HEROISM versus EMPIRICISM.

In the month when the Rogers Millennium Dome opened at Greenwich, London, it seems appropriate to look back on the last time the British organized a major architectural celebratory event: the Festival of Britain, 1951, which marked peace after the Second World War. Robert Gregory analyses its aesthetic origins and intentions.

WITH HINDSIGHT, THE FESTIVAL OF BRITAIN CAN BE seen as the first round of a fight between Corbusian Heroism and Swedish Empiricism. While this conflict may not have been obvious to people visiting the Festival, afterwards it became increasingly public. For example, in 1952 Colin St John Wilson, then with the LCC, and Hugh Casson engaged in a debate in The Observer. Wilson's attack on compromise and Picturesque planning was met with deflationary mockery by Casson. [1]

To investigate how different these two tendencies were, it is important to understand the architectural context from which they developed. The belief that Modernism could build a clean white world, had developed in pre-war Europe following the bloody mess of the First World War. [2] Many nations became obsessed with the idea of cleaning society, and started the process of wiping the slate clean, to create a tabula rasa for an ideal society. While a few artists were haunted by memories of the trenches, most chose to reject the past, and to search for modern forms of expression, in a period of experimentation in art that included architecture. The Weissenhofsiedlung in 1927, for example, demonstrated Modern architecture as a livable reality, whereby the emerging 'international style', and social ideals obsessed with health and hygiene became one. Shiny linoleum and pure white stripped interiors, were to replace the bourgeois dusty architecture of heavy curtains and stuffed armchairs.

Having announced his 'Five Points of a New Architecture' at the Weissenhof, Corbusier's work increasingly promoted a modern way of living which he believed would give every citizen of the state 'moral power'. Turning his attention to the city, and with his metaphor of health, he proposed surgery to cut out the cancer of the city with a life-saving scalpel. In his vision for the 'City of Tomorrow' he wrote, 'Our World, like a charnel-house, is strewn with the detritus of dead epochs. The great task incumbent on us is that of making a proper environment for our existence, and clearing away from our cities the dead bones that putrefy them'.

To the young generation of British architects who interrupted their training to fight in the war. Corbusier became a hero. Having been introduced to his work through the writing of J. M. Richards and Nikolaus Pevsner, they returned from a War where they had fought to make the world safe, with a similar heroic world-changing spirit.

It was at this point that many realized that they had returned to a very different architectural environment. During the War both Richards and Pevsner, had, in the eyes of the younger generation, fallen foul of the English habit of compromise and sentimentality. Seeming to have lost their enthusiasm for the heroic Continental Modernism of Corbusier, both had begun to support the revival of the English Picturesque tradition. Through their work for The Architectural Review they had switched from Corbusier to Sweden and 'The New Empiricism'. [3] Learning from the Stockholm Exhibition of 1930, rather than searching for new forms, they advocated a Modernism that was derived from the specific British milieu, which for them was the Picturesque tradition.

The Stockholm exhibition of 1930 represented the culmination of two artistic tendencies. 'Swedish Grace', which had earned Sweden world recognition for its fine handicraft and industrial design, and 'New Objectivity', which called for a commitment to the social ideals. [4] But despite the popularity of Swedish Grace following the Gothenburg exhibition of 1923, and the Paris Exposition of 1925, Gregor Paulsson as the commissioner did not exploit this tradition. In his manifesto of 1928 he stated, ' "New objectivity" signifies an intellectually and morally honest relationship to artistic problems, which feels doubly refreshing after the worship in recent years of veiled idols, which carried the beautiful but false museum labels of National Tradition or Classical Beauty. The belief that one could create the architecture and furnishings of a modern culture through resuscitation of bygone artistic styles and ways of life reveals a lack of insight into the values arising from artistic creation'. [5]

Paulsson's attitude towards 'New Objectivity' concerned many people who saw it as a mediocre, imported, and anti-traditional style, mechanically dry, and based on a false objectivity. The dispute that ensued resulted in a compromise whereby the ideals of Functionalism and the forces of tradition would be exhibited together. This decision caused Corbusier to decline the appointment as exhibition architect and thereby separated 'Stockholm 1930' from the growing Modernist tradition. [6] With the Modernist theory that everything from chairs to spoons were building blocks of the modern society, the decorative Swedish crafts represented the superfluous, meaningless, bourgeois, dust-collecting clutter that Corbusier and Weissenhof had so clearly rejected. As a result, Gunnar Asplund was appointed, and went on to attempt to bring the two tendencies together in a new Modernism.

ASPLUND'S AIM OF bridging the transition from machinery to decoration, while seen by many as a compromise to both, received admiration from the AR. He had begun the task of taming the machine that would give British architects an alternative to follow from the Franco-German style. It would seem that this aim in itself was enough, regardless of the compromised results. P. Morton Shand concluded his criticism of the exhibition for the AR by saying, 'Nothing ... has really entirely found itself, or seems quite sure of its footing in the world. Some artists have followed Asplund, the chief architect, in boldly taking the plunge; others are still cautiously preparing to dive in; most are only beginning to undress. Let them take their time and choose their stroke, even if the latter should prove to be a crawl'. [7]

Above all Asplund's 'Stockholm 1930' was to initiate the development of a popular nationalistic Modernism, not an International Style. It was this 'crawl' that became 'New Empiricism'. When writing for the AR the Chairman of the Anglo-Swedish Society wrote, 'Sweden is tackling every problem in a modern spirit, she is leading. How can we bring Sweden nearer to England. Sweden is the only country which can combine traditionalism with modernity. Let us not be too proud to learn from them. [6]

While Corbusier's followers may have seen Swedish 'New Empiricism' as a compromise, there can be no doubt that Asplund and Paulsson were committed to architectural progress. Similarly it is hard to believe that such writers as Richards and Pevsner would revert to pure revivalism, having both written with considerable authority of Modernism's specific place in a historical context. What was seen following Stockholm throughout Sweden (and later in Britain through the AR) was a development of a Modernism that built upon each country's specific cultural milieu, instead of the tabula rasa approach. Neither Sweden nor Britain wanted to break from the past. As plans to redevelop London began to emerge, even members of the Modern Architectural Research Group (MARS) questioned the extent to which continental Modernism should 'control'.

In January 1949, the forces of Heroism and Empiricism were to meet almost prophetically in the pages of the AR. Before Casson's plans were finalized the editors published their own proposals to show how the South Bank should be developed after the Festival when the crowds and the fireworks had gone. [Presumably Casson helped.] Through Gordon Cullen's Bankside Regained publication they hoped to strengthen the site's relationship to the river. [9] As a marriage of the Thames and the Thames-side, Cullen's proposals were a romantic Picturesque reinterpretation of pre-war seaside resorts where people could walk, play deck tennis, eat, dance, and even swim in a new pool. Influenced by Stockholm's parks, and cafes, published by the AR two years previously, Cullen's evocative sketches portrayed the informal public resort that he felt the LCC plans had failed to attain. [10]

Through Gordon Cullen's emerging Towuscape and the promotion of Swedish urban landscape, the AR demonstrated a commitment to the Picturesque, which influenced proposals by Hugh Casson and his team. Casson made an early decision that the South Bank would not be laid out with the formality of previous exhibitions with grand vistas and avenues. Instead, as a development of Stockholm 1930, the Festival would be a modest and informal complex of interlocking neighbourhoods. Each neighbourhood would have its own character, promoting a collective communal approach, rather than alienating Classical grandeur. In replacing the darkness of the city with a Picturesque landscape, the character of the South Bank can be seen as a development of Stockholm's neighbourhood parks. The South Bank became an expression of Gordon Cullen's Townscape philosophy, seen as an update of Camillo Sitte's Town Planning According to Artistic Principles. [11] The lack of traditional monumental devices on the South Bank represented a reje ction of the arid monumentality of the 1924 Empire Exhibition at Wembley and the 1937 Paris Exposition. [12] This reinterpretation of the traditional picturesque English village green was appropriate to the purpose of the Festival as a demonstration of a belief in the British way of life.

DUE TO THE need to rebuild cities and to re-establish national identity, in September 1948 the AR held a symposium to discuss the need for a new monumentality, and the means by which to achieve it. Seven of the world's leading architects and architectural philosophers: Gregor Paulsson, Henry-Russell Hitchcock, William Holford, Sigfried Giedion, Walter Gropius, Lucio Costa, and Alfred Roth, were invited to come 'In Search of a New Monumentality'. At this symposium, Paulsson gave a new definition to civic monumentality that clearly influenced Casson's approach to the Festival planning. Paulsson believed that monumentality was anti-democratic, and should be omitted from the architectural vocabulary. 'Pseudo monumentality', achieved through the application of dignified features such as Classical porticoes, as was common with Swedish Grace, was the symbol of the small dictators of the democratic society: the banker and the politician. Rejecting monumentality as an expression of civic power, he argued that architec ts should rechannel the symbolic possibilities of buildings to promote democracy.

'Let us give the word monumentality the meaning of strong emotional impact, let us reduce its sphere and widen its content and let it mean the emotion in general in its artistic expression. Intimacy not monumentality should be the emotional goal'. [13]

The call to create an environment which would celebrate and stimulate the emotions of the individual represented a new attitude towards urban space -- the Socialist ideal of the democratization of space. Through this, planning was to be seen as a liberating social tool, rather than a boring discipline where statistics and zoning controlled and organized people. When arriving at the South Bank, people were greeted by an urban environment of an elegance and gaiety unknown in Britain. Casson created a 'brilliantly inventive' layout, which gave a striking impression through generous but efficient use of external space. [14] It was an environment where the people and their freedom as individuals was central to the concept. As John Allwood recently commented: 'At last the crowd had become an important part of the architectural concept and not a nuisance to be carefully left out of the official architectural record photographs'. [15]

The Picturesque grouping was the jam on the pill of the extremely prescriptive story, devised by Ian Cox, that was to be read as a sequence. While appearing casual, the layout cleverly controlled circulation by providing an interesting and varied juxtaposition of people to buildings. This was strengthened by the Swedish treatment of the ground plain, that had influenced Gordon Cullen's publication Legs and Wheels. [16] The route was subtly defined by split levels, water features, exterior furniture, and by the careful modulation of ground materials including concrete, cobbles, and grass. [17] The route linking the 27 pavilions was essential to the success of the exhibition's narrative displays, and most people were obedient observers. The Festival Committee, however, thought it necessary to underline the visitors' right to roam. The Official Exhibition Guide stated. 'This is a free country; and any visitors who, from habit or inclination, feel impelled to start with the last chapter and zig-zag their way bac kwards to the first chapter, will be as welcome as anyone else.' [18]

The seemingly haphazard arrangement of pavilions was a contrived effect, it can be seen as a stand against the Beaux Arts tradition. Views and surprises made an essentially tight site seem generous and spacious. Just as Camillo Sitte had said, 'the architect should compose the city like a Beethoven symphony; it should become a great, dramatic experience to walk through a sequence of urban spaces pulsating in scale on either side mixing new with old, monuments with parks, all unfolding on a series of axes and contained vistas into exploding crescendi'. [19]

Townscape had been realized and demonstrated the superiority of modern planning in comparison with Victorian mess. While the festival did not include the heroic restructuring and zoning of Corbusier's Ville Contemporaine, which may have been impossible on an isolated 27 acre site, it did share one central concept. Placing object buildings within a landscape, and the consideration of civic open space and pedestrianization were significant achievements. The site became a spectacular memorable image of 'strong emotional impact', that can only be adequately explained by those who visited it. [20]

The South Bank was transformed into a world beyond the drabness of the austerity years. As at Stockholm, where objects such as bandstands, kiosks, and plant containers were designed as parts of the whole, there was a belief that the urban landscape would benefit from carefully considered details. [21] On the South Bank, any item from a chair to a pavilion became a vehicle to demonstrate new technology and modernity.

The need to design a coherent and consistent whole was the key to the image of the Festival. Despite the large number of architects employed, there was a remarkable consistency of style. Richards saw this as a 'tribute to the single-mindedness and diplomacy of the coordinating architects Hugh Casson and Misha Black'. [22] Using materials that had been developed during the War, like laminates, plastics and aluminium, the designers were able to challenge older concepts of solidity and massiveness as an indicator of strength and durability. For example, in almost every possible object, metal was used to demonstrate the possibilities of lightweight structures. With new paints, dyes and synthetic fabrics, bright bold colour was avidly adopted in all aspects of design. Such developments were seen as the long awaited discovery in the search of modern ornament and decoration -- a modern ornament that would induce Paulsson's 'strong emotional impact'.

The search that had begun with Stockholm 1930 and Gunnar Asplund had made progress. New materials and processes were available to make modern ornament, and give personality to utility. While continental Modernists such as Corbusier considered ornament superfluous and irrelevant to Modernism, Casson and his team, just like Asplund, were desperate to decorate the machine. Ornament was considered so important that a Festival Pattern Group was formed to search for new forms. [23] Crystal structures, microscopic organisms, bacterial forms and molecular models all became inspiration for patterns.

The consistency and coherence of Casson's exhibition was distinctive, and seemed to express the prevailing public mood for relaxation from a decade of privation. The heroic phase of postwar history was over and social change moved on from questions of structure to questions of style. [24]

It was through the contemporary style that Casson and his team were to tame the machine. Yet, as at Stockholm in 1930, the architecture at the South Bank was largely unremarkable. In contrast with the Townscape which was brilliantly inventive, individual buildings were of ephemeral mediocrity. [25] Anyone who had seen the architecture of Stockholm, or the 1949 Milan Fair, Reyner Banham said, would have seen 'seemingly irrefutable evidence of blatant plagiarism'. [26]

The exhibition was seen as Britain catching up with European Modernism, which was considered positive by members of CIAM, who were in England at the time. The fact that they had seen it all before did not disappoint. It was enough to see Britain promoting a Modern attitude to design. The architecture of the Festival did not live up to Casson's expectations as presented to the RIBA in 1950. There he proclaimed that exhibitions represent 'a bold pioneering pathway hacked by adventurers through the Jungle', and that through history have been, 'the laboratory of architecture, the nursery of new ideas, the testing ground for experiment'. [27] After the exhibition he conceded that 'there is nothing outrageously new in the South Bank Exhibition'. [28] While this may be seen as an admission of failing to pioneer, the nursery of new ideas can be seen as the paternalism of leading the nation gently into the future. The contemporary style removed the visionary heat of Modernism from the exhibition, and replaced it wit h a cajoling warmth. [29] It was the machine needed to be decorated to eliminate the dichotomy between the theory of the intellectuals and the sensibility of the 'cloth capped masses'. [30] What was new at the Festival, as Casson continued, was that 'to the layman for the first time, modern architecture has been seen not as a series of isolated structures, but as a new environment, in which buildings, landscape, street furniture, sculpture, lettering and colour all speak the same language'. [31]

As a complete visual experience, the exhibition was extremely popular. The Architects' Journal reported: 'The really encouraging and delightful fact is that modern architecture, the contemporary style, call it what you will, is overwhelmingly popular'. [32]

The architectural quality of individual pavilions was virtually ignored by the critics. Just as few people can recall individual buildings from Stockholm 1930, few pavilions stood out from the whole. Even the AR had trouble finding anything positive to say about them, beyond commenting on their ingenious integration into the route of the story. [33] In fact, Richards attempted to justify the irrational, superfluous multiplication of decorative elements that confused the otherwise pragmatic functionalism of structurally expressive pavilions. 'The interior of the Lion and Unicorn pavilion is immensely rich, almost to the point in some places, of being visually indigestible. But since this building deals with abstract ideas, the designers had more of an excuse than most to indulge in a multiplication of decorative conceits'. [34]

This whimsical, fussy over-decoration and repetition, while adding to the unity of a new urbanity, was to mislead people into thinking that architecture was styling. Gerald Barry, in spite of his fundamental involvement in the exhibition, had to admit, 'The South Bank quickly deteriorated into a cliche for every coffee bar or renovated pub. The trouble is that it seems to have got stuck -- design has not gone forward from where the South Bank left off. [35]

While the contemporary style gave the exhibition and the South Bank an identity, providing people with a coherent civic space, it distracted the architects from real creativity. In stark contrast, as a riposte to their own populist romanticism, in the same year, the editors of The Architectural Review published Clive Entwistle's unashamedly Corbusian 'Alternative Plan for the South Bank'. [36] As the translator of Corbusier's Vers une Architecture Entwistle was devoted to the cause of Heroic Modernism and viewed Corbusier as the 'emperor of all optimists'. In his proposal, Entwistle took the tabula rasa philosophy which showed aspects Corbusier's Ville Contemporaine, with few concessions to the genius loci. This 'alternative' was dismissed by the AR's editorial, as a meaningless irrelevance. 'It exemplifies, brilliantly, an aesthetic approach which ... is totally at variance with English aesthetic tradition in town planning and landscaping. Nevertheless, all efforts are welcome'. [37]

STOCKHOLM FOCUSED the desire to develop a Modernism that would fit into Britain's historical context. At the time of the Festival, the attitude of the conventional majority was expressed by Reginald Blomfield who as their most articulate spokesman said, 'The new architecture is essentially Continental in its origin and inspiration, and it claims as a merit that it is cosmopolitan. As an Englishman and proud of his country, I detest and despise cosmopolitanism'. [38]

As the product of a nation whose taste and sense of beauty was considered to be more akin to that of Britain than of any other nation, Asplund's work demonstrated that it was possible to combine traditionalism with modernity. [39] While New Empiricism was an attempt to demonstrate the 'Swedishness' of Sweden in Modernism, Pevsner and the AR emphasized the 'Englishness' of England in his work on the Picturesque. Having demonstrated Picturesque elements in the work of Corbusier and Gropius, Pevsner and the AR established the populist 'Contemporary Style'.

This is a slightly altered extract from a thesis presented to Bath University in 1996.

(1.) Banham, R. The Revenge of the Picturesque. Concerning Architecture, The Penguin Press, 1968, p265.

(2.) Stonor Saunders, F. Clean While World, Hidden Hands London: Channel Pour, 1995.

(3.) For 'New Empiricism' see The Architectural Review, January 1947.

(4.) For New Objectivity' see Frampton, K, Modern Architecture -- a Critical History Thames & Hudson, 1980, pp130-142.

(5.) Ahlin, J. Sigard Lewerentz Architect, The MIT Press, 1982, p11.

(6.) Ahlin, J. ibid, p11.

(7.) Shand, M. 'Stockholm 1930', The Architectural Review, August 1920, p68.

(8.) Wernher, Sir Harold. 'Progress', The Architectural Review, August 1930, p52.

(9.) Cullen, G. 'Bankside Regained', The Architectural Review, January 1949, pp15-24.

(10.) Clark, H. F. 'Space Between Buildings -- the Landscaping of Stockholm's Parks'. The Architectural Review, December 1949, pp189-198.

(11.) Jencks, C. Modern Movements in Architecture, Middlesex: Pelican, 1973, p246.

(12.) Chitty, A. M. 'The South Bank Reviewed', RIBA Journal, June 1951, p316.

(13.) 'In search of a New Monumentality', The Architectural Review, September 1948, pp117-128.

(14.) Jackson, A. The Politics of Architecture London: The Architectural Press, 1970, pl77.

(15.) Rykwert, J. 'Architecture'. Cambridge guide to the arts in Britain since WW II, Ed. Ford, B. Cambridge University Press, 1988, p261.

(16.) Cullen, G. 'Legs and Wheels', The Architectural Review, August 1949, pp77-80.

(17.) Allwood, J. The Great Exhibitions, London: Studio Vista, 1977, p151.

(18.) Cox, I. 'The story the exhibition tells', Saudi Bank Exhibition - Festival of Britain Guide, London: HMSO, 1951, pp.8-9.

(19.) Jencks, C. op cit, p246.

(20.) Frayn, M. 'Festival', The Age of Austerity, Oxford University Press, 1986, pp307-326.

(21.) Clark, H. F. 'Space Between Buildings - the Landscaping of Stockholm's Parks', The Architectural Review, December 1949, pp196.

(22.) Richards, J. M. 'The Exhibition Buildings', The Architectural Review, August 1951, p182.

(23.) Rykwert, J. op. cit, p.294

(24.) Addison, P. Now the War is Over, London: British Broadcasting Corporation, 1985, p207.

(25.) Jackson, A. op cit, p177.

(26.) Banham, R. 'The Style: "Flimsy ... Effeminate"?' A Tonic to the Nation, London: Thames & Hudson, l976, p19l.

(27.) Casson, H. 'The 1951 Exhibition' read before the RIBA, March 1950, The RIBA Journal, April 1950, pp207-2l5.

(28.) Casson, H. 'Foreword' Festival Plan.

(29.) Appleyard, B. The Pleasures of Peace, Faber & Faber, 1989, p30.

(30.) Ibid, p41.

(31.) Casson, op cit.

(32.) The Editorial, The Architects' Journal, CXIII, 1951, p6l9.

(33.) Richards, J.M. 'The Exhibition Buildings', The Architectural Review, August 1951, pp123-135.

(34.) Ibid, pp124.

(35.) Banham, R. op cit, p195.

(36.) Entwistle, C. 'An Alternative Plan for the South Bank', The Architectural Review, March 1949,pp113-118.

(37.) The Editorial ibid, pp113-118.

(38.) Jackson, A. op cit, p15.

(39.) Shand, M. op cit.