‘The MIT Press Cambridge, Massachusers Landon, England The Sphere and the Labyrinth Avant-Gardes and Architecture from Piranesi to the 1970s Manfredo Tafuri translated by Pellegrino d’Aciero and. Robert Connolly 1987 (Of @p 1980)G. Krutihov as a Ph.D. these (1928) explain without compromises the ight from the real” that the planity of Malevich had already pointed out as cal de sac forthe suprematist annihilation ofthe ob. By now here remains only the space of matte. Beyond it les the exit from the world, on this side of i, the nostalgia for bourgeois “otalty.” pursued by the means of the communicative redundancies of an archaic Kitsch, 6 ‘The New Babylon: The “Yellow Giants” and the Myth of Americanism (Expressionism, Jazz Style, Skyscrapers, 1913-30] While the adventures of planning inthe Soviet Union fallow paths in which the avant-garde, tradition, and realism converge—at lest until 3927-—demanstrating reciprocal limits and defining the conditions of a tol- “rable coexistence, the second of the “great world-systems” endures, until the Great Depression, the incubation period ofa disease marked by the conflict between a progresive tradition and dispersed aspirations to new ‘models of capitalistic sel-management. There, where the Armory Show Td introduced the vias of the “European negative” and where dadaism ed experianced an autonomoue and original phacr, the avantgarde ap- peared to find before it in the 1920s, two “strait gates” to passthrough: fn one sid, the poradox ofa radicaliem that identifies in the eration of the American Renaasancea reference point with which it must continually keep faith; and, on the other side, thematis that emerge from metropol tan rely, but that exclude purely stopian “solutions”—that exclude from the very start» one-to-one correspondence between a utopia devoid of any imediations and techniques of intervention. “The impractcablity of the negative appears to be the imperative that winds through the debate on urban reform inthe America that had seen Frustrated the hopes fueled by the wartime economy and the uncertainties af Wilson's policy of the "New Freedom.” Nevertheless, itis with respect to the control systems of urban chaos that American progressivism plays ‘ts hand: among the “conclusions” we have atterpted to draw regarding, the destiny ofthe avant-garde theatre, we have not by chance encountered the Hollywood musical. “This poses a problem, upon which critic seems not to have ade~ quately reflected: Does not what appeats inthe United States asa rejection 3 the avanegarde, atleast in architecture, infact conceal a “diverse” ap proach to the same themes animating the European negatives Denken? Do the not find ourselves confronting in Ameria a rapport with the publicthat appropriates the theme of shock, embodying it in nonhuman subject, for rather superobjects, that, indeed, obviates te strategy of the elites and the esoteric Bauhitten? In considering American culture, must we not ‘slop different viewpoint from which to evaluate the utopia of the avantgarde? Significantly, perhaps no better way exists of grasping what che Amer ‘an skyscraper is not than by studying how European culture has at~ tempted to assimilate and translate into ite own terms, especially in the years immediatly following the Fist World War, that paradox of the Metropolitan Age. The skyscraper asa “typology ofthe exception”: the frat elevator buildings in Manhattan-—from the Equitable Life Insurance Building of Gilman & Kendall and George B. Post (1868-70) 10 Post's mature works'—are real live “bombs” with cin effet, destined to ex- pode the entre real estate market. The systematic introduction of the ‘mechanical clevator, equalizing the price of rents at various floors of com: ‘mercial buildings, levels in a single blow the existing economic values and Creates new and exceptional forms of revere Immediately, the “control” (of such an explosive abject presents isl! as an urgent problem—even if there ensues, just a¢ immediately, a clear renuncation of any regulation of the economic effects. The entice typological elaboration that, first in New York and then in Chicago lies at the hear of the structural inventions of architects like Post, Le Baron Jenney John Wellborn Root, Holabird & Roche expicily tends toward a visual contra of all chat which now ap- pears as “anarchic individuality,” a mirror of the “heroie” phase of the Envrepreneurship ofthe Age af Laisser-Faire? ‘Winston Weisman has quite correctly emphasized the central role played by Poot in the formation ofthe typology of the ninetenth-century sky: seraper. In many ways the work of Post takes an opposite path from hat of Sullivan; nevertheless, Sullivan owes a great deal tothe until now un- ‘dervalued New York architect. In Pos’ U-, “tee,” and tower-shaped ‘structures, there already emerges quite carly that aspect ofthe sky- Scraper phenomenon that European interpretations tend ro overlook namely, that ts exacly by embodying the laws ofthe concurrent econ- ‘omy and, afterward, of the corporate system, thatthe skyscraper becomes fan instrument and no longer an “expression”—of economic policy, find- ing in this entity with economic policy ite own tue "value." Only after the typological and technological experiments of the last decades of the hinetcenth century have exhausted ther provisional tasks, setting into po- tition repetable structures, wail the atibution ofthe “surplus value” of Tanguage to these structures manifest tsell—correctly—as pure ornament. ‘Buti will doo with « precise functions to emit well-known or immedi- ately arimilable messages, to soothe the “distracted perception” of the ‘metropolitan public subjected to the bombardment of multiple shocks, both ‘visual and economic, provoked by the new gigant della montagna [moun- tain giants] inthe downcowns. 1s just thi phenomenon that European culture could not or would not grasp. What in the United States was produced by a complex but straight- “he Advent ofthe Brant. Corde forward process was experienced in Europe apa tsuma. The skyscraper, which Henry Huxley could cal 1875 the *centee of ineligence,"! was tren, expecally by German culture ater 1910, a8 symbol and threat of ‘otal cefication, ae a painful nightmare produced by the drowsiness of a rnetropolison the verge of losing itself as a subject. In sucha frame, ims and pessimism wind up coinciding, In 1913 Karl Schaffer points cat the possibility of a new “Spirit of Synthesis” in American territorial ‘ganization: she metropolis will be recuperate 383 concious subject, ominating the complementariness of City and Suburb—and here he re [proposes 2 municipal administration retaining ownership ofthe terrain — fut alo reestablishing the euilibriam between the individual and the to- ‘ality.* Reifeaion can be overcome only by considering it a “bridge” thet permits the crossing ofthe Grand Canyon of the anguish of the masses ‘A “bridge”: but precisely by going beyond che experience of the Bricke, Kandinsky, in presenting his own theatrical piece Der Gelbe Klang {The Yellow Tone] in Der Blaue Reiter Almanac (1912), pus forward in meta hore form a completely opposite interpretation of the same phenomenon. In Kandineky’s unique text, ais well known, five yellow giants undulat, tow disproportionaely or sheik, contort ther bodies, emit guttural founds, under a fckering light that accentuates their oneivic aspect. “The previous allusion to Pirandell’s giganti della montagna was not secidental. For both Kandinsky and Pirandello, the theme is that of indi- ‘idle who are “ell too human,” and therefore on the verge of becoming, pre signe, dumbfounded testimonies of an existence whose faculties of ‘ommunication have been blocked. The whispering ofthe yellow giants nd their “dificule” movements are the last, clumsy attempts at expression by beings who, having sen the truth, fel condemned to drown ini ‘atthe very instant in which the confusion inthe orchestra, inthe move ments, and in the lighting reaches the high point, ll at once, darkness And silence fall on the scene. Alone atthe back of the stage, the yellow ints remain visible and are then slowly swallowed up by the darkness. irappears asthe giante are extinguished like lamps; oF rather, before ‘omplete darkness sete in, ome perceoes some flash of light “The finale of Der Gelbe Klang represents, i tragic form, the anniil tion of value in the fax of monetary currents—which the people of Man- hattan could register, nondramaicaly, using such real gants asthe Woolworth ofthe Equitable Life Insurance buildings. Moreover, such tants, in reality, despite their Linguistic clothing thats just as paradoxical ts the yellow color with which Kandinsky clothes his “new angels,” also tive of a flach of light. Bur here we are already dealing with—in the words of Rosenguist—the fleeting gleams of static motion” Kandinsky’ {ymptamatic piece synthesizes the entire European attitude toward the terong of form thatthe skyscraper induces asa corollary of its own domi ‘ation ofthe las of economic growth of the Amerian downtowns. The fellow giants have lost she gift of spesch; bu, they nevertheless insist on ncempting fo communicate thei alienated condition. If one now glances The New Babylon n aover the pages of the German and Dutch avant-gaede magazines from the period immediatly following the Fist World War (Die Wocke,Frlch, Wendingen, G), one wil find that the projects entered inthe competition forthe Berlin skyscrapers on the Kemperplatz or on Friedrichstrase, or forthe administrative center on the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Platz in Magdeburg, and the experiments on the typology of tal buildings by Mies and Hilbe ‘eimer all represent « mood quite similar to Kandinsky's. Once again, op- timism and pessimism go together hand in hand. Whether in the graphic divertisements of Hablik in the dignified reserve of Behrens, or in the [grotesque geometric distortions of Scharoun of Wijdeweld, common con- ern remains: to try to discern within the depths ofthe “great alienated ‘onc” the promise ofa collective catharsis, Just ike Mendelsohn’s photographs taken alice while Iter, in the ‘American metroolises! the skyscraper projects of the German avant tardes are immersed in a mystical atmosphere reminiscent of that of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. And this ie not simply because the compositions of Soder, Taut, and Scharoun involve a derangement of sign silat to that of Robere Wiene’s film, but, more important, because in those trou- blesome tangles of forme, tom asunder by an unrelievable tension between sspration for the sky and rootedness in the earth, reside the same drama fad the same hope: the overcuring ofthe dizenchanted and pure “being” Of the skyscraper to make i into an instrument ofa superior synthesis. ‘Therefore, not the skyscraper asa type, no matter how paradoxical, but the skyscraper as a unicum, as a Merzbau, tha, by upsetting the order of the stated city, suceeds in recuperating a symbolcaness, «communica tive structure, a genius loc. The skyscraper that nally, through an act of xtreme violence, succeeds in purifying while restoring its own power of Speech, the place ofthe eallecuve murder—the metropolis—which is now dominated by an observatory explicitly designed to reincarace the sym~ bolic place ofthe Gothic community: the cathedral The esotercismn of Tau’ Stadtkrone i, therefore, the litmoti ofthese invocations of« “spirituality” of the excepional, of these mystical exor dams intended to reesablsh—like Feininger’s Cathedral of Labor—the ‘community sprit eo dear tothe sociology of Tonnies. ‘Even Mics, n mounting the model of his skyscraper inthe form of 2 rmixtilinear design with a typical medieval texture, appears to have wanted to respond tothe assumption of his friend Schwitters: “because ofthe tiresomeness ofits material, there is no other task for architecture than to ‘euilize the old and to integrate i within the new ... thus the metropo- Tis ean be transformed into a powerful masterpiece of mater”? Certainly, ‘Mies’ project responde to thi in a paradoxical way. Bu its anti-materia ity, wth respect tothe surounding context, plays the same role as the ‘emphatic materiality of the skysraper designs of Poelsig, Walter Fischer, land Max Berg ‘Nevertheless, «substantial difference does remain that will revel is true significance only in the works undertaken by Mies in the United States, The glass prisms ofthe experimental skyscrapers of 1921 and 1922 “he Adverts of th Avon onde appear to announce the same “Millennial Kingdom” of which Ulich speaks to his sister inthe third part of Muss The Man Without Quali tes: “you must imagine ier be like a solitude and a motionlessnest full of continuous events of pure crystal.” That “Millennial Kingdom” is—ae has been writtent™the “unio mystica of proposition and silence, activity tnd nihilism,” the place where something happens without anything hap- pening. The skyscrapers of Mics “realize” the truth ofthe solipsism of ‘Witegenstein and Musil: they cannot speak of i ‘By contrast the tall structures planned by Oxto Kohtz, Emmanuel Josef Margold, Paul Thiersch,Poelig seem to want fo speak, as completely as possible, of the tragedy of soipsism, caught in the pure substance of the treat mountains of Babel. Too much happens in these projcts—Poezig’s designs evoking a spiral shaped Flaghaus ae typical—ao that something actually does happen in them. They contain too many "word," repeating to the point of absesson tht the aio mystica they invoke isnot that of Mies, but, on the contrary, that of che Great Subject withthe crowd, However, was not Otto Kohtz himlt who predicted, in 1908, the advent ofan architecture inthe form ofa gigantic landscape designed for pure contemplation, the evocation ofa Scillerian people in the form of @ universe decorated fora festival"? The skyscraper asa cathedral, as « metaphor symbolizing a rediscovered sollectivty, didnot remain soley atthe unconscious level in German cul= ture. Gerhard Wohler, commenting in 1924 upon the results of the compe- tion for the new Chicago Tribune headquarters, spoke of the German skyscraper asa "symbol ofthe aspiration toward the metaphysical and of the spiritual behavior” proper tothe Cathedral, which, when translated into: modern terms, represents nothing other than “the exaltation of the idea of work," ~ 'Not far from such a reading are the judgments given by Wideweld and by Adolf Behne inthe frst issue of Wendingen (1925) dedicated to the theme ofthe skyscraper. Wijdeweld—who published in the same ite, among other things, his notable project for Amsterdam from 1919, which was decidedly organic in origin—spoke explicitly of “constructing life from eath”; Behne, having crtczed as useless and provincial the iniitives in Frankfurt, Danzig, Berlin, and Kénigsber, in the end pointed out a way to transform such a typology: “We must be custodians ofa certain romanti= sism even when we hide it behind the cold American hyperobjectivity. Doubeless, the construction of the American Goliaths in our cites will provoke a shock; if conceived correctly their construction wil be utbaristi- tally romantic.” ‘And “urbanisialy romantic” are, for sue, the results of the competi tion forthe skyscraper in Cologne that in 1925, under the auspices of Burgomaster Konrad Adenauer and the Tietz firm, was planned to be built sxactly atthe approach to the neve bridge, with its low of teaffie directed wansversally to the elongated square adjacent tthe Neumarkt. The Cal- ogne intative isa greater example of provincial than those for Berlin or Danzig: along stiri article published in Wasmuths Monatshefte in The New Babylon vs1926—perhaps drs up by Hegemann—atacks both the enterprise that {gave rise co the competition, initiated by Fritz Schumacher's compromised plan, and the 412 competing projects.” n effect from the project in spherical form by O. E. Bieber tothe restrained romanticism of the project by Bonatz and Scholer, to the exal tion of dimensions in the projects by Wehner and by Poezig ro the Men-