Otakar Novotný: The Creation of Form in Architecture

There exists a certain, albeit refined difference between architecture — art and construction creation, and it is thus necessary to distinguish both categories quite heretically when it comes to determining the thought process in architectural creation; it is therefore necessary to separate architecture as a fundamental artistic element, developed in ancient Greece, from ordinary construction needs; it is necessary to separate the symbolic formation of temples and monuments from the utility of profane buildings. Bötticher in his "Tektonik der Hellenen" attempts to point out the differences between craft and artistic form, which are certainly not as sharp as they seem. For the basic shape, seemingly merely craft, may already have artistic embryos, dictated by the individual feeling of the creator; and from such shapes, fundamentally based only on trivial purposes and constructions, the entire construction art consists.
Its element and the most important coefficient in the creation of form is, of course, the scale of the human figure, a necessary complement to climatic and social conditions, and finally personal influence. Only this last factor allows for the possibility of a poetic element, where it would be possible to expect only radically understood results. This phenomenon should not, of course, be regarded as a deficiency, as long as it accompanies only utilitarian buildings; it would be the foundation of voluntary primitivism, which would ensure a natural development and transition to the real architectural art that approaches. For in the nineteenth century, the lost sense of natural style ultimately led quite automatically to the interruption of tradition and a forced return to primal assumptions in construction. Schinkel and Semper formulate these requirements for the correct style, and amidst general helplessness find many followers, not only theoretical ones. For what Semper touches on schematically, Wagner elaborates further quite methodically; he seeks a generally valid tectonics, although he does not deny the romantic origin of his creation and often deviates from the energetic demarcation of modern views to the incrustation of materials and symbolism.
Thus arises a time when experiments must create the laws of a new architecture, laws more fundamental than formal, since the legalization of detailed forms always meant a turning away from essence and lingering on the surface. A direct, irrefutable evidence here is the Renaissance, which begins to decline as soon as Vignola, Palladio, and Scamozzi attempt to arrange the inherited wealth from antiquity into dry and lifeless formulations that are almost unchangeable.
It is natural that amidst the confusion caused by the neglect of the natural style and consequently also of unpresented replicas of historical styles, simple folk constructions and products from barbaric cultures appear to us as exemplary tectonic works. Only in this sense can modern formal asceticism in architecture be accepted as the starting point of a truly new style, justified in existence. The effect would be far-reaching if it succeeded in finding such strong individualities that would instantly resolve the relationship between purpose and construction to form and could empower the form even in detail. Meanwhile, primitivism can only rarely be declared as a final result: it concerns objects that are indeed solid but cheap. Such will also find a certain circle of interests since they do not intrude with forced eccentricity but reveal the whole simple simplicity of their origin; moreover, it is not possible not to admire when a construction arises based on logical processes, actually traceable.
Development must, of course, usually occur from the inside out. Soberly considered: the purpose of the room, its size, the number of them, the number of floors, provides the most important component, namely the floor plan. Thus, practically everything is accomplished by the architect: spatial conception; only the addition remains. And it can be argued that in this case a good architect is not an artist in the usual sense of the word, but an excellent and logical organizer. There is no need to think much about the exterior since by good arrangement and dimensioning of spaces and openings in them, the correct relationship of solid walls to windows, height to width, roofs to buildings automatically stands out. Such natural relationships would never be achieved by preliminary division of the façade areas or by solving the elevation as a relief. Such a procedure, provoked by desired and misplaced picturesque qualities, lacks a structural basis and must necessarily revert to caprice, against which a reaction of dry and sober composition was necessary.
However, the method of evolving from the outside in is not in some cases such a great mistake as it might seem after what has already been said. In monumental buildings, whose practical task is subordinated to and overshadowed by their ideal significance, a considerable external influence on the observer's psyche is permissible and indeed necessary, although here too the interior has absolutely equal legitimacy. However, it must be assumed that architecture has naturally progressed so far that forms found in utilitarian buildings, now idealized and symbolized, can be logically applied to monuments that characterize culture. Only such a procedure is rational, and the opposite error many historical styles did not rectify, especially in the Renaissance, where considerably ideal forms are transferred to profane buildings.
All, certainly even monumental forms must be created with all considerations for building material. Ignoring technical needs can of course also be justified since ultimately understandable and permissible, a non-constructive and non-stylized form may appear, given to the whole or detail, if we derive it from a virtuoso command of the material or justify it symbolically. However, there always remains a hint of whimsy and self-satisfied exclusivity. On the contrary, the slavish subordination of material to processing techniques is sometimes deceptive, as it leads to a poverty of expression. Building materials must indeed be able to be shaped formatively, but they must not be violated.
The choice of material is approximately dictated by the purpose of the building. Monumentality is conditioned by the scale of material processing; since stone requires the greatest scale, it will always remain the most monumental material. Another factor is important; namely the possible size of the areas. Wood, iron, or reinforced concrete can never have as mighty an impression as plain stone, because the area they provide is very small and cannot therefore claim significant valuation. Perhaps in the future, the sense of monumentality will also change; if we can call today’s plastered buildings, in comparison to Assyrian and Egyptian ones, monumentally filigree in many respects, I do not see why in time we could not look similarly at iron.
It seems that with the rational use of iron, concrete, aluminum, and other metals, the true time of modern architecture will occur, born from an artistic revolution. In many respects, we are also inspirers of this movement in such a way that by exposing each material, we seek to extract from it all its capabilities for various technical processes. With this effort, we indeed set ourselves in diametrical opposition to the principle of incrustation, nearly indispensable today, and perhaps always, but it is precisely through this silent struggle that some tectonic mysteries will be clarified. For example, it is not permissible to covertly and without penalty cover a cheap material with a precious cladding. To give up cladding would mean a radical and today impossible reversal in building constructions, since plaster, for instance, must also be considered an incrustation of the rough masonry. Here we would go down to the root of today’s construction, to a struggle that has neither the importance that it seems at first glance.
Constructiveness and appreciation of material — in the ordinary sense of the word — is indisputable in modern views. However, there exists another, higher mode of regarding it. In this non-constructive way, for instance, a lathing ceiling with an empty roof space and an empty, unnecessary dome, which may be a symbolic expression of internal relationships and therefore tolerated, is not justifiably constructive as a cover over a cover, one with another unrelated.
Today, we are indeed passionately pursuing mere factual constructiveness, but soon it will be necessary to also consider the removal of ideological inconsistencies.
However, it cannot be claimed that the respect for functionality and constructively correct development creates a beautiful form. Purpose and construction are requirements, correct form the result of pure and logical reasoning. The beauty of form must be sought in an entirely different sphere: in the indefinable impressions of the psyche. If the initial requirements were so closely related to beauty, then it would be necessary to provide expert interpretations to make an artistic, also architectural work understandable. There might also be a possible conflict between the beautiful and the functionally constructive, should excessive importance be placed on a beautiful detail, but it would be good to temporarily avoid inconsistencies that would mean further considerable complication of the problems being addressed today.
Thus we find ourselves at the essence of shaping form.
I presuppose that the imitation of historical styles is a priori rejected, as it generally does not derive from the creation of space — after all, it would be too strong, almost impossible anachronism — but rather from the creation of surfaces, reliefs, thus subordinate motifs. The time when such behavior identified with artistic creation has irretrievably passed; there has been nothing easier in construction than dealing with the alphabet of learned forms. Greater or lesser qualification was decided solely by skill and the greater or lesser taste with which such a conglomerate was laid.
If we disregard the facilitating process, which was defended some time ago even here, and which first seeks the correct form from history for a specific constructive function, then there remains but one path: to create form. The wealth and surplus of shapes, as was in the Romanesque and Gothic periods, will likely remain unattainable; since there are no longer craftsmen-creators and one must reckon with comfortable craftsmanship, possibly even factory production on a large scale, and since there is a lack of exuberance of imagination, joy of creation, surplus energy, as today’s social conditions bear.
However, imagination and immediate mood are still a hot and unreliable ground. The most certain path will lead to the goal in a sober, rational manner.
For the purpose and construction to be expressed as clearly as possible through form is the minimum of all requirements; if this were not achieved, then there would indeed be no difference between decadent forms and newly formed ones.
Each construction part is governed by so many constructive forms that only from their cluster, from their resultant does the form emerge. It is clear that as many conditions there are, so many sought forms often cancel each other out. The only way out is thus to seek a compromise, equate, organize, find only the most essential. It concerns the relief of form from everything unnecessary and a reduction to the simplest, clearest, most expressive shape. Only such a shape can be called good. This is the only correct procedure and at the same time proof that a correct simple form is the hardest to achieve. The arduous cyclical march is here at hand: from the subconscious primitivism of barbaric nations to the refined, voluntary, and desired primitivism of modern architecture. And from there further; only here are the foundations laid for an artistic form, sanctioned by poetry, which will mean the climax of the architecture that we consider only correct.
In developing a new form, we began with analogies from nature. Let us admit that only to get out of the dead end we were pressed into in the last century when finally the impossibility of remaining in a miserable path of conventionality is perceived, and a feverish search begins. Nature, as before and in other arts, was the first teacher; it cannot mean as much to architecture as to other arts, even if in many cases it created analogically with it, but it is at least initiative enough to suffice for the first fumbling. Stylization — insofar as we mean imitation of nature, sometimes significantly distanced from the original — thus has its significance in this phase. It will once again come into validity and that much more meaningfully, but only once the general formal principle of correct tectonic creation is established. Only then can we arrive at ornament, and that to a new ornament, which today is actually only imitation and adaptation of natural forms to different materials.
Spontaneous inventiveness of forms would be absurd, as there exist no forms other than those that occur in nature. Nature is actually quite simple, even poor in basic motifs, but immensely rich in formal variations that allow only a reasonable and fitting selection, but not independent creation of ornament. Thus it has always been, and will continue to be until we reach style.
Form in architecture is therefore not evoked by talent, mood, or inspiration; it is the result of painstaking logical reasoning. Semper makes architectural creation dependent on many formal laws: symmetry, rhythm, proportion, scale, all derived from nature, instead of clearly acknowledging that even for nature laws of exact sciences apply. Moreover, all these factors are subject to various influences; perhaps most of all proportion and scale. What we now call good proportions were perhaps not so yesterday and will not be so tomorrow, will be for one, not for another, because proportioning changes from individuality to individuality, from epoch to epoch. Today we operate linear and planar contrasts that would seem absurdities to antiquity and refined renaissance.
Forming is not, of course — primarily at the beginning — free from romantic reminders of bygone days, later even organic influences. Several painters nurtured by nature (I name only Van de Velde, Pankok, Obrist), who transitioned to architecture, indeed brought reminiscences of natural forms and simultaneously infused a bit of exuberant blood into its life; on the other hand, they harmed the non-tectonic current in forming form. A shape evoking natural forces, thus symbolized, only under the greatest precaution can align with real forms of the whole and is therefore only justified to a certain extent. The possibility of such danger leads precisely to the asceticism of primitivism as a transitional stage of awareness of one’s own uncertainty. It is therefore necessary, in such a phase, to make work easier and rely more on precious material in execution than on form itself; we obviously expose ourselves to the danger of inconsistency between primitive form and luxury of material and it sometimes happens that through dazzling execution we vainly cover up the poverty of invention.
If we look at the creative process rationally, then the whole question revolves around two possibilities: organic or geometric forms. All historical styles in their greatest flourishing speak for the organic revival, and we can safely judge that even the new style will be governed by them. Today, we are somewhat estranged from them, and the deceptive impression that arose from organic creation, masked by analogies from nature, is contradictory to the realism of our era. We fear disillusionment after previous illusion, but we fear only because it would reveal our previous incompetence. Here, the sphere of compromises and painful mental processes of the creating architect continues.
It is no wonder that under such circumstances we are earnestly seeking at least some positive foundation for further development of such a form that already presupposes the fulfillment of purpose and constructiveness. The most natural seems the search for analogies in nature and in historical styles. Many dangers have already been pointed out, which the influence of the organism can have on the creation from dead matter; all norms that would attempt — to avoid such dangers — to geometrically substantiate nature and then architecturally use it, shatter under the multitude of variations. To subordinate architectural creations to a geometric scheme means, however, to ease at least the laborious search for correct proportions. Hence the extraordinary importance of geometric patterns and mathematical relationships for architecture. Let us understand well: exact sciences do not create but facilitate our work, regulate our randomness, and resolve any indecision. It is certain that Gothic cathedrals were constructed strictly geometrically; it can be assumed that this was also the case in Egyptian, Persian, Greek architecture; but here often a bit of violence is needed to explain many relationships, so it seems in the end that the proportions of form were only felt, but with such precision that today can only be achieved with a compass.
In our time, the remarkable architect Berlage is engaged with this question as a prerequisite for creating space and form and practically solves it. It is undeniable that if we use quadrature, triangulation, the principle of the golden section, or any metric element that we multiply as needed, we ensure in both space and form certainty and decisiveness, thus simplicity, which otherwise we might have long sought.
The correctness of such behavior is so far very clear in creating ornaments, as far as we can even speak of decoration in new architecture. Certainly, however, ornaments of geometric origin still have much more right to life than vegetative ornament, because they can be much more easily controlled in form than plants, animals, or human figures. The entire scientific character of today’s architecture carries this circumstance with it, and thus ornament, up to now an expression of organic life, is unsustainable and is replaced by a homogeneous factor, geometric ornament. Formally and ideologically homogeneous; because an ornament cannot be regarded as the highest artistic expression, but rather as a component, not entirely necessary.
Only when generally valid principles of new architecture are established, can we proceed to the organic addition of decoration. Future construction will again have its ornaments, albeit quantitatively not to the extent as before, because it is no longer possible for medieval and ancient conditions to return, where social circumstances, sometimes even slavery and corvée, allowed for the squandering of human energy. There will no longer be fertile conditions for the growth of ornament, and isolated cases will hardly be so distinguished as to be drawn from them since there will always be a lack of healthy tradition and the possibility of general interest in luxury. Primarily, there will be much to do with structural and tectonic bases, and aside from small items of artistic industry, it will be difficult for an architect to commit to lavish decoration, for he will keenly feel his responsibility and inability.
Another path may lead to defending the need for decoration, which is a closer merging of architecture with painting and sculpture, as it used to be in mature stylistic phases. It will be necessary to once again consider construction as a foundation and painting with sculpture as complementary arts. Only in this way will it be possible to regulate today’s excessive production of paintings, placed here today, there tomorrow, without obvious need and definite interest, with the danger that extraordinarily mediocrity and substandardness are being supported. Good artists are aware of such shortcomings; it will only be up to the architect to intervene proactively, initially advising, helping, composing together. It will be solely in his interest, if he wants to ensure the unity of his work, to counter incorrect opinions and elevate the general cultural level. It is relatively better for that in the applied arts. Those times have indeed gone when an architect could confidently hand over a building to be detailed by craftsmen-artists. Mechanical, irresponsible work has become too ingrained in today’s trade for it to contribute itself, but it lies within the architect's capabilities to suggest and independently direct all currents of today’s industry — let us say artistic industry. It is necessary to adapt to conditions: not to demand artistic intuition where it does not exist, and to be satisfied with mechanical, perhaps factory-produced, but technically perfect execution. We again encounter the provisional unjustifiability of vegetative decoration, which necessarily requires sensitivity in the hands of the craftsman, and which is absolutely not justified if the product comes from a machine.
The predominantly organizational activity of the architect is visible from the first ideational layout to the driving of the last nail. Therefore, the maturity of the architect must be sought in a much later age than in other artists. There is no need here for so many stormy emotions from a beneficially fermentative youthful period, but rather for much experience, much knowledge, but above all, much calm reason. The more, the less one can rely on tradition, unpreserved or flawed. That tradition cannot be wholly underestimated, as shown by America, where its lack is the greatest obstacle to independent artistic development. For although in Europe a spoiled tradition is also cautiously sorted, sometimes even rejected, artistic anarchy arises, extending to violent attempts at originality. Originality! Today, unfortunately, originality can be referred to as a simple understanding of the tectonic principles of creation, an understanding that should actually be an alphabet; there would be the only common architectural level from which originality begins, rather detailed individual form, now often forcibly imposed and unnaturally inflated.
Therefore, it is not a fault of a certain lack of artistic originality, but rather its suppression when it comes to collective architectural work, where not the individual but several contemporaries take on responsibility for the future development of construction. Indeed, one cannot find in the entire history such strong architecturally active individualities as seen in other visual arts, music, and literature, where one could securely demonstrate its epoch-making significance for further development. On the contrary, this fact — the application of powerful personality — would not be so bad if it is taken as a corrective for the collective conventionality, and if unification of all such sources occurs in time so that a great culture and a new style, the most beautiful and truest ever, arise from them. This will no longer likely be a style of predominantly monumental buildings, where profane constructions are mere replicas; rather, there will be starting points of the form of utilitarian constructions. Thus we will go from real tasks to ideal solutions, perhaps rare; but along a natural and only correct path. Only then can we think of real monumentality when there is so much surplus energy and so much joy of life that architecture can be endowed with even more than it has today: poetry, which will make it a true art. However, art cannot be regarded as the highest form of the human spirit unless it is born from a scientific foundation and has gone through the purifying furnace of formal perfection.

March 21, 1911.