Ch. 4, pp. 169-173
I’d like to belatedly thank Andrew N. Nelson for compiling his The Compact Nelson Japanese-English Character Dictionary although, now I think of it, I’ve never known there to be a larger one. I bought my first copy, now known as the “classic” edition, somewhere around 1976. The edges of its pages were black from years of use and I gave it to someone young and curious when I didn’t think I’d needing it anymore. Five or six years ago in Dubai Mall’s Kinokuniya Bookstore (now renamed Bookworld) I saw a new edition and bought it mainly out of nostalgia but I’m glad I did. This is the dictionary I’ve been using now. Smartphone dictionaries aren’t comprehensive and attempting to write complex characters with your fingertip on a tiny screen doesn’t work. Sometimes, the only recourse is a Japanese character(kanji)-to-English dictionary. At the rear of this one are an English alphabetical index for when you already know at least one way a character is pronounced, and there’s a newly-added index that lists the 7,060 characters by the formative stroke portion called the radical, and then by the number of strokes that make up the full character. It’s a different way of getting to the same place but I’ve never used it. This could be because I’m stuck in my ways, or it could be because I’ve remembered many of those radical numbers that are the first step of a search. A list of radicals and their numbers is still inside the front cover (below right). You then find the page that has that radical number at its uppermost corner, and then look down the list for the number of (“residual”) strokes that make up the remainder of the character. Once you’ve found the first character, you then scan down the list for the number of strokes of the second character. For non-native speakers, the Japanese language probably has one of the world’s more diabolical writing systems. Japanese people of course have no problem with it, and it didn’t harm their post-war industrial productivity or creative output.
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Design was a national strategy
At the core of this aesthetic [of no decoration and design for the capabilities of machines and mass production] were Typisiiiierung and Sachlichkeit. Sachlichkeit was objectivism, and an objectivism of aesthetics. In order to initiate the manufacture of industrialized goods that had no decoration, it was necessary to raise the artistic value of things that were simple Sachform (actual form) shapes of techniques. In order to to do that, Muthesius said the low value the Academy had traditionally given to things with simple use and no decoration, had to be countered, and that it had to be shown that there was artistic value in shapes controlled by the simple Sachlichkeit. (Roht [?, ロート],l Hermannn Muthesius, Harmony Culture, Modern Form and Sachlichtheit, p.34) This was a machine aesthetic and the aesthetic of uniformity (as in the repetition of identical things). In his thesis, “Art and Machines”, he developed the notion that what gave this machine aesthetic its powers of persuasion was that the beautiful form of the object was the direct result of the use of industrial production. (ibid., p.35)
GM: In retrospect, this seems an extremely dodgy proposition with at least one kind of logical fallacy at work. But then, they were persuasive times.
“It is difficult to use machine production to copy handworked decorative arts.” This was a criticism of the Arts & Crafts movement. He claimed that, for the nation to prosper, it was necessary to have a new aesthetic that corresponded to machine production. “Sachform without decoration” was the popular slogan that spread throughout the Federation of German Industry. (ibid., p.37) This became a national slogan. “The Federation of German Industry was an organization that used art works to disseminate global propaganda, and we must see this as having been its greatest topic.” (Stein, On the International Strategy of the Federation of German Industry During the First World War, p.234) Muthusius actually said as much in a speech at the Federation of German Industry’s 1914 Cologne Exhibition. How many excellent products can we make by machine production gave rise to the catchphrase “The Beauty of Sachform”. This was truly the national strategy of Germany that had been lagging England and France in the field of design.
There was no one body that could make that aesthetic. The beauty of industrially produced goods relied on the talents of architects and designers to extract the properties of materials and to derive the necessary (Sachform) forms corresponding to the capabilities of machines. This can be thought of as this body of architects and designers giving up as much as they could of their autonomy. This can be thought of as the necessity of form not mediated by the autonomy of architects and designers. Pure form.
GM: This too, is quite the statement. It’s (my interpretation of) Yamamoto’s interpretation but just think. What we had were architects designing representations of products that looked like they had been fabricated by machines. If architects weren’t gullible fools, then they were complicit swindlers. The terms “idiots” and “swindlers” came up in the course of this translation. It was the most difficult couple of sentences I’ve encountered in this entire project. I could only make sense of them by understanding them as Yamamoto’s veiled judgment of The Bauhaus architects.
The Bauhaus architects powerless in the face of totalitarianism
This thinking of Muthusius was incorporated into the theories of The Bauhaus and lived on. One feature of aesthetic theory in the 1920s was “trying to validate the end of excellent objects defined by nothing more than the direct result of the skills and logical correctness of craftspersons extracting the possibilities hidden in materials.” (The Origins of Totalitarianism Vol. 3, p.50) This is in “Emphasis on the skills and capabilities of craftspersons.” (Arendt, The Human Condition, p.336) Designers were to design in accordance with the capabilities of machinery and be faithful to the properties of materials. Production was not to be mediated by worker autonomy. The free initiative of architects and designers was not allowed. It was an attempt to validate excellent products of industry as the faithful satisfying of society’s needs.
And how quickly we still buy into this.
“The artistic theory of The Bauhaus is the typical example of this.” (The Origins of Totalitarianism Vol. 3, p.46a) Arendt notes the flourishing attitude of architects and designers that, in the end, served to flatter society (as industrialized society, market society, public society, consumer society, bureaucratic society). There was the loss of criticality with respect to society (as the Nation). In fact, “the intellectual and artistic elite that included architects and that were adherents of the totalitarianism movement” were “so many as to make one discouraged”. (ibid., p.60) Despite that, it was natural that “they had no great power of influence on the mechanisms of totalitarian rule”. (ibid., p.60) However and in accordance with society’s needs, the role of architects who had lost their criticality with respect to society was no more than a superficial one. Wherever totalitarianism had a “total grip on power led to groups of sympathizers being discarded.” Arendt notes that totalitarianism was fascism and it was the bolshevism of Russia. Totalitarian countries were nation-states with a “simple (bureaucratic) administration”. “The nation state changed society’s ruling system into domestic accounting on a national scale.” (Arendt, The Human Condition, p.90) In other words, the nation state was “socialized” and was managed as a superhuman family. All of that country’s people were members of this superhuman family and subject to its extreme rules. Social needs were national needs. Architects who were creating methods in faithful accordance with society’s needs no matter what the power of the state, were totally defenseless with respect to the requirements of the state when it came to Nazism or Bolshevism. Arendt was extremely critical of the Bauhaus architects because pandering to society (that was now the nation) denied their autonomy.
Arendt writes that that very “intellectual and artistic initiative” is not so much an enemy but a threat to total rule.” (Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism Vol. 3, p.60) Autonomy is the power of will. It is personal will that cannot be exchanged with that of another. What caused totalitarianism to place thorough restraints on sophisticated forms of spiritual [intellectual?] activity was more than the natural feeling with respect to that which is not understood. Because totalitarianism cannot recognize activity it cannot completely predict, it cannot allow any free initiative in the domestic sphere. Because of this, totalitarianism with power in its hand, first drives away persons blessed with any kind of talent, and then it pursues the idiots. (ibid., pp.60-61) (What actually happened was that The Bauhaus was closed soon after the Nazi Party came to power, Gropius and Mies van deer Rohe went to the United States while the second head, Hannes Meyer, went to the Soviet Union.) Nazism and Bolshevism aren’t the only types of totalitarian rule. Bureaucratic rule is another, in that it confuses society’s requirements. Stupidity or intentional confusion is then used to pander to bureaucratic rule. The members of totalitarian rule include the fools that believe the illusion of it being a requirement of society, and the swindlers that intentionally use the illusion to ingratiate themselves with totalitarian rule. Arendt has great expectations for “the initiative of intellectuals and artisans” because their spiritual [intellectual?] activities are realized and materialized as actual things and, by this materialization, thought can be shared and experienced. This is to say that the processing of materialization is recognized as works by being seen and heard and felt and shared by many persons. This process of being works as things of the world must intervene. It is a process completely different form bureaucratic rule and this is why for bureaucratic rule it is a political threat and not an enemy. Arendt was well aware of this.
“Sachform without decoration is itself beauty.” Things made in accordance with this way of thinking (that competely denied the will of the creator) were not made to exist in the space that is the world but in the space that is society. They are things to be consumed. Architects did not question that autonomy (of will) and were recognized as the drivers of the faithful following of society’s requirements (commands). In the space that is society, an individual’s “creativity and productivity are not idealized, and the experience that should become the source of great ideas is obliterated.” (Arendt, The Human Condition, pp.336-337)
Industrially made products had to have complete forms finished to a high degree of precision. In other words, they had to be beautiful products. Furthermore, they were not to have the uniqueness of the works of a craftsperson, but were to.be regulated in order for them to be replicated (by mass production). It was necessary to have the large-scale mass production of high-quality, functional” and inexpensive products for the new social class in the new Republic of Germany. lt was also necessary to have housing become a product for mass production. It was necessary to have mass production for this new social class that had lost their places to live because of the war.
It’s good to learn that someone else is no great fan of The Bauhaus. Remember two years ago when people were falling over each other in the rush to say how great The Bauhaus was for creating the modern world via the mass production of objects? In this installment, the original text had some fairly hairy sentences that made me wonder if I was really up to translating this book, but it’s clear that The Bauhaus doesn’t come out of this looking very good. The zeitgeist, at least in Germany at the time (and it’s telling that the English-speaking world has adopted this word) definitely was in favor of regulating everything in order to have machine production and consequent economic superiority but whether that was for the sake of the population or for the sake of the control of the population is a bit fuzzy when we look at it from this end of history. It’s commonly taught that Gropius and Mies had no choice but to leave Germany because they disagreed with the Nazi party over superficial aesthetic differences such as the shape of roofs, when all the while they had been complicit in championing German industrial pre-eminence and the standardization and regulation and the dehumanization seen necessary to attain it. Mies leaving Germany because of Hitler’s penchant for pitched roofs is probably true as Mies did hang around to see which way the wind would blow. Ernst May [c.f. Architecture Misfit #25: Ernst May] was an architect who left Germany in 1930 but, before he did, he had led the design and construction of approximately 15,000 housing units across Germany. Many had flat roofs.
As a national strategy however, the manufacture of “well-designed” – whatever that meant at the time, or even now – and good quality products was to serve Germany very well post-war. German design and manufacturing superiority was to last for a few decades with all those famous brand names we know. And not just BMW, Mercedez Benz, Audi but the historic ones of Zeiss and Hasselblad. Leica. Braun. Grundig. Bose. It’s still continuing, even if Japan and its own national agenda clipped Germany’s wings a bit late 20th century as far as those economic indicators of automobiles, optical and audio products went. And now the world is angry because China is making and exporting not-so-expensive but very good electric automobiles and solar panels that you’d think the world would have a need for. Whatever you feel about that depends on whether your country is an exporter with a national strategy or an importer with hurt national pride. Some things don’t change.
German industrial strategy continued to affect architecture students well into the 20th century. Neufert never saw his house-building machine fever dream come to pass but his book of architects’ data was always lovingly and authoritatively referred to as Neufert by instructors. “Refer to your Neufert!”. It was a fact of student life until Metric Handbook came along until that in turn was replaced by a disregard for areas and dimensions that probably plays into some political agenda still obscure to us.
• • •
2024/11/03 Ch. 4, pp. 169-173
2024/10/20 Ch. 4, pp.163-168
2024/10/06 Ch. 4, pp.159-163
2024/09/29 Ch. 4, pp.156-159
2024/09/08 Ch. 4, pp.152–155
2024/09/08 Ch. 4, pp.146–151
2024/08/25 Ch. 3, pp.135–143
2024/08/18 Ch. 3, pp.128–135
2024/08/11 Ch. 3, pp.120–128
2024/07/21 Ch. 3, pp.115-120
2024/07/21 Ch. 3, pp.108-114
2024/07/14 Ch. 3, pp.101-107
2024/06/30 Ch. 2, pp.92-100
2024/06/23 Ch. 2, pp.87-92
2024/06/16 Ch. 2, pp.78-87
2024/06/02 Ch. 2, pp.69-78
2024/05/05 Ch. 2, pp.66-70
2024/05/05 Ch. 2, pp.58-66
2024/05/05 Ch. 1, pp.46-55
2024/04/28 Ch. 1, pp.35-46
2024/04/21 Ch. 1, pp.23-35
2024/04/07 Ch. 1, pp.18-23
2024/03/31 Ch. 1, pp.14-18
2024/03/24 The Space of Power vs. The Power of Space: Preface pp. 7-11
• • •
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