Diagrammatic Analysis

Within the context of the Modern, a formal basis had become legible, one that allowed form to be read both within its time and across different eras. However, by the 1960s it became increasingly apparent that architectural language was changing. The clarity of the 1920s and 1930s was giving way to new interpretations of the modern. For example, Le Corbusier’s late works, the emergence of Brutalism, the regional interpretations of Modernism in Scandinavia and Latin America. Modernism gave way to modernisms, allowing the irreducible and logical relationships of form (the universal) to become specific to a moment in history. Furthermore, due to the positivistic character of the 20th century, Modernism aligned itself with technological progress and the zeitgeist. The result was the opposite of the universal: eventual obsolescence. Indeed, by the end of the twentieth century, Modernism was declared over, and both the Modern and the idea of the universal folded in the face of changing societal conditions. Both the modern and universal had tried to overcome the temporality of the zeitgeist, but neither were able to do so.

Ultimately, the modern proved not to be universal. What, then, bounds the specificity of the modern? Luo suggests that it is an attitude towards time: modern conceptions of form took a critical stance towards time, suggesting that a theory of history is inherent to Modernism. As such, history is no longer an objective reconstruction. The specificity of the Modern, then, is time, rather than form. The aim of this course is to study how one can grant the possibility of a formal basis without succumbing to ideality. Students will study the Modern period due to the fruitful tension that arose in that period between form and time. Students will be asked to consider the following questions:

What are the universal qualities of architectural syntax? What happens when an irreducible logic of form is drawn into a specific moment in history? How did the modern access the universal aspects of form in order to produce an architecture distinct from what came before? Ultimately, can architecture, through an awareness of temporal conditions, become a theory of history in itself? This course proposes this possibility as a way of working in the present time that differs from the techno-zeitgeist, the post-critical, or the post-digital.

As a basic premise, the course recognizes both the applicability of formal analysis across time, while recognizing the nature of time and its passing. As such, students will be asked to keep the modern and the universal in a productive tension, investigating the different ways in which the Modern and the universal relate to each other.

During the Modern period, certain new spatial structures and architectural forms emerged, such as Le Corbusier’s 5 points of the new architecture (the free plan, the free façade, the roof garden, pilotis, and fenêtre en longeur). While essentially modern in their moment of emergence, these articulations of form eventually were absorbed into the language of architecture, becoming typologically universal. The Modern period also absorbed syntactical elements generated in other moments in history, giving them a historical specificity while granting the syntactical element universality by recognizing its applicability through time, for example: the use of a four-square or a nine-square plan. The tension between the Modern and the universal, then, can be said to lie with the notion of architectural syntax.

During the seminar, students will select works from the Modernist period and analyze their form through drawing. As the course progresses chronologically, students should track formal structures in their moment of emergence and as they are ultimately absorbed into the wider lexicon of architectural language. Could form be considered both modern AND universal? When do the modern and universal come into conflict? When do they ultimately fail?

The course will move chronologically from 1890 to 1988.

Eisenman, Peter. “The End of the Classical: The End of the Beginning, the End of the End,” Perspecta 21 (1984): 163.

Eisenman, Peter. The Formal Basis of Modern Architecture. Baden, Switzerland : L. Müller, 2006.

Frampton, Kenneth. Modern Architecture: A Critical History. London ; New York, N.Y. : Thames & Hudson, 2007.

Luo, Xuan. Prefacing and Unfacing : Aporia and Its Disclosure in Peter Eisenman’s The Formal Basis of Modern Architecture. Thesis: Harvard Graduate School of Design, Spring 2017.

Vidler, Anthony. Histories of the Immediate Present: Inventing Architectural Modernism. MIT, Massachussetts Institute of Technology, 2008.

Carpo, Mario. The Digital Turn in Architecture: 1992-2012. Wiley, 2013.

Carpo, Mario. The Second Digital Turn: Design Beyond Intelligence. MIT Press, 2017.

Rowe, Colin. The Mathematics of the Ideal Villa.