Evocations of Byzantium in Zenitist Avant-Garde Architecture Jelena Bogdanović Iowa State University, Jelenab@Iastate.Edu

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9-2016 Evocations of Byzantium in Zenitist Avant-Garde Architecture Jelena Bogdanović Iowa State University, [email protected]

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Abstract The yB zantine legacy in modern architecture can be divided between a historicist, neo-Byzantine architectural style and an active investigation of the potentials of the Byzantine for a modern, explicitly nontraditional, architecture. References to Byzantium in avantgarde Eastern European architecture of the 1920s employed a modernist interpretation of the Byzantine concept of space that evoked a mode of “medieval” experience and creative practice rather than direct historical quotation. The va ant-garde movement of Zenitism, a prominent visionary avant-garde movement in the Balkans, provides a case study in the ways immaterial aspects of Byzantine architecture infiltrated modernism and moved it beyond an academic, reiterative formalism. By examining the visionary architectural design for the Zeniteum, the Zenitist center, in this article, I aim to identify how references to Byzantium were integrated in early twentieth-century Serbian avant-garde architecture and to address broader questions about interwar modernism. In the 1920s, architects, architectural historians, and promoters of architecture came to understand the Byzantine concept of space in ways that architects were able to use in distinctly non-Byzantine architecture. I will trace the ways Zenitism engaged the Byzantine architectural construct of total design, in which structure joins spirituality, and related philosophical concepts of meaning and form derived from both Byzantine and avant-garde architecture. This reassessment of Zenitism, an Eastern European architectural movement often placed on the margins of the history of modern architecture, has broad implications for our understanding of the relationship between tradition and modernism.

Disciplines Architectural History and Criticism | Byzantine and Modern Greek

Comments This article is from Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 75 (2016): 299-317, doi:10.1525/ jsah.2016.75.3.299. Posted with permission.

This article is available at Iowa State University Digital Repository: http://lib.dr.iastate.edu/arch_pubs/78 Evocations of Byzantium in Zenitist Avant-Garde Architecture

jelena bogdanovic´ Iowa State University

he Byzantine legacy in modern architecture can history of modern architecture, has broad implications for be divided between a historicist, neo-Byzantine our understanding of the relationship between tradition and T architectural style and an active investigation of modernism.1 the potentials of the Byzantine for a modern, explicitly nontraditional, architecture. References to Byzantium in avant- The Byzantine Legacy in Early Twentieth-Century garde Eastern European architecture of the 1920s employed Serbian Architecture a modernist interpretation of the Byzantine concept of The neo-Byzantine style was one of numerous eclectic his- space that evoked a mode of “medieval” experience and cre- torical styles developed in the nineteenth century and widely ative practice rather than direct historical quotation. The used in European architecture by the 1920s. Architects and avant-garde movement of Zenitism, a prominent visionary architectural historians turned to Byzantine architecture as avant-garde movement in the Balkans, provides a case study a source of inspiration out of sociopolitical and theological in the ways immaterial aspects of Byzantine architecture in- concerns as well as aesthetic preferences.2 Religious, institu- filtrated modernism and moved it beyond an academic, reit- tional, and palace buildings across Europe incorporated erative formalism. By examining the visionary architectural “typical” formal elements from Byzantine Christian Ortho- design for the Zeniteum, the Zenitist center, in this article, dox churches, particularly large and prominent domes and I aim to identify how references to Byzantium were inte- monumental interior decoration in mosaics or frescoes with grated in early twentieth-century Serbian avant-garde archi- religious figurative themes (Figure 1).3 Architects of this tecture and to address broader questions about interwar period were inspired by Hagia Sophia and its restoration, modernism. In the 1920s, architects, architectural histori- despite the fact that many of them had not personally experi- ans, and promoters of architecture came to understand the enced the church or studied its architecture. Byzantine Byzantine concept of space in ways that architects were able vaulted spaces inspired architects and engineers who devel- to use in distinctly non-Byzantine architecture. I will trace oped new aesthetics for modern building types. the ways Zenitism engaged the Byzantine architectural con- Byzantium’s association with Greek roots, Roman imperial struct of total design, in which structure joins spirituality, traditions, the Balkans, and the Eastern Mediterranean caused and related philosophical concepts of meaning and form de- Western Europeans to see it as “Oriental,” as regressively rived from both Byzantine and avant-garde architecture. primitive and underdeveloped, hierarchically less significant, This reassessment of Zenitism, an Eastern European archi- more unstable, and more decadent than the Gothic.4 Ironically, tectural movement often placed on the margins of the this essentially colonial attitude allowed a reevaluation of the Byzantine legacy. In nineteenth-century France, a group of Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 75, no. 3 (September 2016), 299–317, ISSN 0037-9808, electronic ISSN 2150-5926. © 2016 by the Society radical architects and architectural historians, including Henri of Architectural Historians. All rights reserved. Please direct all requests for Labrouste and Félix Duban, promoted Byzantine architecture permission to photocopy or reproduce article content through the University of 5 ’ as a kind of avant-garde mode. According to their theory, the California Press s Reprints and Permissions web page, http://www.ucpress.edu/ “ ” journals.php?p=reprints, or via email: [email protected]. DOI: 10.1525/ Byzantine was the new Greek (néo-Grec) because it formed jsah.2016.75.3.299. a transition between academic classical antiquity and its revival

299 Figure 1 Anthemius of Tralles and Isidorus of Miletus, Hagia Sophia, 532–37, Istanbul, Turkey (Oscar Wulff, Altchristliche und byzantinische Kunst [Berlin-Neubabelsberg: Alademische Verlagsgesselschaft Athenaion, 1914], plate XXII).

during the Renaissance. They associated Byzantium’s critical National Library in Athens—the “Trilogy.” His knowledge period of unpredictability and disjunction with modern life, of Byzantine and Islamic architecture in Attica was matched similarly a period of constant change and transition. by his deep understanding of German neo-Romanesque In Central and Eastern Europe, as in other parts of Rundbogen and neo-Gothic Spitzbogen styles.8 These neo- Europe, the academic revival of Byzantine architecture was medieval hybrid styles provided him with an academic route divided between romantic, unconventional modes of creative for the development of a Viennese neo-Byzantine style, expression, often lacking historical accuracy, and structural which was essentially an imaginative combination of various and aesthetic qualities useful for the development of modern Byzantine and non-Byzantine elements, including some from architecture.6 In the Balkans, where Byzantine medieval Islamic and Jewish architecture. Hansen had several Serbian churches survived, Byzantine architecture could have been a students, including Svetozar Ivacˇkovic´, Jovan Ilkic´, Dušan tangible architectural and cultural heritage rather than a Živanovic´, and Vladimir Nikolic´.9 After finishing their stud- product of the distant and exotic East, as it was in France or ies, these architects returned home, bringing with them the Great Britain. In the newly established Kingdom of Serbs, Viennese academic neo-Byzantine style, which became espe- Croats, and Slovenes (1918–29) enthusiasm for historic and cially prominent in Serbia between 1880 and 1914. This style social rebuilding through architecture gave rise to a peculiar provided the foundations for the Serbo-Byzantine national “Serbo-Byzantine” style that became the official national style of the 1920s created by Serbian architects, some of style (Figure 2).7 This style, which Western Europeans could whom had never left Serbia.10 As Carl Schorske has demon- have considered Oriental, was based on the neo-Byzantine strated, Byzantine architecture remained exotic and foreign revival found in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, in particular in Vienna, which meant the neo-Byzantine style simulta- in Vienna. neously transformed and rejected its traditional cultural asso- From the mid-nineteenth century onward, a strong inter- ciations.11 Paradoxically, the ideological agenda of the est in Byzantine art at the University of Vienna informed Viennese neo-Byzantine style inflected the Serbo-Byzantine academic architecture in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, architecture of the 1920s. especially that of architect Baron Theophilus Edvard von Following the major academic trends in Europe, Serbian Hansen (1813–91), a professor at the University of Vienna. architects included formal references to the ecclesiastical ar- Hansen remains best known for his neoclassical design of chitecture of Serbia and the Byzantine Empire, combining the Academy of Athens, the University of Athens, and the Orthodox Christian religiosity and culture. They claimed

300 JSAH | 75.3 | SEPTEMBER 2016 Figure 2 Svetozar Ivacˇkovic´, Petrovic´ Chapel, 1893, New Cemetery, Belgrade, Serbia (photo courtesy Aleksandar Kadijevic´).

that the Serbo-Byzantine style reflected the identity of the it with regard to its roots in Western European sociopolitical new kingdom, especially its Serbian territories.12 As a result, thought. idiosyncratic “medieval-modernist” Serbo-Byzantine solu- In 1920s Serbia, historicist Serbo-Byzantine architecture tions were used both for major civic projects as well as for was not universally accepted. Neo-Byzantine architecture churches.13 The Serbo-Byzantine style, like its precedent in was belittled as one of many “archaeological” revivals and Vienna, was essentially an imaginative construct that used criticized for being imitative and derivative, thus defying two various Byzantine, vernacular Serbian, and academic Western of the major imperatives of modernism—originality and European architectural elements as anachronistic decorative authenticity.18 As I will demonstrate, a region-wide interest in tools. By the 1920s, Belgrade was an important regional cen- Byzantine architecture also inspired avant-garde architecture ter for Byzantine historical studies because of the strong his- in Serbia. The theoretical platform of Zenitist avant-garde tory department at the University of Belgrade, the work of thought incorporated the Byzantine past, the Balkans, and which was complemented by archaeological and architectural Christian Orthodoxy as part of its program. research into Byzantine heritage in the Serbian territories.14 Seminal books on Byzantine art and architecture, such as Oscar Wulff’s Die Byzaninische Kunst (1914; second edition Zenitism and Architecture 1924) circulated widely.15 Serbian architecture students went In the 1920s Zenitism was the major visionary avant-garde to Italy to study Byzantine art and architecture, such as Saint movement in the Balkans.19 The name Zenitism derives from Mark’s Basilica in Venice.16 In 1927, the second International the word zenith—meaning the highest point in the celestial Congress of Byzantine Studies was held in Belgrade.17 While sphere directly above the observer—revealing the group’s neo-Byzantine architecture was officially promoted in Serbia, ambition to situate itself high in contemporary avant-garde however, academic circles in Serbia did not critically examine discourse of the post–World War I world. Zenitism was

EVOCATIONS OF BYZANTIUM IN ZENITIST AVANT-GARDE ARCHITECTURE 301 founded by poet, literary critic, and polemicist Ljubomir Micic´ (1895–1971) in Zagreb, Croatia, in 1921 (Figure 3).20 In the same year, Micic´ published “Čovek i umetnost” (Man and art), which served as the Zenitist manifesto, and launched the international journal Zenit to promote the mission of the movement.21 The initial group of Zenitists was small, but its members aimed to create an international presence from the movement’s inception. The first Zenitist manifesto was signed by Micic´, who then lived in Zagreb; by Belgrade nov- elist, literary critic, and film artist Boško Tokin; and by French-German poet and writer Ivan Goll.22 Similarly, the editorial staff of Zenit included members living in other parts of Europe: Boško Tokin in Belgrade, Micic´’s brother Branko Ve Poljanski in Prague, and Rastko Petrovic´ in Paris. From the beginning of Zenitism, however, Micic´ remained the central figure of the movement. Conflicts with Micic´ led to frequent changes in the group’s membership and shifts in the editorial board of the journal, which Micic´ edited alone after May 1922. In January 1923, the Zenitists were forced out of Zagreb as a result of Micic´’s critique of Croatian culture, which he mocked as a pseudo-Europeanized imitative confection.23 In 1924 the group established a new center in Belgrade, where, after a hiatus of eight months, the members continued pub- lishing their journal. They remained active until 1926, when the group dissolved after the Serbian authorities threatened to shut it down because of its open embrace of Bolshevik Marx- ism. During the five years of its existence (1921–26), the group attracted more than 150 members and collaborators. Among the collaborators were architects who would later become prominent in the history of modern architecture, such as Figure 3 Ljubomir Micic´ (1895–1971) in 1925 (Vidosava Golubovic´ and Walter Gropius, El Lissitzky, Theo van Doesburg, Adolf Irina Subotic´, eds., Zenit 1921–1926 [Belgrade: Narodna Biblioteka Srbije, 24 Loos, Erich Mendelsohn, and Vladimir Tatlin. 2008]; courtesy Irina Subotic´). The Zenitists promoted their work in Serbia and internationally. In April 1924, they organized The First Zenitist Interna- tional Exhibition of New Art in Belgrade, and they also presented interested in theater in his formative years, but he went on to their works at an international exhibition in Bucharest. In 1926, receive a bachelor’s degree in philosophy from the University they exhibited at the Moscow show The Revolutionary Art of of Zagreb in 1918. His early interest in theater and philoso- the West, organized by the State Academy of Art Studies VOKS phy informed his interest in total design, which combined (All-Union Society for Cultural Relations with Foreign Coun- architecture, visual arts, industrial and graphic design, theater tries) (Figure 4). Zenitism was the only avant-garde movement production, poetry, and urban planning, erasing the bound- in the Balkans with a manifesto and a journal, Zenit, which over aries between these fields.27 the course of five years was published monthly. Micic´ insisted Micic´’s personal background reveals a deep understanding that authors for the journal should express themselves in their of neo-Byzantine culture and architecture but also divergen- chosen languages as carriers of identity and culture; thus, Zenit ces from these. While he was a great promoter of architec- published texts by him and others in a dozen languages, includ- ture, Micic´ was not a trained architect. He certainly knew ing Esperanto. Zenit was distributed internationally, reaching about Hagia Sophia, given that he made references to the beyond Europe to museums and galleries in New York and church in his texts, but the building itself was inaccessible to San Francisco.25 him, as it was to most Europeans from modest backgrounds. Ljubomir Micic´, the major force behind Zenitism, was a Micic´ was familiar with Byzantine architecture simply be- highly controversial figure.26 Born into a modest Serbian cause Byzantine tradition occupied such an important role in family in Sošice (now part of Croatia) in 1895, Micic´ was Serbian culture. He was born into a Serbian minority in the

302 JSAH | 75.3 | SEPTEMBER 2016 Figure 4 Zenit displayed at the exhibition The Revolutionary Art of the West, Moscow, 1926 (Vidosava Golubovic´ and Irina Subotic´, eds., Zenit 1921–1926 [Belgrade: Narodna Biblioteka Srbije, 2008]; courtesy Irina Subotic´).

Croatia-Slavonia region of the Kingdom of Hungary, which 1926.31 These antiwar, humanist manifestoes argued for a was later incorporated into Croatia. In this poorest region of new art centered on man and humanity, or what he called the Balkans, known as the Military Frontier, Serbs were “man-art.”32 By making recurrent references to Christ as an regularly recruited to defend the territories of the Austro- ideal man and by reversing the major Christian dogma of the Hungarian Empire against the Ottoman Empire.28 In this Incarnation of God, Micic´ proclaimed Zenitism as a new faith part of the world, the Western European cultural elite, which and stated that “man-art” is a Zenitist “theophany,” of which was aligned with Roman Catholic Habsburg culture, consid- the only true creator is man himself.33 In 1924, in the first ered impoverished Serbs “a backward and inferior race” and issue of Zenit published in Belgrade, Micic´ also wrote “Zeni- their Christian Orthodox faith primitive.29 Micic´’s opposition tozofija ili Energetika stvaralacˇkog zenitizma: No made in to Western European norms, including neo-Byzantine archi- Serbia” (Zenitosophy or energetics of creative Zenitism: tecture, aligned with his attempts to reverse the negative No made in Serbia), which provided a kind of theory of associations of Byzantium, the Balkans, Orthodox Christianity, Zenitist art.34 This radical theory is based not on scholastic and Slavs with backwardness.30 philosophy but on creative energetics, “a synthesis of all Micic´ wrote the main Zenitist manifesto, “Čovek i umet- phenomena in the highest and essential forms of life and nost,” in 1921 and subsequent manifestoes in 1922 and worlds.”35 In the first manifesto, Micic´ had emphasized that

EVOCATIONS OF BYZANTIUM IN ZENITIST AVANT-GARDE ARCHITECTURE 303 one “cannot ‘understand’ Zenitism unless you feel it.”36 historical architecture of extraordinary impact. Tokin noted By 1924, he defined “man-art” as the essential concept of how, given its continual construction and reconstruction over Zenitism, as “zenit-art” devoid of superficial symbolism and prolonged periods, the dome could be viewed as simulta- aestheticism. Micic´ presented the ten principles of Zenitism neously Roman, Byzantine, and Renaissance, an argument in the form of the Ten Commandments; the Zenitist second that hinted at the Zenitist position that the “new Byzantine” principle highlights zenith-art as everything related to what style could dissolve traditional historical and geographic divi- Micic´ called unspoiled, pure, and vital “barbaric genius” sions.46 Tokin emphasized the way the Byzantine dome com- (barbarogenije).37 In 1926, in “Manifest varvarima duha i misli bines painting, sculpture, relief, architecture, music, poetry, na svom kontinentima” (Manifesto to the barbarians of spirit and visual poetry. The dome of Saint Peter’s in Rome became and thought on all continents), written in the language of the a paradigm for what Byzantine architecture meant to the October Revolution, Micic´ proclaimed Zenitism a global ar- Zenitists.47 Micic´’s interest in the Byzantine concept of space tistic movement, a revolution that would “de-civilize” Europe manifested in his focus on monumental reinterpretations of on the model of barbarogenije.38 Therefore, Micic´ rejected the dome and the wall. For him, the Byzantine dome is a pure any form of traditional and religious authority and pro- form that should be the “head” of the building.48 claimed in the Zenitist manifestoes that modern spirituality is In “Beograd bez arhitekture” (Belgrade without architec- not based on religious faith. Micic´ advocated for an emotional ture), published in the November/December 1925 issue of and expressive spirituality in Zenitism, a spirituality that was Zenit, Micic´ wrote about the essence of architecture as a liberated from colonialist Western European constructs of meeting of heaven and earth, referring directly to the philos- civilization. This spirituality could be accessed through the ophy and form of Byzantine architecture as the spirit of the collective “barbaric genius” that voiced the “new identity cat- new architecture. He made clear references to fourteenth- egory [of] a confident and liberated minority culture.”39 As I and fifteenth-century Serbian Byzantine architecture and will show, this “new primitive” Zenitist agenda related to the painting as the “only monuments of true architecture” and “neo-Byzantine” on ideological, philosophical, and architec- expanded on his positive assessment of traditional vernacular tural levels.40 and monastic architecture in the Balkans as sources for mod- Architecture was prominent in the forty-three issues of ern architecture.49 Micic´ highlighted what he saw to be the the journal Zenit. The Zenitists’ promotion of architecture important spiritual aspects of Byzantine architecture, ideas evinces their experimentation in the arts and their quest for presented in the designs for a Zenitist center, the Zeniteum. creative innovations that facilitated avant-garde discourse. For example, in 1921, Zenitist Dragan Aleksic´ published a Dada-inspired poetic interpretation of Vladimir Tatlin’s Zenitist Reinterpretations of the Byzantine work.41 An article about Tatlin’s Monument to the Third Dome and Wall International (1920) that appeared in the February 1922 issue The origins of the Zeniteum cannot be determined with of Zenit may have been the first publication of the monument certainty, but there was a greater emphasis on modern archi- outside Soviet Russia (Figure 5).42 In 1922 an entire double tecture in the Zenitist journal after the transition to Belgrade issue of the journal edited by El Lissitzky and Ilya Ehrenburg in 1924. Because Micic´ saw the Zeniteum as both an expres- was dedicated to new Russian art and architecture.43 Subse- sion of and the essence of the Zenitist movement, I would as- quent issues contained articles on new types of construction, sert that the Zeniteum was originally Micic´’s idea. In the spirit works by Adolf Loos and Erich Mendelsohn; the Pavillon de of the Zenitist manifesto’s declaration that “Zenitism is the l’Esprit Nouveau, by Le Corbusier and Amédée Ozenfant, idea of all arts,”“beyond dimensions,” and equal to “eter- and the Russian pavilion, by Konstantin Melnikov, at the nity,” it seems likely that the Zeniteum was a visionary project 1925 Decorative Arts Exposition in Paris; the Rosenberg and never meant to be built.50 Two diagrammatic drawings House, by Theo van Doesburg and Cornelis van Eesteren; for the Zeniteum were created by the only architect member and Van Eesteren’s winning design for the Unter den Linden of the Zenitist group, Micic´’s protégé Jo Klek (born Josif in Berlin.44 In 1926, Zenit provided book reviews of eight Seissel, 1904–87).51 Micic´ published the two designs for the Bauhaus publications, including Walter Gropius’s Interna- Zeniteum in Zenit in December 1924, the same year Klek tional Architecture, Paul Klee’s Pedagogical Sketchbook, and started his architecture studies at the University of Belgrade László Moholy-Nagy’s Painting, Photography, Film, thus (Figures 6 and 7).52 In architectural form and essence, the promoting a holistic approach to architecture and design Zeniteum projects relate to the Zenitist programmatic not bound by traditional artistic disciplines.45 striving for “man-art” as a “limitless circle that starts nowhere In 1921, in the fifth issue of Zenit, Micic´ published a text and ends nowhere” and is “centered in Zenit.”53 The use of by Zenitist Boško Tokin, who wrote from Rome about the the dome for the Zeniteum reflects this notion of circle and dome of Saint Peter’s Basilica as a paradigmatic example of center and evokes Byzantine solutions. In that regard, both

304 JSAH | 75.3 | SEPTEMBER 2016 Figure 5 Cover page of Zenit, no. 11, February 1922 (Vidosava Golubovic´ and Irina Subotic´, eds., Zenit 1921–1926 [Belgrade: Narodna Biblioteka Srbije, 2008]; courtesy Irina Subotic´). designs differed from other Zenitist architectural designs and crowned by a dome in the first Zeniteum drawing (see installations, such as Klek’s design for a Villa Zenit, published Figure 6) suggest a reference to the hierarchy of Neopla- in the October 1925 issue of Zenit (Figure 8). tonic thought, such as that of Dionysius the Areopagite, The designs for the Zeniteum were inspired by central- whose philosophical thought influenced medieval European ized sacred space, like that found in Byzantine architecture, architecture.55 In his 1924 statement of Zenitosophy, Micic´ but the nonimitative character of Zenitist architecture pre- posited the ten principles of creative Zenitism by proclaiming cluded the use of more specific references to Byzantine a new God, “art-man,” and defined Zenitist theory in terms style.54 Klek’s diagrammatic drawings show the influence of of hierarchy and symbolism. Zenitism is the “ordering of all Byzantine, medieval Romanesque, and ancient Roman ar- human creation, economy of collective feelings, and synthesis chitecture, which relied on massive, load-bearing masonry of all individual forces into a big circle of the whole.”56 The walls and dome structures. The concentric circular drums Zenitist vertical dimension connects earth, sun, and man (the

EVOCATIONS OF BYZANTIUM IN ZENITIST AVANT-GARDE ARCHITECTURE 305 Figure 6 Jo Klek (Josif Seissel), Zeniteum I, 1924 (Zenit, no. 35 [Dec. 1924], n.p., in Zenit 1921–1926, ed. Vidosava Golubovic´ and Irina Subotic´ [Belgrade: Narodna Biblioteka Srbije, 2008]; courtesy Irina Subotic´).

Figure 7 Jo Klek (Josif Seissel), Zeniteum II, 1924 (Zenit, no. 35 [Dec. 1924], n.p., in Zenit 1921–1926, ed. Vidosava Golubovic´ and Irina Subotic´ [Belgrade: Narodna Biblioteka Srbije, 2008]; courtesy Irina Subotic´). Figure 8 Jo Klek (Josif Seissel), Villa Zenit, 1924–25, drawing in India ink, pencil, and watercolor on paper, 39.3 ´ 29.4 cm (National Museum Belgrade; also published in Zenit, no. 36 [Oct. 1925], n.p.; photo courtesy National Museum Belgrade).

new God); it is “a metacosmic triangle, the only Zenitist sym- diminishing size intersected by vertical and horizontal planes bol.”57 As I see it, the pseudo-Byzantine dome of the first (see Figure 7). The domes are articulated by rows of arcades. Zeniteum is an expression of the “circle of the whole” that In this project, a single dome on the very top, without struc- embraces all individual forces. Its stairs, framed by round tural divisions, is superimposed on the structural frame of the Roman-Byzantine arches, may evoke religious intellectual bottom two segments. The cross serves as an organizing prin- and spiritual quests or the pilgrimage steps on Mount Sinai ciple of the entire design, with three domes set in three differ- (Figure 9). The Ladder of Divine Ascent, a seminal Byzantine ent vertical layers. The attenuated domes of this second text by John Klimakos, may have been another inspiration.58 design might have been inspired by Bruno Taut’s 1914 According to Micic´, Zenitism is a magical and electric interval Glass Pavilion (Glashaus) or his visionary architectural draw- between the microcosmos and the metacosmos—between ings for the City Crown (Die Stadtkrone) and the House of man and the zenith.59 The Zeniteum illustrates “the connec- Heaven (Haus des Himmels) in Alpine Architecture (1919) tion between earth and heaven, heart with heart, soul with (Figures 10 and 11).61 Ta u t ’s Glashaus and Stadtkrone soul.”60 concepts highlighted the use of glass and polychromy in a The second design for the Zeniteum is another interpre- search for reconciliation between spirituality and modern ar- tation of Zenitist architectonic concepts. It has an axial com- chitecture. Taut returned to the medieval past as a compre- position of three superimposed, vertically stacked domes of hensive idealism, with the idea that the Gothic cathedral

EVOCATIONS OF BYZANTIUM IN ZENITIST AVANT-GARDE ARCHITECTURE 307 Figure 10 Bruno Taut, Glass Pavilion, Deutscher Werkbund Exhibition, Cologne, 1914 (photo from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass_Pavilion#/ media/File:Taut_Glass_Pavilion_exterior_1914.jpg).

Figure 9 Pilgrimage steps, Mount Sinai, Egypt (Kurt Weitzmann Archive, Department of Art and Archaeology, Princeton University).

provided the highest architectural quality embedded in a mythic “nonnational” European culture without borders and governments.62 Rather than modeling Zenitism on the Gothic cathedral, however, Micic´ advocated reference to a Byzantine paradigm.63 As Micic´ postulated in the first issue of Zenit, the Zeniteum united the immaterial microcosmic and mac- rocosmic realms and put man in the center of the macro- Figure 11 Bruno Taut, House of Heaven, 1920 (Bruno Taut, Frühlicht, cosm, echoing the sequential ordering of triplets in the 1920, p. 109). Byzantine concept of earthly and heavenly hierarchies that are rooted in Neoplatonic pseudo-Dionysian philosophy.64 Yet Micic´ despised equally the decadence of European In his critique of Belgrade’s architecture, Micic´ wrote of bourgeois culture and the monumental “tasteless” decora- the “Byzantine” space in an unnamed monastery in the tion of Byzantine churches, an attitude reflected in the two woods near Belgrade, on the fringes of the historical and designs for the Zeniteum, which did not employ any for- geographic Byzantine reach. In describing this monastery as mal decorative features of Byzantine churches. He la- a kind of “otherworldly town,” Micic´ seemed to be opposed mented, “It is quite rare that [architects] work with the to the prevailing Western European city and its bourgeois pure arch of the ‘Byzantine’ dome, which could have been and capitalist political economy. Micic´ claimed that the very successfully used in contemporary urbanism in recent monastery church “represents a completely purified form: [modern] architecture.”65 the zenith of architecture!” His description of its simple white

308 JSAH | 75.3 | SEPTEMBER 2016 Figure 14 Rudolf Steiner, Goetheanum I, Dornach, Switzerland, 1913–19, Figure 12 Rakovica Monastery near Belgrade, Serbia, possibly floor plan and cross section (© Goetheanum Dokumentation). fourteenth century, mentioned in text in the sixteenth century (photo courtesy Ljubomir Milanovic´). possible inspiration for domed elements in the visionary projects for the Zeniteum. The Zeniteum may also have been inspired by Rudolf Steiner’s Goetheanum, as the names and design concepts might suggest (Figure 13).67 Like the Zeniteum, the better- known Goetheanum borrowed from both avant-garde and Byzantine architecture. Both projects used large domes and, in particular, the unusual intersection of several domes. The first Goetheanum (1913–19) appeared as an axial composition of two intersecting domes of unequal size (Figure 14).68 Their form resembled the vaulting system of Hagia Sophia, where the massive central dome is flanked by two smaller semidomes along the east–west axis, or the two unequally sized domes of the Church of Archangel Michael in the Figure 13 Rudolf Steiner, Goetheanum I, Dornach, Switzerland, 1913–19 twelfth-century monastery Pantokrator (today Zeyrek (Benzinger © Rudolf Steiner Archive). Camii) in Istanbul (Figure 15). The first Zeniteum project had a massive single, stepped dome, yet the second iter- ation revealed an experimentation with domical structures geometrical planes and domes, “devoid of Byzantine-Greek and verticality, with its three attenuated domes stacked on decoration and tasteless ornamentation,” indicates he was top of one another. referring to the Rakovica Monastery, a major spiritual center Jo Klek’s designs for the Zeniteum were never realized. (Figure 12).66 This monastery, possibly built in the four- Another of Klek’s interwar designs, the Church of Saints teenth century, is remarkable for its two domes on drums, a Cyril and Methodius in Sušak, Croatia (Figure 16), which

EVOCATIONS OF BYZANTIUM IN ZENITIST AVANT-GARDE ARCHITECTURE 309 Figure 15 Church of Archangel Michael in the Pantokrator Monastery, Constantinople, 1136, cross section showing the two intersecting domes (drawing by Heidi Reburn, delineated after Jean Ebersolt, Les églises de Constantinople [Paris: E. Leroux, 1913], plate XLIV).

Figure 16 Jo Klek (Josif Seissel), Church of Saints Cyril and Methodius, Sušak, Croatia, 1931, ground plan (Vesna Mikic´, “Zajednicˇki projekti arhitekata Seissela i Picˇmana; uz Seisselovu skicu ‘Putujuc´i grad’ iz 1932. godine,” Prostor 18, no. 2 [Dec. 2010], 348–59).

also was never built, followed Zenitist ideas, incorporating topped by a free dome. The round-arched perforations of the evocative capacity of Byzantine architecture as Klek did in the solids suggest permeability and the dynamics of the the first Zeniteum project (see Figure 6). This centrally structure of medieval walls. What Steiner called “etheric planned church with a massive dome combined what archi- walls” (spiritual walls) can be seen in the best-preserved ex- tectural historian Vesna Mikic´ has identified as “Interna- amples of Middle Byzantine architecture, the Greek mon- tional” and “Mediterranean” architecture without explicit astery churches of Hosios Loukas and Daphni.72 The wall references to medieval Byzantine architecture.69 The project texture of these churches resembles the “etheric walls” incorporated topographical elements and open terraces, found in Steiner’s first Goetheanum and also in the design which also occurred in the design for the second Zeniteum for the second Zeniteum (Figure 17). All have tripartite (see Figure 7). Cyril and Methodius were Byzantine saints and geometric and textural organization of surfaces, from a missionaries who devised the first alphabet for the Slavic solid ground level through a porous, “dematerialized” people, which was crucial to their cultural development. In this middle zone crowned by a dome, which Micic´ highlights as design, Klek combined references to the saints and a pedago- a pure, spiritual form and the head of the building.73 gical mission, advancing its ontological and epistemological The triple domes of the second Zeniteum evoke the qualities, which were critical to the Zenitist movement.70 three-stepped design process itself, reflecting a Neoplatonic In the search for a “nonstereotypical” monumentality in concept. This concept, also used in Byzantine architecture, modern architecture, devoid of academic and historicized underlies the creation of architecture in a threefold process: romantic references, Klek’s two designs for the Zeniteum first, an idea forms in the mind of an architect; second, the create architectural monumentality through massive walls idea acquires its form and materialization in the material and domes, which is typical of the Byzantine idiom. Both world through total design; and third, the idea is ultimately schemes for the Zeniteum have an undecorated form, puri- dematerialized as the beholder moves toward the spiritual fied of excessive exterior decoration and congruent with realm through the experience of space. The Byzantines Micic´’s appraisal of the white, clear planar surfaces of the explained this process in the connection between heaven monastery church in Serbia.71 The three-part vertical and earth; similarly, Micic´ wrote about a spiritual connec- organization of the second Zeniteum suggests the triplets tion between earth and heaven through architecture and (tripartite ordering) of the Middle Byzantine church, urban design.74

310 JSAH | 75.3 | SEPTEMBER 2016 Figure 17 Comparative analysis of the tripartite organization of walls. Left: Rudolf Steiner, Goetheanum I, Dornach, Switzerland, 1913–19 (© Goetheanum Dokumentation). Center: Church of the Mother of God, Hosios Loukas Monastery, Greece, tenth century (author’s photo). Right: Jo Klek (Josif Seissel), Zeniteum II, 1924 (Zenit, no. 35 [Dec. 1924], n.p., in Zenit 1921–1926, ed. Vidosava Golubovic´ and Irina Subotic´ [Belgrade: Narodna Biblioteka Srbije, 2008]; courtesy Irina Subotic´).

“dematerialization.” This is evident in the weightless lofti- ness of Hagia Sophia’s interior space, which is pierced by numerous windows and topped by a dome with a lower ring of windows that make the dome appear to be floating in light, as if suspended from high above (see Figure 1). This effect is complemented by the lacelike design of visible structural elements such as columns, usually placed on top of arches, the most fragile structural parts of the building.75 The second Zeniteum, with its “racked” thin orthogonal planes on which the domes are “stacked,” defies construc- tional logic but also reflects the nonmaterial, spiritual quality of Zenitist architecture. Zenitist architecture evoked the Byzantine architectural constructs of total design and dematerialization aesthetics in diagrammatic visionary drawings. These drawings consis- tently emphasize the “Byzantine” dichotomy of wall and dome rather than the trabeated system of Western European Figure 18 El Lissitzky, Proun Space, 1923 (reconstruction 1965; Stedelijk architecture, providing opportunities for altering the prevail- Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, Netherlands). ing academic architectural canons of the early twentieth century.76 The subtle evocations of Byzantium in Zenitist architecture, instead of a rigid adoption of Byzantine architectural elements, suggest how Micic´ and Klek moved be- Structure and Spirituality in Zenitist Architecture yond the Byzantine-medieval past in their novel solutions. To understand the relationship between Zenitist modernism The Zenitists also discussed what they termed the “art of and Byzantine architecture, it is important to understand the structure” (konstrukcija) and the “architecture of painting,” role of conceptual design in Zenitist architectural practices. The which were critical aspects of other modernist movements.77 unbuilt, visionary project for the second Zeniteum has memora- El Lissitzky’s proun (an acronym from the Russian for “project ble aesthetics. One of the basic features of Byzantine architec- for the affirmation of the new”) had a strong influence ture, as exemplified by Hagia Sophia, is an aesthetics of on Micic´’s philosophy and Klek’s work (Figure 18). Lissitzky

EVOCATIONS OF BYZANTIUM IN ZENITIST AVANT-GARDE ARCHITECTURE 311 Figure 19 El Lissitzky, Construction [= Proun], 1922 (Zenit, nos. 17/18 [Sept./Oct. 1922], n.p., in Zenit 1921–1926, ed. Vidosava Golubovic´ and Irina Subotic´ [Belgrade: Narodna Biblioteka Srbije, 2008]; courtesy Irina Subotic´).

Figure 20 Jo Klek (Josif Seissel), PaFaMa [Papier-Farben-Malerei], 1922 (Vidosava Golubovic´ and Irina Subotic´, eds., Zenit 1921– 1926 [Belgrade: Narodna Biblioteka Srbije, 2008]; courtesy Irina Subotic´).

and Ilya Ehrenburg published an article on proun in Zenit, into German as PaFaMa, from Papier-Farben-Malerei) of 1922, “Ruska nova umetnost” (Russian new art), that was critical Micic´ conceived of painting as constructed of paper and to the wider avant-garde networks of the 1920s and to color, as opposed to romantic mimetic notions of painting Zenitism (Figure 19).78 In their article, Lissitzky and Ehren- (Figure 20).80 Like Lissitzky’s proun, which Lissitzky defined as burg traced the development of new Russian art from icon a “construction” (konstrukcija), Micic´’s arbos was described as a painting to suprematism and constructivism, from panel paint- construction. Similarly, in the 1920s Micic´’s idea of a nonmi- ing to painting in space, and addressed the potential for art metic practice shifted from painting to “dematerialized” archi- to create a new society on a grand scale.79 With his concept of tecture, expressed as a composite of all arts (literature, music, arbos (from artija-boja-slika, or paper-color-painting, translated plastic arts, and painting) (see Figures 4 and 20).

312 JSAH | 75.3 | SEPTEMBER 2016 Figure 21 Ljubomir Micic´, poster for Great Zenitist Vespers, Zagreb, 31 January 1923 (Vidosava Golubovic´ and Irina Subotic´, eds., Zenit 1921–1926 [Belgrade: Narodna Biblioteka Srbije, 2008]; courtesy Irina Subotic´).

The connections among the avant-gardes in Russia and individualism. In his view, the individualism of a Zenitist’s Serbia were part of the wide search for new, nonimitative, socially engaged creative process arose from within, not out- socially engaged architecture, as indicated by the member- side, the artist. The Zenitists sought to create a society where ship of the Zenitists in the short-lived Moscow-based Asso- humans would be at the center of a microcosmos in which the ciation for New Architecture (ASNOVA), founded in 1923 highest circles would be art and philosophy.85 and dissolved in 1929.81 In 1926, the founders, Nikolai Micic´ insisted that all creation results from both the mys- Ladovsky and El Lissitzky, named Ljubomir Micic´ as the only tical (spiritual) and the intellectual. By making recurrent and ASNOVA representative from Yugoslavia and the Balkans provocative use of Christological references and employing among seven activists for the new architecture; the others terminology usually reserved for the liturgical services of the were Adolf Behne from Germany, Le Corbusier from Orthodox church, he attempted to combine modernism and France, Mart Stam from Holland, Lundberg Holm from religion within the anti-European primitivism of Zenitist art the United States, Emil Root from Switzerland, Karel Teige and architecture. When Micic´ scheduled a Zenitist public from Czechoslovakia, and Murayama from Japan.82 performance in Zagreb in January 1923, he called the event Like other avant-garde architectural groups, ASNOVA Great Zenitist Vespers, the poster for which featured Tatlin’s was prolific in promoting ideas and visionary architectural Monument to the Third International and a call for the projects, but its members rarely built.83 Led by Ladovsky, Balkanization of Europe (Figure 21).86 By making reference ASNOVA developed a rationalist approach in architecture to the vespers service in Byzantine-rite churches, which glo- based on psychoanalytic methods, emphasizing investigations rifies God the creator of the world, Micic´ similarly glorified of psychological and physiological perceptions of space Zenitism as a “new religion” and a “new mysticism.”87 The through conceptual compositional design and application of Christological references in his polemical texts emerged from conceptual design to specific architectural projects.84 For Micic´’s consciousness of his Serbian-Byzantine-Orthodox both the Zenitists and members of ASNOVA, space rather heritage, but the meaning of his religious references should than structure formed the major element in architectural be sought in the culture of the Balkans rather than in the design. Moreover, ASNOVA insisted on team projects not church itself. As a leftist and a Serbian nationalist, Micic´ em- based on the traditional master-and-apprentice model of braced the spiritual framework of his cultural background, architectural training, in which students followed their pro- but he failed to see that Zenitism as a “new religion” was dis- fessors’ guidance and suppressed their own creativity. This cordant with modernism.88 Ultimately, his attempts to com- organization of ASNOVA work paralleled the societal aspira- bine modernism and religion and to promote the Zeniteum tions of the newly formed Soviet Union. By contrast to as a kind of new temple were destined for failure. In the end, ASNOVA’s collectivism, Micic´ focused on the active social even Lissitzky dismissed Zenitism as incompatible with mod- role of those Zenitist creative accomplishments that promoted ernism, which denied any national or religious reference.89

EVOCATIONS OF BYZANTIUM IN ZENITIST AVANT-GARDE ARCHITECTURE 313 Conclusion for the equal cultural treatment of Western Europe and its “ ” 102 Micic´’s modernism emerged from his context—the Balkans close other in the Balkans. and their Byzantine past. In a way typical of the scholarly re- In Zenitist architecture, Byzantine tradition and modernist avant-garde were intertwined in a way that defied the ception of Balkan culture, Steven A. Mansbach maintains boundaries between modernity and tradition. By combining that Micic´’s philosophy of Zenitism is rooted in the native the spirit of “Byzantine” essence, El Lissitzky’s proun, and primitivism of the Balkans and of the Southern Slavs, widely Klek’s arbos, Micic´ and the Zenitists created a diachronic cul- considered mystical and irrational.90 In academic discourse, tural hybridization of “true newness” where everything came the accomplishments of the Balkans have been perceived as together: space, time, and society. They intended to break devoid of culture and history, and thus marginalized in schol- from historical and geographic systematization in order to arly discussions and removed from “canonical” consider- create an architecture resulting from ontological creative ation.91 Yet Micic´’s Byzantine-modernist connections were processes. Zenitist “neo-Byzantine” provided a platform for crucially different from those in other parts of Europe. The the transition from Eurocentric modernism to Zenitism. Byzantine “archetype” in Zenitist modern architecture was Far from the historicist neo-Byzantine architectural style not an idea meant to be replicated literally; rather, it was in- that originated in Vienna, Zenitism used evocations of the tended to evoke the spiritual essence of Byzantine architec- Byzantine to create a unique and dynamic Byzantine-modernist ture. Micic´’s resistance to Western European colonization of architecture. Eastern Europe—its “close other” in Piotr Piotrowski’s — terms took the form of a turn to the architecture closely as- ´ć 92 Jelena Bogdanovic , coeditor of Political Landscapes of Capital Cities sociated with Byzantium. (Colorado University Press, 2016) and On the Very Edge: Modernism ´ For Micic, Slavs were the barbarogenije (the barbaric genius) and Modernity in the Arts and Architecture of Interwar Serbia (1918– “ ” who resisted the cultivation imposed by others and thus pre- 1941) (Leuven University Press, 2014), specializes in Byzantine, served an uncorrupted “self” and spirituality beyond their in- Slavic, Western European, and Islamic architecture in the Balkans tellectual, ideological, and socioeconomic realities.93 In his and the Mediterranean. [email protected]; bogdanovicjelena@ view, barbarogenije could be a vehicle of new art and spirituality gmail.com in the “sixth continent,” the Balkans.94 As explained by Igor Marjanovic´, growing up on the impoverished Military Fron- Notes tier, surviving World War I, persecuted by the authorities in the 1920s in both Croatia and Serbia, and thus displaced from 1. This article results from my long-term interest in Byzantine architecture ´ and its relevance to modern and contemporary architectural practices. Vari- any obvious homeland, Micic evoked barbarogenije as a creative ous versions of this research were presented at the 2012 Yale conference space removed from traditional narratives and academic crea- “Byzantium/Modernism,” at the School of Design at Iowa State University tive disciplines.95 At the same time, barbarogenije was the in fall 2012, and at the 2013 convention of the Association for Slavic, East avant-garde voice of the Zenitists and Serbs, who denounced European, and Euroasian Studies, held in Boston. I am immensely grateful Europe, its tyranny, its colonization, and its geographic bor- to JSAH editor Pat Morton and to the reviewers for their suggestions and questions that helped me improve this essay. Thanks are also due to Miloš ders. In the last issue of Zenit, published in 1926, just before the R. Perovic´, Aleksandar Kadijevic´, Thomas Leslie, April Eisman, Kurt Forster, ´ journal was shut down by the government, Micic wrote: Ljubomir Milanovic´, Marina Mihaljevic´, Irina Subotic´, Tanja Damljanovic´- “Down with Europe! Down with today’s tyranny; down with Conley, Erin Kalish, Lilien Filipovitch Robinson, Ljubica D. Popovich, Elena the exploitation of man over man; down with state borders.”96 Konstantinovna Murenina, Elena Boeck, Anna Sokolina, Maria Taroutina, Europe, he stated, was the “synonym for greedy capitalism and Jane Sharp, Mikesch Muecke, Ulrike Passe, Karen Bermann, Kimberly Zar- ecor, Matthew Gordy, Heidi Reburn, Joyce Newman, Trudy Jacoby, Anna imperialism of the West (and therefore it also includes Amer- Pauli, Danielle Peltakian, Gordana Stanišic´, Dragana Ćorovic´, and Dušan ”97 ica). Europe was provoking the collapse of humanity, while Danilovic´. This research was supported by a grant from the Center for Excel- the barbarians represented “the entire world proletariat.”98 He lence in Arts and Humanities at Iowa State University. described barbarogenije as the “sum of eternal, brutal forces, On tradition and modernism, see Leen Meganck, Linda van Santvoort, which rejuvenates humanity.”99 In a note, Micic´ added that and Jan de Maeyer, eds., Regionalism and Modernity: Architecture in Western Europe 1914–1940 (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2013); Richard Etlin, “Zenitism is a son of the awakened Serbian genius.”100 In Modernism in Italian Architecture, 1890–1940 (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, “ this last issue of Zenit, he clearly stated that the Balkanization 1991), 165–376; Michelangelo Sabatino, Pride in Modesty: Modernist Architec- of Europe” was not a fight against culture but a fight for a ture and the Vernacular Tradition in Italy (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, “new culture.”101 Micic´ asserted that Zenitists recognized bar- 2010), 57–127. ’ barogenije in the vitality of the Asian and Balkan people and that 2. On the early interest in Byzantine architecture, see Auguste Choisy, Lart de bâtir chez les Byzantins (Paris: Société anonyme de publications périodiques, the “Balkanization of Europe” should be understood as the 1883); Auguste Choisy, Histoire de l’architecture, 2 vols. (Paris: Gauthier- “ ” ´’ barbarization of Europe through barbarogenije. Micics Zeni- Villars, 1899); Josef Strzygowski, Kleinasien, ein Neuland der Kunstgeschichte tist fight for the “Balkanization of Europe” in the 1920s argued (Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs, 1903).

314 JSAH | 75.3 | SEPTEMBER 2016 3. J. B. Bullen, Byzantium Rediscovered: The Byzantine Revival in Europe and 15. Kadijevic´, “Evokacije i parafraze vizantijskog,” esp. 386. America (London: Phaidon, 2003). 16. On studies of Byzantine architecture in Serbia and trips to Saint Mark’s in 4. Ibid., 8. Venice and other locations in Italy, see Branko Maksimovic´, “Od studentskih 5. Ibid., 58–59. See also Neil Levine, “The Romantic Idea of Architectural dana do trnovitih staza urbanizma Beograda” [From students’ days to thorny Legibility: Henri Labrouste and the Neo-Grec,” in The Architecture of the paths of the Belgrade urbanism], in Beograd u sec´anjima 1919–1929 [Belgrade Ecole des Beaux-Arts, ed. Arthur Drexler (New York: Museum of Modern in memories 1919–1929], ed. Milan Djokovic´ (Belgrade: Srpska Književna Art/Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1977), 332. Zadruga, 1980), 41–56, esp. 43, 47. 6. From the seventeenth century in Western Europe, Byzantium was consid- 17. The first International Congress of Byzantine Studies was held in ered an avatar of the Roman Empire rather than a historical reality. Jean- Romania in 1924. The founders of the Association International des Études Michele Spieser, “Du Cange and Byzantium,” in Through the Looking Glass: Byzantines (AIEB) included French, Romanian, Russian, and British scholars Byzantium through British Eyes, ed. Robin Cormack and Elizabeth Jeffreys C. Diehl, H. Gregoire, N. Iorga, N. Kondakov, G. Millet, and Sir W. Ramsay. (Aldershot, England: Ashgate, 2000), 199–210; Bullen, Byzantium Rediscov- 18. Miloš R. Perovic´, Srpska arhitektura XX veka: Od istoricisma do drugog ered, 11; Ludovic Bender, “Regards sur Sainte-Sophie (fin XVIIe–début XIXe modernizma/Serbian 20th Century Architecture: From Historicism to Second siècle): Prémices d’une histoire de l’architecture byzantine,” Byzantinische Modernism (Belgrade: Arhitektonski Fakultet Univerziteta u Beogradu, 2003), Zeitschrift 105, no. 1 (2012), 1–28. 69–70. 7. In 1929 this kingdom became the Kingdom of Yugoslavia (1929–45). 19. Janez Vrecˇko, Srecˇko Kosovel, Slovenska zgodovinska avantgarda in Zenitizem 8. Renate Wagner-Rieger, Der Architekt Theophil Hansen (Vienna: Österreichi- (Maribor: Založba Obzorja, 1986); Vidosava Golubovic´ and Irina Subotic´, sche Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1977); Sussane Kronblicher-Skacha, “Archi- eds., Zenit 1921–1926 (Belgrade: Narodna Biblioteka Srbije, 2008). tektur,” in Das Zeitalter Kaiser Franz Josephs I (Vienna: Niederösterreichisches 20. Vidosava Golubovic´, “Časopis Zenit (1921–1926)” [The Zenit periodical Landesmuseum, 1984), esp. 491; Ákos Moravánszky, Competing Visions: Aesthetic (1921–1926)], in Golubovic´ and Subotic´, Zenit 1921–1926, 15–44, esp. 15; Invention and Social Imagination in Central European Architecture, 1867–1918 “Biografije saradnika zenita” [Biographies of Zenitist collaborators], s.v. (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1998), 63–70; Bullen, Byzantium Rediscovered, “Ljubomir Micic´,” in Golubovic´ and Subotic´, Zenit 1921–1926, 345–50. 46–49. 21. Ljubomir Micic´, “Čovek i umetnost” [Man and art], Zenit, no. 1 (Feb. 9. Miodrag Jovanovic´, “Teofil Hanzen, ‘hanzenatika’ i Hanzenovi srpski 1921), 1–2. ucˇenici” [summary in French: “Théophile Hansen, la ‘Hansenatique’ et les 22. Golubovic´ and Subotic´, Zenit 1921–1926, 11–12, English translation on disciples Serbes de Hansen”] [Theophil Hansen, the “Hanseatic” and Hansen 469–70. Serbs disciples], Zbornik za likovne umetnosti matice srpske 21 (1985), 235–56. 23. Laurel Seely Voloder and Tyrus Miller, “Avant-Garde Periodicals Unless otherwise noted, all translations are my own. in the Yugoslavian Crucible: Zenit (Zagreb 1921–3, Belgrade 1924–6); 10. Aleksandar Kadijevic´, Jedan vek traženja nacionalnog stila u srpskoj arhitek- Zagreb: Dada-Jok (1922), Dada-Tank (1922), Dada Jazz (1922); Novi turi (sredina XIX–XX veka) [One century of searching for a national style in Sad:t Ú (1922–5); Ljubljana: Svetokret (1921); Rdecˇi pilot (1922); and Ta n k Serbian architecture (mid-nineteenth–twentieth centuries)], 2nd ed. (Bel- (1927),” in The Oxford Critical and Cultural History of Modernist Maga- grade: Gradjevinska Knjiga, 2007). zines, vol. 3, Europe 1880–1940, pt. 1 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 11. Carl Schorske, Thinking with History: Explorations in the Passage to Modern- 2013), 1105. ism (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1998). See also Mora- 24. “Biografije saradnika zenita,” 289–384. vánszky, Competing Visions. 25. Ljubomir Micic´, “Nova umetnost” [New art], Zenit, no. 35 (Dec. 1924), n.p. 12. Starting with the formation of the Serbian medieval state, the Serbs re- 26. Golubovic´, “Časopis Zenit (1921–1926),” 15–44, esp. 15; “Biografije sar- ceived from Byzantium the Cyrillic alphabet, state organization and philosophy adnika zenita,” s.v. “Ljubomir Micic´.” of the state law, arts and literature, and Christian Orthodox religion, while 27. Golubovic´ and Subotic´, Zenit 1921–1926; Igor Marjanovic´, “Zenit: Peripa- Serbian church architecture was based on Byzantine models. Serbo-Byzantine tetic Discourses of Ljubomir Micic´ and Branko Ve Poljanski,” in On the Very style hence became an official style of the new state. Kadijevic´, Jedan vek Edge: Modernism and Modernity in the Arts and Architecture of Interwar Serbia trazenja; Branislav Pantelic´, “Nationalism and Architecture: The Creation of (1918–1941), ed. Jelena Bogdanovic´, Lilien Filipovitch Robinson, and Igor a National Style in Serbian Architecture and Its Political Implications,” JSAH Marjanovic´ (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2014), 63–84. 56, no. 1 (Mar. 1997), 16–41. Tanja Damljanovic´ demonstrates that a variety of 28. Marjanovic´, “Zenit,” 66. modernist expressions in architecture do not support a national distinctiveness 29. Ibid. See also Jasminka Udovicˇki, “The Bonds and the Fault Lines,” in Burn of either Serbian or Yugoslav architecture. Tanja Damljanovic´, “The Question This House: The Making and Unmaking of Yugoslavia, ed. Jasminka Udovicˇki and of National Architecture in Interwar Yugoslavia: Belgrade, Zagreb, Ljubljana” James Ridgeway (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1997), 11–42. (PhD diss., Cornell University, 2003). Aleksandar Ignjatovic´ claims that mod- 30. Marjanovic´, “Zenit,” 72. ernist architecture in the interwar period was an active and constitutive part of 31. Micic´, “Čovek i umetnost”; Ljubomir Micic´, Boško Tokin, and Ivan Goll, representing and materializing the national idea of Yugoslavism. Aleksandar Manifest Zenitizma [The Zenitist manifesto] (Zagreb: Biblioteka Zenit, 1921). Ignjatovic´, Jugoslovenstvo u arhitekturi 1904–1941 [Yugoslavism in architecture Later, Micic´ published “Zenit Manifest,” Zenit, no. 11 (Feb. 1922), 1; and 1904–1941] (Belgrade: Gradjevinska Knjiga, 2007). “Manifest varvarima duha i misli na svom kontinentima” [Manifesto to the 13. Aleksandar Kadijevic´, “Evokacije i parafraze vizantijskog graditeljstva u barbarians of spirit and thought on all continents], Zenit, no. 38 (Jan./Feb. srpskoj arhitekturi od 1918. do 1941. godine” [summary in English: “Byzantine 1926), n.p. On the Zenitists’ programmatic texts—manifestoes, poems, and Construction Evocations and Paraphrases in Serbian Architecture from 1918 dramatic texts—see Voloder and Miller, “Avant-Garde Periodicals.” For the to 1941”], in Niš and Byzantium II,ed.Miša Rakocija (Niš: Prosveta, 2004), English translation of the manifesto from the book Manifest Zenitisma, see 381–94, esp. 388, 389, 391. Ljubomir Micic´, “Zenitist Manifesto,” in Impossible Histories: Historic Avant- 14. In 1883, Mihajlo Valtrovic´, architect and professor of archaeology at the Gardes, Neo-Avant-Gardes, and Post-Avant-Gardes in Yugoslavia, 1918–1991, University of Belgrade, founded the Serbian Archaeological Society, which ed. Dubravka Djuric´ and Miško Šuvakovic´ (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, documented archaeological remains in Serbia, including medieval heritage. 2003), 525–31. Tanja Damljanovic´, Valtrovic´ i Milutinovic´, 3 vols. (Belgrade: Istorijski Muzej 32. Micic´, “Čovek i umetnost.” Srbije, 2006–8). 33. Ibid. Theophany is the manifestation of God to man.

EVOCATIONS OF BYZANTIUM IN ZENITIST AVANT-GARDE ARCHITECTURE 315 34. Ljubomir Micic´, “Zenitozofija ili Energetika stvaralacˇkog zenitizma: No Katherine Ann Carl, “Aoristic Avant-Garde: Experimental Art in 1960s and made in Serbia” [Zenitosophy or energetics of creative Zenitism: No made in 1970s Yugoslavia” (PhD diss., Stony Brook University, 2009), 7. In my opin- Serbia], Zenit, nos. 26–33 (Oct. 1924), n.p. ion, the lack of windows in the design does not necessarily suggest mortuary 35. Ibid. architecture. 36. Micic´ et al., Manifest Zenitizma, 1, English translation in Micic´, “Zenitist 55. Jelena Bogdanovic´, “Rethinking the Dionysian Legacy in Medieval Archi- Manifesto,” 525. tecture: East and West,” in Dionysius the Areopagite between Orthodoxy and Her- 37. Micic´, “Zenitozofija,” n.p. esy, ed. Filip Ivanovic´ (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars, 2011), 38. Micic´, “Manifest varvarima,” n.p. 109–34, esp. 119–24, 130–32. 39. Ljubomir Micic´, Barbarogenie le decivilizateur (Paris: Aux Arenes de 56. Micic´, “Zenitozofija,” n.p. Lutece, 1938); Marjanovic´, “Zenit,” 69. 57. Ibid. 40. Miloš R. Perovic´ has demonstrated that Zenitism was the only movement 58. Dimitrije Bogdanovic´, Jovan Lestvicˇnik u vizantijskoj i staroj srpskoj in the Balkans that had all the attributes of the avant-garde as defined by phi- knjizˇevnosti [John Klimakos in Byzantine and medieval Serbian literature] (Banja losopher Stefan Morawski. Miloš R. Perovic´, “Zenitism and Modernist Archi- Luka, Bosnia and Herzegovina: Romanov, 2008), 1–5. tecture,” in Bogdanovic´ et al., On the Very Edge, 85–96. See Stefan Morawski, 59. Micic´ et al., Manifest Zenitizma, English translation in Micic´, “Zenitist “On the Avant-Garde, Neo-Avant-Garde and the Case of Postmodernism,” Manifesto,” 529. Literary Studies in Poland 21 (1988), 81–106. 60. Micic´, “Nova umetnost,” n.p. 41. Dragan Aleksic´, “Tatlin. HP/s + Čovek,” Zenit, no. 9 (Nov. 1921), 8–9. 61. Bruno Taut, Alpine Architektur (Hagen: Folkwang-Verlag, 1919). I thank 42. Cover page of Zenit, no. 11 (Feb. 1922); El Lissitzky and Ilya Ehrenburg, Tanja Conley and Patricia Morton for discussing with me Taut’s architecture “Ruska nova umetnost” [Russian new art], Zenit, nos. 17/18 (Sept./Oct. 1922), and the reference. 52. See also Perovic´, “Zenitism and Modernist Architecture,” esp. 91; 62. Alexander Nagel, Medieval Modern: Art out of Time (New York: Thames Marjanovic´, “Zenit,” esp. 67. Svetlana Boym claims that the first publication and Hudson, 2012), 7–21, 241–48, 268; Iain Boyd White, Bruno Taut and the of Tatlin’s Monument to the Third International was in the Munich art mag- Architecture of Activism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), azine Der Ararat. Svetlana Boym, Architecture of the Off-Modern (New York: 29–48; Richard Weston, Plans, Sections and Elevations: Key Buildings of the Twen- Princeton Architectural Press, 2008), 11. tieth Century (London: Laurence King, 2004), 40. On polychromy in architec- 43. Lissitzky and Ehrenburg, “Ruska nova umetnost.” ture, see Peter Collins, Changing Ideals in Modern Architecture, 1750–1950, 2nd 44. Architect P.T., “Novi sistem gradjenja” [New system of construction], Zenit, ed. (Montreal: McGill University Press, 1998), 111–16, 274–79, 283–84. no. 34 (Nov. 1924), n.p. This issue also includes photographs of Adolf Loos’s 63. For the pseudo-Gothic font used on the covers of Zenit, see Zenit,no.1 model of the Baker house in Paris and the Einstein tower by Erich Mendelsohn. (Feb. 1921) and several subsequent issues; for prominently used Cyrillic font, Branko Ve Poljanski provides a discussion of the Pavillon de l’Esprit Nouveau see Zenit, nos. 26–33 (Oct. 1924). and Melnikov’s Russian pavilion in “‘Mi’ na dekorativnoj izložbi u Parizu” [“We” 64. Micic´,“Čovek i umetnost”; Bogdanovic´, “Rethinking the Dionysian Legacy.” at the Decorative Arts Exposition in Paris], Zenit, no. 37 (Nov./Dec. 1925), n.p. 65. Micic´, “Beograd bez arhitekture,” n.p. Finally, yet another critical text on international modernist architecture is Walter 66. Ibid. Gropius’s “Internacionalna arhitektura” [International architecture], Zenit, 67. Perovic´, Srpska arhitektura XX veka, 66–70. Rudolf Steiner was the no. 40 (Apr. 1926), n.p.; this article features an illustration of the Rosenberg founder of anthroposophy, which had its center at the Goetheanum. See, for House, an image repeated on the issue’s cover page. The same issue also example, Anna P. Sokolina, ed., Arhitektura i antroposofiya [Architecture and shows Van Eesteren’s first-prize-winning design for the Unter den Linden. anthroposophy] (Moscow: KMK, 2010), summary in English, 261–64; Willy See also Perovic´, “Zenitism and Modernist Architecture.” Rotzler, “Das Goetheanum in Dornach als Beispiel der Integration der :: 45. “Knjige Bauhaus-a” [The Bauhaus books], Zenit, no. 40 (Apr. 1926), n.p. Kunste,” in Rudolf Steiner in Kunst und Architektur, ed. Walter Kugler and 46. Boško Tokin, “Rim/Kupola Svetog Petra” [Rome/The dome of Saint Simon Baus (Cologne: Dumont, 2007), 291–98; David Adams, “Rudolf Peter’s], Zenit, no. 5 (June 1921), 3–4. Steiner’s First Goetheanum as an Illustration of Organic Functionalism,” 47. See also Kadijevic´, “Evokacije i parafraze vizantijskog,” esp. 388, 389, 391. JSAH 51, no. 2 (June 1992), 182–204. 48. Ljubomir Micic´, “Beograd bez arhitekture” [Belgrade without architec- 68. The first Goetheanum, fully completed under Steiner, was lost to fire in ture], Zenit, no. 37 (Nov./Dec. 1925), n.p. 1923. The still extant second Goetheanum was built posthumously. On the 49. Ibid. For references to primary sources that describe Hagia Sophia as the architectural idea of the Goetheanum, see Rudolf Steiner, Der Baugedanke des meeting of heaven and earth, see Linda Safran, “Introduction,” in Heaven on Goetheanum: Einleitender Vortag mit Erklärungen zu den Bildern des Baus Earth: Art and the Church in Byzantium, ed. Linda Safran (University Park: (Dornach, Switzerland: Philosophisch-Anthroposophischer Verlag am Goe- Pennsylvania State University Press, 1998), 1, 11. theanum, 1932), 19–26. 50. Micic´ et al., Manifest Zenitizma, English translation in Micic´, “Zenitist 69. Vesna Mikic´, “Zajednicˇki projekti arhitekata Seissela i Picˇmana; uz Seisse- Manifesto,” 529. lovu skicu ‘Putujuc´i grad’ iz 1932. godine” [Joint projects of architects Seissel 51. On Seissel, see “Biografije saradnika zenita,” s.v. “Jo, Josif Klek,” 329–30. and Picˇman, accompanied by Seissel’s drawing Traveling City], Prostor 18, no. 2 52. Jo Klek remained closely associated with Zenitism until its dissolution in (Dec. 2010), 348–59, esp. 353. I thank Aleksandar Kadijevic´ for discussing 1926. In the last issue of Zenit, Ljubomir Micic´, writing under the name with me the church in Sušak. Dr. M. Rasinov, published “Zenitizam kroz prizmu marksizma” [Zenitism 70. After World War II, when Klek took a position as professor of architecture through the prism of Marxism], Zenit, no. 43 (Dec. 1926), 12. in Zagreb, he became a practitioner of rigidly orthogonal international modern- 53. Micic´, “Čovek i umetnost,” 1. ist architecture. He did not continue to experiment with Byzantine-modernist 54. Micic´, “Nova umetnost”; Esther Levinger, “Ljubomir Micic´ and the Zeni- paradigms or refer to his formative years in the Zenitist movement under the tist Utopia,” in Central European Avant-Gardes: Exchange and Transformation, strong influence of Micic´. “Biografije saradnika zenita,” s.v. “Jo, Josif Klek.” 1910–1930, ed. Timothy O. Benson (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2002), 71. On the demands for purity of form, color, and space and the first Zenitist 260–78. Art historian Katherine Ann Carl associates the Zeniteum with project, see Micic´, “Nova umetnost.” On the austere monastic architecture in Egyptian funerary architecture because of the Zeniteum’s massive circular the Balkans “purified” of the excessive decoration of Byzantine architecture, walls topped by a dome with tumuli-like architecture and its thick walls. see Micic´, “Beograd bez arhitekture.”

316 JSAH | 75.3 | SEPTEMBER 2016 72. See, for example, Slobodan Ćurcˇic´, Architecture in the Balkans: From Dio- in Daj nam Bozˇe municije: Srpska avangarda na braniku otadzˇbine, ed. Nikola :: cletian to Suleyman the Magnificent (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, Marinkovic´ (Belgrade: Dinex, 2013), 111–29. 2010), 297–300, 383–90, 435–36, 472, 478. Baron von Hansen’s drawings of 89. Levinger, “Ljubomir Micic´.” Ultimately, Micic´ was abandoned by his left- Hosios Loukas had been published in Allgemeine Bauzeitung in 1853; see ist fellows in Tito’s Yugoslavia, where he lived on charity. “Biografije sarad- Wagner-Rieger, Der Architekt Theophil Hansen, 266, as cited in Jovanovic´, nika zenita,” s.v. “Ljubomir Micic´.” “Teofil Hanzen,” 244. Other publications were also available by this time; for 90. S. A. Mansbach, Modern Art in Eastern Europe: From the Baltic to the Bal- example, Robert W. Schultz and Sidney H. Barnsley, The Monastery of Saint kans, ca. 1890–1939 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 231. On Luke (London: Macmillan, 1901). Mansbach’s study of Zenitism see also Perovic´, “Zenitism and Modernist 73. Micic´, “Beograd bez arhitekture.” Architecture.” 74. Micic´, “Nova umetnost.” 91. Maria Todorova, Imagining the Balkans (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 75. Ćurcˇic´, Architecture in the Balkans, 196–98. 2009); Bullen, Byzantium Rediscovered, 16–18, 110, 115, 168, 226–27; Robert 76. See, for example, Fil Hearn, Ideas That Shaped Buildings (Cambridge, S. Nelson, “Living on the Byzantine Borders of Western Art,” Gesta 35, no. 1 Mass.: MIT Press, 2003), 97–135; Colin Davies, “Representation,” in Think- (1996), 3–11; Nenad Makuljevic´, “The Political Reception of the Vienna ing about Architecture: An Introduction to Architectural Theory (London: School: Josef Strzygowski and Serbian Art History,” Journal of Art Historiog- Laurence King, 2011), 12–23; Joseph Rykwert, Dancing Column: On Order in raphy 8 (June 2013), 1–13. Architecture (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1996). 92. For Piotrowski, the “close other” refers to “Eastern Europe” despite the 77. Micic´ wrote about the “structure of poems” and “words in space” and fact that the region’s architecture and arts developed in parallel to Western addressed these comparative notions in architecture. Ljubomir Micic´, “Kate- European traditions. In that context, the “close other” is not the “real other,” goricˇki imperativ zenitisticˇke pesnicˇke škole” [Categorical imperative of the as in Southeast Asia or Africa, but its culture remains marginalized. Piotr Zenitist poet’s school], Zenit, no. 13 (Apr. 1922), 17–18. See also Lajos Kassák, Piotrowski, “On the Spatial Turn, or Horizontal Art History,” Umeni/Art “Arhitektura slike” [Architecture of painting], trans. Ljubomir Micic´, Zenit, 5 (2008), 378–83, reprinted as shorter versions “Towards Horizontal Art nos. 19/20 (Nov./Dec. 1922), 67. History,” in Crossing Cultures: Conflict, Migration, and Convergence, ed. Jaynie 78. Lissitzky and Ehrenburg, “Ruska nova umetnost,” 50–52. Anderson (Melbourne: Miegunyah Press, 2009), 82–85; and “Toward a 79. Ibid. See also K. Malevicˇ, “Zakoni nove umetnosti” [The rules of new art], Horizontal History of the European Avant-Garde,” in Europa! Europa? The Zenit, nos. 17/18 (Sept./Oct. 1922), 53–54. Also in this issue of Zenit, Avant-Garde, Modernism and the Fate of a Continent, ed. Sascha Bru, Jan Lissitzky’s image titled Konstrukcija (another word he used for proun) appears Baetens, Benedikt Hjartarson, Peter Nicholls, Tania Ørum, and Hubert van (see Figure 19). den Berg (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2009), 49–58. See also Jelena Bogdanovic´, “On 80. Micic´, “Nova umetnost.” the Very Edge: Modernisms and Modernity of Interwar Serbia,” in 81. Nikolai Ladovsky and El Lissitzky, from ASNOVA: Review of the Associa- Bogdanovic´ et al., On the Very Edge,1–29. tion of New Architects (1926), in Architectural Theory, vol. 2, An Anthology from 93. Micic´, “Zenit Manifest,” 1. 1871–2005, ed. Harry Francis Mallgrave and Christina Contandriopoulos 94. Ljubomir Micic´, “Makroskop: Pet kontinenata” [Macroscope: Five conti- (Malden, Mass.: Blackwell, 2008), 178–79; Selim O. Khan-Magomedov, Pio- nents], Zenit, no. 24 (May 1923), n.p.; Lioubomir Mitzitch, “Avion sans appa- neers of Soviet Architecture: The Search for New Solutions in the 1920s and 1930s reil: Poème antieuropéen,” Zenit, no. 37 (Nov./Dec. 1925), n.p. (London: Thames and Hudson, 1987), 106–45. 95. Marjanovic´, “Zenit,” esp. 80–81. 82. Ladovsky and Lissitzky, from ASNOVA; Khan-Magomedov, Pioneers of 96. Micic´, “Zenitizam kroz prizmu marksizma,” 12–13. Soviet Architecture. Micic´’s specific role in ASNOVA remains unknown. 97. Ibid., 12. 83. Ladovsky and Lissitzky, from ASNOVA; Khan-Magomedov, Pioneers of 98. Ibid., 13. Soviet Architecture. See also Catherine Cooke, Russian Avant-Garde: Theories of 99. Ibid. Art, Architecture and the City (London: Academy Editions, 1995), 25–98. 100. Ibid., 12. See scanned documents from Micic´’s personal archive in the 84. Khan-Magomedov, Pioneers of Soviet Architecture, 106–45. Belgrade National Library online: http://monoskop.org/images/5/51/ 85. Micic´, “Čovek i umetnost.” Zenit_43.pdf (accessed 7 June 2015). The documents are also available on 86. Ljubomir Micic´, poster for Velika Zenitisticˇka Vecˇernja (Great Zenitist YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ToNy08rJphM (accessed 7 June Vespers), Zagreb, 31 Jan. 1923. 2015). 87. Micic´, “Čovek i umetnost.” 101. Micic´, “Zenitizam kroz prizmu marksizma,” 13. 88. Micic´ never repudiated his Serbian identity; he initiated a nationalistic 102. Micic´, poster for Velika Zenitisticˇka Vecˇernja. See also Delphine Bière- journal, Srbijanstvo, in 1940. Ljubomir Micic´, “Manifest Srbijanstva” [Mani- Chauvel, “La revue Zenit: Une avant-garde entre particularisme identitaire et festo of Serbianism], Dubrovnik 1936, Srbijanstvo, Belgrade, 1940, reprinted internationalisme,” in Bru et al., Europa! Europa?, 138–52.

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