Tag: modernity

The cultural elements drive the people’s way of life and ultimately influence their choice of the buildings they inhabit. Man, and his culture and his living environments are always correlated. While measuring heritage architecture, one tends to ignore the cultural and societal factors as the stakeholders. This isolated study can often paint half a picture of what a place was or could have been. An in-depth understanding of the “human element” will help appreciate the true “spirit of the place” despite the style, geometry, material, or construction method. While looking at a piece of craft, present-day perception focuses only on certain limited qualities such as visual or construction. Instant benefit has led to mass use of fabricated materials while ignoring any cautionary examination. Definition of any material’s sensual, social and symbolic worth often remains out of the scope for judgment. If these values are prioritized well, the architecture can continue to progress as a modest expression, adding a personality or realizing a life rather than producing alienating objects.

The purpose of this paper is to contribute an inclusive insight into the debate of type (Typisierung) and individuality in the Deutscher Werkbund. The debate is widely discussed on the dichotomy between art and industry in the historiography of modern architecture. This paper aims to show that both camps of the debate wanted to constitute the synthesis of art and industry, but the methods that they used were different. This paper considers the debate as a referent of the contested nature of modernity. Modernity oscillates between the desire to give the modern world new modes of structure, order, regulation and to accept modernity with all complexities. This article claims that while the notion of type represents the former one, the notion of individuality represents the later one in the realm of architecture. This article unveiled the control mechanisms in the discourses of defenders of Typisierung. It found the concepts norm, organization, system, standardization, which were the reflections of the Enlightenment. On the other hand, it pointed out the reactions of the individualists against these discourses.