Given the widespread belief that the machine symbolised the new century, it was perhaps inevitable that certain Modernists should embrace it entirely for its own sake - purely as a metaphor, and with no concern for its practical applications. To some extent at least, this tends to be the case for most canonical Modernists, but this approach is exemplified by the Italian Futurist movement.
Led by the poet F. T. Marinetti, these professed to be opposed to "all that is old and worm eaten"6 in both art and society. Their work therefore had a dual purpose: to refute moribund traditions, and to create a new art that would encapsulate the mental and environmental changes of modernity. In Marinetti's words, "Nothing in the world is more beautiful than a great, humming power station … synthesised in control panels bristling with levers and gleaming commutators."7
These intentions were propagated by a series of aggressively worded manifestos that openly celebrated the various "miracles of contemporary life,"8 such as industrialisation, the dynamism of the city and scientific progress. In this last field, new discoveries about x-rays and the persistence of vision inspired a new way of perceiving the world, which found expression in their concept of "universal dynamism" as the defining reality of the age. Objects were no longer considered in spatial and temporal isolation, but were integrated with each other and their environment in dynamic interpenetrations suggesting speed and energy. In Umberto Boccioni's The Street Enters the House, universal dynamism is expressed in the use of web-like diagonal lines of force and plastic forms which seek to engage the spectator in their violence and confusion. The merging, protean forms and splintered vectors replicate the effects of the fast-paced, rapidly evolving Machine Age.
As this brief analysis indicates, Futurism was primarily a literary and artistic movement. It was characteristic of its paradoxical nature that a movement initiated as a response to the changing environment should possess no means of expression in the art form that most directly conditioned the environment - architecture. This was the case until 1914, five years after the publication of the first Manifesto, when Marinetti was finally able to welcome Antonio Sant' Elia into the ranks.
Sant' Elia recognised the metropolis as the environment of the new age, and accordingly pioneered designs that were replete with intimations of the machine aesthetic. In Sant' Elia's Messagio (1914), Marinetti wrote: "We must invent and rebuild ex novo our modern city like an immense and tumultuous shipyard . . . mobile and everywhere dynamic, and the modern building like a gigantic machine."9 Such lofty intentions are evident in Sant' Elia's designs: his perspectives for La Città Nuova (1914) emphasise the geometry and verticality of his vision by juxtaposing stepped-back sections with sheer verticals. The interaction of diagonals and verticals this produces invests his works with the same energy and dynamism to be found in exemplary Futurist paintings. In addition, his buildings are frequently surmounted by features resembling industrial chimneys or radio masts (e.g. Casa gradinata con ascensori,1914), thus making perhaps slightly picturesque use of an iconography derived from machines.
This is compounded by his device of incorporating tramlines and roads into buildings, in a way that always enlivens the design and suggests that they are used primarily for visual rather than practical effect. These, and his trademark external elevators and interconnecting bridges constitute an architecture, which, as Penny Sparke has written, "proselytises a cult of the machine,"10 that celebrated the excitement of machinery, speed and even war. The lack of substantiation in reality is indicated by the fact that Sant' Elia built only one house in the course of his entire, admittedly short, career. This is partly due to the fact that his vision far exceeded the technological capabilities of the day.
In other words, Futurism's interest in the machine aesthetic arose from a naïve and romantic celebration of the machine for its qualities of energy and dynamism. The machine was therefore valued solely for the expressive potential it offered. Since they failed to grasp its practical aspects the Futurists neglected to adapt their aesthetic to technological limitations. For this reason Sant' Elia's designs remained on the drawing board.
A deeper engagement with the realities of the machine was demonstrated by those who embraced the concept of "functionalism". This idea played a significant role in most forms of Modernist design and theory. The central contention was that the form of an object should be dictated by its function. The Bauhaus, for example, aimed to "derive the design of an object from its natural functions and relationships,"11 so that they could be used effectively and were rationally related to each other.
Of course, the pursuit of functionalism complemented the Modernists' aim to arrive at ideal design solutions - unless objects fulfilled their purpose they could scarcely be ideal. This led to the notion that a designed object could be beautiful if, and only if, it functioned perfectly. Function therefore replaced appearance as the prime criterion of aesthetic quality. Artistic embellishment was eschewed in favour of clear form that both expressed its purpose and ensured that this purpose was fulfilled. Henry-Russell Hitchcock and Philip Johnson, in their discussion of "European functionalist" architects (i.e. canonical Modernists), wrote that, "If a building provides adequately, completely and without compromise for its purpose, it is then a good building, regardless of its appearance."12
