in Vienna and Prague when the most influential school of architecture
in Europe (and hence America at that time) was the Ecole des Beaux-Arts.[v] Ezdorf supervised a team of decorators and
craftsmen from a well-known New York decorating firm, Moeller and Sons. Most of the decorators and artists in this
firm were recent immigrants to America and had also trained in Europe. Some had worked with Brumidi and Meigs to
complete the Thomas U. Walter additions and dome at the US Capitol and were
imminently qualified to install the original decorative program in the SOW
suite.[vi] What remained of this original decoration: classical
ceiling murals, gold and silver leaf, trompe l’oeil painted friezes, Santo
Domingo mahogany woodwork (originally French-polished), had all been painted
white many times, probably beginning in 1949 or shortly thereafter. Clearly the triumph of the modern movement
(as stated by Gropius) rendered this virtuoso performance of the decorative
arts an embarrassing extravagance without value, so that now instead of
repairing and maintaining, it was painted over and disguised while much of the
bas-relief hand cast plaster textured wall decoration was removed and discarded
entirely – only black and white photos remain to record its existence. The brutality of this treatment was repeated
across the US (in the historic buildings that remained standing). Oddly where the roots of the modern movement
first appeared in France, Germany people never lost their admiration for cultural
heritage. It would be hard to imagine the
exuberant interior decoration and murals at Versailles or Caserta[vii]
painted white? But American architects intoxicated
with the stark vision of a Bauhaus future erasing a vainglorious past,
government bureaucrats and related fields (all making decisions exceeding their
expertise) scourged our historic built environment like barbarian hordes slashing
and burning their way through irreplaceable works of art and architecture
during the decades following WW2. As
these losses accumulated an outcry rose up among those who recognized the waste
for what it was and Congress was persuaded to effect the National Historic
Preservation Act of 1966 which protects all historic buildings owned by the US
government or anywhere federal tax dollars may be used to renovate. This legislation continues to protect our
most important buildings, artwork, burial sites etc from well-meaning but ignorant
decision makers, property managers and contractors.[viii]
[i] Architectural
Ornament, Banishment and Return by Brent C. Bolin, W. W. Norton and Company:
See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lascaux
; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cave_of_Altamira
; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_of_Willendorf
; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_of_Lespugue
[iii]
The Foundations of Architecture, selections from the Dictionaire raisonne,
Viollet-Le-Duc, George Braziller, Inc. http://www.amazon.com/The-Foundations-Architecture-Selections-Dictionnaire/dp/0807612448
[iv]
Architects to the Nation, The Rise and Decline of the Supervising Architect’s
Office, Toni Lee http://www.amazon.com/Architects-Nation-Decline-Supervising-Office/dp/0195128222
