Eladio Dieste: connecting modern forms to modern life.

The forms and spaces created by modern architecture were a way to concretely display the efforts of modernity. Proponents of the modern architectural style were in pursuit of a basic purity in structure that could be universally applied in any location and for any purpose. The pursuit of this basic purity led to an austere formal vernacular that often felt disconnected from the world around it. This disintegration with the environment became one of the major shortcomings of the Modern Architectural movement (Scully 1980, pg.158). Eladio Dieste’s church of Christ the worker is a powerful critique of these Modern architectural forms and practices. By using a process which emphasizes efficiency in material selection and application, Dieste was able to create a purely Modern structure which still relates to its environment and its users. Dieste called this approach to design “cosmic economy, a way to use materials that profoundly respects their properties and responsibility” (Carbonell 1987, pg.162). This type of approach stands in clear opposition to the works of Dieste’s contemporaries like Oscar Niemeyer. Niemeyer’s National Cathedral in Brazilia is a good example of a distinctively different approach to forms and there relations to the environment, an approach that focuses more on the singular vision of the architect and not on the realities of the construction site and material capabilities. Dieste was not alone in his dedication to using materials to their highest potential. Robert Maillart was a Swiss engineer who was dedicated to the same kind of economy that Dieste pursued. He worked with reinforced concrete to create bridge spans that pushed the material to its limits. This drive for efficiency imbues a structure with a universal value that only takes an understanding of the physical world we share to appreciate.

All of the attributes that make Dieste’s works successful are directly related to Dieste’s principle of cosmic economy. For Dieste, Cosmic Economy meant a great and comprehensive concern for the efficient use of resources. The all encompassing nature of Diestes cosmic economy meant that an efficient and concise use of material and nonmaterial resources had to be pursued. One of the major effects that this thinking had on Dieste was to more directly link the form of buildings to the construction techniques that would be used to build them. For Dieste, “construction will always be indiscernible from architecture because it is its flesh and bones” (Dieste, 1992, pg.194). Dieste’s background as an engineer is clearly evident in this way, however, the result of this thought process was more than just a technical exercise. The relationship between how a structure would eventually look and how it would be constructed is a key difference between Dieste’s work as an architect and many of his contemporaries. Many of the materials that allowed Modern Architecture to take form asked much less of the designer in the way of concessions for strength. Reinforced concretes plasticity let architects to be more free in their formal language, allowing them to design the way in which a building might look before even considering how it would be made. In contrast, Diestes cosmic economy requires that each resource must be used efficiently and concisely, something that cannot be accomplished without constant attention to how a structure will take form. This kind of attention to economy is a powerful guide for design. By embracing the physical rules and constraints of the world and working with them to develop a structure, Dieste’s work become visibly tied to the environment it was placed in with a language that everyone can understand.

Eladio Dieste’s first architectural work was the church of Christ the Worker, in the small village of Atlantida. The church of Christ the worker shares the same thin shell continuously curved reinforced masonry vaults that characterize much of Dieste’s work. This type of construction has specific advantages over the typical reinforced concrete and steel structures that are typically thought of as modern. The most important being its relation to the region in which the church was built. Dieste’s philosophy of cosmic economy led him away from the normal path of reinforced concrete and steel construction because both of these materials were prohibitively expensive to import to Uruguay and were also foreign to the labor force that would be doing the actual construction. To address the specific material and social concerns of the village of Atlantida, Dieste chose to build with reinforced masonry. Construction using masonry was very common in Uruguay, making it attractive because it was economical to purchase and install. The available work force was already well trained in this type of construction so brick and mortar was the most obvious choice. By simply committing to a material that was familiar to the people in the surrounding village, Dieste starts the process of forming an architecture that is both modern and local. If Dieste were to have simply tried to mimic the forms of more modern materials with his bricks than the connection to the local people may have felt contrived or might have felt like it was an imitation. However, Dieste did not see this material as a substitute for something better but as a valid material with its own positive and negative attributes. His background as an engineer allowed him to fully exploit the humble bricks positive qualities. By creating spans and forms that would be daring and sometimes impossible with other more modern materials, Dieste works with the materials to build a sense of wonder into the church of Christ the worker. This sense of wonder did not come from some abstract metaphor or play on historical archetypes but from our basic understanding of materials and the mystique that comes with challenging the limits of the constraints that they provide.

The challenge of constructing of Brazils new capitol was a major undertaking. One of the many buildings that needed to be constructed was a national cathedral. The task of building this new cathedral was Oscar Niemeyer’s. Niemeyer’s design called for a set of reinforced concrete ribs arranged radially to form a large cone like structure with a circular floor plan. Niemeyer’s design solution also integrates a mote that people have to walk under to get inside. The choices of materials for this project were primarily reinforced concrete and glass. These materials have no relation to the region of Brazil in which they were placed, which was a semi arid desert and mostly uninhabited. They were chosen because they were the accepted norm for modern architecture worldwide and because they were probably the only materials that could fulfill the structural requirements of the design. The resulting structure speaks to the observer through multiple extended metaphors that must be detected and decoded by the observer. The most obvious of which is probably the allusion to baptism experienced by having to pass under water to gain access to the Nave and if one is extra imaginative they can see how the overall form of the structure looks like a set of praying hands. By relying on the poetics of the formal language of structure for its sense of meaning, Niemeyer fully invests the value of the cathedral in his own personal vision. If a person visiting the cathedral simply misunderstands what the forms of the structure mean than much of the value of the design is lost. There are still the unique qualities of the light and circular floor plan to dwell on and those by themselves are interesting but are clearly not what Niemeyer wanted the cathedral to be about. By using forms, materials and construction methods that do not relate to the experience of the geographic region of Brazilia or the people who live there, Niemeyer counts on the value of his own vision and interpretation of meanings to give the experience of the National Cathedral value.

The type of demand for economy and efficiency that Dieste’s approach to design demands is not wholly unique and the relations to the environment that it creates are not limited to the retro appeal of traditional materials. Robert Maillart was a Swiss engineer and bridge builder who worked in the modern material of reinforced concrete. When Maillart started to build with reinforced concrete in the early 1900s it was already becoming a common material in Switzerland, having been in use for 30-40 years and also having been invented in neighboring France. Maillart used some of the same principles of Dieste’s cosmic economy to stretch the abilities of this material to its limits. At the time most engineers and architects were accustomed to using wood, stone and steel to create structures. The qualities of these materials became part of the language that designers drew on when creating. When reinforced concrete came into use its first applications were a direct replacement for the materials that had preceded it. The unique qualities and opportunities that reinforce concrete presented were not being fully exploited or respected in its use. Maillart saw reinforced concrete as a unique material with traits that could be exploited to reach an economy in construction, form and material. An economy that all previous materials could not attain. The best examples of this are his large span bridges like the Salginatobel Bridge in Switzerland. In this design Maillart employed a monolithic structure comprised of a shallow, curved reinforced concrete slab for the arch, with the horizontal slab of the platform and a series of stiffening vertical slabs used to tie and articulate them (Giedion, 1941, pg. 459). This type of bridge construction was entirely foreign to the swiss mountains. It struck a contrast with people’s perceptions of what a bridge should look like and with how people thought structures could work. If Maillart’s bridges were based solely on his own external vision of how they should look, their value would be up for interpretation based on how well that vision was understood by the critic. However, because Maillart’s forms were based in a search for engineering efficiencies they appeal to the basic senses that we have accumulated through our lives.

Elaudio Dieste built truly modern structures. The Church of Christ the worker is a testament to that fact. It is also easy to see that the Church of Christ the Worker is a departure from some of what is thought to be some of the essential parts of Modern Architecture, like reinforced concrete. By using a process that strives to consider the effects of every decision in the process of designing and building a structure, Dieste found a way to successfully blend the striking forms of the modern with the daily needs and tastes of the average. This blend did not come from a desire to compromise the ideals of modernity to suit the masses but from tempering the pursuits of modernity with the reality always present in each Architectural pursuit. This kind of mindset was in opposition to the Modern architectural movement which disconnected itself and its stark forms from the people and environment around it by imagining that modern man could conquer, or at least ignore, the rules of nature. By treating the disconnect this attitude formed as a problem of style, postmodernism reintroduced elements of the historical to better relate to the public’s need for something familiar and warm. Dieste shows us a way to relate the forms of modernism to something even more universal than history, our experience of the world around us. By striving to build in response to the circumstances and limitations that are faced by everyone, Dieste relates his structures to the human experience directly by challenging what our perceptions of what is possible with common materials, inspiring a sense of wonder.

Bibliography

1. Scully, Vincent. Modern Architecture and Other Essays, Princeton university press, 2003

2. Carbonell, Galaor. Eladio Dieste, Universidad de los Andes, 1987

3. Dieste, Eladio. Reflection on Architecture and construction , MIT press, 1992

4. Giedion, S, Space, Time and Architecture , Harvard University Press. 1941