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New Concepts of Space

T he notion of space as an essential element of architecture must have existed

in some rudimentary form from the time man first built enclosures or made
structural improvements to his caves; but it is a curious fact that until the
eighteenth century no architectural treatise ever used the word, whilst the idea of
space as a primary quality of architectural composition was not fully developed until
the last few years. What mattered to Classical theorists, in an age which defined
architecture as the art of building, was structure, and this did not necessarily imply
the enclosure of space, but might equally well be a solid object such as an obelisk
or a triumphal arch (where space-enclosure was non-existent or negligible).
Complex sequences of inter-related courtyards and rooms, incorporating extremely
subtle spatial relationships, were often built by Classical architects; but these were
only discussed by theorists in terms of structure and proportion, and if the word
'space' was used at all, it was only with respect to their decoration, to indicate
amorphous unproportionable surfaces, such as the blank areas of a painted ceiling,
and had no three-dimensional significance whatsoever.
The change in outlook probably first occurred in the middle of the eighteenth
century as a result of the introduction of romantic gardens, since here the spaces,
though equally amorphous and unproportionable, clearly had a more positive
quality than those flat surfaces just described. Thus R. L. Gerardin, in his treatise
On the Composition of Landscapes, and the Means of embellishing Nature in the
Neighbourhood of Dwellings (1777) criticized those who tried to produce great
variety by 'piling up the productions of every climate, and the monuments of every
century, in a small space'. But the word 'space' or 'espace' itself was seldom used
even in this context; and although it does occur once or twice in J. F. Blondel's
lecture course, it does not begin to come into fashion with any precise three-
dimensional sense until the mid-nineteenth century. Even then it was not very
generally employed by English-speaking or French-speaking authors. Horatio
Greenough referred to 'a scientific arrangement of spaces and forms' in one of his
essays. Constant-Dufeux used the term 'distribution des espaces' in an essay on
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planning written in 1847. Two years later Professor Donaldson claimed that Roman
architecture had originated as a result of the need 'to cover in larger spaces'.
Auguste Choisy, in his History of Architecture, described Roman concrete con-
struction as a technique for 'moulding in space'. But despite these random
examples, it is fair to say that the concept of architectural space was completely
foreign to the English and French way of thinking, and its introduction into the
history of architectural ideas derives almost entirely from its use by German
theorists at this time.
The German comprehension of the significance of architectural space, or
Raumgestaltung (i.e. the spatial design of rooms as opposed to the solid surfaces
circumscribing them) doubtless resulted to a large extent from native perspicacity,
but it can also be attributed to the interesting linguistic coincidence whereby the
German word for 'space' is similar to the word 'room'. Thus it required no great
power of the imagination for a German to think of room as simply a small portion
of limitless space, for it was virtually impossible for him to do otherwise. We thus
find, from the beginning of the nineteenth century, a number of German writers on
aesthetics using the term 'space' in its modern architectural sense. The best
example is Hegel, whose Philosophy of Art (based on lectures given in the 18205)
contains numerous uses of the term, as when he refers to buildings as 'limiting and
enclosing a defined space' or describes a Gothic church as 'the concentration of
essential soul-life which thus encloses itself in spatial relations'. This somewhat
mystical notion of space was developed to its greatest extent as a technique of
art criticism by the German art-historian Heinrich Wolfflin, and it is probably
through his English-speaking disciples that the idea spread through the Western
world.
Nevertheless, it is probably fair to say that Wolfflm's concept of space would
never have achieved its present architectural significance had it not been for the
intuitive creative endeavours of Frank Lloyd Wright. It was he who, at the begin-
ning of the century, by the judicious application of new structural materials, first
exploited the spatial possibilities which had lain dormant since the end of the
Baroque, and applied them to buildings appropriate to the new age. Not that his
concept was entirely unprecedented, for his Larkin office building (which he
himself claimed to be the first expression of this new ideal) was simply the adapta-
tion of the traditional interior of a non-conformist church to a more modern and
materialistic function. However, if we compare the interior of the Larkin building
with his contemporary Unity Temple in Oak Park (1906), with its cantilevered
reinforced concrete balconies, we can see not only a similarity of composition but
a good reason for giving the latter building primacy of place when considering
Wright's contribution to modern architectural spatial developments. For it is clear
that whereas the Rationalists, such as Viollet-le-Duc, could conceive only the
structure of churches as providing the archetype for a new way of building, Wright
took the space; and it is this which distinguishes Wright from the other great
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architects of his generation (such as Perret) as the first great architect of the
twentieth century.
Another pioneer in the modern evolution of space has been Ludwig Mies van der
Rohe. From many points of view he can be regarded as essentially a Rationalist, in
that his methodical researches into the architecture of steel closely parallel those
researches made by Perret into the architecture of reinforced concrete; but partly
through the influence of contemporary developments in abstract sculpture, and
partly through an accident of fate, whereby his professional life was at first mainly
concerned with designing exhibitions, he developed, in addition, a great sensitivity
to those new spatial relationships which could be achieved with thin solid planes and
transparent sheets of glass. Indeed, no better example of the influence of exhibitions
on architectural design could be found than the way the essential features of Mies
van der Rohe's Barcelona Pavilion have been adapted to buildings of every variety
of use.
From the era of the Larkin building and the Unity Temple onwards, then, the
whole conception of architecture began to assume a radical change, and we even
find men like H. P. Berlage (who was essentially a nineteenth century Rationalist,
but was profoundly influenced by Wright) asserting in an essay in 1908 (written,
significantly enough, in German) that 'the art of the master builder lies in this: the
creation of space, not the sketching of fasades'. Henceforth, space was regarded as
a twin partner with structure in the creation of architectural compositions, and the
sensation of spatial relationships resulting from successive viewpoints (which had
been such an important feature of thejardin anglais) became the principal aesthetic
experience sought. We have already seen that Mondriaan claimed that when
moving around or within a rectangular building, the impression gained is that of a
sequence of two-dimensional aspects. It is probably truer to say, however, that the
impression we gain results from a rapid sequence of three-dimensional aspects, and
this is borne out by physiological research.
Those architects who base their theory of architecture on Giedion's analysis of
its modern developments will doubtless describe this as 'Space-Time', and be so
used to the idea that 'Space-Time' is an essential element of contemporary archi-
tecture that they may consider it an impertinence to enquire whether, outside the
realm of astronomy and nuclear physics, the term means anything at all. Yet
Giedion himself is curiously vague about the precise way this new space concept
operates. Part VI of Space, Time and Architecture is called 'Space-Time in Art,
Architecture and Construction', and its first chapter is called 'The New Space
Conception, Space-Time'. Yet in this first chapter, the hyphenated word does not
occur at all, whilst in the remaining eighty pages of Part VI, it occurs only four
times, namely with reference to the three famous buildings and one famous project
in which its characteristics are apparently to be discerned.
Paul Rudolph believes that the concept of Space-Time has been the motivating
force behind much of the International Style, and that in the hands of a great man,
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this concept can be immensely successful. On the other hand, John Burchard and
Albert Bush-Brown contend that even the serious efforts of Giedion have been
unable to build believable connections between Gropius's Werkbund building at
Cologne and the recondite Space-Time of Einstein. It seems worth enquiring,
therefore, what Space-Time really does signify in terms of architecture, and
whether, if it means anything, the meaning could be more accurately expressed in
simpler terms. This enquiry aims neither at philological hair-splitting nor at
substituting one catchword for another. Its purpose is to give a clearer idea of what
the fundamental aesthetic nature of contemporary architecture is, whereby it can
be more accurately studied and its future possibilities more effectively explored.
One difficulty of analysing the implications of Space-Time in architecture is that
it seems to mean different things to those who use it. In some passages of Space,
Time and Architecture it evidently means 'related to Einstein's theory of relativity',
whilst in others it seems to mean only 'related to avant-garde paintings of the
19108 and 19205'. Sometimes it is used as a synonym for 'four-dimensional',
sometimes as the equivalent of 'non-Euclidian geometry', and on at least one
occasion it is used to explain the architectural significance of Zen Buddhism. I
propose to look briefly into each of these various meanings in an attempt to isolate
those ideas which seem to have some application to architectural design.
Firstly, we can, as Burchard and Bush-Brown rightly observe, dismiss as an
illusion any idea that using the words 'Space-Time' establishes a firm analogy with
Relativity. Indeed, Giedion in one instance seems to dismiss this relationship him-
self as a 'temporal coincidence'. However inspiring the announcement of Einstein's
initial theory must have been to painters and writers when it was published in
1905, and however exhilarating his startling experimental proof of the final theory
(published a decade later) must have been in 1919, the fact is that neither had
anything to do with the kind of space that painters, sculptors and architects are
involved with, but were a development of the algebraic techniques of analytical
geometry, extended to solve problems in dynamics. Moreover, although Einstein's
general theory of relativity (which is concerned with accelerated motion) involves
non-Euclidian geometry, his 'special' theory of relativity (which is concerned with
uniform velocity) does not.
It is clear therefore that when Giedion talks about non-Euclidian geometry as if
Euclidian geometry were limited to three dimensions, and claims that 'like the
scientist, the artist has come to recognize that classic conceptions of space and
volume are limited and one-sided', or that 'the essence of space as it is conceived
today is its many-sidedness', he is not talking about anything which would have
been intelligible to Einstein; for Einstein never claimed that space was many-sided,
or that 'in order to grasp the true nature of space the observer must project himself
through it'. On the contrary, it was precisely because of the impossibility of measur-
ing our absolute velocity through space that he engaged upon his famous research.
His great feat was to demonstrate why it was that the true nature of space was not
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apparent to observers moving through it, and the truths he enunciated were more
to the effect that problems of measurement involving mass and light are not so
much a matter of geometry as a matter of history. 'The past,' wrote R. G. Colling-
wood in his Philosophy of History, 'consisting of particular events in space and time
which are no longer happening, cannot be apprehended by mathematical thinking
because mathematical thinking apprehends objects that have no special location
in space and time, and it is just that lack of peculiar spatio-temporal location that
makes them knowable.' Einstein's theory may, without unduly broadening the
meaning of 'history', be said to constitute the ultimate extension of Historicism to
our interpretation of nature by relating it to astronomy and nuclear physics.
In such circumstances one would not expect to find any detailed explanation of
the Space-Time qualities of modern architecture in Einstein's own writings, but
he makes one remark in his introduction to Max Jammer's Concepts of Space which
provides a useful clue as to his own ideas concerning the relationship between
architecture and space. 'Now as to the concept of space,' he wrote, *it seems that
this was preceded by the psychologically simpler concept of place. Place is first of
all a small portion of the earth's surface identifiable by a name ... a sort of order
of material objects and nothing else.' Now this is precisely the kind of space in-
volved in architectural design, and one might contend that a 'place' (plaza, piazza)
is the largest space that an architect is able to deal with as a unified work of art.
Closely related to the analogy with Einstein's theory of relativity is the notion
that modern architecture is characterized by its use of a fourth dimension. 'The
fourth dimension,' wrote Le Corbusier in New World of Space, 'is the moment of
limitless escape evoked by an exceptionally just consonance of the plastic means
employed', and whatever this may mean exactly, it is obviously related to Giedion's
notion that the 'fourth dimension' enables us not merely, like the Cubists, to depict
the world in a new way, but to see it in a new way. The four-century-old habit of
seeing the outer world in terms of three dimensions, Giedion tells us, rooted itself
so deeply in the human mind that until quite recently no other form of perception
could be imagined. No wonder, he concludes, that the modern way of seeing the
world in terms of four dimensions should be so difficult to comprehend.
Now 'fourth-dimensional' in architecture presumably means time considered as
a measure of displacement, and since buildings do not move (although Moholy-
Nagy defined Space-Time architecture in terms of automobiles, trains and trailers),
the 'fourth-dimensional' component must necessarily be contributed by the
observer. Yet Giedion states not only that to appreciate a Space-Time structure in
its entirety one must move through it and around it; he also states that one can
appreciate both the inside and outside simultaneously by staying in the same place
—a seemingly contradictory distinction which depends in fact on the extent to
which the structure is sheathed in plates of glass.
According to Giedion, it is impossible to comprehend Le Corbusier's Villa
Savoie by a view from a single point, since 'quite literally', he says, it is a
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construction in Space-Time; the body of the house has been hollowed out in every
direction—from above and below, within and without—so that a cross-section at
any point shows inner and outer space penetrating each other inextricably, in a way
which Borromini had been on the verge of achieving in some of his late Baroque
churches. Le Corbusier gives much the same interpretation of it, although he does
not use the expression Space-Time, and considers that his building exemplifies
the exact opposite of Baroque principles (which, according to him, produced an
architecture conceived on paper around a fixed theoretical point). Moreover, far
from considering his own principles exclusively modern, he derives them from
Arab architecture. 'Arab architecture gives us an invaluable lesson. It is appreciated
whilst walking, and it is only thus, in moving around, that the observer sees the
architectural dispositions develop'.
Giedion's other great Space-Time paradigm, the Bauhaus, is also, according to
him, too complex to be summed up at one view, so that it is necessary here again to
go around it on all sides, to see it from above as well as below. This means, he says,
new dimensions for the artistic imagination; 'an unprecedented many-sidedness'.
But for him, the specific Space-Time quality of the building is attributable to the
fact that the extensive transparency permits interior and exterior to be seen
simultaneously en face send en profile 'like Picasso's L'Arlesienne of 1911-12'.
Perhaps, then, Giedion's views might be summarized by saying: modern archi-
tecture is characterized by the fact that the inside of a modern building can often
be appreciated from single external viewpoints, and the external totality of a
modern building can only be appreciated as a sequence of visual impressions. If
this is so, it is the converse of what occurs when one looks at traditional buildings
of similar purpose; for in a typical Renaissance villa comparable to the Villa
Savoie, the totality of the outside of the building is intelligible from a single view-
point (because of the axial symmetry), whereas the interior can only be appreciated
as a sequence of visual impressions obtained by moving from room to room. But
'fourth-dimensional' does not, for Giedion, simply refer to the movement of an
observer. In an introductory passage, he makes clear that he regards it as evidence
of the evolution of art. The Renaissance manner of seeing the world three-
dimensionally, he tells us, was an important step forward, because the art of
previous centuries had been two-dimensional. Thus our contemporary four-
dimensional vision is in one sense revolutionary, but in another sense it is simply
an inevitable advance in the evolutionary progress of civilization.
Disregarding the question whether all the art of pre-Renaissance cultures really
was in fact two-dimensional, whether even painting was then two-dimensional,
and whether, for example, a mediaeval Italian painting depicting the same person
participating in several sequential events on the same panel is to be called two-
dimensional, three-dimensional or four-dimensional; disregarding also the logical
extension of Giedion's theory which would seem to imply that the next development
of art is to become five-dimensional, then six-dimensional (as in the dynamic
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theory of gases) until eventually it becomes w-dimensional; it is surely enough to
say that this evolutionary theory is only possible if one considers the creation of
space to be indistinguishable from the depiction of space. That painters have found
new ways of 'conquering' space, first by mastering perspective and then by dis-
covering techniques for producing the illusion of infinity, is a matter of common
knowledge. But to suggest that architects before 1400 actually created only two-
dimensional architecture, in the way that between 1500 and 1750 they were creating
three-dimensional architecture, and that the Baroque heralded the creation of
four-dimensional architecture, is to divest the words of any real tectonic meaning,
and nobody except Moholy-Nagy has ever been rash enough to try to demonstrate
the theory by reference to historical examples. He illustrates the theory by asking
us to believe that Egyptian architecture was 'one-dimensional' because their
temples could be comprehended by walking through the sphinx alley leading
towards its facade; that Greek architecture was 'two-dimensional' because the
architects of the Acropolis designed a two-dimensional approach to 'the temple';
and that the spectator inside a Gothic cathedral became the centre of co-ordinated
space cells of all directions, whilst the Renaissance and the Baroque brought man
into closer contact with the inside and the outside of its buildings. 'In our age of
airplanes,' he concludes, 'architecture is viewed not only frontally and from the
sides, but also from above—vision in motion'; i.e. Space-Time.
It is significant that when Wolfflin (from whom Giedion derived his basic ideas
about the primacy of space in art-historical analysis) discusses architectural space
most eloquently, it is with reference to the painting of an architectural interior,
rather than to an architectural interior itself. Altdorfer's early sixteenth century
painting of the birth of the Virgin, he tells us, characterizes well the fundamental
difference between the German and Italian conceptions of space, since here 'space
is undefined and in motion", whereas with Brunelleschi all forms are defined and
distinct. In Altdorfer's interior, he continues, the nave and aisles flow into one
another, 'and what is more, a rotating, whirling movement throws the entire spaqe
into a turmoil'. The church's ground plan remains intentionally unclear, and the
painting, he therefore concludes, compensates for the completeness of the diverse
views offered to the spectator wandering on the spot 'by transforming finite into
infinite form'.
When Wolfflin discusses Baroque interiors, his descriptions are almost indis-
tinguishable from Giedion's description of the Space-Time experience of the
Villa Savoie. 'We move round them,' he writes, 'because in the intersections
new pictures constantly arise. The goal cannot lie in a final revelation of the inter-
sected form—that is not even desired—but in the perception, from as many sides
as possible, of the potentially existing views.'
Nevertheless, Giedion's interpretation of Baroque clearly differs from Wofflin's
in that Giedion sees Baroque only as the anticipation of Space-Time, and I suspect
that the immediate source of Giedion's theory is to be found not in Wolfflin's
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lectures or Einstein's theory, but in an extremely influential and popular German
book which appeared in 1918, when Giedion was a student in Munich, namely
Spengler's Decline of the West. If specific evidence were required to demonstrate
Spengler's influence on Giedion, it could be adduced by the term Taustian', that
most Spenglerian of expressions, which occurs in Space, Time and Architecture
with reference to the League of Nations competition. But for readers of Giedion
nothing could be more conclusive than the following quotation from Decline of the
West:
'The Temple of Poseidon at Paestum and the Minster at Ulm ... differ precisely
as the Euclidian geometry of bodily bounding-surfaces differs from the analytical
geometry of the position of points in space referred to spatial axes. All Classical
building begins from the outside, all Western from the inside ... There is one and
only one soul, the Faustian, that craves for a style which drives through walls into
the limitless universe of space, and makes both the exterior and the interior of the
building complementary images of one and the same world-feeling... The Faustian
building has a visage, and not merely a fasade.'
'Faustian' might well be an appropriate substitute for the increasingly unpopular
word 'International' as a stylistic identification of twentieth century architecture,
but regardless of 'style', I would suggest that in fact the visual effects usually
referred to as Space-Time, Fourth-Dimensional, and so on, are nothing more or
less than modern developments of the exploitation of effects of parallax, which was
discussed in the first chapter. The phenomenon of parallax (whereby an apparent
displacement of objects occurs when the point of observation changes) is also, like
Space-Time, a device for astronomical measurement, but unlike Space-Time it has
been an important element of architectural composition, and has been manifest in
architecture ever since the first hypostyle hall was constructed. It occurs in every
large space containing rows of free-standing columns, and must have produced
particularly striking effects in the great mediaeval churches and halls when these
were also subdivided by low screens, or spanned by deep hammer-beam roofs.
The aesthetic revolution which has occurred in architecture within the last
century has consisted firstly in the reversal of the traditional method of exploiting
parallax, and secondly in its extension by means of a greater use of cantilevers and
glass. Reversal of the traditional method is best exemplified in Le Corbusier's work,
and it is probably this which relates it so closely to Cubism; for, as John Summerson
has observed, 'just as Picasso's work is, as he has said, a sum of destructions, so, in
a sense, is Le Corbusier's; for to him the obvious solution of a problem cannot
possibly be the right solution . . . he sees the reverse logic of every situation'.
Extension of the traditional method is best exemplified in the works of Gropius,
and particularly of Mies van der Rohe, that greatest of all pioneers of modern
parallax, whom Giedion, with regard to Space-Time, completely neglects. But all
the leading architects of the century have exploited it to some extent, whether it
be Frank Lloyd Wright's use of large balconies or free-standing mushroom
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columns, or even Perret's emphasis on isolating point supports. Its most striking
development today is in the use of high towers which change their apparent
relationship as one moves round the building, as introduced by Louis Kahn.
Giedion's terminology will probably persist, whatever interpretation we give it,
because of the modern credulous appetite for pseudo-scientific mumbo-jumbo, and
the fact that it was used recently to explain traditional Japanese architecture and
its relation to Zen Buddhism will occasion no surprise. It is even to be found
outside architectural writings, as for example in a recent sociological periodical
where, in an article entitled 'A Study of Free-Time Activities of 200 Aged Persons',
their Space-Time activities are carefully described. Yet here, on close examination,
it is apparent that 'space-time activities' was simply a misprint for 'spare-time
activities', and one may perhaps be excused for wondering whether a similar
typographical transposition has not occurred in one or two recent books on modern
art.

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