Sigfried Giedion (1888-1968) was a Swiss art historian whose technological history of architecture and mechanization influenced a whole generation of architects. As a founding member of CIAM in 1928, its secretary general from then until 1956, and an important ideologue and propagandist of CIAM ideas in general and Le Corbusier’s visions in particular, Giedion’s star rose and fell with the fate of high modernism.

He published his first book about architecture "Building in France, Building in Iron, Building in Ferroconcrete" in 1928. Here he analyzed constructions of the nineteenth century as indicators of technical and aesthetical possibilities in the future. Heavily drawing on pictorial montages in his argumentation, he saw the main principle of the new architecture in "Raumdurchdringung" (space penetration) made possible through iron and ferroconcrete – as opposed to the then dominant architectural principle of "Stütze und Last" (load and bearing).

At the beginning of the 1930s Giedion had toyed with the idea of writing a multi-volume work titled "The Origins of Man"; the first volume was supposed to bear the title "Chaos and Construction". Like many other intellectuals, Giedion fled to the US in the years of the Second World War, where he was invited to Harvard by Walter Gropius to give the Charles Eliot Norton Lectures 1938-39. These lectures formed the basis of his book "Space, Time and Architecture: the growth of a new tradition" (1941). While Giedion was still trying to show the importance of engineering for architecture and its influence on art in "Building…", in "Space…" the engineer entered the stage as a new type of architect in his own right.

During his time in the US, he was able to collect the materials for his book "Mechanization Takes Command: a contribution to anonymous history" (1948), which was published after his return to Europe. In "Mechanization…" Giedion tried to write an anonymous history of mechanization and standardization – from the mechanization of bread baking and meat packing to furniture and the modern bathroom – that praised the ingenuity of engineers while criticizing the disturbing effects of these developments on the psyche. Both books from his time in the US adhered to the original plan of the 1930s: While in "Space…" the contemporary period was characterized by a split between thought and feeling, in "Mechanization…" this split was grounded in the rise of mechanization and the consequences for human societies.

At the CIAM VIII conference (1951) Giedion proposed a "new monumentality" that was to re-assemble the sociality of modern urbanism.
Two years later, at the 1953 CIAM Congress in Aix-en-Provence, three major topics were discussed: 1. The shift from a focus on Urbanism as manifested in the Charter of Athens towards a concentration of questions of dwelling in the form of a Charter of Habitat; 2. The role of aesthetic and art; 3. The role of the younger generation of architects within CIAM. A report from the Commission II about the synthesis of the arts makes a main point about the relationship towards “primitive cultures”. Trying to capture the predominant atmosphere of the congress, Siegfried Giedion gives the following description: “Sculptures were dotted around the site as silent witnesses, as well as paintings of Le Corbusier and Fernand Leger, who appeared in our midst as an old friend, and of younger painters leaning against walls or tree trunks. In one corner brilliant drawings and photographs were mounted onto a wire between two sycamore trees originating from a student’s expedition to explore native cultures in Cameroon.” * (Giedion 1953:1)

One of the specific characteristics of this CIAM 9 congress, he claims, was the “cultural influx from far away continents”. Coming back to the primitive hut in Cameroon, he states that primitive architecture is the direct expression of life forms that have been preserved through the course of time deeply rooted in human and cosmological conditions. The CIAM was fascinated with their new discovery of this natural dignity of the primitive hut, in contrast to the soul-less prefabricated house. Contemporary architecture was able to regain humbleness. While Giedion called his essay “Universalismus und Regionalismus,” it is the idea of the vernacular based in Romanticism as “a timeless realm beyond the reach of social tensions or commercial ambitions” emphasizing “indigenous traditions”, “authenticity”, “folk virtues”, and “an idyllic harmony between humans and nature”(Wright 2003:166) he is transporting here. It is a space opposed to the modern, evoking “the informal, spontaneous use of space unsanctioned by official laws and rules.”(Fiege 2003:223) (FA+CL)


* own translation:Als stumme Zeugen standen Plastiken umher, sowie, an die Wände oder an Baumstämme gelehnt, Bilder Le Corbusiers oder Fernand Legers, der als alter Freund wieder in unserer Mitte erschien, sowie die junger Maler. In einer Ecke hingen auf Drähten zwischen Platanenstämmen ausgezeichnete Fotos und Zeichnungen einer Expedition von Studenten der Ecole des Beaux Arts zur Erforschung der Eingeborenenkultur in Kamerun.

Sources:

Fiege, Mark (2003): “Private Property and the Ecological Commons in the American West.” In: Everyday America: cultural landscape studies after J.B. Jackson. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Giedion, Sigfried (1953): “Habitat” zum 9. CIAM Kongress” GTA Zürich: 43-T-15-1953-9.Giedion, Sigfried (1967): Space, time and architecture: the growth of a new tradition. Fifth revised edition. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1967.
Giedion, Sigfried (1970): Mechanisation takes command: a contribution to anonymous history. Third print. New York: Oxford University Press.
Giedion, Sigfried (2000): Bauen in Frankreich, Bauen in Eisen, Bauen in Eisenbeton. Reprint of the original 1928 edition Leipzig: Klinkhardt und Biermann.
Sokratis Georgiadis (1989): Sigfried Giedion: eine intellektuelle Biographie. Zürich: Ammann-Verlag.
Rentsch, Verena (Ed.) (1989): Sigfried Giedion 1888 – 1968: der Entwurf einer modernen Tradition; eine Ausstellung organisiert vom Institut für Geschichte und Theorie der Architektur (gta) in Zusammenarbeit mit dem Museum für Gestaltung Zürich. Museum für Gestaltung Zürich, 1. Februar bis 9. April 1989. Zürich: Ammann-Verlag.
Wright, Gwendolyn (2003): “On Modern Vernaculars and J.B. Jackson” In: Everyday America: cultural landscape studies after J.B. Jackson. Berkeley: University of California Press.