ABSTRACT
For much of this century, modern architects condemned monumentality as an antiquated relic of a previous era. They saw monumentality not only as antithetical to the basic functional and social premises of the new architecture, but also as perpetuating the very social hierarchies that they sought to overthrow. One of their primary goals was the obliteration of the fundamental division between the everyday and the monumental; as Alfred Roth later explained, this division was counter to the “basic idea of the equal dignity and formworthiness of all architectural tasks and the oneness of all means of aesthetic expression.”1
Modern architects believed that if a new public architecture was to emerge, it should develop from the new public functions-libraries, gymnasiums, hospitals-rather than from the symbolic programs of earlier regimes-royal squares, triumphal arches, city gates. Of course, strong aesthetic allegiances underlay this moral stance. In the minds of the modern pioneers, monumental architecture meant classicism, and with it, the triumph of the academy.
