Architecture and Modernity : A Critique

First issue of Das Neue
Frankfurt, October 1926.
was very considerable; when one
bears in mind that Loos built only a
few villas and that Le Corbusier’s
greatest achievement in the 1920s
was a tiny estate in Pessac consisting
of some thirty homes, May’s fifteen
thousand is an impressive total
in every respect.
Ideas and Intentions
May stated his vision of modernity
and the goals he had in mind in a programmatic
article in the first issue of
Das Neue Frankfurt (figure 16). 54 In it
he recalled some major metropolises
of the past that he regarded as ex-
16
amples of “unified complexes of culture”:
Babylon, Thebes, Byzantium,
and others. In his own epoch, however,
this notion of a “unified cul-ture” was nowhere to be found. In the nineteenth
century, culture had evolved into a chaos of tendencies with the result that humanity
ran the risk of becoming a slave to its own creations in technology and industry.
There was, however, some reason for hope. Paradoxically, the world war produced
a change of direction. People had begun to see through the superficiality of the “worship
of the golden calf,” and this change paved the way for a “deeper attitude toward
life.” In this way the foundations were laid for a new homogeneous and unified culture,
that would compare favorably with any that had come before.
See how all the evidence of present-day design tends toward a single
conclusion! ..... already streams from a hundred and a thousand
springs, brooks and rivulets are coming together which will go to make
up a new culture, a closed culture that will flow forward in a wide bed
like a confident river. Everywhere we come across the endeavor to root
out everything that is feeble, imitative, hypocritical and false. Everywhere
we notice the purposeful struggle for a bold new design, for honesty
in the use of materials, and for truth. 55
To bring about a breakthrough in this new culture, deliberate steps had to be
taken. That was the task May set himself in Frankfurt, and it is in this context that the
magazine Das Neue Frankfurt should be seen:
2 Constructing the Modern Movement