What does it mean to throw a piece? What is a virtual plan for? What type of dialogue can establish a house and a tree? ... The question that is sought answer in this thesis, correctly formulated to guide the research, would be: At what point was started to think and express the project By the language we call abstract?
The hypothesis advances that the historical milestone that determines the beginning of this new way of reifying architectural thought, and which is therefore the origin of a new way of seeing, expressing and projecting Architecture, is concretized in the project for a Private House, Presented by Theo van Doesburg and Cornelius van Eesteren in the Gallery L'Effort Moderne in Paris on October 15, 1923. The thesis concludes with the statement that the knowledge transmitted through this project had a significant influence on the trajectories of Mies van der Rohe and Le Corbusier, and that its foundations formed the basis of the academic program of the Bauhaus School, so that its influence on the evolution of the architecture of the twentieth century was decisive.
The presentation of the data that support the thesis brings to the classic historiography a revision of the trajectories of Kandinski, Mondrian and Malévich elaborated from a specific perspective of the history, whose nexus of union is the figure of Theo van Doesburg. This allows us to recognize the parallels and points of contact that reunite the paths of two cultural movements, which were physically separated by World War I and conceptually by later historiography. This new reading makes it possible to complete aspects not sufficiently clarified in the line of architectural evolution that takes place between the publication of the Wasmuth volumes of Wright in 1910, the Barcelona Pavilion in Mies and the Villa Savoy in Le Corbusier, both 1929, nineteen years later .
The analysis of the data contributed confirm the hypothesis that the project of Van Doesburg and Van Eesteren is a conscious work, which gathers the advances of the artistic thought of the great creators of the time, and that its influence supposes a fracture in the linear coherence Of architectural evolution. The thesis demonstrates the importance of this fact for the definitive emergence of Modern Architecture in the twentieth century, as well as for its understanding.
The Conclusions determine that the fracture in the line of evolution is not provoked by the appearance of a style, fashion or trend, nor is reflected in a formal aspect of the works generated from this concept, but it implies the total conceptual transformation Of the intellectual position of the architect in front of the architectural project: thanks to the lawyer Kandinski, the painters liberated the elements of the Painting from their traditional function to the service of the representation, and turned them into elements of expression; Thanks to the painter Van Doesburg, the architects were freed from the Elements of Architecture, and could reify their thinking directly in the architectural project, without the conditions imposed by the knowledge of the trade. This fact gives an unprecedented freedom to the conception of Architecture, and allows it to enrich itself with the influences of the rest of the arts, as well as to influence in hitherto unexplored fields.
The wall, column, cornice or corner, for whose use specific knowledge is required and whose terms transmit precise conditions, are the particular elements of Architecture, and through them has been reified thinking in the architectural project since the Renaissance . Line, plane, proportion, equilibrium ... are abstract elements, universal, and present in the human spirit, their terms do not evoke conditions, but transmit freedom and for their management only the education of sensitivity is required. Through them the thought will be reified in the architectural project from 1923 until today.
Theo van Doesburg not only contributes with his project the keys to this intellectual transformation, but also provides the necessary tools to develop it, with his introduction of the Axonometric Perspective and Geometric Proportion as instruments of construction and analysis of the architectural project. The thesis approach subverts the traditional critical and historiographical approach, which attributes to Van Doesburg the paternity of the so-called Neoplastic Style, which is mistakenly identified with a series of specific formal characteristics, and on the basis of these the influence is judged.
The initial question comes up with the constant appearance in recent years of new tools, and leads us to the reflection pointed out by T.S. Eliot: "Where is the wisdom that we have lost with knowledge? Where is the knowledge that has been lost to us with the Information?