THE HISTORY AND EVOLUTION OF ARCHITECTURAL EDUCATION IN THE DEVELOPED WORLD AND ITS
4.3. The Vienna School in Central Europe
93 | P a g e system naturally redefined itself, reflecting richness and diversity, both in education and its student body. Similarly, higher education in other European countries developed along parallel streams, that of the traditional universities and that of the technical institutions. The artistic paradigm of the Beaux-Arts and the pragmatic stance of the technical institutes is critical to the subsequent discussion. It is therefore necessary to briefly look into differentiation and identity within a sample of educational systems in Europe and their impact on the USA and Africa.
94 | P a g e During the latter part of this era, a science and technology approach, combined with an artistic creative process redefined the process of architectural design in response to the needs of contemporary industry and society. Architectural design henceforth started to assume a functionalist approach, utilising the technological advances of modern society in its artistic creation. It was during this period that the rationalist functionalist approach of Otto Wagner, widely regarded as the founder of modern architecture, started to impact on the future of architectural education and practise in Europe and later the rest of the western world.
4.3.1. The influence of Otto Wagner on Modern Architecture
Otto Wagner was born in Vienna in 1841. His architectural education was at three distinctly different institutions which had either a science and technological focus, such as the Technical University in Vienna and the Bauakademie in Berlin, to the artistic liberal approach of the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna (Encyclopaedia of World Biography: 2004). It is noted that his early education was scientific and technological, followed by the artistic liberal, which could have influenced the design approach of his own work.
His early works were defined by Neo-Renaissance and Neo-Baroque approaches, as evident in his residential buildings and the academy of fine arts project. It was during his tenure as professor of architecture at the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts, during the years 1894-1913, that Wagner promulgated his theories on a functionalist modern approach to architecture. His defining impact was during his inaugural lecture at the Vienna Academy, which was subsequently published in his book titled, Moderne Architektur (1896), referred to hereafter as the translated edition – Wagner 1902 - was followed by various publications of the lecture during the following years (Encyclopedia of World Biography: 2004). During this lecture, Wagner made a profound statement on architecture, which defined the course of a new modern architecture:
“Modern art must yield for us modern ideas, forms created for us, which represent our abilities, our acts and our preferences” and “Objects resulting from modern views…harmonise perfectly with our surroundings, but copied and imitated objects never do.” Wagner further referred directly to Godfried Semper: “Necessity is the sole mistress of art…”
(http://www.encyclopedia.com).
Wagner’s acknowledgement of scientific and technological advancement and the value thereof to architecture is summed in his statement:
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“All modern creations must correspond to the new materials and demands of the present if they are to suit modern man; they must illustrate our own better, democratic, self-confident, ideal nature and take into account man’s colossal technical and scientific achievements, as well as his thoroughly practical tendency – that is surely self-evident!” (Wagner 1902: 78).
Wagner postulated that the art of architecture and building must emerged from construction in order to have meaning. He further emphasised that construction is not merely the outcome of algebraic progression and structural calculations, but from the ingenuity if its invention – the art of construction, which is in the domain of the architect. His argument was that the approach of engineering in construction ignores the cultural values of man, as evident in his statement:
“The engineer who does not consider the nascent art-form but only the structural calculation and the expense will therefore speak a language unsympathetic to man,…the architect’s mode of expression will remain unintelligible if in the creation of the art-form he does not start from construction.” (Wagner 1902: 94). Wagner thereby implicitly affirmed that the epistemology of architectural practise had to emanate from the intuitive ingenuity of the architect who would have the ability to transform technology and science into forms of social and cultural value – art. This process is one which strives to promulgate the definition of technology as a cultural construct whereby the architect may create artistic works through the means of modern science and technology.
While Wagner continued to develop his architecture, emphasising the attributes of modern society, his teachings and works were in turn inspired by his students, who continued his legacy. Josef Hoffman and Joseph Maria Olbrich, were two such students, who also worked in the practice of Wagner. These influences shifted Wagner’s architecture beyond Art Nouveaux into the contemporary modern, defined by exposed steel, glass and lightness of mass.
Simplicity, clarity of form and honesty of materials, principles widely used in today’s modern architecture, were actively promulgated through the teachings and practise of Wagner. It was precisely his emphasis of the vital synergy between ingenuity, science and technology that defined his philosophy of education and practice. This was a paradigm shift for architecture, which had up to that point, relied heavily on the evolution of historic forms and motifs.
Wagner’s reinterpretation of construction as a science and an art, which defined architecture of social meaning, promulgated a new realistic ideology of architecture in Europe, which would have resonating impact on architectural form and expression; it is therefore that he is considered as the founder of modern architecture. His impact on the Vienna Academy and the
96 | P a g e Vienna Secession deeply influenced European architectural education and practise. The construction, or making of architecture by combining science and technology with art and craft, defined a new, integrated mode of architectural training – an ideology which indirectly seemed to have influenced the evolution of the Bauhaus.