Modern architecture and heritage: 100 years of love and hate in 10 works

BarcelonaIn the book Modern architecture and historical heritagePublished by Ediciones Asimétricas, architect Cristóbal Vallhonrat reviews architectural interventions in historic sites. The chronology begins in the Renaissance, but the cases included are primarily from the 19th and 20th centuries. Here are 10 outstanding works from the last 100 years.

La Roche Jeanneret House in Paris

By Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret

These two houses, which now house the Le Corbusier Foundation, are located in the heart of a typical block with mansard roofs, but they have nothing in common. In fact, the rationalist principles of Le Corbusier (1887-1965) and Pierre Jeanneret (1887-1967), based on "the use of free façades, the open plan, ribbon windows, and the flat, landscaped roof," as Vallhonrat puts it, are like a punch to the gut in architecture. "The exterior ensemble stands out as an example of the new rational architecture that functions in relation to its surroundings like a classical monument, like a temple of modern devotion in a traditional and conventional urban context," the author explains. The La Roche Jeanneret House, built in 1923, is one of seventeen Le Corbusier buildings in seven countries designated as UNESCO World Heritage Sites in 2016 because they "constitute a testament to the invention of a new form of architectural expression, in clear rupture with its previous forms." "Le Corbusier invented a new architectural language and modernized construction techniques; he provided answers to social and human needs," stated Antoine Picon, then president of the Le Corbusier Foundation.

Reconstruction of Gernika

By Gonzalo de Cárdenas

In one of the most terrible episodes of the Civil War, the fascist bombing completely destroyed the center of the Basque city of Gernika on April 26, 1937. It was the first city where the first plan of the Francoist General Directorate of Devastated Regions, headed by Franco (1904-1954), was implemented. The intervention consisted, above all, of opening up the old main street in the area of the former Town Hall to transform it into a uniform main square. "The new architecture of Francoism had to be inspired by those buildings associated with a glorious past, and this guideline still prevailed among the architects who, immediately before the Civil War, had produced modern works," says the author. Vallhonrat explains that Cárdenas's plan, "as was logical, drew inspiration from the country's traditional architecture, from that marvelous Basque urban architecture," inspired by the palaces of the 17th and 18th centuries, some of which still stood atop the town.

Warsaw Market Square

Several architects

Warsaw's historic center was one of the great heritage victims of World War II: between the end of 1944 and the first months of 1945, Nazi bombing raids destroyed more than two thousand buildings, and looting also took place. "Nazi troops deported hundreds of thousands of citizens and proceeded to demolish buildings and set fires with units specifically trained for that purpose," recalls Vallhonrat. When the city's reconstruction began a few years later, a debate arose as to whether the new buildings should replicate those destroyed or whether they should be modern buildings, as advocated by figures such as Le Corbusier and Hans Scharoun. In the Market Square, the "what it was like and what it was from"[as it was and where it was], while in other areas of the city modern architecture was built. "Beyond the emotional appeals of the population, it would be similar to the same debate that arose following the collapse at the beginning of the century of the bell tower in the square of Sant Marc in Venice," says Vallhonrat.

Coventry Cathedral

By Basil Spence

British architect Basil Spence (1907-1976) won the competition to rebuild Coventry Cathedral in England, which had been completely destroyed during a World War II bombing raid, beating out more than two hundred other entrants. Spence's proposal was groundbreaking: instead of rebuilding the ruined cathedral, he decided to preserve it as a "garden of remembrance" and erect a new cathedral connected to the old one. The foundation stone was laid by Queen Elizabeth II on March 23, 1956, and it was consecrated on May 25, 1962, the same day as another iconic postwar church, the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church in Berlin. The consecration ceremonies included the premiere of the War Requiem, by Benjamin Britten, which had been composed for the occasion. "The case of Sant Miquel Cathedral is particularly interesting," acknowledges Vallhonrat. "The new cathedral joins the skeleton of the old 15th-century Gothic temple, preserving the remains of the apse's side wall and adding a wall of the same height and made of the same arsenic stone—its new architecture, which we might call organic, and which makes no attempt at historicist references to the destroyed building of the old cathedral," explains the author. However, the new building contains elements that evoke Gothic architecture, such as the large windows.

Civic Museum of Castelvecchio (Verona)

By Carlo Scarpa

This is one of the great milestones of 20th-century heritage interventions, a result, among other things, of the esteem that Carlo Scarpa (1906-1978) held for the architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright and Japanese aesthetics. Scarpa, with "his extraordinary formal universe," as Vallhonrat says, is a benchmark in a magnificent tradition of Italian architects who, unlike the approaches of the Modern Movement, consider the relationship with historical architecture from a perspective of continuity. "The existing environment had to be present as an urban manifestation of tradition, and the architecture had to be the result of a specific history and a particular place. This new concept, rooted in history, would lead to the process of integrating modern buildings into historic centers or, in other words, to a rediscovery of local and popular roots in the new Castelvecchio—a consummate example of a respectful approach to a monument, while simultaneously innovating to incorporate new modern attitudes into old works." He also explains that, externally, the old castle is only subtly altered, and that the interior opens up "in a play of volumes and staircases that combine the new materials of steel and concrete with the old ones of stone, brick, and plaster." "The new elements are created as a second skin that is clearly understood in relation to the inherited historical architecture," says Vallhonrat.

Sainsbury Wing of the National Gallery, London

By Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown

Controversy has always surrounded the extension of London's National Gallery, the only European work by the influential Robert Venturi, winner of the 1991 Pritzker Prize, and his wife, Denise Scott Brown, who was unjustly denied the Nobel Prize for architecture. "The building, completed in 1991, reproduces the façade of the original museum with a Mannerist and postmodern attitude that, for some critics, amounts to a mere parody of the historic building," laments Vallhonrat. Despite the opposition of Venturi and Scott Brown's followers, in recent years the German architect based in New York, Annabelle Selldorf, has carried out a major intervention in the building to improve its accessibility and functionality, as part of the museum's bicentenary. "In Venturi's work, there is no reflection on what it could have originally been, but only a certain assimilation to an existing unit, which functions as a backdrop for a conventional building with glass façades and brick," says the architect.

Escalator in La Granja (Toledo)

By José Antonio Martínez Lapeña and Elías Torres

Among Catalan architects, José Antonio Martínez Lapeña and Elías Torres have distinguished themselves because one of the cornerstones of their careers is their work on historic buildings, with such renowned projects as the Sant Pere de Rodes Monastery, Park Güell, the walls of Palma, and Casa Vicens. The escalator they designed in Toledo was surrounded by considerable controversy at the start of construction, but a week ago the authorities celebrated its 25th anniversary as a brilliant intervention of which the local population is proud. To avoid the vertigo that a straight, linear ascent would have produced, Lapeña and Torres fragmented the escalator into different sections, protected by cantilevers of tinted concrete to blend it with the surroundings. The result is like "a scar that integrates into the hillside where it is located," as Lapeña put it. "The wall couldn't be touched, but we had to go through it. We achieved this by creating light and space without damaging the heritage," said Torres.

Neues Museum (Berlin)

By David Chipperfield

On the international stage, British architect David Chipperfield is one of those who has intervened in historic buildings with a focus on restraint. Vallhonrat describes his work as "attentive and flexible." In 2011, Chipperfield won the Mies van der Rohe Award for European Architecture for the renovation of the Neues Museum on Berlin's Museum Island, after having won the 2010 European Heritage Grand Prize. The Neues Museum is the result of the restoration of an old museum built by Friedrich August Stü. The building was badly damaged during World War II and was in ruins by 2003. Chipperfield's work, carried out in collaboration with his colleague Julian Harrap, stands out because, with rigor, he restored the building while preserving its various historical layers. The Mies van der Rohe Award jury recognized him for the combination of "past and present in a striking blend of contemporary architecture, restoration, and art."

Offices of the Port Authority of Antwerp

By Zaha Hadid

The late Iraqi architect Zaha Hadid achieved great milestones such as the MAXXI Museum in Rome, the BMW headquarters in Leipzig, and the London Aquatics Centre for the 2022 Olympic Games. But her interventions in historic buildings are another matter entirely: while at the Serpentine Sackler Gallery she revels in the 19th-century Valley, her offices for the Port of Antwerp, for which she constructed a gigantic volume that evokes a diamond, or a cloud, atop the port's former fire station. For Vallhonrat, this work represents "a very significant example of the lack of appreciation for the protection that a building of historical value deserves." "The invasive volume, presented as a display of structural bravado straddling the historic building, constitutes a clear alteration of its staircase to construct a new artifact that bears no relation whatsoever to the built heritage," laments the author.

The Holy Family

By Francisco de Paula del Villar, Antoni Gaudí, Isidre Puig y Boada, Luis Bonet, Francisco Cardoner, Jordi Bonet and Jordi Faulí

The consecration of the Sagrada Família marked a turning point in the criticism of the continuation of Gaudí's great work. Criticism subsided afterward, and in recent years the efforts of the project's management to create a 21st-century building while remaining faithful to Gaudí have often been highlighted. But this endeavor does not convince Vallhonrat, who describes the continuation of the basilica as "an example of the complete structural falsification of Gaudí's great work." "The architect created his work, as was typical of the modernist movements throughout Europe that sought to utilize artisanal techniques, using traditional construction methods. The structures of the Sagrada Família, of extraordinary novelty and originality, rely, however, on the use of stone and masonry infill, unless this was an element that was just beginning to be used in construction at the time, as its promoters claim to justify the new work," the author warns. "The construction underway is based on the massive use of concrete in the walls, pillars, and vaulted ceilings of the basilica complex. On top of these structures, small pieces of worked stone attempt to resemble what the architect may have imagined but never completed," he explains.