The Other Tradition of Modern Architecture.

Colin St John Wilson's reputation as an architect was made 30 years ago, and his most important work, the British Library, is nearing completion, promising to transcend both the political struggles that have dogged its realisation and the insults hurled at it by the uninformed. His buildings alone mark a fruitful career, but Wilson, Professor Emeritus at Cambridge, has also long been a leading educator, theorist and commentator, combining great breadth of knowledge with philosophical depth.

Spurred on by the success of Architectural Reflections, his selected essays published a couple of years ago, he set out to build a more complete argument in the current book. The Other Tradition is about an overdue reconstruction of the history of the Modern Movement, about having fallen in and out of love with Le Corbusier, about the discovery of alternative heroes such as Alvar Aalto, Gunnar Asplund, Sigurd Lewerentz, Hans Scharoun, Hugo Haring, Jan Duiker and Eileen Gray, and about recognising an alternative view of architecture's role. Lucidly written, it is an important and provocative work which should spark off much discussion.

The book is in three parts. The first, entitled 'what went wrong?' begins with the battle of La Sarraz. This was the site of the first CIAM conference in 1928, where Le Corbusier arrived in advance to plot 'un plan de bataille' with secretary Sigfried Giedion. Their campaign succeeded and they took over the organisation, setting the agenda for years to come, but not without fighting off various dissidents, notably Hugo Haring who represented the Berlin 'Ring'. Wilson claims that the Corbusian takeover, with its doctrinaire formulae, narrowed and impoverished the Modern Movement at the outset: in Aalto's words, the architectural revolution 'began with enthusiasm and ended with dictatorship'. Insult was added to injury in 1932 with the invention of the International Style by Henry Russell Hitchcock and Philip Johnson, who turned their backs on the principles and social intentions of European Modernism to concentrate instead on formal issues, reducing it to a mere style.

The second part, entitled 'doctrine', is the densest and most ambitious, with a web of argument too intricate to follow here in detail. The central point is that architecture, born of necessity and service, is misunderstood if perceived as part of the fine arts. According to Wilson, it never was so perceived in antiquity, but only in relatively modern times. Following Kant's theory of the disinterested aesthetic, a wedge was driven between art and utility that has caused endless problems ever since, leading equally to the empty formalism of the Beaux Arts and to the blunt utilitarianism of Hannes Meyer. The way out of this dilemma is what Lethaby called 'the art of high utility'. Wilson borrows as a parable Goethe's speculation in the Italian Journey about the origin of the amphitheatre at Verona. A performance taking place, people gathered around it, and those behind started to pile up boxes, carts, furniture, anything to get a view. So the bowl-like place formed itself, its definition in permanent architecture following on later. The building became what it wanted to be, shaped by the life it was destined to serve.

The final part of the book comprises four case studies. The first takes competition entries for the town hall at Marl, Germany in 1958, special for Wilson because both Aalto and Scharoun entered with designs articulating the programme, in contrast with the orthodox Miesian slabs of the day. The second contrasts Aalto's wonderfully daylit art gallery at Aalborg with Mies' mausoleum-like Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin, while the third takes student residences at Boston (Mass) by Aalto and Gropius. The message throughout these case studies is that architecture must serve life rather than itself, and this makes a dramatic crescendo with the last. The victor of La Sarraz built a house for his host, Madame de Mandrot, which was not unattractive in form, but was condemned by her as 'absolutely uninhabitable'. Wilson blames not just the leaks, but the poor spatial design of the living room. Le Corbusier was unrepentant, interested only in formal issues. This house is contrasted with Eileen Gray's slightly earlier house for herself and Jean Badovici at Roquebrune, a building dedicated to comfort and habitability. Curiously, Le Corbusier became obsessed by Gray's house, and could not leave it alone. In 1939, he persuaded Badovici to let him paint murals in it, to Gray's disgust: she considered it violated and never visited it again. Later, he persuaded a friend to buy it, and he was living there at the time of his fatal swim. It seems that even the great man himself preferred to occupy the architecture of 'the other tradition' that he had so successfully suppressed.

PETER BLUNDELL JONES