Child Soldiers of Madison Avenue

Today we expose another cross-section through the geological record of mid-century American advertising and consider the impact of child centred publicity. Few images are as potent in emotional appeal as that of the child and for advertisers it is one of the basic elements in the visual vocabulary. A well-chosen image can help to convince the public that they are buying from an essentially honest and benevolent business when these qualities are reflected in the eyes of an innocent and guileless child. If the product contributes directly to the welfare of children (medicinal, infant foodstuffs, hygiene) the image must be modified to maximise parental anxieties and engage with protective instincts. When the product is primarily designed to meet the desires of children (breakfast cereal, confectionery) the chosen image will show the child transformed in terms of energy, alertness, health and contentment. A fortunate few graduate to the status of brand characters and enjoy long lives in a state of arrested development. Gender stereotyping is everywhere – boys are adventurous and naughty while girls are sensitive and helpful. The unimaginative advertiser is most likely to resort to cuteness of countenance to overcome consumer resistance – what monster could deny happiness and security to such an adorable and ingratiating child? Most of the following examples fit into one or other of these basic categories but a minority defy any classification and seem to have been conceived in a perfect storm of conflicting ideas. These are the ones that give the greatest pleasure to the detached observer of human folly.

 

Living with Modulor Man - Cité Radieuse

Modulor Man welcomes two visitors to the Cité Radieuse in Marseille. We are all imperfect versions of Modulor but despite this he offers us shelter in an ideally proportioned structure and an accelerated progression into an inconceivably sublime future. The question is – are we really worth it? To fully inhabit the universe of Le Corbusier demands that we submit to the will of the master with a joyful elevation of spirit and transform ourselves into worthy descendants of Modulor. How dare we blame the architect if we lack the self-discipline to live up to his vision? 

J M Richards was editor of the Architectural Review from 1937 to 1971 and two of his books, High Street (he wrote the text that accompanied the superb illustrations of Eric Ravilious) and An Introduction to Modern Architecture (Penguin Books, 1940, revised 1953 and 1963) have left a mark. High Street has become the Holy Grail for collectors of illustrated books, exceedingly difficult to find and astronomically expensive. While the Penguin book was my introduction to Modernist design at the impressionable age of 15 – its pages resonated with an innocent belief in the ultimate triumph of Modernism in transforming the post-war built environment, a process, it was felt by many, that would endure for generations as a new era of conflict-free prosperity unfolded. Another key message was that Le Corbusier’s Unité d’Habitation, as it was then known, held a very special place in this narrative. 

After 1945 the French government established a Ministry for Reconstruction and Urbanism and Le Corbusier who had spent the war beavering away on projects without a client, getting uncomfortably close to the Vichy regime at one point before returning to his Parisian studio, was invited to design a housing complex for the city of Marseille. The hidden agenda here was to keep Le Corbusier as far away as possible from projects in the Val de Seine and the Paris region. The grotesque pre-war Le Corbusier Plan Voisin that would have replaced a vast swathe of central Paris with 18 massive tower blocks and an urban expressway had clearly not been forgotten. Thus the implacable Calvinist (as Richard Cobb rechristened him) came to test his urbanist theories in Bouche du Rhône. With him came Modulor Man, the brise-soleil, béton brut and the doctrine of the house as a machine à habiter. 

Construction of the Cité Radieuse began on the Boulevard Michelet site in the autumn of 1947 and the completed building was handed over in August 1951 after a protracted and difficult build. The finished block had 19 floors supported by 36 reinforced concrete columns and accommodated 337 apartments (of 23 configurations) accessed via seven internal street levels. Each apartment was spread over two floors with a double height room and windows to both sides of the building. Spatial provision was generous and the physical proportions embodied the Le Corbusier philosophy of golden section guided harmonics. The package came with an internal retail zone, a restaurant and a roof deck providing community facilities including a gym, a pool, a running track and a nursery school. 

With a building as exhaustively examined as this one the chances of coming away with new insight that will illuminate the thinking of future generations are negligible. But there is some value in testing some of the more common assumptions and interpretations. Le Corbusier’s public enthusiasm for maritime architecture and the great ocean liners of the inter-war decades has encouraged many observers to note an affinity between the building and an ocean going vessel. The distant view across Boulevard Michelet as the nautically inspired roof structures become visible confirms this interpretation, as does the way in which the mass of the block is visually uplifted by the reinforced concrete supports when seen at close quarters. There are arguments about the efficacy of the brises-soleil in capturing winter sun and restricting summer sun and the alignment of the building gives rise to some uneven results. The dimensions of the projections are identical on both east and west facing façades, which additionally undermines their effectiveness though in visual terms the repetition of shadows, colours and forms delivers an animated façade that engages the eye. 

Modulor Man, armed with fifteen controlling dimensions was the orchestrator of formal harmony – every space and every linear dimension was subordinate to his power to impose proportion. His British counterpart, Parker Morris man, was no match for his expansive generosity and when equivalent developments were planned in Britain (Park Hill in Sheffield for example) the occupants found themselves in much more cramped accommodation. The third member of Le Corbusier’s entourage, béton brut, generated the most significant legacy. The coarse finish of rough cast concrete left an indelible mark over two decades, in equal part esteemed by the construction industry for whom it was a commercial bonanza and loathed by the public for its ubiquity, its physical repellence and its insensitivity. Le Corbusier was measured in his use of concrete surfaces and had the ability to handle it with delicacy and balance. This lesson was lost on many lesser practitioners whose crude and unforgiving buildings, offered to us as paragons of Modernism, did so much to bring the profession of architect into disrepute. 

No pilgrimage to a Modernist landmark would be complete without some abuse or obstruction. On this occasion, the much venerated rooftop ensemble was in the process of restoration - thus no public access and the weekly guided visits were suspended due to fire damage in the show apartment. The ritual harangue from an enraged local duly took place – how could anyone in their right mind travel so far to look at such an eyesore? With his glacial uncompromising personality, Le Corbusier continues to be a convenient hate-figure and scapegoat for the excesses and conspicuous failures of Modernism – frequently blamed for social breakdown, racism and delinquency – see any discussion thread on the subject of Le Corbusier. As for the triumph of Modernism, it has been a melancholy episode. The world of conflict-free prosperity and leisure is as far away as ever and many of the places where Modernism has truly prevailed (Dubai, Las Vegas, Brasilia) have added the least to the sum of human happiness. 

Silent Witnesses

The facts are hard to come by but most estimates suggest that France has no more than a fifth of the surveillance cameras deployed on British streets. As if to compensate, French streets have a very high population of carved and modelled figures maintaining observation over their flesh and blood compatriots. The city of Marseille is well endowed in this respect and a small selection follows here. It begins at the railway station where a selection of savage beasts and wrestling figures patrol the concourse. In the city centre they can be seen flanking the entrances to department stores and at busy traffic intersections where their frenzied activities, frozen in stone, form a strange counterpart to the furious commotion that circulates around them. As you pass through a doorway, a blank stare is directed downwards from the tympanum. And at many street corners diminutive Madonnas occupy tiny recesses at second storey level as a reminder of the existence of higher powers. 

Mondrian and Kleenex

In the autumn of 1949 the Museum of Modern Art in New York displayed an exhibition, Modern Art in Your Life and among the exhibits were two Mondrian paintings and a Kleenex box. The show was designed to explore the links between Modernist painting and sculpture and the world of publicity and product design. It was reviewed in the New Yorker (Mondrian, Kleenex and You, Oct 15, 1949) by Robert M Coates who pointed out that many of those who expressed the greatest antipathy to Modernism found nothing to object to when it was appropriated in advertising and industrial design. Nearly 64 years later Mondrian and Kleenex have been reunited on the supermarket shelf in the Kleenex Collection of contemporary cubes. Neo-plastic geometry in the aisles of Tesco and an opportunity to blow your nose the Mondrian way are both to be welcomed although if the packaging net had been designed to place the glued flaps on the base instead of the sides it would have looked even better. Mondrian is the only artist whose work has been so unambiguously appropriated here but there may be others who could bring something distinctive to the Kleenex box. The name Francis Bacon was suggested to me - a judicious selection of bodily fluid stains with crossed syringes might find a niche market among the Brit Pack artists if nowhere else. I like the idea of an Ad Reinhardt box and I can imagine Matisse cut-outs and Léger’s grandes machines would easily adapt to the task but if I could consign just one artist to a lifetime of service on the Kleenex pack it would have to be Wyndham Lewis because nobody else would have been so infuriated by such a fate. Better still – nobody would ever buy it. 

 

Rockwell’s April Fool

I recently made some disparaging comments about Norman Rockwell and his lack of visual imagination and spatial sensibility. In this cover design from 1948 he makes a massive effort to put his imagination to work but the result is less than a triumph. The mechanistic permutations of body parts have produced an image that is mildly puzzling rather than spine-chilling. All the ingredients are present – sinister shopkeeper, hybrid creatures, animated puppets, physical incongruities – but the absence of atmosphere and genuinely diabolic inspiration completely wastes their potential. What should have been oppressively claustrophobic looks like a mildly boring but harmless tableau. It might seem ungenerous to point to Rockwell’s limitations but in the context of all the uncritical adulation that seems to surround him it feels like a duty.