Page 25 - Bulletin 19 2015

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architectural composition and [unbelievably] must bear a contemporary stamp”. (Figs. 1.30

& 1.31.)

Now in my view, this has become a licence to print modernism. Time and again when I
question why a new addition looks so deeply alien, the answer is because the architect wishes

to distinguish it from the original.

Not surprisingly, however, under the laws of Docomomo (Documentation and Conservation

of buildings of the Modern Movement) which was set up in 1988 exclusively to preserve
such buildings, the restorer has to be completely faithful to the original intention and

resolution. (Fig. 1.32.)

The Venice Charter is much debated and opposed today. Leon Krier, who I will refer to a bit

later, argues that to achieve Article 9 is as insane as wanting to restore an ancient painting
according to the precepts of Francis Bacon or Marcel Duchamp. In this cartoon we see the

cunning modernist with a plan. (Fig. 1.33.) Let’s throw away the past of Tradition and Craft,
he says, and replace it with buildings “of our time”.

There are a growing number of architects and urban designers around the world who are
campaigning for and designing more traditional solutions in preference to the modernist ones

we have come to expect. (Fig. 1.34: Krier: Hall Seaside.) I make no excuses for my bias
toward Traditional solutions. The best compliment I can receive from a client is if they say:

“The building looks like it's always been there”.

I would now like to share a quote which has been selected to try to sum up the modernist

th
position put forward at the beginning of the 20 Century. The following was stated in 1920
by the controversial modernist Le Corbusier who set the scene for the Modernist ideas and

projects that followed.

“If we set ourselves against the past, we are forced to the conclusion that the old

architectural code with its mass of rules and regulations evolved during 4000 years is no
longer of any interest.; it no longer concerns us; all the values have been revised; there has

been a revolution in the conception of what architecture is”. Le Corbusier.