The Taylorized Beauty of the Mechanical: Scientific Management and the Rise of Modernist Architecture (review)

This engaging book has three primary objectives. Most obviously, Guillén wishes to uncover the links between the scientific management of industrial production – as advanced by Taylorism and Fordism – and modernist architecture, which flourished in Europe and the Americas between 1890 and 1940. He justifies this goal by stressing that existing studies of modernist architecture often fail to look beyond a few countries and investigate seriously its causes. To correct this, Guillén embarks on "the first systematic assessment of the economic, social, and political conditions that prompted architects to pursue a modernist approach to architecture" (1) in Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Russia, Spain, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina and the United States.

The second objective is to rescue modernist architecture from the facile interpretation that it is above all a "functional" school of thought that is devoid of any moral or aesthetic qualities. Driving the apparently cold rationality of modernist architecture is a commitment to the "trinity" of unity, order, and purity (12), and to "the beauty of the machine" (24) with, in mind, the desire to expose the masses to something that is at once both artistic and meaningful: the movement aimed at "democratizing good artistic taste, making it available to the population at large, especially through housing projects, urban planning, and everyday objects." (14) Modernist architects were thus inspired by visions of a "better world" (146) and a desire to "shape the lives of millions" (142) by proposing an unusual synthesis of rationality and art. Indeed, Guillén stresses in an intriguing section of the book, any theory that aspires to organize (whether production, architecture or something else) inevitably has aesthetic and ideological dimensions (143). Modernist architecture is no exception to this rule.

The third objective is sociological in nature. There exist several explanations for the rise of modernist architecture. According to Guillén, three point to important, but not crucial, variables: class dynamics, industrialization and sociopolitical upheaval. Two others, drawing from sociological theories of organizations and institutions, highlight two essential factors: the rise of new sponsors and the professionalization of architecture. By providing evidence in support of these two theories, Guillén offers a powerful sociological interpretation of the rise, across the world, of an important current in architectural history.

In pursuit of these objectives, Guillén has written a stimulating book that is impressive in its empirical breadth and accessibility – especially for those of us who might know little about architecture. We move seamlessly across countries, networks of thinkers and architects, and time. We learn about ideas and their flows, physical structures, and historical and political contexts. The multiplicity of messages – from moral to sociological to organizational – itself provides a pleasant sort of aesthetic experience for the reader. It also ensures a wide audience for the book.

Any good book raises as many questions as it answers. Two deserve mention. First, one wonders whether modernist architecture came to an end because of inherent limitations to its logic and approach. Guillén points to external variables, such as the rise of fascism in Italy and Germany, to account for the decline. Yet, Fordism and Taylorism, from which modernist architecture so clearly borrowed, themselves met their decline in part because specialization – a concept central to both approaches – stopped yielding productivity increases when pushed to its logical extreme. Could modernist architecture have lasted for only a few decades because it neglected to speak to certain human needs, such as the desire for creativity or decoration? Guillén says unfortunately little about this possibility.

A second, related, question concerns the actual impact of modernist architecture on people's everyday lives. The empirical chapters do not address this matter and, in the conclusion, Guillén acknowledges that he has focused primarily on the aspirations of the movement: "whether consumers of modernism found it beautiful or not is largely beside the point. What really matters is that modernist architecture aspired to shape the lives of...