Militant Modernism

Berlin Hansaviertel

During a recent research I came across to an incredible collection of vintage postcards depicting mostly modernist buildings in Germany, France and the Netherlands. The postcards mainly dated from the 50s, 60s and 70s show less known modernist structures in a sometimes almost romantisising manner. Advertising the new way of living, nowadays the depictions appear less unattractive for a general viewer. Taufkirchen close to Munich

Lelystad Kantoorgebouwen

The failure of many modernist housing induced a trend towards building of diseneyfied pre-industrial public housing. This trend is especially apparent in Great Britain. In Prince Charles' experimental town Poundbury designed by Leon Krier and built in the 1990s the houses follow a pastiche of various traditional anti-modernist styles. In strong opposition to these developments is Owen Hatherley's book Militant Modernism, a manifesto for a rebirth of socialist modernism. As the Guardian reviews: 'Hatherley's book is an intelligent and passionately argued attempt to "excavate utopia" from the ruins of modernism'. The book refers to built and un-built examples of the Smithons, the Park Hill estate in Sheffield, Heygate in London or the Bevin Court designed by Tecton. Apart from the the chapter of the industrial and brutalist aesthetics in Britain, Hatherley references Russian Constructivism in architecture, the Sexpol of Wilhelm reich in film and design and the alienation effects of Brecht and Hanns Eisler on record and on screen - all aruing for a Modernism of everyday life. As written on the book cover: 'This book is a defence of Modernism against its defenders (...) it attempts to reclaim a revolutionary modernism against its absorption into the heritage industry and the aesthetic of the luxury flat.'

Royen

Royen

Royen

Royen

Pratteln

Montelimar

Ludwigshafen

Berlin

Montepulciano


All Images by Hansaviertel

Holidays for 20.000

Prora is a beach resort built on the island of Rügen, Germany, known especially for its colossal Nazi-planned touristic structure. The massive building complex, built between 1936 and 1939 consists of eight identical building was planned as a holiday locale, but was never used for this purpose. Extending over a length of 4.5 kilometres in a 150 metres distance to the beach the megastructure was designed to house 20.000 holidaymakers, under the ideal that every worker deserved a holiday at the beach.

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Designed by Clemens Klotz (1886-1969), the building concept was brilliantly simple, functionally thought through and also perfectly adapted to the given local circumstances: An almost five kilometer long arc. The "residential wings" stretch behind a wide promenade parallel to the beach, a gently and evenly curved bay; geometrically this makes one sixteenth of an imaginary giant circle. The center of this complex comprises a square of 400 by 600 meters. Towards the sea there is a massive quayside (with bridges for KdF cruisers) and on the opposite side the festival hall. Adjoined to the two remaining sides of this square are the six-storey "residence wings". Each of these buildings extend over more than two kilometers, containing over 7000 identical "living and sleeping cell units". All of the "cell units" allow for a view of the sea. They "measure 2.20 by 4.75 m and are all identically furnished with two beds, a washstand with running water and waterproof curtain, wardrobe (...) table, chairs and a couch".

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Each pair is connected via a communicating door, so that a six-member family could be accommodated. Furnishings, kitchenware, bedding, even the complete set of beach utensils, right down to the bathing suit, are designed according to rational principles. Towards the woods, stump-like wings are attached to the residential buildings at regular, close intervals; they contain mainly the stairwells and the bathrooms. Thus, approaching from the backside one faces an endless row of identical backyards and staircases. On the ocean side, there where ten massive, though slender "dining buildings", each seating 2000 "guests". These wings extend all the way to the water and thus divide the beach into eight, just over half a kilometer long segments - the vacationers' "home area". Here, calculations said, each guest is provided with five, or according to other calculations ten, squaremeters of the beach. Numerous secondary facilities were planned inland. Among them a train station, 5000 underground parking lots, residential areas for 2000 employees, a power station, theaters and cinemas, two indoor swimming pools with artificial waves - and a slaughterhouse.

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During the few years that Prora was under construction, all major construction companies of the Reich and nearly 9,000 workers were involved in this project. With the onset of World War II construction in Prora stopped. Since future use of the still existing structure is undefined, the historic monument declines.
The Nazi-organisation Kraft durch Freude (Strength through Joy,KdF) should rise the general life standard of Germans through enabling holidays for everybody for two weeks per year considerably influenced through Nazi-propaganda. Aside from cruise trips of Kdf-built cruise ships, the construction of altogether five beach resorts - each for 20.000 people - was planned. The only partly realised of these projects was Prora.

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In his highly interesting presentation at the XII Economic History Congress 2002 in Buenos Aires Hasso Spode speaks about it as the holiday machine which had nothing to do with 'blood and soil'. Instead it required cold-blooded, modern solutions. (Hasso Spode: The „seaside resort of the 20.000“: Fordism,Mass Tourism and the Third Reich). Spode gives background information on how the KdF became the word's biggest tour operator.

KdF provided indisputable evidence of how effectively the grammar of rationalization can be applied to the production of the consumer good 'holiday trips'; just as Henry Ford had demonstrated with his Tin Lizzie how one could turn an unattainable object of desire into a mass-produced article.

The Nazi version of Fordism was called 'Sozialismus der Tat' (Socialism of Deed). This term suggests that National Socialism - in contrast to the labor movement - really improves the situation of the workers, and thus makes the working class and their "Marxist ideology" obsolete.KdF established a new level of tourist behaviour: between the proletarian excursion and the distinguished bourgeois travel.

The propaganda was right in saying the KdF vacationer is a new type of vacationer and the KdF holiday, though orientated according to the bourgeois model, is a new type of holiday: less formal, less costly, less individual.

A short documentary on Prora can be found here and here (in German, but also only the footage is worth watching). This video shows how the beach resort looks today.

GIBELLINA

In 1968, the small town of Gibellina, Sicily was completely destroyed by an earthquake. And only a few years later rebuilt close to the original site. The erection of the new Gibellina was supported by a unique vision: against traditional forces of bureaucracy, corrupt politics and Sicilian mafia. Artists were invited to design buildings and sculptures and to incorporate place and landscape into their work. After a short period of florescence, Gibellina of today resembles a ghost town.
:Butterfly shaped new Gibellina

After the earthquake, a history of 900 years was destroyed, but not only the buildings were damaged also the people and their communities. Hence after the catastrophe there should be a new very unique Gibellina, art should reconcile the people. Urbanism from scratch should create the new home. Promoted by the charismatic mayor Ludovico Corrao, who wanted the best for his people, now four decades later the experiment failed. The butterfly shaped new Gibellina is dead. People could not find a new home in the modernistic structure. The community was destroyed. At the beginning of the 80's 8000 people lived there. Today there are only 4500. Young people went away, to Milan, Torino or America. The grand scale Piazze and streets are all empty. An inhabitant: "This town is a stranger in its own environment. A town with enormous amount of space - and enormous disconsolation."Corrao wanted to create a modern contemporary Gibellina, completed with all kinds of sculptures and artwork. This should create a touristic attraction and therefore bring money to a town in a poor area of Italy. Huge metal sculptures, now rusty, giant stars spanning over streets, vast open spaces. A small town with no soul. The experiment failed. But blaming art for that failure would be too easy. Gibellina is an example where modern architecture and urbanism failed.
Probably the only still 'functioning' piece of art is situated at the area where the old town once was located. In 1981 Italian artist Alberto Burri erected an enormous monument out of concrete. The former blocks were waist-high monoliths, in-between the old layout of the streets.
Austrian filmmaker Juergen Burger tries to get hold of Gibellina in his documentary "Gibellina - Il terremoto". Trailer

:: all images via GoogleEarth

Follow up: Gibellina II