The Journals of Ayn Rand (25 page)

Probably sensing something of the above, [Woltersdorf] says a little later:

(More for Toohey.)

When will this sort of pap stop? What precisely does society recognize and what are its desires—in the sentence above? This kind of vague metaphysical hooey is at the bottom of all “social-consciousness” theorizing. Why assign profundity and ideals where there are none? Why not say honestly that an architect must lead and make the society “rise to a plane of right consciousness,” without flattering the mob monster by making it, in some vapid, non-descript way, the inspiration and master of its leader?

This book is a good example of what happens to the ideas of geniuses when “adopted” by lesser [men], of how dead, devitalized, dull, common and flat a great idea can become in average, official, “communal” hands.

Darcy Braddell,
How to Look at Buildings
.

Somewhat similar psychological type to the preceding book, in the sense of a desperate struggling for the old along with reluctant concessions to the new. But a type of mentality and attitude that is less vicious and pompous than the preceding. A mild, esthetic mind trying, at least, to be fair. Not fighting vigorously against modernism and giving it its due, when unavoidable. The [concessions to modernism are] done with obvious reluctance and in terms of the old, applying old standards and appearing to justify it on the basis of the old, while actually trying to justify the old by the principles of the new. Frequent recurrence of such statements as: “Even the modernists can’t escape well-established fundamentals of architecture, which they have to share with the classics,” etc. No viewpoint at all. A thoroughly polite and Milquetoastish sitting on the fence. Plus a yes-man complex, prone to admire indiscriminately every established authority. (Such as the author’s silly admiration for [Christopher] Wren’s towers, and his weak excuses for their ugliness, his even going so far as to call them “original architecture.”)

Not the type to violently oppose a new movement, but certainly not one to encourage or approve it, and certainly not until it is well established; then, perhaps, a little approval, grudgingly, without enthusiasm, in a dull, devitalized manner, strictly formalistic and superficial, not recognizing all the fundamental principles, but carping on details, just as one does about the old eclectic architecture, making a new sort of super-eclecticism, a mixture of eclecticism and modernity.

This is not Toohey’s type, but a good source for Toohey, a good type for the minor, work-a-day “art critic,” a mass of which makes a good background for Toohey and leaves the field open to him.

Typical quotation:

Also typical is his assertion that modern architecture is merely “dress-making,” only dressing a structural skeleton, but having nothing to do with real structure. This is how much he understands about modern architecture—which, above all, is structural, as compared to the “dress-making” of Renaissance and subsequent architecture. [...]

Characteristic of this type is a total lack of basic principle or conviction. Vagueness. A great many contradictions. Details and petty measurements for criticism, instead of a complete, unified system of thought.

 

C. H. Whitaker,
Rameses to Rockefeller
.

In reference to Louis Sullivan: when the
Journal of the American Institute of Architects
published Sullivan’s
Autobiography of an Idea
, many people demanded that the Board of Directors stop its publication. The members of the Board refused “even though some of them were a little fearful.” (This was in 1924.)

About Sullivan:

March 12, 1937

Same book.

Real pearls of wisdom for Toohey:

 

It is so easy to give credit for the Parthenon to the men whose names have come down to us by the historical method—Pericles, Callicrates, Ictinus, and Phidias, whom Plato called “a wise stone-cutter”—and so easy to forget, by the same very defective historical method, the long procession of building craftsmen who, year by year, played with their changing ideas of form and proportion as succeeding variations passed the ultimate test by which like and dislike were determined.

Had it not been for this great unsung host of stone-carvers and stone hewers, there could have been no Parthenon. It did not spring from any single mind. It was not born of any single concept. Rather was it the fruit of a slowly ripening experience over a century of trial and error. Year after year the builders studied the result of their labor, looked at it, lived with it, and noted what pleased them and what did not....

Thus the historical method of giving credit for a building to some particular person seems ungenerous. No building ever had a single author. One cannot point to a single feature of building, anywhere, and say that it first appeared in this building, or that. The whole historical method, in so far as it applies to credit and authorship, rests only on the concept of society as a struggle for individual glory and reward. It completely denies ... the endless procession of workers and thinkers, each making his humble contribution.

 

 

Could anything be sweeter and clearer?

 

Same book.

 

As a slogan for Toohey’s idea of architecture:

 

As a beginning—for the builders who shall at last set to work for a society that is resolved to build a civilization—what could be a better mark to aim at than for everyone a fine and spacious room, sun-lighted or sun-shaded, as one might choose!

 

Fine degree of selective freedom!

This is the best book for all the lying, evasions, and sophistries of Marxism as applied to architecture. Toohey’s exact psychology at work. Always the attempt to give credit to the masses. In Greek architecture—by pulling facts in by the ears, as in the quotation above [i.e., the March 12 entry]. In Gothic—great praise, because it is the anonymous architecture of collective workers. Blaming all the faults of the post-Renaissance architecture on the rise of the individual architect. Phony examples of exploitation as expressed in buildings, such as this explanation of the Parthenon columns: “[T]he temple was meant to advertise certain ideas that would inspire respect and make people pray and go to war without too much murmuring....”

A dishonest, disgraceful, stinking book.

Claude Bragdon,
Architecture and Democracy
.

An idiotic, unimportant book. The only thing of interest is the author’s combination of communistic leanings and great talk about the “Long Denied” with a silly mysticism that denies reason completely and puts the “heart” above the “brain.” Typical process of subconscious adjustment to purpose.

Use this. Show the process, particularly obvious in the Catholic Church and in Communism, through which all convictions, even on points [that appear to be] far from the main issue, are subconsciously, in individuals, and deliberately, in ideologies, constructed in such a way as to support the main issue somewhere, in its consequences or in its hidden roots. The “style” of ideologies.

A good example of sheer drivel, of putting one’s point across where it does not belong, is Bragdon’s interpretation of Sullivan’s Prudential building:

This is the way Toohey criticizes buildings.

A sample of collectivist-mystic balderdash: “Now materialism is the very negation of democracy, which is a government by demos, the over-soul....”

Glorification of the masses as against genius:

A great truth, not at all in the way the author intended!

 

Alfred C. Bossom,
Building to the Skies
.

The author praises the pseudo-classic architects of the Chicago World’s Fair of 1893. He shows his eclecticism, praising the “modern” skyscraper, [while he is] devoid of true architectural convictions, of all inner fire or integrity—“anything goes with the fashion of the moment.” In the list of great American architects of the early skyscrapers—not a word about Sullivan. (Nor about Frank Lloyd Wright.) Yet the author exhibits a plate of a junky building that got first prize in 1921. Typical instance of accommodating mediocrity.

He praises women’s interest in the architecture of the home. (That’s the reason for the monstrosities we have!) Some architects will not work for a woman client, regardless of the fee. (Good for them!)

Relatively simple regulations for American architects as compared to England. (
Check on this
.)

According to the author, an American architect has to be a walking bureau of business information. He has to advise the client as to what type of building to erect on a certain site or even choose the site; what the prospects of the neighborhood are, how large a building it can sustain and make it pay, etc. (He has to consult the American Telephone Company that always knows all prospects.) Every skyscraper-building office has one or two employees, technical advisers on this point. Author refused to build a bigger building than the location warranted; he felt his reputation would be hurt if he were associated with a beautiful building which turned out to be a commercial failure. (??) (
Check up on this by all means
. Is this the general attitude ? Where does the creative instinct come in on this?)