The Home and Its Changes

Oct. 28. 1930

Last week we took up architecture in relation to public buildings
and the changes we were experiencing since 1900.

I drew your attention to that much discussed book - The Decline of the
West by Oswald Spengler - and his whole new approach of writing history
SHOWING that a nations culture is her organic structure. (Translators Preface P.XI)

Spengler emphasized the harm which was done to the history of great architecture by treating it as the history of architectural technique - EMphasizing instead of the fact that great architecture is the expression of great thought-power or thought-culture, prevalent at the time of its manifestation.

We took up the question of our new concepts of Time and Space - which
concern us especially - and drew attention as to how they affect the Arts.

I want to re-quote what he writes about the problem of Time - (P.122.Vol.I)
since it is most illuminating to our subject both last week and this
when he states that - the problem of Time like that of Destiny, has been
completely misunderstood by all thinkers, who have confined themselves
to the(methodical) systematic of the Become.....

"Space is a conception - but Time is a word - to indicate something
"inconceivable - a sound-symbol....

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"Where heretofore we believed Time and Space to be related - we realized now that Time is only an arbitrary conception - created by our thinking. A conception which does not exist in reality."

This new importance or new concept of separating Time and Space has created an entire new outlook in relation to art

In consequence - art to many minds today belongs to -
Raum Konstruktion - Space-Construction.

With this new approach to Space - and the new need of expressing art in relation to Space - old forms of art have had to give way.

In the realm of the dance - it is KNOEMELI devided into three consciousnesses

Raum-Erkenntniss - Space-Experience

Raum- Bewustsein - Space-Consciousness

Raum - Schoepferisch - Space-Creating.

the result was that it did away with the ballet.

In the realm of Music it has done away with melody.

In the realm of painting it has done away with realism.

And last week we saw the effect it had on architecture and the difference
those buildings build upon
between the conscious conception of - Space Construction and those
built upon necessity = so greatly influences our architects.

To-day we are taking up the Home - and I want to share with you some of the other
in relation to the home
of the illuminating thoughts which Spengler brings out and why the

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home - or the architecture of the Home does not in reality belong to
architecture, as an art.

be wise to
On the domain of the Home - art history ought never have laid its hands.

"It was an error to treat the building of the dwelling-house as a
"branch of the art of architecture. It is a form that arises in the
"obscure course of being and not for the eye that looks for forms
" in the XXX light. (P.120.Vol.II)

"Of all expressions of race - the purest is the house.... The prime -
"form of the house is everywhere a product of feeling and of growth
"never at all of knowledge. // Like the shell of the nautilus, the hive
"of the bee, the nest of the bird, it has an innate self-evidence, MMM
" ... //

If we apply this attitude of mind towards the home - *you* will see how
futile are all the so-called homes filled with period furniture which
so many interior decorators not realizing that the home should be a
personal expression of the individual - and not a period room - *this*

has never existed anywhere except in America, and in the minds of our
interior decorators.

It is a form of mental and moral laziness - that giant I am forever
tilting swords with - as XXXXX did Don Quixote at the windmills -

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and by the way there is a rare opportunity of seeing Daumier's marvelous
series at the Museum of Modern Art - 730 Fifth Avenue.

For the real interior Decorator - if I may use that term - should help the
individual to express himself more completely - but should not force a period
furniture or his own personality upon his customer. It were far better for
the customer to express himself - even if the results were less attractive
(to generalized standards) then to have an outsider intrude themselves upon
his home. - I believe - though it may sound fantastic - that one reason so
many Americans do not care to stay in their own home - but would just as soon
live in a hotel - is because they do not have the courage to express themselves
but feel that they must seek the advice of a stranger - and then the home
not expressing them - feels uncomfortable and a place they do not care to
linger. For we saw last time how Spengler brought out the fact that the
Faustian Soul craves for a style which drives through the walls into limit-
less Space and makes both the exterior and interior of the building com-
plementary images of one and the same world feeling.

If we feel that need of unity - whether consciously or unconsciously - (in
the art of our architecture - surely we will) feel it far more strongly in
connection with our home - which Spengler compares to a chambered nautilus.
So my fantastic thought may reach far deeper than at first seems probable.
and may explain why unconsciously we do not care to stay in our home which
in no way expresses us.

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Spengler urges the need of the world history of the House and its Races.

He pays a tribute to the peasant which I must quote - since I feel so
akin to his feeling and the tribute which he pays and which is a feel-
ing rarely found in America where peasants cannot take root and <u>there</u> be is
looked down upon <u>them</u> as akin to the beasts instead of realizing their <u>own</u>
kinship to and with eternity.

But to quote: To give such a history of the House and Its Races would
"be quite <u>DIFFERENT</u> other than those of art-history. The peasant dwelling
"is as compared with the tempo of all art-history, something constant
"and eternal - like the peasant himself. It stands outside the culture
"and therefore outside the higher history of man; it recognizes neither
"the spacial nor the temporal limits of this history and it maintains
"itself unaltered ideally, throughout the changes of architecture, which
"it witnesses but in which it does not participate."

He then draws attention to the round hut of Italy which is still to be
found - and recalled that most interesting personal experience when
<u>It</u> was just

I spoke to a highly educated Japanese and told him that some of the
American Indian war-dances which I had witnessed at the Grand Canyon
recalled to mind so vivvedly the Harvest Festival which I witnessed
at Kyoto - and He replied that he was deeply interested that I had observed
the relationship

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it for when he was over in the States he was so conscious of a kinship
between him and some of the Indians of Florida - some of those young
girls he said looked so like his own daughters - and - they built their
houses in a way which only Japanese build. That had impressed him
most. This is just in line with what Spengler writes - for Spengler
adds - "The disappearance of an ornament means no more than a change
of language - but when a house-type VANISHES IT MEANS THAT RACE IS
EXTINGUISHED."

So we realize how closely the HOME is woven as part and parcel of our
selves - and this knowledge we should treat with reverence.

Our home should be an expression of ourselves - and not that of another
personality.

"The ancient Egyptian, the ancient Chinese, the Classical, the South Arabian
"and the Western castle stands as the home of continuing generations,
"very near to the peasant cottage, and both, as copies of the realities
"of living, lie outside all art-history. The history of the German
"Burg is a piece of race history. On them, early ornament does indeed
"venture to spread itself, beautifying here the beams, there the door,
"or again the staircase; but it can be a choice, or omitted altogether
"FOR THERE IS NO INWARD BOND BETWEEN THE STRUCTURE AND THE ORNAMENT.

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"The cathedral is on the other hand - not ornamented - but ORNAMENT.

"Its history is coincident with that of the Gothic style... So complete

"is the congruence, in the Western or other Culture whose art we know

"that it has never occured to anyone to be astonished at the fact that

"strict architecture - which is simply the highest form of pure ornament -

"is entirely confined to religious buildings. All the beauty of architecture

"that there is in Gelnhausen, Goslar or the Wartburg has been taken over

" from the cathedral art. IT IS DECORATION ) NOT ESSENCE. A castle or

"a house can do without this ornamentation without losing its FORM. But

"in a cathedral or Egyptian pyramid-temple such a DISTINCTION BETWEEN

"ESSENCE and FORM IS SIMPLY INCONCEIVABLE." (P.123.Vol.II)

"Thus musically or otherwise, the castle and the cathedral are distinct.

"The cathedral IS MUSIC.

"The CASTLE MAKES MUSIC.

"The one begins with theory - the other with impromptu - it is the distinction between making consciousness and - living existence.

"Between the spiritual music - and the knightly singer with his melody.

While the symbolism of counter-points belongs to extension and through polophony signify infinite Space." (p.229.Vol.I)

"We distinguish then between the building that HAS A STYLE and the build-

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ing IN WHICH MEN HAVE STYLE."

That is the keynote to the whole new simplicity in the modern architecture.

The eminent German architect

As Walter Gropius said to me when I saw him in Berlin last winter - the house and the rooms of the modern dwelling should be so constructed that one is conscious of the people in the room - they should be the dominant note not the chairs - or tapestries. //

Let us see how conscious we are of this in America.

The first pictures which I want to show you are what we inherited in the way of taste.

The monstrosities which people so gleefully show as representing the Victorian age I do not recall except in an occasional boarding house - but the taste of today - though taking some other form is little better.

But I will show you our inheritance as I recall some of the homes of my friends. These are not pictures from there - but similar ones.

## Slides.

1. The Roger Morris House - New York

2. A stair-case

3. A Bed-room

4. The Van Cortlandt House - New York

5. XXXXXXXXXXXX

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5 - Dining-room Van Cortlandt House

6 - Bed-room Van Cortlandt House

7 - The Walton House - New York

8 - A Dining-room Colonial

9 - Another Section of a Dining-room

10 - A Bed-room Colonial

11 - Some old houses on Beach Street - but they might have been 10th St. as I knew them.

12 - William Cullen Bryant House

13 - Washington Irving's House

14 - As the drawing-room might have look - and did look when I knew it.

15 - Washington Square

16 - Broadway and 29th Street

17 - W.K. Vanderbilt House - representing some European castle.

18 - Cornelius Vanderbilt House - Also in the form of a castle.

19 - Carnegie's Home.

20 - Schwab's Home

I went to Beseler - who has the best lanterm slides in New York and

I asked him - Have you any picture of Modern Architecture?

And this is what he showed me. No. 21.

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I was greatly interested - and bought it - to show what many or I might say most people believe to be - modern.

Of course there is nothing - modern in it for it is built on old English lines of architecture and we know that our new conception of Space has really developed some new architecture.

23 - But we have some really modern houses and here is one by Frank Lloyd Wright - Chicago

24 - You will also be interested that this library built on the English period of 1830 was also shown me as Modern American.

25 - Here is a modern section - though the XXXXIXth is of the period of the Catholic Kings - Ferdinand and Isabella. In fact it belongs to one of their minor palaces and bears their joint coat of arms.

26 - A modern Restaurant Cal. Architect J. R. Dandou.

27 - Door of the Modern Restaurant - Cal. " " "

28 - False Modern Room - Chicago - H. Fischer.

29 - Correct Modern Room - Europe - Wies Van der Rode
Left House in California - Garden B. Kamp course - architect.

30 - House in Barmen - Architect H.H.Luetgens of Cologne

31 - Study of House in Barmen - H.H.Luetgens

32 - Drawing-room designed by H.H.Luetgens

33 - House in Stuttgart - Architect - Richard Doecker

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34 - Simple furniture designed for modern houses by Adolf Schneck

Professor at the Kuerttenberger Kunstgewerbe Schule - Stuttgart

35 - A simple bed-room designed by Professor Schneck

A book was brought out with all the exact measurements to enable
any cabinet maker to make any of these designs

36 - A house in Bruen - Architect Ernst Wiesner

37 - Simple furniture emphasizing the quality of the wood.

designed by Professor Griesser - Bielefeld

38 - A modern Side-board - designed by Karl Bertsch - Munnich-Berlin

39 - A cupboard - designed by Albert Linschuetz - Vienna.

40 - Another Design for a side-board - designed by Albert Linschuetz.

41 - A modern House in Essex designed by Thomas Tait, architect, London

42 - A modern English Interior designed by T. Millwood Wilson

43 - A modern private house in Paris designed by Andre Lurcat

44 - Another House by Lurcat in Versaille - influenced by the Spanish

45 - Another House by Lurcat in Paris

46 - A private house in Paris by Le Corbusier

47 - Another one by Le Corbusier Paris

48 - An Interior by Le Corbusier - in Stuttgart where he was assisted by
Pierre Janneret.

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And now we come to a very interesting experiment.

There was in Germany a great shortage of living quaters after the war.

During the war and emmediately after - everyone had so many rooms asigned
to them - regardless whether they owned a house or not.

In consequence almost every family had a working man's family quatered
in their home. But as the years progressed all sorts of devises were
planned by which to secure houses at the minimum cost and among the
cities which devised a competition were Stuttgart and Magdeburg.

Both municipalities set aside certain lands and invited architects to
construct homes on these sites which would then be bought at cost by
the municipalities - as I understood it - and to the besta substantial
prise was offered. Architects from all over came to participate - for
there were to be no restrictions as to originality. That is how Le Corbu-
sier and Pierre Jeanneret took part in Stuttgart - and that is how these
workers apartments came to be built in Magdeburg under the direction of
Ruehl,the architect who has since been called to Duesseldorf.

49 - Entrance to one of the workers apartments in the Harbkerstrasse, Magdeburg

50 - Back garden side of these houses.

51 - Another backside of apartments houses - where the grounds have not
yet been completed.

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52 - Another completed back garden side in the Voelpkerstrasse, Magdeburg.

53 - Some modern Dutch shops with apartments above - designed by J.J.P.Oud - the most famous Dutch modern architect.