anything and which do not have any connection with our contemporary life. We have to get rid of the styles. They are poison for living architecture, for living art.

         They do not use styles in other arts, do they?

       Or could you imagine someone speaking about Galsworthy’s books and saying: “Is it early Italian, or is it Greek, or is it Spanish?” No. Or, could you imagine someone speaking about Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony and saying: “Is it early Orpheus, or late Liszt, or Middle Mozart?”

         No, you could not.

         You could not, because you know what it is. And everyone knows that Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony is Tchaikovsky, and it comes directly from his inner-most soul and goes directly into the deepest heart of the public. And the public understands it.

         The public understands our language, too, if we speak directly, and if there is logic in our thoughts and if there is truth in our words.

         We do not need to educate the public.

         Our art has to do it.

someone says: “How can we teach architecture when we have nothing to go by? We have no theories, no styles. It is difficult.” It is difficult, or it is easy, it all depends. I would say: it is impossible, or it is very easy.

         It is impossible if the teacher has no sense for the deeper meaning of architecture and the student has no talent. You cannot grow roses from cabbage. But if the teacher is a living artist, and if the student has natural gifts to become a living artist, it is very easy. You hardly need to teach him. He will find his path himself.

There is still one point in connection with the educational problem.

         We speak so often about the lack of interest for architecture on the part of the public. We have to get the public much more interested in our doings. It would be helpful for our profession.

         That is true. But how can a person be interested in a thing he does not understand?

         Well, we have to educate him.

         Someone ask us: “What style is this building?”

         We say: “It is Italian Renaissance.”

         Now he knows it is Italian Renaissance because we tell him so. But it does not help him very much. When he goes to the next building, we have to tell him again about its style.

         So we have to educate him. We have to go with him through the whole history of architecture; we have to explain the differences between the various styles, their characteristics and their ornamental treatments. It is a hard task, because there are so many styles and varieties of styles, a long list of French kings and English kings and queens, and so on.

         When we are through, he says: “Well, now I can see myself this building is Italian Renaissance. But there is one thing I cannot see. Why should it be Italian Renaissance? The owner is an Irishman, the architect is a German, the contractor is Danish, the workmen and the building materials are American, and the building was built in the United States a few years ago.”

         “Why Italian and why Renaissance?”

         “Well”, we say, “it is Italian Renaissance because the architect thinks it is a beautiful style.”

         “What, a beautiful style! What does it mean? Beautiful forms without any meaning! I would not like to read a book filled with beautiful words without any thoughts. No, sir! I do not care for your architecture.”

         So there we are. He was not interested in architecture because he did not understand it. Now we have educated him to understand it, and he is not interested at all. He likes to have thoughts behind the forms. He likes to have logic. And there is no logic! Or here is the logic: I read in the paper some time ago that a person in Detroit had the intention to build a building, and he said: “I will build it in the Spanish Renaissance style because this style is so little known in the Mid West.”

         I could say as well: “I have to go to San Antonio and make a speech, and I will speak in Finnish because this language is o little know in Texas.”

         There is the logic! No, we cannot get logic in architecture as long as we use styles which are only decorative, only empty ornaments which do not mean

But our building problems are so manifold in comparison with the earlier times. Every day brings new materials and new construction methods. And we ask: are our architects able to concentrate themselves, to listen to the voice of our fundamental form? Do we have enough creative power to build up our own style? Style, cannot be artificially made. It comes or it does not come. But if it does come, it comes only through intuition. Style grows as folk songs grow. People sing their songs, and those songs which express deepest the best feeling of the nation remain as folk songs. It is the fundamental form of the nation which sings through the soul of the nation.

         Therefore, those architects who have the strongest imagination are not the strongest leaders. They are those architects who feel deepest the silent song of the fundamental form and who can express it in forms of truth. They are our leaders. And they will build the foundation for the architecture of the future, and the architects of the future will continue their work.

When we speak about our future architects, we come directly to educational problems because the schools of architecture have to take care of the architects of the future. I am not the right man to discuss educational problems, because my experience in this line is limited to the hard task of educating myself. The function of the school is to develop, besides technical and historical instruction, in the students:

         Their artistic intuition;

         Their sense for the spirit of the time;

         Their instinct to translate the spirit of the time in an expressive architectural form;

         Their sense for truth, ethics and logic in architecture;

         Their creative imagination.

         Creative because art is always creative in every moment and at every point. And the devil of copying has to be kept far from the schools.

        To develop those things in the students is the problem of the schools. How to do it, I do not know, and it is mostly very individual. But, I have a distinct opinion as to how not to do it.

         Do not kill the intuition with theories. Art based on theories is dead art.

         Do not teach theories of proportions. They only disturb the sense for proportion. Theories of proportions are only for arrived men to play with when they have leisure time and do not like to play bridge. The gifted man does not need them. A man without gifts cannot use them correctly.

         Do not teach theories of colour. They only mislead the sense for colour and, besides, they are all wrong, at least for art purposes.

         Do not teach the students the Greek form language before they understand their own form language. You do not teach your children Latin before they speak their mother tongue.

         Do no teach style in connection with design. They only style you could possibly use in connection with design is the contemporary. But there isn’t any! “But”,

and expressed the spirit of the time. There seemed to be a strong creative power in the air.

         But the gods of architecture were dead: only imitative art from old Rome, neo-classicism.

         And from now on during the Romantic time and the whole nineteen century, we see fairy play with architectural forms. All the styles, antique, Romanesque, Gothic, Renaissance from here and Renaissance from there, towers, pinnacles, crenulations, all dancing together in this fairy play. Imitation is fashion of the time. Imitation in style, imitation in material, imitation in construction. The logic and the meaning of style was entirely lost.

         And I ask: “Is this our tradition? Are we going to build our contemporary architecture on forms that do not mean anything?”

         No!!!

         If we have to find our tradition from our ancestors, we have to go to a time when art was still creative art, in the Greek architecture and the Gothic time.

         But what is our tradition and what is our wisdom from the Greek architecture?

         The Greek architects tell us: our tradition comes from Egypt. They had a dualistic construction, the support and the weight, the column and the architrave. We used this principle because it was practical for our purpose. But they had their own fundamental form. It would have been easy for us to use their form, but it would have been a lie. Art has to speak truth as well as man has! So we had to use our own fundamental form and develop through it a style of our own. Our architecture has been admired for thousands of years because it is truthful in form and truthful in expression. This is our advice to you and this is your tradition from our art: Be truthful in form and expression, and the future will admire your work.

         The Gothic architects tell us: our tradition comes through the Romanesque and through the Christian architecture from old Rome. We accepted the Roman plan-form because it was practical for our purpose. We found the pointed arch in the Orient and we adopted it because it was practical for our high windows. But we had our own fundamental form, and it governed our architecture. Look at our lofty vaults and buttresses; look at our high towers. The whole is a logical organism; it rises from the bottom to the top, stone built upon stone. You can feel the power go through the material and you can follow the power line the whole way to the top. It is truthful in material and truthful in construction and therefore our architecture has been admired for centuries. This is our advice to you and this is your tradition from our art: Be truthful in material and construction and the future will admire your work. Be truthful in form and in expression. Be truthful in material and in construction. This is our tradition and this is our ethics.

Our time is quite different from the earlier times:

         We have become more or less international.

         Our time is a machine age.

         Science helps us to feel the construction of the whole universe.

         The form of our life is new.

And the form of our architecture has to be new if there will be truth in expression.

We all know how well the Gothic architecture expresses the Gothic life. But life keeps changing from day to day. Instead of dry Scholasticism there comes something new in the mediaeval life. People begin to read antique literature, they begin to study antique art, and during two hundred years or more the antique ideal of man meets the Gothic ideal of God through humanism. We have a new cultural epoch. We have a new architectural form. A new style.

         There are three things which together form a style:

1                         the conditions of the life itself;

2                         the tradition;

3                         the outside-coming influences.

When we speak about the outside-coming influences, we do not mean to take foreign forms and include them in our style as they are. No, art is always creative, and if we are influenced by foreign forms, and will adopt them in our art, they have to be melted into our style through a mental process.

For instance, if we buy a Chinese sculpture and place it in our garden, it is still a Chinese sculpture, and will always remain so. If we take a replica of it, it is still Chinese in form. But when we are inspired by its beauty, do something of our own, maybe in the same spirit, then it is our work. It has passed our individuality, our personality, and through a mental process it is part of our culture.

Just in the same way the antique forms were melted together with Gothic forms to be a beautiful style which we call the early Renaissance.

But there soon came a change.

In the later Renaissance, men began to take forms direct from the antique world. Instead of using their intuition, they began to use dividers and rules. They began to write theories and formulas. They began to make science for practical use of an art form which did not belong to them.

They founded schools – where they thought their theories, formulas and measurements there was no need any more to have artistic intuition to do good work; a little taste and much theory was enough.

         The great masters of the later Renaissance still used their intuition. They were educated in the spirit of intuition, and they erected masterpieces. But the poison of copying spread through the schools and architecture began gradually to lose its mother place among the arts. Architecture became more imitative than creative, and the strongest minds and the strongest talents of the time became sculptors and painters, and sculpture and painting became the ruling arts. Sculptors and painters disregarded the architectural principles and used architecture as the playground for their artistic imagination.

         Bernini and his followers made architecture sculptural, and sculptural forms overflow cornices and columns. Tiepolo painted his theatrical effects of clouds and skies and forgot the proportions of the room limited by walls and vaults.

         This developed further in Rococo. Rococo was gallant as the life was gallant, and playing ornaments made architecture purely decorative.

         After the French Revolution life became much simpler. The social life was new. There was a new literature, new science. Even the dresses were new and simpler