Mannerism and Modern

Architecture

First published in the Architectural Review,

1950. Though this littlc piecc, particularly in
its discussion o f Cubism, has been painful t o
me since before the day of its publication, i t
has here been allowed to stand substantially
as published. Though a present day rehearsal
of its arguments (in which I s t i l l believe)
would surely employ a profoundly different
strategy, because this article has long en-
joyed a certain notoriety I can see no way o f
correcting i t s obscurities and maintaining i t s
sense. Today the art historical discussion o f
Mannerism has achieved levels o f sophistica-
tion and detachment which c. 1950 were
simply not available; but, on the other hand,
it is not evident that the modern architect's
consciousness o f sixteenth century themes
has been considerably advanced. There are
still two bodies o f information- the one art
historical, the other modern architectur-
al-and the possibilities o f their convergence
in a work o f rational exegesis still remain
remote. Sincc the writing o f this article the
initiatives o f Robert Venturi have, to some
extent, illuminated the situation. Neverthe-
less, while Venturi has been quite unabashed
in his parade o f elements o f Mannerist origin
and while, by these means, he has extended
the theater o f architectural discourse, the
theme modern architecture and Mannerism
still awaits the extended and positive inter-
pretation which it deserves.
30 Mannerism and Modern Architecture

Le Corbusier's Villa Schwob at La Chaux-de-Fonds of 191 6 (Plates 17, 18), his

first considerable work t o be realized, in spite of i t s great merits and obvious his-
torical importance, finds no place in the collection of the Oeuvre complete; and
its absence is entirely understandable. This building is obviously out of key with
his later works; and, by its inclusion with them, the didactic emphasis of their
collection might have been impaired. But the omission is all the more unfortu-
nate, in that six years later, the building was s t i l l found sufficiently serious to be
published as an exemplar of proportion and monumentality.'
The house is of nearly symmetrical form; and, in spite o f a general lightness
deriving from its concrete frame, its conventional character is fairly emphatic. The
principal block is supported by flanking wings; and a central hall, rising through
two stories and crossed by a subsidiary axis, establishes for the plan a simple, bal-
anced, and basically cruciform scheme. The appearance, externally, of these same
characteristics of restrained movement and rational elegance seems t o invite ap-
preciation in neo-Classical terms; and thus, while the lack o f ornament with the
simplified cornices suggests the influence of Tony Garnier and the expression of
the concrete frame in the flanking walls indicates an obvious debt t o Auguste
Perret, the elliptical windows are part o f the stock furniture o f French academic
architecture and the building as a whole-compact, coherent, and precise-is an
organization which the later eighteenth century might have appreciated and a
work toward which a Ledoux, i f not a Gabriel, might have found himself sympa-
thetic. One may, it is true, recognize innovation in the simplification of elements,
although adequate Austrian and German precedent could no doubt be suggested;
one might also perceive in the two bedroom suites of the upper floor some pre-
monition of Le Corbusier's later spatial complexities; but, having made these ob-
servations, there is little t o be found, in plan and in three elevations at least,
which detracts from an almost conventional and conservative excellence.
But the fourth elevation, the entrance facade, presents quite distinct problems
of appreciation. Behind i t s wall the presence o f a staircase continued t o the third
floor has led t o an increase in height which somewhat detaches this part o f the
building from the rest; and this elevation further asserts a severe distinction from
the volume in its rear with which on superficial examination i t seems scarcely t o
be related. Indeed, i f i t s succinct, angular qualities are foreign to the curvilinear
arrangements o f the rest o f the building, i t s exclusive, rectilinear, self-sufficient
form seems also to deny the type of organization which reveals itself from the
garden.
The flat vertical surface o f the two upper floors is divided into three panels. The
31 Mannerism and Modern Architecture

outer ones are narrow and pierced by elliptical lunettes, but the central one is
elaborately framed, comprising an unrelieved, blank, white surface; and it is
toward this surface-and accentuated by all the means within the architect's con-
trol-that the eye is immediately led. The low walls, screening service rooms and
terrace, are curved inwar'ds rising towards it; the two entrance doors prepare a
duality to be resolved; the projecting marquise, with its supporting columns, com-
pletes the pregnant isolation o f the upper wall; the emphatic elliptical windows
increase the demand for a dominant; and, with the mind baffled by so elaborately
conceived an ambiguity, the eye comes to rest on the immaculate rectangle and
the incisive detail of i t s brick frame.
Contemplating this facade for any length of time, one is both ravished and im-
mensely irritated. Its moldings are o f an extreme finesse. They are lucid and com-
plex. The slightly curved window reveals are of considerable suavity. They reiter-
ate something o f the rotund nature of the building behind and help to stress
something of the flatness of the surface in which they are located. The contrast of
wall below and above the canopy excites; the dogmatic change o f color and tex-
ture refreshes; but the blank surface is both disturbance and delight; and i t is the
activity of emptiness which the observer is ultimately called upon to enjoy.
Since this motif, which is so curiously reminiscent o f a cinema screen, was pre-
sumably intended to shock, its success is complete. For it imbues the facade with
all the polemical qualities of a manifesto; and it is this blank panel with i t s intensi-
fying frame which endows other elements o f the facade-columns and canopy-
with a staccato quality seeming to foreshadow Le Corbusier's later development.
Distinct and deliberate, it draws attention to itself; and yet, without apparent
content, i t at once distributes attention over the rest o f the house. By i t s conclu-
siveness, the whole building gains significance; but, by its emptiness, it is, at the
same time, the problem in terms o f which the whole building is stated; and thus,
as apparent outcome of i t s systematically opposite values, there issue a whole
series o f disturbances of which it is both origin and result.
Behind the panel lies the staircase, the lighting o f which it can only impair, and
one must assume that an architect as apt as Le Corbusier could, had he wished,
have chosen some alternative and functionally more satisfactory organization;
while, even if it were to be supposed (improbable as i t appears) that the framed
surface was intended to receive some fresco or inscription, i t i s still a motif suffi-
ciently abnormal and recondite to stimulate curiosity and t o encourage a hunt for
possible parallels. And here the most probable field o f investigation would seem
to be Italian; not that with Le Corbusier any direct derivation should be expected,
 32 Mannerism and Modern Architecture

but that, in general terms, he so frequently appears t o be descended from the

architectural traditions of Renaissance humanism.
I n early Renaissance loggia and palace facades, sequences o f alternating win-
dows and panels do not appear t o be uncommon. In such more frequent se-
quences from the sixteenth century, panels and windows acquire almost equal
significance. Panels may be expressed as blank surfaces, or become a range of in-
scribed tablets, or again they may form the frames for painting; but whatever
their particular employment may be, the alternation o f a developed system of
paneling, with an equally developed system of fenestration, seems always t o pro-
duce complexity and duality o f emphasis in a facade. This is a qual~tywhich must
have given considerable pleasure t o the generation o f architects subsequent to
Bramante; and in the pages o f Serlio, for instance, panels occur in almost embar-
rassing profusion.* Sometimes they are t o be found in the typical alternation, or
on other occasions absorbing entire wall surfaces; in elongated form they are used
to intersect two whole ranges o f windows, or they may appear as the crowning
motif o f a triumphal arch or Venetian palace. I t was probably Serlio who first
employed the panel as the focus o f a facade. I n some cases he has groups o f win-
dows arranged on either side o f this reduced but evocative form o f central empha-
sis; but it also seems likely that in only two instances does the panel make a cen-
tral appearance within an elevation so restricted as that at La Chaux-de-Fonds;
and although comparisons o f this sort are frequently tendentious and overdrawn,
the so-called Casa di Palladio at Vicenza (Plate 19) and Federico Zuccheri's casino
in Florence (Plate 20) do show a quality sufficiently remarkable to permit their
interpretation as sixteenth century commentaries upon the same theme. Dating
from 1572 and 1578 respectively, small houses o f a personal and distinctly pre-
cious quality, it would be pleasant t o assume that they represented a type, a for-
mula for the later sixteenth century artist's house.
Palladia's building is apparently generated by the combination of a domestic
facade and an arcaded loggia which, in i t s ornaments, assumes the role of a tri-
umphal arch. Unlike the conventional triumphal arches of antiquity, however, a
developed Corinthian superstructure is included; and although on the ground
floor the two functions o f the loggia as part of a house and as part of a triumphal
arch are closely integrated, in itself the arch is even more intimately related t o the
panel formed by the Corinthian pilasters above. The breaking forward of the Ionic
entablature about the arch provides a direct vertical movement through the two
orders, emphasizing their interdependence, so that the panel retains the focus
developed by the arch below, but seems otherwise t o read as an intrusion pro-
 33 Mannerism and Modern Architecture

jected upward into the piano nobile; and its anomalous character is further in-
creased by details which suggest a respect for the functions o f the domestic fa-
cade. Thus such a feature as the balcony rail o f the windows, which emerges from
behind the pilasters t o appear i n the panel as a continuous string course, only
serves t o exaggerate, as it was presumably intended i t should, an already inherent
duality.
It need scarcely be pointed out that we are here i n the presence o f a formal
ambiguity of the same order as that which Le Corbusier was t o provide i n 191 6;
although in lucid, academic dress, the disturbance is less perceptible and perhaps
more complete. Palladio's inversion o f the normal is effected within the frame-
work o f the classical system, whose externals i t appears to respect; but in order to
modify the shock to the eyes, Le Corbusier's building can draw on no such con-
ventional reference. Both state the problem o f their complex duality with an ex-
treme directness and economy o f means, which, by comparison, causes Federico
Zuccheri's essay in the same composition to appear at once redundant and bi-
zarre.
Zuccheri's approach is altogether more violent, his building a jeri d'esprit con-
ceived as part o f a program o f personal advertisement illustrating his triple profes-
sion as painter, sculptor, and architect. Unlike Palladia, his two elements of focus,
the void of the entrance below and the solid o f the panel above, are not placed in
direct relationship; but each, as the dominant interest in strongly contrasted stone
and brick surfaces, appears set within an arrangement o f incident which both ac-
centuates and diminishes its importance. Two triangles o f interest are thereby
established. That below is formed by the three panels with their reliefs o f mathe-
matical instruments, that above is organized by windows and niches about the
central panel (in this case intended t o receive a painting); and this diffused inci-
dent, which i s still concentrated within strictly triangular schemes, establishes
a form o f composition different from Palladio's, so that, with Zuccheri, the par-
ticular ambiguity of the panel is o f less importance when compared with that o f
the entire facade.
The composition o f Zuccheri's lower wall is framed by rusticated pilasters
which seem t o restrict i t s details between quite rigid boundaries; but these pilas-
ters receive no downward transmission o f weight. Two advanced surfaces in the
upper story carry a form o f triglyph or bracket which seems t o suggest for them a
function o f support; but these are then displaced by niches from the position
above the pilasters which, reasonably, they might be expected t o occupy, while
the insertion within them of elaborately framed windows invalidates still further
 34 Mannerism and Modern Architecture

their apparent function. The niches in themselves, on first examination, seem t o

expand the interest of the upper wall and t o create there the appearance of an
organization as open as that of the wall below i s compressed; but, within this
organization it becomes clear that the different elements-niches, windows, and
panels-are, in reality, crushed in the harshest juxtaposition so that, on second
analysis, the contrast compels one t o attribute t o the supposedly compressed
basement an almost classical directness and ease.
The complexities and repercussions which such schemes elicit are endless and
almost indefinable; but patience, conceivably, exhausts itself in the explanation.
It would seem t o be abundantly clear that it is a dilemma o f dual significance, a
distinction between the thing as it is and as i t appears which seems t o haunt all
these three facades; and, if Zuccheri's building by comparison with the more lucid
expositions seems t o be something o f an exercise in genre, its second-hand quali-
ties, perhaps, enhance i t s value as a document, as almost a textbook illustration of
deliberate architectural derangement.
The two examples from the sixteenth century are characteristic late Mannerist
schemes, the most apt registers o f that alleged universal malaise which, in the arts,
while retaining the externals o f classical correctness, was obliged, at the same
time, t o disrupt the inner core of classical coherence.
In so-called academic or frankly derivative architecture, the recurrence in 191 6
of a form of composition which, at first glance, appears intrinsically Mannerist
might cause some, but perhaps not undue, surprise; but, occurring as i t does in the
main stream o f the modern movement, i t is remarkable that this blank panel
motif at La Chaux-de-Fonds should not have aroused more curiosity. I t i s not in
any way suggested that Le Corbusier's use o f the blank panel is dependent on the
previous instances; and it is not imagined that a mere correspondence o f forms
necessitates an analogous content. Such a correspondence may be purely fortu-
itous or it may be o f deeper significance.

Apart from Nikolaus Pevsner's article "The Architecture of Mannerism" and

Anthony Blunt's 1949 lecture at the Royal Institute o f British Architects, Man-
nerism, in i t s accepted sense as a style, has been the subject of no popular discus-
sion. Such discussion must obviously lie beyond the scope o f the present essay
which, for a frame o f reference, relies to a great extent on the article and lecture
just cited.3 I n the most general terms works produced between the years 1520
and 1600 are t o be considered Mannerist; and it i s hoped that the particular analy-
sis of two sixteenth century schemes has provided some illustration of types of
ambiguity that are characteristic.
 35 Mannerism and Modern Architecture

An unavoidable state o f mind, and not a mere desire to break rules, sixteenth
century Mannerism appears to consist in the deliberate inversion o f the classical
High Renaissance norm as established by Bramante, t o include the very human
desire to impair perfection when once i t has been achieved, and t o represent too a
collapse o f confidence in the theoretical programs o f the earlier Renaissance. As a
state o f inhibition, i t is essentially dependent on the awareness o f a preexisting
order: as an attitude o f dissent, i t demands an orthodoxy within whose frame-
work i t might be heretical. Clearly, if, as the analysis o f the villa at La Chaux-de-
Fonds suggests, modern architecture may possibly contain elements analogous to
Mannerism, i t becomes critical to find for i t some corresponding frame o f refer-
ence, some pedigree, within which i t might occupy an analogous position.
Among sources for the modern movement, the characteristic nineteenth century
demand for structural integrity has rightly received greatest emphasis. Dependent
to some extent on the technical innovations o f industrialism, this demand was
unexpectedly reinforced by the Revivalists, both Gothic and Greek; and i t was
they who transformed its original rational-empirical basis and imbued this struc-
tural impulse with a dynamic emotional and moral content, so that in this possi-
bly fallacious version, the structural tradition has remained one o f the most crude,
indiscriminate, and magnificently effective forces which we have inherited from
the nineteenth century.
But i t remains apparent that a system o f architecture cannot ever enjoy a purely
material basis, that some conception o f form must play an equal and opposite
role; and, although formal derivations for the modern movement often seem t o
impose too great a strain on the imagination, at a time no more remote than the
later nineteenth century i t is noticeable that advanced architecture from the
1870s onward belongs t o one o f two discernible patterns.
The program o f the first is certainly closest to our sympathy and its outlines
clearest in our minds. This was the heroic process o f simplification, the direct
assault upon nineteenth century pastiche o f a Philip Webb, a Richardson, or a
Berlage; and i t would seem that the central tradition o f modern architecture does
proceed from the personal conflict which such individuals experienced between
the authorities o f training and reason. Obedience t o the nature o f materials, t o the
laws o f structure, consecrated by the theorists o f the Gothic Revival and every-
where recognizable in the products o f contemporary engineering, seemed t o offer
an alternative to purely casual picturesque effects; and, from within such a frame-
work, it was felt that an architecture o f objective significance might be generated.
Thus for architects o f this school an inevitable tension was clearly experienced
36 Mannerism and Modern Architecture

between a pictorial education and the more purely intellectual demands which a
structural idealism imposes; and, being trained in pictorial method but insisting on
an architecture regulated by other than visual laws, their forms frequently bear all
the marks of the battleground from which they had emerged.
The alternative tendency, apparently, owes nothing to this dialectic; but, equal-
ly concerned with a rational solution o f the mid-nineteenth century impasse, it
found in physical attractiveness i t s architectural ideal. Without either the former
school's consistent vigor or narrow prejudice, the architects of this second school
look down the perspectives of history with a liberal eye and are anxious to coordi-
nate the ensuing suggestions. Thus, from an analysis a f function, there emerged a
discipline o f the plan; and, from the impressions o f a visual survey, that research
into architectural composition which engrossed so many. Adhering t o no distinct
formula of revival, there is a willingness in this second school t o combine motifs
from different styles; and, in the resultant amalgam, they appear as 'telling' fea-
tures in a composition, rather than for any further significance which they might
possess. Thus we find that Norman Shaw is able t o support late Gothic effects o f
mass with details from the school of Wren; and, when architecture is chiefly val-
ued as a source of visual stimuli, then obviously concern will chiefly be with
broad effects of movement, volume, silhouette, and relationship.
Neither of these two schools can be considered as completely independent, nor
as completely unaffected by the other's activities; but, while for the one an archi-
tecture objectively rooted in structure and craftsmanship is an emotional neces-
sity, the other neither finds such objectivity possible, nor perhaps desirable. For
the first school, architecture s t i l l possessed a certain moral quality-among its
purposes was that o f imparting a truth; for the second, the significance of archi-
tecture was more exclusively aesthetic-its purpose was to convey a sensation. The
architects of this second school saw the possibilities o f a rational manner t o l i e in
the expression of the sensuous content common to all phases of art; and, in this ,

emphasis, they are perhaps the more typical o f the later nineteenth century.
The great distinction of this period, i t s insistence on purely physical and visual
justification for form, appears to separate i t s artistic production from that of a l l
previous epochs-from the Renaissance by its failure to represent public ideas,
from the later eighteenth and early nineteenth century Romantic phase by i t s
elimination o f private literary flavor. For, although in intention, the architecture
of the early nineteenth century was pictorial, in practice, particularly through i t s
neo-Classical exponents, who have with justice been interpreted as the legatees o f
the Renaissance tradition, i t inherited a good deal o f earlier academic thought.
 37 Mannerism and Modern Architecture

But, for the later nineteenth century, the Renaissance is no longer a positive force
but a historical fact; and it is by the absence of the Renaissance theoretical tradi-
tion, with i t s emphasis upon other values than the visual, that particularly the
academic productions o f this time are most clearly distinguished.
Just as the Renaissance, in opposition to the eighteenth and nineteenth centu-
ries, conceives Nature as the ideal form o f any species, as a mathematical and Pla-
tonic absolute whose triumph over matter i t i s the purpose o f art to assist; so, i n
painting, i t seeks an infallibility o f form. Scientific perspective reduces external
reality t o a mathematical order; and, in so far as they can be brought into this
scheme, the 'accidental' properties o f the physical world acquire significance.
Therefore the artistic process i s not the impressionistic record o f the thing seen;
but is rather the informing o f observation by a philosophical idea; and, in Renais-
sance architecture, imagination and the senses function within a corresponding
scheme. Proportion becomes the result o f scientific deduction; and form (by these
means appearing as a visual aspect o f knowledge and typifying a moral state) ac-
quires the independent right to existence, apart from the sensuous pleasure which
it might elicit.
I t was not until the later eighteenth century that, with the empirical philosophy
of the Enlightenment, there emerged its corollary: the direct pictorial approach to
architecture and its evaluation according t o its impact on the eye. When Hume
was able to declare that "all probable knowledge i s nothing but a species o f sensa-
tion," the possibilities of an intellectual order seem to have been demolished; and
when he could add that "Beauty i s no quality in the things themselves" but
"exists merely in the mind which contemplates and each mind perceives a differ-
ent b e a ~ t y , " then
~ empiricism, by emancipating the senses, appears t o have pro-
vided the stimulus and the apologetic o f the great nineteenth century free-for-all.
Eclecticism and individual sensibility emerged as necessary by-products; and per-
sonal liberty was as effectively proclaimed for the world o f forms as, in 1789, i t
was asserted for the political sphere. But, just as politically the uncien regime lin-
gered on, so with earlier attitudes persisting, the Romantics saw indirectly accord-
ing to the associational value o f their forms; and i t was not until the furore of the
movement had spent itself that late nineteenth century 'realism' came to regular-
ize the situation.
After the mid-nineteenth century, perhaps because Liberalism and Romanticism
were no longer in active and revolutionary coalition, that moral zeal which had
once infused their joint program is less frequently found; and, in all activities, the
attempt now seems to have been made to systematize the Romantic experience,
 38 Mannerism and Modern Architecture

to extract 'scientific' formulae from i t s subjective enthusiasms. Thus, in architec-

ture, the Romantic forms and their sensational implications become progressively
codified; and, while the earlier phase had been sensible o f literary and archaeologi-
cal overtones, for the later these suggestions tend to be discounted. An eclectic
research into elements and principles o f architecture now arises which i s distin-
guished from the analyses of the Renaissance theorists by i t s exclusiveiy func-
tional and visual frames o f reference.
The development o f the idea of architectural composition might be cited as
typical of these generalizations. The conception o f architectural composition was
never, during the Renaissance, successfully isolated; and, while a Reynolds and a
Soane were alive to the scenic possibilities o f architecture, architectural composi-
tion as such does not play a large part in their theory. A developed literature upon
the subject is o f comparatively recent growth; and, as representing the coordina-
tion o f a subjective point o f view, the idea seems to be characteristic o f the later
nineteenth century.
Apart from an expressed antagonism to the exponents o f late nineteenth cen-
tury theory, modern architects have still not clarified their relationship to its
ideas; and, although these ideas now usually called academic have never been ef-
fectively replaced, modern architects generally have expressed a decisive but unde-
fined hostility towards them. "Moi je dis oui, I'academie dit non," Le Corbusier
inscribes a drawing; and, in the same spirit, functional, mechanical, mathematical,
sociological arguments have all, as extra-visual architectural sanctions, been intro-
duced t o provide counter-irritants. But a mere reaction from a system o f ideas is
scarcely sufficient t o eradicate that system; and, more than likely, in the sense
of providing a matrix, the dominant attitudes of the late nineteenth century were
historically effective in the evolution o f the modern movement.
It is a defect o f the pictorial approach, which takes account chiefly of masses
and relationships in their effect upon the eye, that frequently the object itself and
i t s detail suffer a devaluation. Subjected exclusively to the laws o f human sensa-
tion, the object is seen in impressionist manner and i t s inner substance, whether
material or formal, remains undeveloped. It is a defect of universalized eclecticism
that it must inevitably involve a failure to comprehend both historical and individ-
ual personality. I t s theorists perceive a visual common denominator of form but
are unable to allow the non-visual distinctions of content; and thus, indisposed t o
permit the internal individuality of particular styles, but affirming the ideal of
stylistic reminiscence, the late nineteenth century academy destroys the logic of
the historical process while i t insists on the value of historical precept.
 39 Mannerism and Modern Architecture

By all-inclusive tolerance history i s neutralized and the reduced effects o f the

eclectic method are rationalized i n order to support a more abstract investigation
of sensuous properties i n mass and proportion. Thus, almost by negative action, a
most powerful solvent of revivalism is provided; and i n advanced circles, by the
early twentieth century, with the identity o f the past destroyed and revivalist
motifs reduced to a mere suggestion, there is in general circulation a developed
and systematic theory o f the effects of architecture upon the eye.
With this conception the A r t Nouveau and the more expressionist schools of
contemporary architecture could certainly be associated; and, i n their direct sen-
sory appeal, those Mendelsohn sketches representing film studios, sacred build-
ings, observatories and automobile chassis factories,' might be considered a logi-
cal conclusion o f the idea of architecture as pictorial composition. Within the
terms of this tradition i t seems probable that advanced architects o f the structural
tradition came t o interpret the formal suggestions o f 'the styles'; and, for in-
stance, in Philip Johnson's monograph, there is clearly demonstrated the partial
dependence o f Mies van der Rohe's early designs on the works o f Schinkel. But, i f
schemes of Gropius have suggested a descent from the same sources, i t should be
noticed that this early twentieth century admiration for neo-Classicism was not
exclusive t o the modern movement, for so many commercial palaces and domestic
monuments betray the same affinity. I n these buildings, although attempts are
made to enforce classical detail, the necessarily increased scale or elaborated func-
tion leads either to inflation or towards a too discreet suggestiveness; and i t is in
reproducing the blocking, the outline, the compositional elements that the great-
est success seems to have been experienced.
The Edwardian baroque, in fact, offers admirable examples of the impressionist
eye brought t o bear upon the remnants o f the classical tradition; but, outside
these strictly academic limits, we find architects functioning within the structural
tradition whose point of view also remains decisively impressionist. And thus, for
instance, with the early Gropius, a compositional norm rather broadly derived
from neo-Classicism is actively balanced by the promptings o f a mechanized struc-
tu re.
As arising from such an antithesis between newly clarified conceptions o f vision
and structure those early twentieth century buildings which are rightly considered
to belong t o the modern movement can be understood, for, by other means, it
seems difficult t o account for the stylistic differences which separate the works of
these years from those which appeared in the 1920s. The buildings o f Perret, Beh-
rens, Adolf Loos, to name architects illustrated by Nikolaus Pevsner in his Pio-
40 Mannerism and Modern Architecture

neers o f Modern Design, are not naive, nor primitive; and they are evidently pre-
cursors of the later development. But, comparing, for instance, the Adolf Loos
Steiner House o f 191 0 in Vienna (Plate 21) with any typical production of the
twenties, it becomes clear that here there are differences o f formal ideal which
neither nationality, nor the temperament o f the architect, nor technical innova-
tion, nor the maturing of an idea, can fully explain.
Loos, with his fanatical attacks upon ornament, might possibly, from one point
of view, be considered as already showing Mannerist tendencies; but, allowing for
an elimination of extraneous detail and for a certain mechanistic excellence, this
house with i t s extreme severity and " i t s unmitigated contrast of receding centre
and projecting wings, the unbroken line o f the roof, the small openings in the
at ti^,"^ even in the horizontal windows, i s not entirely remote from the more
naked types of neo-Classical villa as projected by Ledoux. Without injustice it can
be evaluated by the pictorial criteria which we have discussed; and, although a
later nineteenth century academician might not have been overjoyed by the con-
templation o f this facade, there is nothing here t o which he could have raised final
theoretical objection.
But, such is certainly not the case with the villa at La Chaux-de-Fonds.

A work o f art lives according t o the laws o f the mind, and some form of abstrac-
tion clearly must form a basis for all artistic achievement; but it is apparent that,
over and above this minimum, a work may possess those specifically cerebral qual-
ities t o which the term 'abstract' is more conveniently applied, and it has, in this
sense, been commonly employed in the definition o f the Cubist and subsequent
schools of painting. The Cubist experiment-which can now be seen not as an
arbitrary break with tradition, but as the necessary development of an existing
situation-is the single most striking artistic event o f the early twentieth century.
I t s influence and that of abstract painting in general upon the modern movement
in architecture have been consistently emphasized, and their effects are obvious:
simplification and intersection, plane as opposed t o mass, the realization of prism-
like geometrical forms; in fact the developed manner o f the modern movement in
the twenties. But it is clear too that, although working with a visual medium, the
abstract art o f today is working with a not wholly visual purpose. For abstraction
presupposes a mental order o f which it is the representative.
Here i t is important t o distinguish between the process of abstraction in the
Renaissance and at the present day. Abstraction occurring in Renaissance art
makes reference t o a world of ideal forms, asserts what the artist believes t o be
 41 Mannerism and Modern Architecture

objective truth, and typifies what he considers t o be the scientific workings o f the
universe. Abstraction in contemporary art makes reference to a world o f personal
sensation and, in the end, typifies only the private workings o f the artist's mind.
There is thus, in both cases, a reluctance merely to report the outward forms of
the external world; but, in the one, it is related t o a world of public, in the other,
of private symbolism. And that private symbolism might form a basis for art i s
clearly a point of view inherited from the subjective attitudes of developed Ro-
manticism. Thus while, on the one hand, contemporary painting, in abandoning
the impressionist program, denies the value of sensational schemes which had
developed since the eighteenth century, on the other, i t affirms an attitude de-
rived from closely related sources.
This reaction t o sensation, at the same time positive and negative, is as character-
istic o f the output o f our own day as i t is o f certain works o f the sixteenth cen-
tury; and the analogy o f the development in painting might conveniently be ap-
plied t o architecture. Here one might notice how characteristic are Le Corbusier's
reactions towards the intellectual atmosphere o f 1900. His Oeuvre complete is a
production as developed and as theoretically informed as any o f the great archi-
tectural treatises o f the sixteenth century;and his published writings form perhaps
the most fertile, suggestive and exact statement o f a point of view which has
emerged since that time. Contradictions in a work of this scale are inevitable; and
they are public property. I t i s not these which require exposition; but rather it i s
those more specific contradictions which emerge vis-a-vis the pictorial, rationalis-
tic, universalized premises o f the opening century.
In affirming, through the medium of abstraction, a mental order, Le Corbusier
immediately dissents from the theory o f rationalized sense perception which was
current in 1900; but, disgusted by the inflated insipidity o f Beaux Arts practice,
he yet inherits its whole rationalized position in connection with the 'styles.' The
notes of travel from his student sketch book represent an eclectic principle which
that institution would have fully endorsed. There is here a fine lack o f distinction
which only the liberalism of the late nineteenth century could have permitted;
and, although each example is experienced with a passion of personal discovery,
this is still the characteristic theoretical program of the time. The Venetian Piaz-
zetta, PatteJsMonuments &rig& a la Gloire de Louis X V , the forum o f Pompeii
and the temples of the Acropolis, offer the material for a deduction o f the bases
of civic space; while impressions o f Stamboul, Paris, Rome, Pisa, and the temples
of Angkor Wat are jostled alongside notes from the plates o f Androuet du Cer-
ceau-apart from the later nineteenth century, no other phase in history could,
 42 Mannerism and Modern Architecture

with so magni-ficenta lack of discrimination, have comprised so wide a field.

But, if Towards a New Architecture i s read from time t o time and the reader
can avoid being absorbed by the persuasiveness o f its rhetoric, a fundamental di-
lemma becomes evident. This is the incapacity t o define an attitude t o sensation.
An absolute value i s consistently imputed t o mathematics, which is 'sure and cer-
tain,' and order is established as an intellectual concept affirmative o f universal
and comforting truths; but, perhaps, even with the word 'comforting' the senses
are involved, and it becomes apparent that cubes, spheres, cylinders, cones, and
their products are demanded as objects governed by and intensifying sensuous
appreciation. A t one moment, architecture is "the art above all others which
achieves a state of Platonic g r a n d e ~ r " ; but,
~ at the next, it becomes clear that this
state, far from being changeless and eternal, is an excitement subsidiary to the
personal perception o f "the masterly, correct and magnificent play of masses
brought together in light."8 So the reader can never be clear as t o what concep-
tion o f rightness the word 'correct' refers. Is i t an idea, apart from, but infusing
the object, which is 'correct' (the theory o f the Renaissance); or i s it a visual attri-
bute o f the object itself (the theory of 1900)?A definition remains elusive.
Mathematics and geometry are, o f course, not the only standards which Le Cor-
busier erects against the theory o f the Beaux Arts and 1900. Towards a New
Architecture proposes programs o f social realism, by means of which architecture,
generated by function, structure, or technique, is t o acquire an objective signifi-
cance as symbolizing the intrinsic processes o f society. But it also becomes clear
that, for reasons o f a lurking indecision, the essential 'realism' o f these programs
cannot be converted into any system o f public symbolism and that the attempt t o
assert an objective order appears fated largely t o result in an inversion o f the aes-
theticism which was, in the first case, so much deplored. That is: the mathemati-
cal or mechanical symbols o f an external reality are no sooner paraded than they
are absorbed by the more developed sensuous reaction which they provoke; and
abstraction, far from abetting public understanding, seemingly confirms the inten-
sification o f private significance.
This spectacle of self-division is not peculiar t o Le Corbusier. For, in varying
degrees, it i s a dilemma which the whole modern movement appears t o share; and,
in it, the mental climate of the sixteenth century receives i t s clearest parallel at
the present day. Internal stylistic causes for sixteenth century Mannerism seem
chiefly t o lie in the impossibility o f maintaining the majestic balance between
clarity and drama which had marked the mature style of Bramante; but external
factors o f schism are also represented and Mannerism's architectural progress is, t o
 43 Mannerism and Modern Architecture

a great extent, determined by those religious and political conflicts which devas-
tated contemporary Europe. The Reformation and Counter-Reformation empha-
sis of religious values opposed to those of the humanists; the threat to the Papacy
and the European schism which the Reformation itself elicited; the resultant in-
crease of Spanish influence in Italy; all both represent and contribute to the emo-
tional and intellectual disturbance. And i f in the sixteenth century Mannerism was
the visual index o f an acute spiritual and political crisis, the recurrence of similar
propensities at the present day should not be unexpected nor should correspond-
ing conflicts require indication.
In an architectural context, the theory of 1900 might be interpreted as a reflec-
tion of the tolerant liberalism of that period; and, in our own inability to define
our position toward it, we might observe that contempt which we often feel for
the nineteenth century liberal's too facile simplifications. Eclecticism is essentially
the liberal style; and i t was eclecticism which created that characteristic product,
the detached and sophisticated observer. A personality of enormous and almost
mythical benevolence and goodwill, this is an individual who seems to be in fairly
constant demand by the modern movement-the ville radieuse exists for him to
enjoy; but this city also embodies a society in which it seems likely that his de-
tached observation could have scarcely any place.

It is, conceivably, from the presence of conflicts such as these that the drama of
Le Corbusier's architecture derives; and, while the villa at La Chaux-de-Fonds
might be presented as a first step in such a process of inversion, it would perhaps
be more opportune to return to the distinction between the modern movement
before 191 4 and the modern movement in the 1920s.
In his Space, Time and Architecture, Siegfried Giedion makes a comparison
between Gropius's Bauhaus building of 1926 and a Cubist head, Picasso's L'Arle-
sienne of 191 1-1 2 (see Plates 66 and 67); and, from it, he draws an inference of
which the attractiveness cannot be denied. In the Bauhaus "the extensive trans-
parent areas, by dematerializing the corners, permit the hovering relations of
planes and the kind of overlapping which appears in contemporary paintingv9
But if, as already suggested, the program of Cubism i s not wholly a visual one, are
we to assume that these works, apart from a similarity o f form, are animated by a
deeper similarity of content? If so, we shall be obliged to admit that Gropius's
aims are partly independent of visual justification; if not, we shall be obliged t o
deduce that, either the comparison is superficial, or that Gropius himself had not
fully understood the significance of Cubism; and, o f these conclusions, it i s surely
the first which demands our assent.
 44 Mannerism and Modern Architecture

A professed lack o f interest in formal experiment and a belief in the possibility

of extracting an architectural lyricism from the application of rational techniques
to the demands of society, appear to form the bases o f Gropius's system. Yet
Giedion's comparison between the Bauhaus and the Picasso shows that in Gropi-
us's work of 1926 abstraction is not wholly denied; and it i s indisputably this
'abstract' element which most clearly separates the Bauhaus from the productions
previous to the First World War.
Apart from Gropius's Ahlfeld factory, the building for the Deutsche Werkbund
exhibition of 191 4 represents one o f the most self-conscious pre-World War I at-
tempts t o extract architectural feeling from a building's structural skeleton. Spe-
cific architectural effects of the past make the slightest contribution and detail is
reduced to the simplest geometrical form; but, although in this building, mass is
contracted to an ultimate limit, there appears t o be no decisive break with the
pictorial ideals of c. 1900. The motif o f the famous staircases, corner cylindrical
elements which appear as wrapping round or bursting through flat facades, can be
paralleled in academic architecture before this date; and, although the transparent
volumes of this building represent a supreme affirmation o f a mechanistic ideal-
ism, they contain in themselves no single element which appears to contradict the
dominant academic theory. The famous element of space-time does not enter into
this building; and, unlike the Bauhaus, i t s complex can be summed up from two
single positions.
Even as late as 1923, the experiment at Haus Am Horn at Weimar (Plate 22), a
simple composition of geometrical masses, can still be interpreted in these same
terms; and a parallel with a neo-Classical monument, Goethe's garden house,
could still be maintained.'' But, in the same year, certain Bauhaus schemes-most
notably those of Farkas Molnar (Plate 23)-do suggest the approach which has
come to be considered as characteristic o f modern architecture. In these we notice
an abandoning o f the idea o f mass, a substitution of plane, an emphasis upon the
prismatic quality o f the cube; and at the same time an attack on the cube, which
by disrupting the coherence of i t s internal volume, intensifies our appreciation of
both i t s planar and i t s geometrical qualities. These are projects which appear as
complete illustrqtions o f the Giedionesque concept of space-time for which the
Bauhaus i s so justly famous. They are compositions which "the eye cannot sum
up . . . at one view"; which " it i s necessary t o go around on all sides, t o see . . .
from above as well as from below.""
Now, in itsell-, the idea o f physical movement in the observation o f a building is
not new; and, i f it formed a typical Baroque means for observing the rise and fall
45 Mannerism and Modern Architecture

of masses, it is even more apparent in the irregular schemes o f Romanticism.

However, even they, let alone such symmetrical compositions as Blenheim, are
usually provided with a single dominant element; and, seen through the media o f
distance and atmosphere, the interrelationship o f freely disposed masses is com-
bined as a picturesque whole. I t is clear that, though intellectual limitations do
not enter into the megalomania of a Fonthill, the limitations o f the eye, of human
vision, are scrupulously observed.
But at the Bauhaus, while one registers mental appreciation of both plan and
structure, the eye i s faced with the disturbing problem o f simultaneous impact
from widely dispersed elements. A dominating central element is eliminated; sub-
sidiary elements are thus unable t o play a supporting role; and, in a state o f visual
autonomy, they are disposed around the void o f the central bridge which neither
provides visual explanation for them as a consistent scheme nor allows them t o
assume independence as separate units (Plate 24). In other words, with focus disal-
lowed, the eye becomes stretched; and, noticing this, it might be suggested that
the role of this bridge-as the fundamental core o f the conception and as the nega-
tion o f the visual function o f a central element-is closely related t o that of the
blank panel at La Chaux-de-Fonds. For, in a similar way, this bridge i s both a
source and a result o f peripheral disturbances; and it is significant that only from
a non-visual angle, the 'abstract' view from the air, can the Bauhaus become intel-
ligible t o the eye (Plate 25).
In this idea o f disturbing, rather than providing immediate pleasure for the eye,
the element of delight i n modern architecture appears chiefly t o lie. An intense
precision or an exaggerated rusticity o f detail i s presented within the bounds of a
strictly conceived complex o f planned obscurity; and a labyrinthine scheme is
offered which frustrates the eye by intensifying the visual pleasure of individual
episodes, in themselves only to become coherent as the result of a mental act of
reconstruction.
Sixteenth century Mannerism is characterized by similar ambiguities; and, to
proceed t o comparison, a deliberate and insoluble spatial complexity might be
thought to be offered equally by Michelangelo's Cappella Sforza (Figure 3) and
Mies van der Rohe's project o f 1923 for the Brick Country House (Figure 4).
In the Capella Sforza, Michelangelo, working in the tradition o f the centralized
building, establishes an apparently centralized space; but, within i t s limits, every
effort is then made t o destroy that focus which such a space demands. Invaded by
columns s e t on the diagonal, supported by apses of a form both definite and in-
complete, the central space is completed not by a dome but by a balloon vault;
46 Mannerism and Modern Architecture

Figure 3 Capella Sforza, Santa Maria Mag-

giore, Rome. Plan. Michelangelo Buonarotti,
completed 1573.

Figure 4 Project, Brick Country House.

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, 1923.
47 Mannerism and Modern Architecture

Figure 5 Project, Hubbe House, Magdeburg.

Mies van der Rohe, 1935.
Figure 6 Villa Giulia, Rome. Plan. Jacopo
Barozzi da Vignola and Bartolomeo Amma-
nati, 1552-.
 49 Mannerism and Modern Architecture

and, with this space furrowed by conflicting thrusts and engaged in active
competition with the area o f the sanctuary, there ensues n o t so much ideal har-
mony as planned distraction.
And, i n the Brick Country House, there are analogous developments t o be ob-
served. This house is without either conclusion or focus; and, if here Mies is oper-
ating not within the tradition o f the centralized building but, ultimately, in that
of the irregular and freely disposed Romantic plan, the disintegration o f proto-
type is as complete as with Michelangelo. In both cases, forms are precise, vol-
umes competitive and undefined; but, while an effect o f studied incoherence is
apparently an ideal i n both cases, with Michelangelo the use o f a Composite order
and its accessories offers a statement o f conventional legibility; whereas Mies can
intrude no such directly recognizable material. Mies's means are both less and less
public; and, with him, the involuted clarity o f his intention is, primarily, regis-
tered in the private abstraction o f his plan.
Similar correspondences are to be found in two such widely differing schemes as
those o f the Mies project o f 1935 for the Hubbe House at Magdeburg (Figure 5)
and the Villa Giulia o f Vignola and Ammannati (Figure 6); and, although i n nei-
ther o f these is there the exaggerated complexity o f the last two examples, both
are developed within the bounds o f a tightly defined courtyard and, in neither
case, are elements clearly separated or an unimpeded flow o f space permitted. The
general layout o f the Villa Giulia is axial, emphasizing the hemicycle o f its corps
de logis; but the unifying quality o f this axis is scarcely allowed to appear. As an
agent o f organization it is constantly interrupted by light screens and small
changes o f level which arc sufficient t o create ambiguity without making its
sources in any way too obvious. A t the Hubbe House, Mies imposes a T-shaped
building upon his courtyard; but, like the axis at the Villa Giulia, again, its role is
passive. I t is both subordinate and contradictory to the rigid organization o f the
bounding wall; and, while the idea o f the T-shape suggests a geometrical form,
then by an unaccountable advance and interception o f planes, the purely logical
consequences o f this form are studiously avoided. Thus, in both schemes, precise
compositions o f apparently undeniable clarity offer an overall intellectual satisfac-
tion within which it seems neither t o be desired nor expected that any single ele-
ment should be visually complete.
It is particularly the space arrangements o f the present day which will bear com-
parison with those o f the sixteenth century; and, in the arrangement o f facades,
Mannerist parallels must be both harder t o find and less valuable t o prove. The
Mannerist architect, working within the classical system, inverts the natural logic
o f i t s implied structural function; but modern architecture makes no overt refer-
 50 Mannerism and Modern Architecture

ence to the classical system. In more general terms, the Mannerist architect works
towards the crushing emphasis or the visual elimination o f mass, towards the ex-
ploitation or the denial o f ideas o f load or o f apparent stability. He exploits con-
tradictory elements in a facade, employs harshly rectilinear forms, and emphasizes
a type o f arrested movement; but, if many o f these tendencies are characteristic
occurrences in the vertical surfaces o f contemporary architecture, comparison
here is perhaps of a more superficial than clearly demonstrable order.
However, in the present-day choice o f texture, surface, and detail, aims general
to Mannerism might possibly be detected. The surface o f the Mannerist wall is
either primitive or overrefined; and a brutally direct rustication frequently occurs
in combination with an excess of attenuated delicacy. In this context, it is frivo-
lous to compare the preciosity of Serlio's restlessly modeled, quoined designs with
our own random rubble; but the frigid architecture which appears as the back-
ground to many o f Bronzino's portraits is surely balanced by the chill o f many
interiors o f our own day. And the linear delicacy o f much contemporary detail
certainly finds a sixteenth century correspondence.
A further Mannerist device, the discord between elements o f different scale
placed in immediate juxtaposition, offers a more valuable parallel. It is familiar as
the overscaled entrance door; and i t is employed, alike, by Michelangelo in the
apses of St. Peter's (Plate 26) and, with different elements, by Le Corbusier in the
Citb de Refuge (Plate 27). The apses o f St. Peter's alternate large and small bays,
and they extract the utmost poignancy and elegance from the movement o f mass
and the dramatic definition o f plane. They are o f a perfection beyond the ordi-
nary; and, side by side with the gaping overscaled voids of window and niche in
the large bays, there appears the violent discord o f the smaller and dissimilar
niches which seem to be crushed, but not extinguished, by the minor intercolum-
niations.
I n comparing the apses o f St. Peter's with the building for the Salvation Army,
perhaps we really measure the production o f our own day. I n the Salvation Army
building, in a composition o f aggressive and profound sophistication, plastic ele-
ments o f a major scale are foiled against the comparatively minor regulations of
the glazed wall. Here again the complete identity o f discordant objects is af-
firmed; and, as at St. Peter's, in this intricate and monumental conceit, there is no
release and no unambiguous satisfaction for the eye. Disturbance is complete;
and if, in this mechanized conception, there is nothing which replaces the purely
human poetry o f sixteenth century organization, there is still a savage delicacy
which makes explicable Le Corbusier's iloge upon Michelangelo and St. Peter's
1 51 Mannerism and Modern Architecture

which "grouped together the square shapes, the drum, the dome," and whose
"mouldings are o f an intensely passionate character, harsh and pathetic."12
The quality o f this appreciation penetrates beyond the mere externals o f ap-
pearance. Even in his choice o f adjectives, Le Corbusier involves the observer on a
plane other than that o f visual discrimination; and, although such discrimination
may assist the evaluation of Mannerist and modern architecture, through the
standards o f the eye neither can be fully understood. St. Peter's, as conceived by
Michelangelo, Le Corbusier finds the embodiment o f "a passion, an intelligence
beyond normal, it was the everlasting Yea," an eternal scheme which is beyond
the limitations of any time. But i t is surely not accidental that it i s by the Manner-
i s t excess and conflict o f this building that he i s most deeply moved. Nor, presum-
ably, is it by accident that this capacity o f a modern architect t o perceive strident-
ly incompatible details should so closely coincide with the beginning o f their in-
vestigation by historians o f art.
For Burckhardt in the nineteenth century, the Ricetto o f Michelangelo's Lau-
renziana, embodying some o f his earliest Mannerist experiments, was "evidently a
joke o f the great master." But, for subsequent generations, the joke has become
less clear; and, although for a time it was only a proto-baroque sixteenth century
which was visible, for the 1920s an epoch curiously reproducing contemporary
patterns o f disturbance became apparent. A t this time, i t i s as though the eye
received a decisive twist by which, since it demanded visual ambiguity, i t could
produce it in contemporary works and discover it in a previous age-even i n works
of apparently unimpeachable correctness. Thus, if at one time the classicism o f
the whole Renaissance movement seemed t o be completely clear and, i f at an-
other, the impressionist eye o f the Edwardians was everywhere enabled t o see the
voluptuous qualities of their own baroque; so the present day seems t o be particu-
larly susceptible t o the uneasy violence o f Mannerism which marks both its own
productions and its historical admirations. Thus, it is perhaps inevitable that Man-
nerism should come t o be isolated and defined by historians during those same
years o f the 1920s when modern architecture felt most strongly the demand for
inverted spatial effects.
52 Mannerism and Modern Architecture

Notes 12 Le Corbusier, Towards a New Architec-

ture, p. 158.
1 In Le Corbusier's Vers une architecture,
according to the English translation, London
1927, p. 76, "this villa o f small dimensions,
seen in the midst o f other buildings erected
without a rule, gives the effect of being more
monumental and o f another order."

2 See Serlio, Tutte I'opere d'architettura. In

the edition of 161 9, paneling alternating
with windows occurs i n Book V I I, pp. 15,
23, 25,27, 29, 33, 43,45, 53, 151, 159,
187,221,229. The example i n Book VII, p.
187, suggests itself as a possible source for
Palladia's scheme. I t was perhaps through
the influence o f Serlio that this motif pene-
trated France, where, for instance, alternat-
ing with a range o f windows, it i s to be seen
in such a scheme as Lescot's Louvre.

3 Nikolaus Pevsner, "The Architecture of

Mannerism," Mint, 1946. Anthony Blunt,
"Mannerism in Architecture," R.I.B.A. Jour-
nal, March, 1949.

4 David Hume, "Of the Standard of Taste,"

Essays Moral, Political and Literary, Lon-
don, 1898, p. 268.

5 See Arnold Whittick, Eric Mendelsohn,

London, 1940.

6 Nikolaus Pevsner, Pioneers o f the Modern

Movement, London, 1937, p. 192.

7 Le Corbusier, Towards a New Architec-

ture, London, 1927, p. 102.

8 Ibid., p. 31

9 Siegfried Giedion, Space, Time and Archi-

tecture, 5th ed., Cambridge, Mass., 1967, p.
495.

10 Herbert Bayer, Walter Gropius, llse Gro-

pius, Bauhaus, 1919-28, New York, 1938, p.
85.

11 Giedion, p. 497.
 Plate 17 Villa Schwob, La Chaux-de-Fonds.
Le Corbusier, 191 6.

Plate 18 Villa Schwob. Plan

<
,? -'- 'c - 2
k
i,:
--
. -7 .. - . . 1-
. --. -..-- - -
 54 Mannerism and lblodern Architecture

Plate 20 Casino dello Zuccheri, Florence.

Federigo Zuccheri, 1578.

.kridv~,**.*l"~.,,.,*.".

Plate 19 Casa d i Palladio (Casa Cogollo),

Vicenza. Attributed to Andrea Palladio, C.
1572.

Plate 21 Steiner House, Vienna. Adolf Loos,

1910.
55 Mannerism and Modern Architecture

Plate 22 Haus am Horn, Weimar. Georg

Muche and Adolf Meyer, 1923.

Plate 23 Project, The Red Cube. Farkas

Molnar, 1923.
 56 Mannerism and Modern Architecture

Plate 24 Bauhaus, Dessau. Walter Gropius,

1925-26.

Plate 25 Bauhaus. Aerial view.

57 Mannerism and Modern Architecture

Plate 26 St. Peter's, Rome. Detail o f apses.

Michelangelo Buonarotti, 1546- .

Plate 27 Cite' de Refuge (Salvation Army

Building), Paris. Facade. Le Corbusier,
1932-33.