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Von Ledoux Bis Le Corbusier 110 CUADERNO DE NOTAS 15 - 2014 ARTÍCULOS VON LEDOUX BIS LE CORBUSIER 110 Macarena Reconsidering Emil Kaufmann’s de la Vega Von Ledoux bis Le Corbusier El objetivo de este ensayo es re-abrir y re-leer Von Ledoux bis Le Corbusier de Emil Kaufmann. A pesar de que Panayotis Tournikiotis y Anthony Vidler lo incluyeran en sus respectivos discursos sobre la historiografía de la arquitectura moderna, se pro- pone reconsiderar a su autor como un historiador pionero de la Ilustración. Tres ideas: el único protagonista del libro es Claude-Nicolas Ledoux; la arquitectura en torno a 1800 necesitaba una reevaluación; y la obra de Kaufmann se enmarca en un tiempo de búsqueda de una nueva ciencia del arte y una nueva historia de la arqui- tectura. Kaufmann es una figura de transición entre una generación previa de histo- riadores del arte que establecieron conceptos y principios fundamentales, y otros de su misma generación que se embarcaron en la tarea de considerar la arquitectura moderna como objeto de una investigación histórica. Emil Kaufmann’s an Emil Kaufmann’s Von Ledoux bis Le Von Ledoux bis Le CCorbusier be considered a history of Corbusier: Ursprung modern architecture? Contrary to what und Entwicklung der certain theorists have proposed in their autonomen Architektur, 1933. works, this research aims to re-open and (Tournikiotis [2014]) re-read Von Ledoux bis Le Corbusier: Ursprung und Entwicklung der auntono- men Architektur in order to reconsider Kaufmann as a pioneer historian of the Age of Reason, rather than a historian of modern architecture. On the one hand, Von Ledoux bis Le Corbusier is discussed in two studies: first, in Panayotis Tournikiotis’ The Historio- graphy of Modern Architecture published in 1999; and second, in Anthony Vidler’s Histories of the Immediate Present publis- hed in 2008. According to Tournikiotis, Emil Kaufmann’s discourse is “plainly ope- rative”, functions as a “manifesto” and “establish[es] the modern movement and reveal[s] it as victorious” (Tournikiotis 1999: 21, 22, 26). Tournikiotis’ arguments will be confronted exclusively with the boo- shown in the majority of his scholarly pro- k’s content. Focusing on the concept of duction” (Scalvini and Sandri 1984: 79). autonomy allows Vidler not to refer to this Second, in a more recent investigation book as a history of modern architecture. published in 2011 Gevork Hartoonian’s However, Kaufmann appears in a list toge- The mental life of the architectural histo- ther with Colin Rowe, Reyner Banham and rian: re-opening the early historiography of Manfredo Tafuri, so it can be understood modern architecture, Kaufmann is not the that Vidler, too, included him in his parti- object of any chapter. Hartoonian makes cular historiography of modern architectu- small references to the historian –always re. linked with the concept of autonomy– which appear in three chapters dedicated On the other hand, there are other studies to three historians: Nikolaus Pevsner, that have not included Kaufmann’s book. Henry-Russell Hitchcock and Sigfried First, Maria Luisa Scalvini and Maria Giedion; as well as in the final chapter Grazia Sandri in L’immagine storiografica entitled “Adieu Zeitgeist!” dell’architettura contemporanea da Platz a Macarena de la Giedion briefly mention Kaufmann and his This ambiguity in the consideration of Vega. Architect. book in a footnote from the chapter about Master Degree UPM. Emil Kaufmann by different theorists, PhD student Henry-Russell Hitchcock. Scalvini empha- which contrasts with the lack of doubt in University of sizes “Kaufmann’s interest for French the cases of Pevsner or Giedion, reveals the Canberra. revolutionary architecture, an interest need for a thorough re-evaluation. CUADERNO DE NOTAS 15 - 2014 ARTÍCULOS VON LEDOUX BIS LE CORBUSIER 111 From Ledoux to Kaufmann the process of rupture and restart in the development of art. In the midst of such a Von Ledoux bis Le Corbusier: Ursprung und debate, Kaufmann agrees with Wölfflin in Entwicklung der autonomen Architektur is observing an interruption when he tries to the only alleged history of modern archi- define Neoclassicism in Von Ledoux bis Le tecture written in German. It was publis- Corbusier. hed in 1933 in Viena, at a time when “the true specificity of Kaufmann’s analysis is “Neoclassicism was a last attempt in that defined”, according to Gilbert Erouart direction; it was not a reanimation, but, (1980: 10). In the preface, Kaufmann sta- fair and completely, the end of classical tes two main objectives: on the one hand, art. This is how we see the second half of to present Ledoux’s work and thinking “as the eighteenth century in the universal more than just a biography, something history and the history of literature and else as a mosaic of an artist’s life”; and, on art: first, new ideas; then, a profound res- the other, to attempt “a reinterpretation of tlessness, the search for new paths, pas- the architectural development of the nine- sionate mistakes and failures; (…) only teenth and twentieth centuries” rarely the realization of these new ideas, in (Kaufmann 1982: 7). the Civil Code or, more clearly, in Ledoux’s architectural legacy”. (1982: 65) The beginning of the twentieth century was a time when the history of architectu- Kaufmann understands architecture re was being written by art historians; not around 1800 as a body of work in need of only the history of modern architecture, reevaluation. Why? In his opinion, the rup- but also of Renaissance, Baroque and ture or crisis in European thinking at that Neoclassical architecture. The nineteenth time was considered to have had impact century was still in need of a conceptuali- exclusively on philosophical, literary and zation. To truly understand Kaufmann’s social spheres. How is it possible that in work, it has to be considered in the context the arts one would only perceive a sterile of the historiography of art, in the context Neoclassicism? Kaufmann criticized pre- of the structuralist analysis theorized by vious historians for not going beyond the “The New Viennese School”. Works by pretended antique epidermis. “Excessive Heinrich Wölfflin and Paul Frankl could be attention should not be paid to merely considered relevant to exemplify the situa- superficial phenomena. On the contrary, tion of the history of art at this time. processes which take place under the sur- Significant differences are to be found in face are decisive” (1982: 63). the way both Wölfflin and Frankl present the architecture of the years around 1800. This type of analysis, which looks beyond appearances and focuses on buildings’ First, in 1914 Frankl’s Die Entwicklungs- internal structure, is what Kaufmann pre- phasen der neueren Baukunst appeared. sents of Ledoux’s work. Ledoux was at that Frankl proposes four analytical categories time a forgotten architect, and, in to examine four development phases: Kaufmann’s opinion, rediscovering and Renai-ssance, Baroque, Rococo and considering his work was “enough” to Neoclassicism. According to Frankl, exemplify architecture in the time of nothing but continuity exists between French Revolution. His work was a result each of these phases, and Neoclassicism of the times, a true reflection, but it was returns to Classicism and the not appreciated then, “his own time did Renaissance, describing a “circle uniform not understand him” (1982: 27). and closed” (Frankl 1981: 254). Second, just one year later, in 1915 Wölfflin’s How does Kaufmann present this artist in Kunstgeschichtliche Grund- begriffe: das Von Ledoux bis Le Corbusier? The main Problem der Stilentwicklung in der neueren idea is transition: Ledoux lives and works Kunst was published. Wölfflin’s discussion between two époques, understands both of of Renaissance and Baroque architecture them and practices both resultant archi- contrasts a series of concepts. At the end tectures. Kaufmann’s discourse is mainly of every chapter, he mentions a “new style” a description and classification of Ledoux’s at the end of the eighteenth century, cha- work and shows the development from a racterized as “unusual”, as a “process of more heteronomous work to buildings that profound regeneration” (Wölfflin 1924: are examples of architectural autonomy; it 337). According to Wölfflin’s analysis, it shows a structural transformation. The seems like a new start but not a return to idea of Ledoux as a transitional artist the starting point. Where Frankl sees a cir- appears throughout the book, and by the cle, Wölfflin understands that the spiral is end, Kaufmann introduces an important the geometrical figure that best exemplifies nuance: Ledoux as a “limit artist”, capable CUADERNO DE NOTAS 15 - 2014 ARTÍCULOS VON LEDOUX BIS LE CORBUSIER 112 Pages from De Ledoux a Le Corbusier (1982) that illustrate the Spanish edition of Tournikiotis’ Historiography. (Tournikiotis [2014]) of working in both the old and the new requires specific categories of treatment” manner. Kaufmann uses, among others, (1946: 283). The idea that a new time the metaphor of a river and Ledoux is one requires new categories was part of the of the first to cross from one side to the debate, not only in the first decade of the other, feeling comfortable on both sides, he twentieth century, but also during the lives in the limit and walks constantly the 1930s and the 1940s. During that time, distance from one side to the other. the theorist John Coolidge was trying to Despite his own chronological discourse, establish the “Preliminary steps towards Kaufmann claims that to establish a chro- ‘The New History of Architecture’” (1943), nological evolution is a useless task and and Paul Zucker, was finding “The that Ledoux’s relevance comes mainly Paradox of Architectural Theories at the from his knowledge of the old. beginning of the Modern Movement” Paradoxically, it is precisely that knowled- (1951). In Kaufmann’s case, Gilbert ge of old forms that makes him attempt to Erouart and Georges Teyssot have amply transform them, to design them in a diffe- discussed these new categories and have rent manner.
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