veredes, arquitectura y divulgación VADo1 Los Inicios | Page 97

ISSN 2659-9139 e-ISSN 2659-9198 | Junio 2019 | 01.VAD
This book is not a canonical history of architecture whatsoever but a
commented by the editor (Ockman in this case) collection of key articles
to understand a particular period of modern architecture between the
dying moments of War World II and the early stages of postmodernism.
However, Ockman explains how, in the article, Hitchcock is partially criti-
cal with the book as he regrets for example the very narrow definition of
the International Style and its dogmatism. She also applauds the turn in
the forecast that Hitchcock had foreseen for the next twenty-five years;
broadening the limited scenario he predicted to a more inclusive and va-
ried one in the 1951 article. Nonetheless, the most important criticism
Ockman celebrates in Hitchcock’s text is when he regrets the homogeni-
zation of the architecture and its academicism and sterile outcome as a
consequence of the a priori aesthetic and stylistic rules the book had out-
lined for modern architecture from the International Style. The interest
of the International Style does not decay in texts such as the comparative
historiography (1999) of Panayotis Tournikiotis. One of the histories of
architecture he analyses is the one by Henry-Russell Hitchcock entitled
Modern Architecture. Romanticism and Reintegration, and Tournikiotis wri-
tes that the book on International Style is an extension of the other one
that helps to clarify and broaden its meaning. Critically and probably sar-
castically and in relation with the predominant stylistically concerns of the
book, the Greek author brands it as a guide for architects who want to be
modern.
If Joan Ockman’s anthology focused on the figure of Hitchcock and his re-
view of the term twenty years after the MoMa exhibition, which is the first
in depth review of the term and its value is larger because it was done by
one of the creators of the term, Alan Colquhoun’s book Modern Architec-
ture (2002) can help us to understand other angles of the disambiguation
between International Style and Modern Architecture, one of the ques-
tions we set out at the beginning of this text. In that sense, Colquhoun
also underlines the problem of an International Style as a translation of
the European modern movement but only in terms of evolution of the
style without the important social content it had in Europe, in parallel with
the argumentation of Beatriz Colomina quoted before. This is not a super-
ficial aspect because, again, it undresses the International Style turning it
into something related to the aesthetics and therefore, unpromising in
its further development as modern architecture. Colquhoun is generous
with this notable absence and points out the different cultural and po-
litical circumstances of Europe and America to excuse the lack of social
content of the International Style.
To be fair, it must be said that Colquhoun only refers to the International
Style at the beginning of chapter twelve of his book and only to the 1932
exhibition but never to the label as a whole. Then, he agrees with the ge-
neral acceptance of it as the moment in time where modern movement
is introduced in America, that is to say, as a historical milestone but no
more.
Adding to the debate of the definition of modern architecture, Colquhoun
discusses that in the introduction of the book. He finds the expression
modern architecture ambiguous as it can be understood independently
from the ideological fundamentals or, more specifically, as an architectu-
re aware of its own modernity that pushes in favour of changes.
FRANCISCO JAVIER CASAS COBO. The Survival of the International Style in the History of Architecture. pp. 90-101
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