Book review: Architectural Principles in the Age of Fraud by Branko Mitrović

Branko Mitrović is a philosopher and architectural historian. In this book, he argues that modern architectural theory is based on meaningless philosophy or uses philosophy concepts out of context.

I learned that some of the most prominent early modern architects, such as Le Corbusier or Mies van der Rohe, had no formal architectural training. Gropius, one of the founders of the Bauhaus, had only studied for two years (when a typical architecture degree would take four or five). One of the reasons why they did not design traditional buildings is because they could not.

Many people do not like modern architecture. The author states that modern architecture prevailed because it was cheaper to build in the postwar period. This may be true, but it does not explain why the trend continued well into the 1990s, when mass-produced ornaments and mouldings were cheap and the urgent need for inexpensive housing that characterized the baby-boom era had subsided. This is a shortcoming of the book, which is very focused on analyzing the misuse of philosophy by architects, but brushes over the factors that sustained modernism.

Mitrović’s point is that architects and academics used impenetrable jargon drawn from philosophical movements to the defend the modernist project from the 1970 onward. They did so to deflect attention form modernism’s aesthetic failures.

Modern architectural theory was dominant in most universities. Architecture students where not educated in the classical tradition, and knowledge of it was lost. Even today it is difficult for an architecture student to learn the classical tradition at most universities.

The author asks what the purpose of an architect is. An architect should design buildings that fulfill a set of requirements and do so in an aesthetically pleasing way. It seems that other professionals such as developers, engineers and builders, have taken over traditional architectural roles and do a better job of it. In some cases the architect is completely absent. I understand that this observation may hold in countries like Norway or the USA, where there is no legal requirement for an architect to be involved in the design and construction of many types of buildings. It is less applicable in countries like Spain, where an architect is required by law, even if only to sign the design documents and assume formal responsibility for the project.

The book does a good job of showing how architectural academia is completely disconnected from the everyday aesthetic concerns of building users, but it falls short in explaining how and why modern architecture, with buildings that most people consider ugly and often dysfunctional, dominated new construction from the Second World War to the 1990s and remains prevalent today, particularly in public buildings.