Institute of Scientific Research and Development, Kiev, Ukraine. Picture by Nicolas Grospierre.
The triumphs and failures of modernism have been captured in a beautiful new book, as Umbrella discovers
There’s something about modernism that keeps us coming back.
One man who’d certainly agree with this is Swiss photographer Nicolas Grospierre – who ‘s spent the last 15 years obsessively documenting modernist architecture around the world. His work has been collected in a new book, Modern Forms: A Subjective Atlas Of 20th Century Architecture, which features his most breathtaking, brutal – and downright bizarre – images.
Although the structures he captures vary wildly in appearance, they’re united by a common thread: what Nicolas calls “the universality of modernist architecture”.
This commonality helped him to edit and organise his collection. As he says: “The problem was that the buildings photographed were all different: different styles, different architects, different functions, different countries. Even the format of the pictures was different: sometimes square, sometimes landscape, sometimes portrait.
“It came to me that the key to this archive should come from what makes the buildings different, ie, their shapes. I therefore imagined that a good way to organise the archive would be to create a gradient of forms, starting from one arbitrary form and gradually moving on to the next until all the shapes are exhausted and one comes back to the form which started the cycle.”
The shapes certainly are striking: from the iconic Gateway Arch in Saint Louis to Oscar Niemeyer’s little-known (and unfinished) International Fair Grounds in Tripoli, their concrete forms are bold and uncompromising.
However, as Nicolas discovered, an unwillingness to compromise on the well-intentioned (but stark) principles of modernism often produced mixed results.
“Modernism in architecture was the physical embodiment of one of the most beautiful ideals of mankind: progress. In architecture, it meant to create buildings that would make a better life for the common man.
“This ideal failed. And not only did it fail in its political or ideological dimension, but it even failed practically, as many of these buildings proved to be utopian and sometimes alienating in their everyday use. This is perhaps especially true in the architecture of the former socialist camp.”
Looking at his images of crumbling concrete monoliths it’s hard to disagree, but it’s not all bad news:
“To my eyes,” he says, “this doesn’t disqualify progress on a philosophical level. It’s perhaps because progress was an erroneous ideal from the very start that makes it even more beautiful. There’s great generosity in this ideal – the belief that man can perfect himself.
“Paradoxically, all that remains of this in architecture are the modern forms. For me, their boldness and expressive shapes are the reflection of the boldness of this optimism.”
Whatever the thinking behind these unique structures they offer a very different vision of the future to the functional-but-bland glass office blocks of today. They hail from a time when principles and idealism informed design, rather than maximising profit or indulging architectural vanity.Ultimately, what keeps us coming back to modernism isn’t discussing whether it’s buildings have ‘succeeded’ or not, it’s what lies at their very heart – optimism. We’re just glad that Nicolas feels the same way.