INTBAU - Recommended books, book reviews, essential Reading

Exploding the Myths of Modern Architecture:
Malcolm Millais
Frances Lincoln, London, 2009
296 pages
ISBN-10: 0711229740
ISBN-13: 978-0711229747

Reviewed by Nikos A. Salingaros

joins the handful of books that are required reading of all architects young and old...

Exploding the Myths of Modern Architecture

"Millais shows modern architecture to be a sham based on a collection of myths, fallacies and clich�s". This quote from the back cover just about sums up this extraordinary book, which now joins the handful of books that are required reading of all architects young and old. Malcolm Millais has done everyone a service by carefully going through the history and meaning of modernist architecture, and exposing as false some of the assumptions upon which most of architecture has been based for several decades. The usual cast of villains is here: Le Corbusier, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Walter Gropius, Philip Johnson, and many who are still alive. The current crop of starchitects comes in for a harpooning.

The great Buckminister Fuller is shown to have played a role, not among the villains, but as a false prophet of a technological futurism that went nowhere but encouraged architecture into strange and unsustainable directions. We are treated to witty discussions in a dry humour that I found most enjoyable. Millais has done his homework very carefully, uncovering choice bits of information that are usually suppressed because they are so damaging to the heroes of the so-called Modern Movement. And yet, this book is not a gossip pamphlet, like Tom Wolfe's brilliant "From Bauhaus to Our House", but a serious work of scholarship. Millais has worked as an architect and structural engineer all his life, and gives us hard details. The conclusion is therefore all the more devastating.

Sure, all the elements I expected are presented: the unimaginable egomania of the leading characters, and the dishonesty, both intellectual and personal, of the people involved. But what amazed me was to discover carefully documented evidence for professional incompetence. I had naively assumed that at least they knew what they were doing as far as building, and their great sin was to impose an ideology of style. It turns out that they had mostly no idea of structural engineering, nor of how to make a building stand up. It was all bluff, but what a terrifying, wonderful, self-serving, operatic bluff it was! One�s impression of the Modern Movement as producer of iconic, often high-tech but non-adapted buildings therefore shifts after reading this book and realizing that its major players were really terrible architects.

Chapter 11 is on bridges. In such situations, bluff can seriously endanger the lives of lots of people, but such minor considerations do not seem to matter as far as commissioning "artistic" bridges that might or might not stand up. This chapter is sobering in seeing where the building profession has come to, using "name" architects to build showcase projects they don't understand, hoping that the engineering company hired quietly in the background will make the contraption stand up. After reading this chapter, you might want to plan alternative routes.

The history of the Sydney Opera House is itself a soap opera. Chapter 7 gives the most authoritative, informative, and at the same time entertaining history of the building of the Sydney Opera House I have read. Its protagonists are Jorn Utzon and Ove Arup, and they are joined by an impressive cast of supporting characters. Ove Arup's engineering company went on to collaborate with many if not most of the high-profile starchitect projects of our times. I know that's their job, but am personally troubled by this collusion. Although I have raised the question of moral responsibility in my own writings, Millais does not touch upon this sensitive issue.

Towards the end of the book there is some discussion of architectural education, and how the Bauhaus ideas moved in and took over the Harvard Graduate School of Design (Chapter 13). The rest is history. Why do architecture students need to learn the recent history of their discipline? Because they find themselves in a system carefully constructed to teach them the original Bauhaus ideology, despite whatever innovations in architectural thought and practice have occurred since then. We cannot get over mistakes of the past before we courageously admit them: only then can we hope to move on. Unfortunately, architectural education has not been able to move past those original mistakes, and so it is still stuck in a rut.

There is only one point upon which I disagree with Millais. He unfortunately lumps Erich Mendelsohn among the culprits. Mendelssohn happens to be one of my favourites, as is Expressionism and Art-Deco in general, with their curved and decorative exuberance going slightly over the top. Millais says some nice things about Art-Deco. I see those buildings (yes, even the Einstein Tower with its tectonically "false" cement over brick) as expressions of human striving for joy. Totally contrasted, of course, with the nihilistic arrogance of present-day showcase curved forms that seek to intimidate and shock the user. Mendelsohn was eventually marginalized by the villains (his own contemporaries), and his brilliant European career fizzled out in the US. For me, however, this is but a minor point, and everything else in this book rings true.

Views expressed on this page are those of the writer and are not necessarily shared by those involved in INTBAU.
We welcome suggestions for inclusion in these pages, but we do not list books unseen. If you would like to have your book on traditional buildings or places reviewed on these pages, please contact INTBAU.

All rights reserved INTBAU UK Ltd a registered charity no 1132362 © INTBAU 2001-10
A company limited by guarantee no 6861677 and registered in England and Wales
Registered office 19-22 Charlotte Road London EC2A 3SG