New York's Museum of Modern Art stepped a little beyond the business of showing pictures to people last week. It attacked a vital modern problem. Under the auspices of an imposing list of patrons, presented the largest and most complete showing of the works of modern architects working in what has come to be known as the International Style. Each of these men has made a contribution toward the serious housing problem of the U. S. A potent statement of the problem appeared in the February issue of FORTUNE.
Prime facts to jolt the complacency of citizens who still believe that the Great American Bathroom is a national institution:
According to best available computations, less than 50% of all U. S. homes measure up to the minimum standards of health and decency set by the National Housing Association. These standards include sunlight, proper ventilation, dry walls, garbage removal, adequate fire protection, a water closet, running water inside the house. A bathtub, central light, heat, and a telephone are not considered necessary.
Even Academicians who grow apoplectic over the "gaspipe & cement block" appearance of buildings in the International Style are grateful for the work its founders have done in low-rent housing.
Principles. If the average citizen does not understand the principles of the International Style in architecture the fault is not with its innovators. France's Le Corbusier, most vocal of the lot, has expressed it in a single sentence: "The modern house is a machine to live in."
Like all good architecture, the International Style demands that the new materials at the service of modern architects (reinforced concrete, plate glass, steel, etc.) shall be used honestly. Cement walls must look like cement walls and not be disguised as Gothic masonry.
The International Style thinks of building in terms of space enclosed as opposed to mass. Walls no longer support the house; they are curtains enclosing its skeleton.
The International Style as opposed to "modernist" architecture eschews all decoration and ornament. "Functionalism" (a word overworked ad nauseam) is its watchword. Such beauty as their buildings possess is dependent on fine proportion of individual units, clever use of color, and the technically perfect use of materials. (Cement is sometimes poured in glass-lined forms to give it a marble-like polish.) Light is its fetish. Houses look more and more like aquariums. The four apostles of the International Style are two Germans, a Dutchman and a French Swiss, as follows:
Charles-Edouard Jeanneret prefers to be known as Le Corbusier, the name of his maternal grandfather. Born near Geneva 44 years ago, the son of a Swiss watchmaker, he studied engraving, traveled in Italy, worked in Vienna. A performance of Puccini's La Boheme sent him to Paris to live. In intervals between struggling with advanced architecture he became a factory manager, publisher of L'Esprit Nouveau, and a painter. In 1923 he published his first book. Vers mi Architecture, which denned all his theories, has had an enormous influence on architects all over the world.