The urban landscape: traditionalism versus modernism

The style of architecture, both in new developments and existing urban areas, can stir great emotions. Often people make a distinction between traditionalism and modernism. Under traditionalist architecture a vast array of architectural styles are included, varying from historic styles (gothic, baroque and classicism) and historicist styles (revival styles and some examples of post-modernism) to traditionalist styles (vernacular architecture, Arts and Crafts and 20^th-century traditionalist design). When people talk about modernism or modern architecture they generally mean post-war International Style Modernism, but this style is much broader ranging from, Art Nouveau, Jugendstil and Secession via Art Deco to Functionalism, Nieuwe Bouwen, New Objectivity and Bauhaus and to Cubist, Constructivist and Expressionist architecture. To make a distinction between architecture with ornament (as historic or traditional) and without (as modern) is a gross misrepresentation; likewise a distinction based on materials -plaster and concrete versus brick and wood- doesn’t help to distinguish between the traditional and the modern. The distinction between traditional and modern is at its core a distinction between a focus on the past and tradition, and a focus on renewal, technological advancement and the future.

Some typical examples of Historicism from London. On the right a mansion in Neoclassical style, complete with narrow columns. Columns, with ornate capitals, can also flank an entrance (left). The ornate housing in Dutch revival style (middle) combining baroque German architecture with Dutch gables.

The revival styles so typical of Historicism dominates many 19^th century urban quarters. In historic cities these developments encircle the older urban core (unless there is a river or body of water on one side). Building height varies according to local building laws, but are typically 4 to 5 storeys in height with closed frontage along the roads. These revival styles were often used to discern between functionality and status of the buildings, e.g. Neoclassicism for a court house, Gothic revival for the town hall, Byzantine revival for a church, Neo-Baroque for a hotel. Many of the buildings from this period don’t adhere strictly to a single style but are an architectural mashup of elements knowns as Eclecticism. Most housing was built in this Eclectic style. The appearance of such eclectic building can vary greatly dependant on the country or region. Some postmodern buildings are also eclectic as they cite elements of several styles. Artistic architecture like that of Gaudi and Hundertwasser is also eclectic.

A typical residential street in a 19^th-century commercial development with that typical Victorian architecture that is eclectic in essence. Here brick is combined with moulded stone ornaments, bay windows and triangular gable ends in an ornamental mashup.

Traditionalist architecture is associated by many with Arts and Crafts, although some of the exponent of that movement were actually modern in intention. Traditionalism should be seen as a reaction against industrialisation and mass production of goods and (building) components and focusses on traditional artisanal production and often emulates the look and feel of this by semi-industrial means. Most vernacular architecture is traditionalist in nature, taking inspiration from historic local architecture or even examples from further afield. Vernacular architecture became the style of choice for the Garden City Movement, although beyond Britain the architecture is often more progressive or even modernist.

A typical vernacular building with -fake- half-timbering on the protruding storey supported by a window bay (left) as can be found in many developments that were built as part of the Garden City Movement. This street in Breda (middle) in Dutch Traditionalist style is much more austere, as was deemed fitting in the 1950s. Since the 1990s, but especially after 2000 developers have returned to vernacular and traditionalist architecture for residential buildings as this (right) cottage-type house that references West-Frisian farms illustrates.

As a reaction to the many revival styles, Traditionalism appears in Scandinavia, the Netherlands and Germany right at the end of the nineteenth century. As such this style is contemporary to Jugendstil and early Modernism. From the 1920 Traditionalism shifts towards “honest architecture” as a reaction to Functionalism and Expressionism with brickwork, minimal decorations and natural materials (no visible concrete or steel). This type of Traditionalism that would last until the end of the 1950s is closely linked to Rationalism. The style was embraced mainly by conservative politicians. New Urbanism has lead to a -limited- resurgence of traditionalist architecture; albeit merely traditional in outward appearance, as the construction and internal workings are thoroughly modern.

New Urbanism has focussed on creating places -which is positive- and this has often been translated by architects and developers as a return to traditionalism. On the left some original historic houses in Geertruidenberg, a former fortified city. On the right the new houses built in a traditionalist style, in a large development adjacent to the old city, which also feature Spout Gables.

Modernism has its roots in some strains of Neoclassicism and Biedermeier. Biedermeier -essentially a Neoclassical style- focussed mainly on functionality, clean lines, minimal ornamentation and the spatial character of the architectural intervention. The interiors of this period are often more decorative and far less austere. Yet the train of thought started with Biedermeier evolved into both Jugendstil - Art Nouveau and Functionalist Modernism. The Art Nouveau / New Art Movement started in the late 19^th century and was concerned with combining a more intuitive poetic approach to design with technological advances. Jugendstil is the German variant. Some Arts and Crafts is in essence New Art. After 1915 the style was superseded by the Art Deco, a fully modern style that embraced industrial design and translated this into decorative architecture.  

In Kiel near Antwerp several large Art Deco blocks were built in the 1920s and ‘30s. These sculptural volumes rely on cubist shapeliness combined with almost graphic outlines and accents. This is modern and decorative architecture.

Modernism in architecture and design stemmed from changing attitudes and revolutionary changes in poetry and music. The aesthetic was heavily influenced by art, especially graphic design and painting. This is evident in The Style (in Dutch: De Stijl), in Futurism and in Cubism. Modernism starts around 1900 in the Netherlands, Scandinavia and Germany with expressive experiments and buildings stripped of all ornament but treated as a sculptural mass. This fits with the contemporary tendency in art toward abstraction. Modern architecture revolves around the use of new construction methods, new materials and serial production. The use of concrete and steel for the construction of buildings, even when they have an exterior in a traditionalist or even historicist style makes it modern architecture. Also the treatment of building masses in some Jugendstil – Secession buildings pre-empts cubist architecture.

Viennese Secession was a modernist break away from historicism and classicism in the Arts. The construction methods are modern and the decor ranges from Avant Garde to naturalistic. Secession is the variant of Jugendstil in Vienna. In the middle the beautiful Secession Exhibition Hall (completed in 1898) by Olbrich. On the left Mojolikahaus (1899), an apartment building named for the majolica tiles with floral decorations that adorn the facade. It was designed by Otto Wagner. The Austrian Postal Savings Bank (1906) is another example of his work. This building uses reinforced structural concrete and has a facade made up of square marble panels attached to the structure with metal bolts that form a regular decorative pattern.

Modernism as a movement starts with the Deutscher Werkbund, founded by Hermann Muthesius in 1907. As a distinct and self-aware style of architecture and design, Modernism presents itself in many guises from about 1915 in Germany, Austria and The Low Countries. Apart from some experimental and individual exponents of Modernism, the style gravitated around a cubist treatment of building mass and was known in the Netherlands and Germany as Nieuwe Bouwen / Neues Bauen -the new (way of) building. In English these buildings are known as New Objectivity, Bauhaus or International Modern; all are however specific strains of the style. Modernism is characterised by a focus on transparency, light, air and space within and around buildings. The closed urban block was replaced by the open block and housing in parallel rows (strokenbouw or Zeilenbau).  Other characteristics are functionality (the architecture is determined by the materials used and way these combine within a construction), symmetry and repetition, use of colour as an organic expression of shape, improvement of housing (and through that improvement in quality of living) and the separation of functions but a mix of housing types and thus of social classes.

Two moderns buildings in the International Style by Renaat Braem. These buildings form a modernist extension to the Tuinwijk Boterlaar in Deurne (Antwerp). The first houses of this social housing development were completed in 1957. The tentative approach of Braem, so eloquently shown in his pavilion, shines through in these blocks.

For practical reasons the distinction between traditional and modern works, as long as we add the historic architecture category. Despite Postmodernism -which I see as an eclectic exponent of modernism- contemporary architecture still is either modern or traditional in approach. The use of new materials and the exploration of the possibilities of new constructions for a different design and aesthetic so typical of many award-winning architecture is still modernist in its core. In contrast there is also a tendency towards retro-styles where classic Dutch Gables, 1930 architecture or Art Deco are references for new buildings. True historicism isn’t often found, except for some Postmodern architecture that incorporates historic element to create a certain visual effect (for instance the Inverdan Project in Zaandam). Some classic modern architecture is also being reinvented as contemporary architecture. This is sometimes known as New-Modernist architecture.

Two examples of New-Modernism. On the left a colourful and cubist redevelopment of a former sink estate. The colours were chosen to reference the many Moroccan residents that (used to) live here, before gentrification by redevelopment. This shapely house in brick (right) clearly references early modernist examples that explored curtain glass walls to connect inside and out.  

Public Art: The Bear Pit, a graffiti showcase

A “Berenkuil” (Bear Pit) is the name used in the Netherlands for a raised traffic circle with a junction (most often a roundabout) of cycle paths at the lower level. The first of this type was built in Utrecht in 1944, but there are several in the Netherlands, some with a different name however. The junction of the Outer Ring with the central thoroughfare (that links the football stadium via the station and the TU/e university campus with the motorway to Helmond) in Eindhoven is officially known as Insulindeplein. The traffic circle is locally known as De Berenkuil.

An outer circle for automotive traffic surrounds a second sunken circle for bicycles and motor scooters; ramps from the bicycle lanes along the nearby streets lead into the lower circle via four underpasses. The Insulindeplein is also a crossroads of pedestrian routes with underpasses and steps leading people safely underneath the ring road. The more recent Hovenring is an opposite solution with a raised circle for slow traffic (pedestrians and cyclists).

This Berenkuil in Eindhoven is also well known for another reason: it has been designated a free zone for graffiti artists, where they can paint graffiti without interference from the police. As a result, artists have created several large and impressive works on the walls and the area has become a showcase. Every year since 2010  the international graffiti festival "Step In The Arena" is held here in September, making it an everchanging open-air art installation.

Each underpass combines a two-way cycle path with a one-way walking path either side. The face of each underpass has been adorned with graffiti art, I especially liked this snake coiling around two eyes staring right at you as you come down the ramp.

The lowered centre of the “Bear Pit” is a roundabout for cyclists with wide walkways around it. Trees have bene planted within the green verges to make for a more attractive place, but also to reduce micro particles. On the faces of the retaining walls around graffiti has been sprayed, mostly as tags, often with little artistic merit.

Tags are usually letters, often with clear edging in contrasting colours. I prefer the figurative artwork. On the right a playful addition to an existing work in the shape of a gnome, which is repeated in the moth of the dystopian head.

Some work is pure graphic art, on the left this landscape of textured shapes as debris after a colourless apocalypse. As a free zone for graffiti work is being added all the time, as can be seen on the right.

Some of the figurative work represents a narrative, as this girl with the cherries, ripe for picking, mixed with % signs -as a comment on greed. The red goldfish within an abstract sea of blue with shapes in red white and blue -representing the Dutch flag- I really love as an image.

The social convictions of some of the artists is clear in for instance this “portrait” of men in Guy Fawkes masks, a reference to the Occupy Movement and the hacking collective Anonymous. For the rest dystopian imagery of angst, violence and disaffection are very prevalent next to references to drugs. Mushrooms pop up everywhere!