Style and Society: Architectural Ideology in Britain 1835–1914 by Robert Macleod (review)

Books 267 in ~ts stress on 'pure' pai~ting, modernity, universalIty , the role ofthe machme and the utopian vision of art becoming identical to life itself. The latter point appears also in Mondrian's essay 'The Realization of Neoplasticism in the Distant Future and in Architecture Today' (1922). In 'The Will to Style: The Reconstruction of Life, Art and Technology ', also of 1922, van Doesburg asserted that 'the pre-eminence ofthe individual, the Renaissance view oflife, has come to an end. In politics as in art, only collective solutions can have decisive significance .' Mention should be made of van Doesburg's 'From the New Aesthetic to its Material Realization ', which envisions experiments in painting leading the way to actual implementation of De Stijl concepts in architecture. This text contains a number of other interesting essays, particularly by J. J. P. Oud. De Stijl is a handy anthology that allows us to follow the shifts within the movement from Mondrian 's Neoplasticism to van Doesburg's Elementarism . Also, the reader often finds tantalizing references to contemporary artistic developments occurring outside Holland, especially in the U.S.S.R. For example, Mondrian's 'Neoplasticism in Painting ' forecasts many of the tenets later maintained by the Constructivists and Suprematists. Van Doesburg's 'The Will to Style', with its collectivist bias recalls the author's close relationship with Lissitzky around 1922. And van Doesburg drew specific attention to the Soviet Union when he wrote of the turn toward architecture in the article mentioned above. The contacts between these artists are now being investigated, particularly by Gerrit Oorthuys, who has focused on the role of Peter Alma, a minor figure in De Stijl (not cited by Jaffe), as intermediary between De Stijl and the artists in the Soviet Union [1]. It is regrettable that Jaffe did not comment on these relationships in his general introduction. To be sure, the differences between the De Stijl artists and those in the Soviet Union were marked and these emerge in this anthology as well. Van Doesburg in 'Painting and Sculpture' (1926), condemned Tatlin's 'Monument to the Third International ', known commonly as Tatlin's Tower, saying: 'which, in addition to its illogical combination of parts and spaces, is symbolic! Russian muddle-headedness and snobbish bravado to impress the flappers!' 'Manifesto III, Towards a New World Plasticism' (1921) indicts artists who are too involved in politics. And, of course, one must contrast De Stijl's apotheosis of the straight line to Lissitzky's equally adamant belief that 'the universe knows onlycurves, not straightlines. Thus the sphere (and not the cube) is the crystalization of the universe' [2]. But, as Lissitzky added: 'all this is in danger ofbecoming academic scholasticism'. De Stijl is a welcome reference for the student of twentieth-century art. The Translation is very readable. The book is a fine companion volume to Jaffe's earlier study and to texts now appearing to mark the centenary of Mondrian's birth. REFERENCES 1. G. Oorthuys, 'Architettiolandesi eavanguardierusse 1919-1934', in Manfredo Tafuri, ed., Socialismo, cittii, architettura URSS 1917-1937, Rome, 1971, p.309. 2. Letter from Lissitzky to J. J. P. Oud, 30 June 1924 in the Stedelijk van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven: Holland. Style and Society: Architectural Ideology in Britain 1835-1914. Robert Macleod. R.I.B.A. Publications Limited, London, 1971. 144 pp., illus. £3.75. Reviewed by: Eric Gustav Carlson* On the front dust jacket flap, the publisher, the Royal Institute of British Architects, states: 'Victoria? and Edwardian architecture, after being totally rejected for two generations, now comes into its own and receives serious attention.' While ~ublishers are often given to hyperbole, this remark IS patently untrue. It seems unlikely that a publisher and especially the R.I.B.A., can be ignorant of the important writings in this field by Reyner Banham, Kenneth Clark, Henry Russell Hitchcock, Nikolaus Pevsner, Phoebe Stanton, John Summerson, etc. If Macleod's area of interest is not new neither is his method. His small volume is a ty~ical art historical exercise in which he describes architectural ideology in Victo~ian and Edwardian England, plots the course of ItS development and relates this ideology to actual architectural production. Despite th.e...