Donald Pittenger writes:

Dear Blowhards --

Terry Teachout, inspired by an exhibit about Buckminster Fuller, penned this article for this weekend's Wall Street Journal.

As usual, I'll excerpt it in case it disappears from the WSJ site.

Was modernism totalitarian? That's coming at it a bit high, but it's true that more than a few top-tier modernists were also one-size-fits-all system-mongers who thought the world would be improved if it were rebuilt from top to bottom -- so long as they got to draw up the plans. Just as Arnold Schoenberg wanted to scrap traditional harmony in favor of his 12-tone system of musical composition, so did Le Corbusier long to demolish the heart of Paris and turn it into an ultraefficient "machine for living" dominated by cookie-cutter high-rise apartment towers. So what if the rest of the world liked things the way they were? Send in the bulldozers anyway!

It isn't that these artists were especially bloodthirsty. While some would gladly have sent their opponents to the nearest guillotine, most operated on the rosy-colored assumption that sweet reason would be sufficient in and of itself to usher in a kinder, gentler millennium.

I always read that it was the house that would be turned into a "machine for living" but perhaps Corbu someplace or other extended that idea to the city as a whole; it isn't a long stretch to say the same thing about cities. Knowledgeable comments are welcome to set me, Terry, or both of us straight.

That aside, modernism was never a cute, fuzzy little way of ordering the world: it was demanding.

Later on [after the 1930s] he [Fuller] expanded his vision [from houses, cars, etc.] to encompass city planning on the widest possible scale, going so far as to envision placing a climate-controlled geodesic dome over the whole of Manhattan.

If such schemes bring Frank Lloyd Wright to mind, there's a good reason: Fuller was a Wright-like figure, a high-octane utopian who believed in the life-enhancing potential of modern technology. The difference was that Fuller lacked Wright's ruthless determination. He was either incapable of or uninterested in following through on his ideas -- and he was, unlike Wright, the opposite of an aesthete. The Dymaxion Car and Dymaxion House are logical, even elegant, but not truly beautiful, and the closer you look at them, the less attractive they seem.

On the other hand, Fuller's ambitions extended far beyond the creation of beautiful cars and houses. Not until the '60s did he find his footing as a public figure, and when he did it was not as a designer but a seer, a prophet of change who believed that "utopia is possible now." ...

Not only did Buckminster Fuller think big, but he was sure that the only way to fix the world was by fixing every corner of it simultaneously. "We are not going to be able to operate our Spaceship Earth successfully, nor for much longer, unless we see it as a whole spaceship and our fate as common," he declared. "It has to be everybody or nobody." It seems never to have occurred to him that his all-or-none "solutions" to the world's problems could only be imposed from above by a totalitarian regime, which doubtless explains why they continue to appeal to brainy technocrats who are no less sure of their own ability to make Spaceship Earth a clean, well-lighted place. All they need is enough money -- and, sooner or later, enough guns.

I was aware of Fuller from the time I was in grade school thanks to a photo of his Dymaxion car in an encyclopedia, and followed his career into the 1970s. I even bought a book or two about or by him, but never got around to reading more than a few pages. Too idiosyncratic, too odd for my taste.

To return to Teachout's main theme, I now find it interesting that as a youth and young man I swallowed the whole modernism thing. Probably I was trying really hard to be an intellectual (or at least an intellectual snob). And to be an intellectual aesthete, modernism was the only way to go back in the 1950s and 60s.

Moreover, the notion that modernism had (and has) a totalitarian streak didn't gel until ... well, I'm not quite sure when: it was a long process. This was in spite of my college experiences while taking art and, especially, architectural design classes where it was implicit that modernism was the only way to go. Both then and post-college there was the incessant drumbeat that, whereas the Masters and Greek and Roman stuff were fine, anything non-modernist created after 1870 or so was subject to dismissal or even ridicule by the art elites. For some reason it took a long while for me to realize that this too was a heavy-handed attempt at thought-control.

I should add that modernist apologists had plenty of nice-sounding arguments to make their case. Stuff like form following function, honesty to materials, respect for the flatness of the canvas and all that. It can take a while for slow-witted folks like me to see beyond the slogans.

Finally, it might be almost a given that bright people with well-articulated worldviews and idea systems have a greater than average tendency to want to see to it that the rest of the world buys into their positions. I have to conclude that it's one more aspect of human nature and that, fortunately, most such people are tucked away in academia where the damage they do tends to be minimized compared to what it would be if they were, say, politicians.

Later,

Donald

Great set of reflections!

Posted by: Michael Blowhard on May 16, 2009 2:44 PM

I wish I had written that.

Posted by: Charlton Griffin on May 16, 2009 3:00 PM

Here is some video of the Dymaxion Car...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlLZE23EJKs

Posted by: Charlton Griffin on May 16, 2009 5:26 PM

Modernism was always more than just an aesthetic movement, it was a way of better living through better design. Its vision was always Utopian.

Posted by: slumlord on May 16, 2009 7:00 PM

... bright people with well-articulated worldviews and idea systems have a greater than average tendency to want to see to it that the rest of the world buys into their positions. ...fortunately, most such people are tucked away in academia where the damage they do tends to be minimized compared to what it would be if they were, say, politicians.

Unless of course they become politicians; e.g. Woodrow Wilson.

Posted by: Rich Rostrom on May 16, 2009 8:26 PM

The English Arts and crafts movement was about better living through better design and was, at heart, Utopian. But arts and Crafts saw itself as emerging from an existing aestheitic tradition and celebrated the handcrafted object. Modernism rejected traditional aesthetic sensibilities and glorified the machine. Arts and Crafts structures give the impression of having always been there. Modernist stuff looks like some space ship has landed. Heaven is designed by William Morris, Hell by Corbusier!

Posted by: Bradamante on May 16, 2009 9:05 PM

Academia is where the damage is maximized, not where it is minimized.

What percentage of the world's heads of state do you think went to college at Harvard or another Ivy institution?

Posted by: yog slogoth on May 17, 2009 12:05 AM

I'm not so sure Schoenberg wanted to "scrap traditional harmony"-- he wrote several texts thereon, and complained that his UCLA students were insufficiently trained therein-- so there. He also told them, "There are plenty of good pieces waiting
to be written in C major."

Did you know that Terry Teachout hails from the same town as Rush Limbaugh? It used to be the refrigerator magnet capital of the world, as well.

Posted by: Reg Cæsar on May 17, 2009 2:12 AM

So, DP, you would have us believe that you aren't a Modernist. How subversive of you! ; )

Of course all that matters is fine tuning the huge government machine that we all live inside these days. Just enough flexibility to absorb the shocks from those leftists and rightists who would destabilize all if left to their own devices: Draw them out, reflect their ideas, diffuse/confound their efforts.

The individual doesn't matter nor the country really only the GOVERNMENT must be preserved at all costs.

Posted by: withheld on May 17, 2009 4:14 AM

"... the life-enhancing potential of modern technology."

It's interesting that the criticism of modernism, at least here, so often casts a blind eye to the technology part of the modernist equation to focus tightly on aesthetics. My own suspicion is that to deal with the technology issues would mean a far greater cast of "villains" might be implicated, including many from the right, whose aesthetics may be less overtly modernist, but whose predilections for top down, 'we know what's good for you', thinking is even more extreme. Would, for instance, Bill Gates count as a 'modernist' whose influence exceeds that of, say, Frank Gehry if looked at this way?

Finally, it might be almost a given that bright people with well-articulated worldviews and idea systems have a greater than average tendency to want to see to it that the rest of the world buys into their positions. I have to conclude that it's one more aspect of human nature and that, fortunately, most such people are tucked away in academia where the damage they do tends to be minimized compared to what it would be if they were, say, politicians.

Like Dick Cheney perhaps? Or Ronald Reagan whose worldview lives on in the popularity among certain folks for a "missile defense shield"? Or what if we go back a bit in time to the arguable peak of the modernist era and look at Ike's interstate highway system?

Nah, let's all just bitch about buildings that don't have stone gargoyles and how ugly geodesic domes are.

Posted by: Chris White on May 17, 2009 8:17 AM

Reg -- Teachout and Limbaugh do not come from the same town, Rush is from Cape Girardeau and Terry is from Sykeston (if I recall correctly), a smaller place about 30 miles south. My great-grandfather passed through these part in 1862 when he was in the Union army.

Chris -- The subject of the posting was modernism which is generally construed to mean a form of aesthetics and related physical form, coupled with the intellectual and social baggage that goes with it. This is not quite the same thing as modernity which is centered on technology and its fruits. As a practical matter, the two overlap, though I'm not quite sure what the Venn diagram would look like. In many respects, technology-based modernity has a life of its own and the rest of us are left to selectively approve or become horrified aspects of it. Aesthetic modernism seems more akin to other movements (Romanticism, Classicism, etc.) and can wax or wane without any direct influence on the technology that feeds modernity.

The concern of Teachout and some of the rest of us is when aesthetic modernism unites with political agendas or otherwise becomes coercive. Any "movement" becomes self-defining, which creates a real or imagined "other" to aid the self-definition. This is okay so long as it stays within bounds. But sometimes those bounds are exceeded or seem to be in danger of that; Bucky's call change the world all in one sweep would seem to be one instance.

Posted by: Donald Pittenger on May 17, 2009 9:57 AM

Wright was arrogant and utopian but not really "modernist" -- sort of like what Bradamante says about arts and crafts. He had a much more handcrafted and eclectic aesthetic than the doctrinaire modernists. A real American original. I think he was a genius. Artists are often arrogant.

Posted by: MQ on May 17, 2009 12:47 PM

This is a good post about modernism and academia. This attitude describes perfectly the attitude of smart people who are liberals.

The liberal smart people have this belief that because they are smarter than everyone else, that they can create the perfect social system that will work perfectly if only everyone else lines up to "get with the program".

Posted by: kurt9 on May 17, 2009 1:37 PM

The subject may be modernism but from the headline, "Big Brother Bucky", to the linked article quotes and salient commentary it appears that the topic is not whether the geodesic dome or the Dymaxion Car or House were aesthetically pleasing, but how modernism was/is a "heavy-handed attempt at thought-control." If you're making a case that it isalmost a given that bright people with well-articulated worldviews and idea systems have a greater than average tendency to want to see to it that the rest of the world buys into their positions ... " wouldn't Bill Gates or Steve Jobs be more logical candidates for "Big Brother" status than Bucky Fuller?

Posted by: Chris White on May 17, 2009 2:39 PM

Chris: when did Gates or Jobs try to impose their ideas on the rest of the world? Each of them a limited set of ideas about computing and sold it to a large fraction of the market - Gates, obviously, much more successfully than Jobs. Neither of them, AFAIK, has ever suggested that his model pf Computing is the One True Way. Nor are they known for proposing Grand Schemes that could only be implemented by enforcing universal cooperation.

Posted by: Rich Rostrom on May 17, 2009 8:31 PM

"... bright people with well-articulated worldviews and idea systems have a greater than average tendency to want to see to it that the rest of the world buys into their positions."

Fine, but why not include the scientists in this? It's the Dennetts & Dawkinses, et al., who are our current-day totalitarians.

Posted by: Angela on May 17, 2009 9:16 PM

"...wouldn't Bill Gates or Steve Jobs be more logical candidates for "Big Brother" status than Bucky Fuller?"

No. And you're only making an ass of yourself like you did in the linkage post a week ago.

Posted by: Enuf on May 17, 2009 11:13 PM

If Bucky Fuller can be put forth as a candidate for "Big Brother" because he once proposed encasing Manhattan in a geodesic dome thinking it would enable climate control for an entire city, I don't think it is much of a stretch to suggest Gates for the role. Certainly the impact of millions of computers around the world running integrated Microsoft suites on a proprietary platform comes closer to an example of bright people with well-articulated worldviews and idea systems hav[ing] a greater than average tendency to want to see to it that the rest of the world buys into their positions than an idiosyncratic character like Fuller.

Bucky was never hauled into various Federal and international courts to defend monopolistic business practices with the practical result of controlling how the vast majority of computer users interface with their machines. The PC versus MAC GUI rivalry is very much an aesthetic debate in which the Microsoft position can easily be seen as tied to the modernist ideals of "form following function, honesty to materials ... and all that."

Since no one has seriously suggested that modernist architects, including Fuller, ever staged a coup enabling them to impose their building designs on an unwilling world, but rather that they used their status to convince paying clients to go along, I think Gates or Jobs can be put forth for consideration.

In what way is it logical or consistent to claim that a modernist architect designing a building for a paying client is a sign of evil, leftist, modernists trying to impose their ideas on the rest of the world from the top down while a corporation with near monopolistic grip on the world computer market determining how people's computers function is not?

Posted by: Chris White on May 18, 2009 8:27 AM

I basically agree with CW here, adding that it's the collusion of trendy architects and their wealthy clients that can impose a vision upon us plebs. Of course, no one is forcing those wealthy clients to choose modernist designs. It's a nice example of the free market at work. As stated in previous posts, modernist building designs are generally cheaper and faster to build than more traditional designs, so guess what is often chosen by corporations?

I'll also add (again) that modernist building designs are generally more stable in the case of an earthquake or other disaster. Traditional flourishes on top of the modernist structural components are basically shrapnel during an earthquake. I think these factors should be mentioned when discussing this topic.

Posted by: JV on May 18, 2009 1:37 PM

Donald and others will speak for themselves. Me, I don't mind visionaries if/when they're daffy provocateurs like B. Fuller. (He may have taken himself very seriously -- let's hope. But he was also no Robert Moses, doing a lot of practical damage trying to bulldoze a traditional city.) Zany extremists can be fun. We have to know how to take 'em, though, and it's almost always a good idea to be wary, and to keep them out of power.

I'm perfectly fine with ridiculing Bill Gates. Happy to be corrected here, but didn't he play all kinds of sketchy hardball semi-forcing lots of businesses to use Windows? And Windows sucks. But he strikes me as not a utopian visionary at all, just a ruthless-asshole businessguy. In other words, he isn't someone trying to impose ideas and aesthetics on the world.

Vis a vis the price of modernist designs vs. trad ... As I mentioned before, the main reason this is true is apparently that the system has been optimized to make it true. Matters like "depreciation rules" count for a lot here. Many of these buildings aren't going to last for long (thank heavens), and you can write them off quickly. If you evaluate the cost of these buildings through a different lens (how much is it going to cost over, say, 50 years), traditional buildings start looking much better.

The system is rigged against trad buildings, in other words -- it's a situation much like food. Not a neutral playing field but one that's been rigged to support and encouraged industrial-style calorie production. Much of the work of New Urbanists has involved trying to un-do some of these laws and rules. It's literally against the law in many parts of the country to build new versions of old-style towns and villages.

Also, these modernist buildings are cheaper even in the short term only when you buy a basic box. When you buy something glittery and name-brand -- a torque'd Hadid or a twisty Gehry -- you're paying as much as you'd pay for a trad building. (You're also saying Yes to high-priced maintenance. These flashy experimental buildings are temperamental.)

As for earthquakes ... Haven't read anything about that myself. I think the idea though that traditional architecture is nothing but "flourishes" glued to modernist structural components though is a little awry. Traditional building practice is a thoroughgoing system, and you can buy into it to varying degrees. An example: you could build yourself a glass-and-steel box, but you could ensure that it plays by traditional rules of urbanism where its site and its neighbors are concerned. (Modernist buildings generally don't do that, but they can be made to.)

Posted by: Michael Blowhard on May 18, 2009 4:09 PM

Michael Blowhard:

The system is rigged against trad buildings, in other words -- it's a situation much like food. Not a neutral playing field but one that's been rigged to support and encouraged industrial-style calorie production. Much of the work of New Urbanists has involved trying to un-do some of these laws and rules. It's literally against the law in many parts of the country to build new versions of old-style towns and villages.

Still, as someone who hates modernist architecture viscerally, I often find it hard to explain the apparent appeal that modernism has for so many people. An especially baffling example is the Catholic Church. Many, if not most of its leaders in recent decades have developed a bizarre fondness for architectural modernism, and consequently, if your local parish church or cathedral has been built since the sixties, it's more likely than not to be a drab and soulless modernist slab, and it's not at all unlikely to be an outright atrocity. (The same often goes for the interior church art too -- altogether a sad fate for the institution that used to regularly commission some of the most magnificent architecture and art in the world.)

This certainly isn't due to any financial reasons. Many of these hideous modernist churches are in fact extremely expensive trendy projects (for example, the recently built cathedrals in LA and Oakland cost almost $200M each), and in any case, just look at the beautiful churches that even small towns and villages managed to afford centuries ago, in times of unimaginable poverty by today's standards. Something about modernism exercises such a powerful grip over some people's minds that their aesthetic preferences are warped to the point where I can't find anything in any traditional culture on Earth that looks so alien and odd in its ugliness as the stuff that they prefer to build. I mean, some powerful people in the Catholic hierarchy have apparently chosen this design for the cathedral of one of the larges cities in Christendom. How to explain that?

Posted by: Vladimir on May 19, 2009 2:18 AM

Teachout and Limbaugh do not come from the same town...

Both men were born in Cape Girardeau, though Teachout grew up in Sikeston. So it depends on where one's definition of "comes from" comes from!

Posted by: Reg Cæsar on May 19, 2009 11:47 PM

Your mention of heavy-handed thought control brought back memories of an achitectural history course in which the professor emphasized that Hitler didn't like modernism. I guess modernism must be good, then!

Posted by: Martin Regnen on May 20, 2009 8:48 AM

Vladimir: that image you linked to - my God, it is an Aztec temple human-sacrifice platform cross-bred with a maximum security prison and then mated to a fly-blown multiplex cinema from an economically decaying section of town. Evil. Anti-human, Anti-Christ, anti-transcendent, the architectural expression of an anti-Church with a mission to crush any aspiration toward light, joy, and salvation. But, as you ask, why is it that "if your local parish church or cathedral has been built since the sixties, it's more likely than not to be a drab and soulless modernist slab, and it's not at all unlikely to be an outright atrocity"? Why does so much modern church architecture express such a horror of the transcendent? Why do they look and feel like things that could not possibly have been built by people who had faith in a god? Because they aren't? The phrase "whited sepulchres" comes to mind. They are built not ad maiorem Dei gloriam but as monuments to the Pharisees' self-regard.

Posted by: Moira Breen on May 23, 2009 8:31 PM






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