This is a very detailed book about this architects views on the new age of modernism. As a teacher, architects, and visionary he was developing his theories as he went, like the rest of us, but with intense thought as his country, Germany, was coming to a major change, the Nazis.
These are some of his words I have chosen to amplify. I have adapted them for simplify without changing their meaning to me.
- The language of our time. Expressive – inner attitude
- Visible realization according to a new definition of order
- “The result of the given of the site”
- Interlocking optical effect of theoretical demands with formal decisions
- Organization - clarity – economy
- Clarification first is the act of thinking
- The world of our creation will blossom from within
- Platonic concept – truth renders testimony itself
- Spiritual and formal perfection - The secrete of life lay hidden in the intrinsic
- Search for patterns and construction means – respect - search for the essence
- Separation of the essential from the trivial
- Spiritual content releases its from and movement into space
- Honorary gift of respect – loyalty to devotion of action
- Always look beyond – intellectuals, artists, industry, finance --- layering-form- planes-order-protective- supportive - hierarchy – depth of space
- Unifying nature and human consciousness into a complementary whole
- Stroll under the colonnades – find our way back to the whole
- Reason—science – progress – spirit and nature co-exist – the process of unfolding
- Service and obedience = self-realization – translate virtue into nobility
- Breathtaking experience – intrinsic honesty to the bone – total sympathy
- The deed – hit the nail on the head – origin and Utopia
- Building is servicing- it should stand the test of time – transformation
- Reason leads to an idea of beauty – radiance of truth – Gothic
- Constructive spirit is loved by the Greeks
- Architectonic + form giving
- Liberation of building activity from aesthetic speculators
- Le Corbusier – the mastery, current of magnificent plan of masses brought together in light, stinging the emotions – the battle against gravity
- Dematerialize skin and bones – mathematical logic
- Bauhaus – stand in the harmony with world laws – discipline of will – conditionless surrender - inside spacial organization – “always has been and always will” – childhood forms
- Overcome isolation and dislocation
- Look at leaf huts, ocean liners, walrus ribs and skin – post and beam construction, igloos, long houses
- Copernican revolution of independent thinking. We are. We will. We create.
- Nietzsche – The will to Life. Be responsible for your choices.
- Expressive nature of creative energy organizes the process of mankind and social production.
- Vitruvius – “Firma- utilitas – venustas” – function suits its purpose
- Pedestal vs pavilion
- Matter is not the object but the condition of experience
- Put conviction to the test – Risk – Put spirituality concerns before materialistic ones
- We know no form only building problems – reject aesthetic speculation
- The problem of the eternal form starts with the problem of space, from the smallest cell.
- It’s a breathing organism
- “To each man his own” does not solve humanities conditions – Restrain!!
- Articulate space freely inside and out – transparency - attitude
- Architecture reveals whether form was arrived at from the direction of or for its own sake.
- Authenticity and intensity of life – overlapping spatial sequence – flexible – space in motion
- Carving limited space out of an infinite one – in search of a higher order
- It is exactly the question pf values that is decisive in setting the specific quality of life
- Do not lose sight of history. A new sense of attitude
- Use this opportunity to help the masses – especially if you can afford it. – Elitism must disappear.
- There needs to be a more modern economic energy and theory. The many have a right.
- If not for you, who will propel society toward the future?
- We are at a metaphysical bridgehead – there is lawlessness of a spiritual order
- Object and subject are fundamental to the idea of culture.
- The eternal law of architecture uses purpose, order, space, proportions with unity of construction.
- Francis motto “Those who have nothing have it all.”
- Thoughtfulness of steeping aside – here we must take a stand!
- Trust the creative power, the purpose of life.
