Tradition & Modernity in contemporary practice

Tradition & Modernity in contemporary practice

by Lucien Steil

"...That between the traditional and the new, or between order and adventure, there is no real opposition, and that what we call tradition today is a knitwork of centuries of adventure." Jorge Luis Borges

The practice of architecture remains essentially a pursuit of ideals. Architecture and city-

building are necessarily imbedded in a desire of building; they encompass physical and moral

changes in the built environment of human societies and propose the materialization of design

visions. Architecture's main purpose is to conceive in a consistent way good buildings and

good cities in a perspective of realization.

“Kaltreis”, a New Quarter in Luxembourg, Counter-Project by Lucien Steil (1984)

Compromising the ideals of appropriateness, beauty, solidity, permanence, etc., within the

materialization of building, means abandoning the very realm of architecture. We know how

much ruthless practice has in a few decades put shame on the profession of architects and

city-builders .This has led to a substantial moral and cultural crisis and has precipitated a

serious loss of professional authority and credibility!

“Cockerill” Building in Esch/Alzette: Public Housing and Daycare on Ground Floor, Mulhern & Steil (1996)

The Contemporary

Now what does it mean to define architectural practice in a "contemporary situation?" Is the

practice of traditional architecture and city-building antagonistic to the contemporary?

Or should we consider contemporary practice as the acknowledgement of our building visions,

namely the highly efficient practicability of traditional architecture and urbanism?

The issue of the "ideal world" colliding with the "real world" is not exclusively a

contemporary one. It is a permanent struggle of mankind.

To address the "real world" is not to compromise ideals of excellence but to consecrate

reality as a manifestation of an eternal and sacred creation. The production of architecture

and city-building has to address the reality of contemporary construction, of contemporary

technology, of contemporary programs, of contemporary social, cultural and economical

conditions, not in a perspective of fatality but rather as an opportunity of choices! (cfr.Leon Krier: "Choice and Fate")

Museum Complex in Bivange, Luxembourg, Mulhern & Steil

Any cultural achievement and any action is guided by choices transcending existing

conditions. The practice of architecture and city-building is not locked into the contingencies

of the "real world." The architectural and urban projects inform the contemporary situation of

other potentials, of broader perspectives, of sublime transformations. The practice of

architecture and city-building educates reality with inspiring visions and cultivated choices. In

our time, many designs of traditional buildings, urban developments, towns and cities, have

been successfully realized. They have been built in a "contemporary situation" contradicting

the fashionable skepticism about their " unrealistic assumptions". To those who would still

argue : "But you can't build this today!" Leon Krier would probably reply: "You can't but I can."

“Millebach” Neighbourhood, Mulhern & Steil (1989)

Now the essential purpose of all these built works has not been to reflect about

contemporaneity, nor has it been a polemical statement against modernity.... These built

achievements are merely concerned with building beautiful, comfortable and durable

structures and places to be inhabited with dignity, pleasure and love!

Retour de Potsdam (Linoprint by Lucien Steil)

I believe that ugliness, non-sense, and inappropriateness are not matters of personal opinion

only, but identifiable features which can be sensed and shared by a majority of people. Good

taste and good manners can be taught, but the intuition of beauty is an inherent propriety of

man, as a microcosm of nature, in his perfect and indissoluble union of body, soul, and spirit.

“Contemporaneity” cannot be possibly reduced to a permanent humiliation of our moral and esthetical judgement!

“Contemporaneity” is not a quality, not a style, not a religion, not a wisdom, not an

experience, not a skill, not an esthetics, not a promise, not an ideal, not a deception

“Pino’s Town”, Capriccio by Lucien Steil

What “Contemporaneity” is, is merely to be here, now!

It qualfies the moment we are living in...We can be enthusiastic or not about that, and we

still, all of us, remain contemporary.

Questioning contemporary situations through nostalgia and revivalist projections has always

been a quite healthy practice in order to recentre and refocus cultural dynamics. Envisioning

the future not as a hypothesis of salvation, but as an immanent part of memory, has proved to

be far more rewarding and inspiring than any theory of futuristic revolution.

“Imagination is another form of memory”

Paul Bowles

…Anyway, the future has never been that anticipated exhilarating experience...the "shock of

the future"- when the future gets to us, it is no longer future,-it becomes present and then

quickly past! ..The shiny new and crunchy novelty soon loose their freshness..

Service Residence “Hesperides” in Gevenmacher by Mulhern & Steil

The romantic utopias which consider the contemporary as the doorway of a new historical

dimension: "The Future"- they might be wonderful and even attractive nostalgias....They

might be as natural and human than the nostalgias of past Golden Ages. They probably

contribute to a constant reevaluation of our cultural heritage, to the redefinition of our world

and our values,to the reappraisal of reason and imagination.

Paradoxically too much paranoiac obsession with futuristic utopias expresses a serious conflict

with “contemporaneity”…

It probably reveals a failure to transcend reality in a perspective of a better world.

For my part I prefer to look at the future as a part of a wholesome vision guiding our actions

and projections in a perspective of continuity, wisdom and emulation.

Challenged in his apparent lack of enthusiastic "contemporaneity," the traditional Egyptian

architect Hassan Fathy wrote :

"Now, if we are to reconcile time with the architect's definition of contemporaneity, we must say that to be "relevant to it's time," to be "contemporary," a work of architecture must fulfill these conditions: it must be part of the bustle and turmoil, the ebb and flow of everyday life; it must be related harmoniously to the rhythm of the universe, and it must be consonant with man's current stage of knowledge of change."

"For all great architecture is contemporary of its time, relevant to its situation in space, time and human society-but also eternal.Without being eternal - that is in harmony with the cosmos and the evolution of life - no architecture can be called contemporary."

Hassan Fathy

Counter Project for a New Quarter in “Kaltreis” by Lucien Steil

Modernity

Though the "moderns" do not own exclusively this century, as often they seem to pretend, I

doubt that any other moment in history has been so concerned about its modernity. So many

individuals, institutions, schools, especially art and architectural institutions seem to be so

anxious to express an image of modernity. They often forget about the fundamental issues of

their "raison d'etre."

"Modernity" has become a self-justifying label without any connotation of quality and comfort.

The sectarian understanding of modernity is finally a matter of nostalgia of some reliquarian

and fossilized avant-gardes.

This kind of abusive modernity canonizes itself in a set of esthetical conventions and formal

habits, the requirement of disruption and confusion, collision and disharmony.

It is complemented and encompassed by the absurd relativism of recent deconstructivist

philosophy, a completely revolting doctrine of cultural Nihilism.

This orthodox modernity maintains and entertains a small but powerful elite whose main task

is to justify its own uselessness.

Most of schools of architecture, art institutions, and art schools are now like emperors

without clothes. Blinded by vanity, they don't notice their nudity. Abusing historical

authority, they offer little beyond academic confusion. They celebrate their metaphysical

hollowness and their artistical miseries and cultivate proudly large junkyards of ignorance and

ugliness!

Then, should we care about modernity?

Aren't those who prioritize this issue engaging themselves in a fake world of relative values

and frivolities, in a world of fashionable senselessness, in a world where common sense does

not make sense anymore and where reason has lost its reasons?

Now I can agree to some fascination of modernity as an intellectual and cultural issue worth of

investigation.

In reality the contemporary situation fits me quite well.

I am not terrorized by modernity though I think that this imposed attention to the originality

of our time is somewhat despotical. I admit that I am looking backward quite often: It is the

better view!

Marsham Street Competition – London by Mulhern & Steil

Besides, I am nostalgic too, not of any particular historical period but of the accumulated and

simultaneous sum of historical culture as a potential of our time! I like to be a militant

nostalgic in the sense defined by J.W. von Goethe:

"There is nothing past for which one may yearn, there is only an eternal newness which is shaped by the wider elements of the past and true nostalgia has always to be productive to create a new excellence."

Now true modernity, in my understanding, is a positive acknowledgement of one's time. This

does not mean a blind enthusiasm and uncritical support. It means being aware of the

difference of this time to preceding ones, without implying that the preceding ones have to be

rejected. It is the consciousness of a different sensibility and perception of time and space. It

does not need to oppose continuous values and paradigms of beauty, comfort and

permanence.

Modernity is thus an acute sense of originality of a particular culture in a particular moment of

space and time. This contemporary originality is only meaningful in its relationship to the

originality of past cultures. Modernity in this understanding has to be contrary to amnesia,

because something cannot be measured as different, original, innovative, new to that which is

not acknowledged or deliberately forgotten or ignored!

Elevation of “Hersperides” Service Residence in Grevenmacher, by Mulhern & Steil

So modernity being the vibrant experience of uniqueness of any moment in history, is

simultaneously the intricately bonded experience of a contemporary present with its historical

memory.

Consequently modernity cannot be contradictory with the contemporary practice of

traditional architecture and city-building. This is an artificial and useless polemic within the

obsolete debate of tradition versus modernity!

The quality and value of an architectural practice can ultimately only be judged by its efficacy

to create good buildings, good cities, gardens and landscapes in design visions and built

realizations.

Now if there are any more reasons to giving some thoughts to modernity one might be the

following: To challenge some of the routine, self-contemplation and self-contentment which

threatens any endeavor of mankind: entropy* is a natural phenomena, a tendency towards

stagnation, the only organic situation where no change occurs.

(* "entropy increases as matter and energy in the universe degrade to an ultimate state of inert uniformity" in

www,thefreedictionary.com)

The modern has always presented itself as an alarm-bell for stagnating culture...

But what matters more is the ever-present opportunity to question thoroughly the

contemporary situation and its potential, and to recuperate, in the perspective of a better

world, its operational knowledge, its highly sophisticated instrumentation of information and

communication and its perfected logistics.

Besides the numerous problems of the contemporary world, there is definitely a humanistic

program, genuine progress in tolerance and social justice, a popularization of international

solidarity, a strive for peaceful coexistence and humanitarian policies, a new attitude to nature

and the acknowledgement of the richness of human diversity etc.

Al-Esch Public Housing by Lucien Steil (1986)

There are numerous other challenges, not to be addressed because they document the

contemporary failures and shortcomings, but because they are the real opportunities to invest

the "Real World."

They are the real territories of creativity and invention!

They are the real frontiers of imagination and poetry:

- The preservation of natural environment and the economy of natural resources

- The issues of labor, crafts and skills in a context of education, training and

employment alternatives

- The enabling of dignified housing (private and public) sustainable neighbourhoods and

vital city centres

- The evolution of real estate development and building industry in a perspective of

territorial economy, of equilibrium between city and country-side, of regional

emulation

- The promotion and strengthening of regional and local identities and the support of

multicultural conviviality.

- The reconstruction of a popular culture of art and architecture opposing elitist

practice, opposing the promotion of architecture and city-building as a social privilege.

Architecture and city-building have to reintegrate Civitas and the realm of public life

as well as deal again with the reality of human communities.

Dépot Buchholtz, by Mulhern & Steil

The Practice of Traditional Architecture

Practicing traditional architecture requires a high ethical commitment to the people, their

places, their beliefs and their particular traditions...

This commitment is not a slavish one, nor is it a servile opportunism!

Ethical attitudes are not reducible to the uncritical acceptance of dominant sets of values and

moral conventions.

They require the distinction between civic and private virtues on one hand and willful customs

and obsolete practices of false morality and corrupted policies on the other.

Traditional architects are committed to a modernity contributing to discern the most

appropriate and the most efficient, the most human and the most ecological aspects of the

contemporary potential.

Traditional architecture and city-building are based on a positive philosophy of life, on faith in

humanity, on respect of environment and historical cultures as a common heritage of mankind,

and on an inviolable legacy of genius and know-how from preceding generations of craftsmen

and committed citizen. Traditional architecture and city-building imply a sense of modesty

and humility of the individual creator within the sacred creation of the universe, as well as the

powerful intuition that concepts of beauty, harmony, justice, truth, rightness are imbedded in

permanence and universality.

Tradition forwards a selected knowledge, a tested experience as well as an heritage of models,

types, techniques and formal vocabularies. It is a dynamic process, an ongoing effort and

development, not a static heritage of dogmas and immutable recipes. Tradition shoulders the

responsibility of carrying on an inherited culture beyond the contingencies and improvisations

of the moment. In order to remain vital, alive and relevant it needs to be earned, consolidated

and enriched by each single generation in the perspective of universal ideals of civilization. It

implies a constant effort of appropriation of knowledge, experience and cultural values, a

permanent effort of intellectual, artistic and material reconstruction.

In his introduction to Hannah Arendt's "Crisis of Culture, "the French writer René

Char comments: "Our heritage has been handed over to us without a testament," suggesting

the creative and inventive effort required tooperate within the context of tradition. Clearly,

tradition has nothing to do with "easy copying of past formulas" as the relentless critics of

traditional architecture and city-building sarcastically pretend!

Traditional Architects and Urban Designers

They are not thriving to glamorous and trivial fame signature buildings, but to a more durable

memory, prestige and authority based on their achievements, not on their branded names.

They cannot rely on the powerful support of universities and institutions but get more and

more attention from citizens, students and local associations.

They are excluded from most of contemporary art and architecture magazines, which are often

reserved as the propaganda machinery of modernism.

They remain craftsmen, apprentices of their art, masters, however, of a popular historical

culture. Their merits, they share them knowingly with whole generations of preceding

architects and craftsmen. If most of them remain anonymous like the medieval "Baumeister,"

their anonymity is glorious...

Traditional architects and urban designers find the outstanding rewards of their profession in

the pleasures of their work, in the delights of their design, in the prestige of popular

acceptance, in the excellence of their buildings and urban developments.

Their work is consecrated by public evidence and popular approval for its beauty, comfort and

efficiency, not by professional honors, academic awards, or other notarized guarantee label of

modernity.

Waterfront Town, Capriccio by Lucien Steil

(Note that this article has been published previously in Periferia, Archimagazine and other websites/

copyright Lucien Steil)