We have Cezanne and Picasso. Many say that Picasso is the greatest painter of today. Maybe. Maybe he will found the painting of the future. Or maybe his influence will be gone in a few years, or a few decades.

         Maybe there will appear some day a strong mind that will go deep into things, and the doors will open for the painting of the future. Maybe the same will happen in the art of building! Only the future can tell.

But, say someone, why all this talking about deep thinking? Our time is practical! We have to build in a practical way. Practicality has to decide the form of our architecture. If a building is practical, it is beautiful. This is what they say.

         But I wonder! I wonder if it is so, because we so often see very, very practical buildings, practical from every angle, practical in every point, and they appear so terribly ugly. They have no proportions, no rhythm, no balance of masses. The colour is terrible, the treatment of materials is terrible.

         So, I do not think we can say that if a building is practical it is beautiful. But, I think we could say – or rather – I do think we should say that a building has to be practical to be able to be beautiful. And further, a practical building is able to be beautiful only if the architect has a subconscious sense for beauty, that is, if he is a creative artist.

         Is the practical really so especial a mark of our age as we think? We are inclined to think so when we see what they had in the earlier days. But is seems to me that they were more practical than we are, because they could get along with lesser needs. And on the other hand, we do not know what the future holds for our practically. Maybe then it will be said: they were not practical at all. They used gasoline in their cars, just as in the old kerosene lamps! Why couldn’t they take the power directly from the air as we do?

         Every age has its own point of view regarding practicality. Practicality is one the cornerstones of all architecture, has always been and always will be so. Nature is our teacher in the principles of architecture, and nature itself is the perfect functionalism.

         When we speak about practicality, we mostly think about our daily comfort. We push a button here and a button there, we get cold here and hot there, and that is all very practical. But we do not live for our daily comfort. We have higher ideals. And the very man who preaches the coldest and hardest practicality is not always practical himself. He plants roses in his garden. Why roses? Roses are not practical. Cabbage is more practical.

Then there arises the question of our traditions.

         Couldn’t we take the forms from our forefathers and mould them so that they fit our time and then develop our architecture through tradition?

         That is evolution!

         It sounds good.

         But where do we find our traditions?

         If we go to the forms of yesterday, I am afraid we will arrive in trouble, because we will find so many different styles. Which of them should we adopt? Or should we take all of them and melt them together to a gay pot-pourri?

         Or should we go deeper in the past and find our forms there?

This fundamental form is the attractive power which leads the art development towards a coming style. We have many kinds of individuals, but only those individuals, who feel the fundamental form of our time and who can express it in an adequate architectural language are our leaders. And the strongest of them will remain as milestones in the history of architecture.

         That is so in every art.

         But more in architecture than in other arts the outline of the individual disappears when the time passes by and the spirit of the time comes in the foreground.

         When we study sculpture, we like to know the name behind the sculpture. When we study painting, we like we know who is the master and we name the painting after the master: a Rembrandt, a Van Dyck, and EI Greco. When we read literature, and go so far in the past as to the antique literature, we still like to know the name of the author.

         But when we go to a town in France, Germany or Italy, we are not so much concerned with the name of the architect. We say: “This is twelfth century; this is thirteenth century.” The spirit of the time speaks to us. And we feel the spirit of the time not only in the forms of the architecture, but we feel the spirit of the time in the entirely of life through the forms of the architecture. This because the whole life was conducted by the fundamental form of the time.

         The fundamental for of the time was the real leader.

         What it is, we do not know. Its influence comes through intuition, and it has to be felt with intuition.

         In studying the architecture of old Greece, their sculpture, their painting, their crafts, in studying their philosophy, literature, drama, their whole life with customs, dresses and even their movements, as far as we can study them from their paintings and their sculptures, we feel how everything is especially Greek, and only Greek. There is something which draws everything together and forms it to an entire world for itself.

         If we take something from Greek culture and compare it with the culture of Old Egypt, we will find that it is strange there. It does not fit. It does not fit, because the fundamental form of Egypt vibrates differently than the fundamental form of Greece.

         Compare Romanesque, Gothic Assyrian and Chinese forms with each other. And we see how each one has built his own world of forms. Each one has his own fundamental tune. No one can imitate the other, it would sound false. Each of those great cultural epochs has had creative power to build its culture in an expressive style of its own through a fine sense for its fundamental form.

         Now, if we compare our attempts to develop a contemporary architecture of today with those great epochs of the past, we have to ask: “Does the fundamental form of our day conduct our movement, or do we still wander in darkness? Where do we find our leaders?”

         The same question is asked in other arts.

         Who is the leader of music today? Is it Debussy? Is it Stravinsky? Is it Sibelius?

         In painting we have had in a few decades Impressionists, Symbolists, Pointillists, Cubists and so on. Each one thought it had found the key of the time.

been regarded for hundreds of years as basic things in all architecture. Aren’t they good enough?” It is surprising that they ask this, because nobody asks: “Why all this thinking today? We have Plato, Aristotle and Kant. Aren’t they good enough?”, or “Why all this composing today? We have Bach, Mozart, Beethoven.”

         I think, however, most of the people understand the movement. They see the logic of it, they know that a new time has to create new forms. But they may think it often goes too far. Why revolution? Why not evolution?

         There is not much difference between revolution and evolution in art matters. Revolution is only evolution at more speed. All the different appearances in human culture have to develop parallel with each other. If one is slower than the others, it has to hurry. But the result will be evolution.

         Suppose that our cultural life from the Renaissance to our day had developed with smooth evolution. Suppose our architecture had developed parallel with it, always moulding its forms according to the changing life, day after day, year after year. Suppose further we still would wear the Renaissance dresses, with gilded brocades and colourful ornaments. Don’t you think that one day there would be quite a radical change? Don’t you think we would take off the ornaments and fit our dresses to the spirit of the time?

         But now we wear golf knickers and straight cut suits and enter Greek temples and Roman palaces, and are surprised that there is a revolt in architecture – a revolution.

         But, is there a revolution?

         He, who still sticks to the old forms, thinks so. He who has for years been longing for new forms does not think so.

         I became an architect in 1897. I have a classical training in school, but already in the school years I freed myself from the old forms and went my own way. I do not see the revolution. I see only evolution. And as I look back over those thirty-five years, I think often that the evolution is too slow.

A few weeks ago we had a dinner at the Architectural League in New York. Ralph Walker made a speech. He spoke about the individuals who do research work in contemporary architecture. He explained how they go different ways, how they solve their problems differently, and how they look upon things from different angles. He said: “We need those individuals. They are our leaders. They try to find the way for us.”

         That is true. And it is right that those individuals go their different ways.

         But could you imagine the old styles like antique and Gothic being born if the individuals, the leaders had not gone different ways in those days? Quite naturally, they had to do their research work too; they had to try different ways; they had to seek just as we have to do it today.

         But there was something which, as time went on, drew them together. There is a repulsion and attraction in art development just as in nature. There is something fundamental in the power of the human mind, in the power of a nation, or in the power of a cultural epoch, which directs the whole life.

         I call it: the fundamental form. The fundamental form of the time, the fundamental form of a nation.

1931

Eliel Saarinen

Address

Louis Sullivan explained once to me his philosophy of architecture. When he finished, he said: ”That is the only right thing to do.”

         I looked skeptical and said: “Do you think so?”

         “Yes”, he answered, “that is the only right thing to do – for me. You have to consider what is right for you.”

         I have to say the same thing to you, when I am going to explain my opinions: “That is the only right thing to do – for me. You have to consider what is the right thing for you.”

         There is still another point I will mention, so there will not be any mistake. When I speak about contemporary architecture, I do not mean the French modernist, as you call it in this country. I will not mention anything in this way or that way, or my personal opinions of contemporary architects and their work. I will speak only about principles and I only take into consideration architecture, which has principles and logic behind the forms.

         I will not criticize. And if I do criticize, I will limit my criticism to a little story: There was a man walking crookbacked along the street. His friend met him and said: “What is the trouble with you – lumbago?”

         “No,” he answered, “That is not lumbago. That is modern furniture.”

My topic will be: the historical and ethical necessity of the contemporary movement in the development of our culture.

         We all know that when something new comes in our art life, minds are divided into two main parts. One part is for the new: the progressive minded; another part is against the new: the conservative minded. Both are necessary. The progressive part is the motor which gives the speed; the conservative part is the brake which prevents accidents.

          There is a third group in the middle, doubtful, hesitating and asking: “is this only a fashion for today, or will it last?”

         The conservatives who are against the new against it partly because they have grown up with the old forms and they are slow in changing their minds. They are watching to see how the new will develop. Others are against it because they are satisfied with the old forms, they are afraid of something new which disturbs them, and they do not see anything good in it.

         And I have heard remarks like this: “Why all this searching of new forms? We have architecture already settled. We have the antique and the Gothic. They have

Competition for the Chicago Tribune Tower by Eliel Saarinen