ABSTRACT
The rejection of symbolism by modernist architecture, whether in Louis Sullivan’s work and in the early work of Frank Lloyd Wright, or later, by Le Corbusier, Mies van der Rohe, and Walter Gropius, was supported by a number of overlapping arguments. A key aspect of the rejection was a desire to rid architecture from its role of symbolizing social hierarchy and class, preparing the discipline for a classless society. This was an endeavour supported by progressive architects of diverse political persuasions. Related to this was an implicit understanding of architecture as an autonomous discipline, paralleling and involved in the ‘autonomous’ development of ne art, and hence the interest in removing everything superuous to the architectural properties of the design, including all references to an ‘outside’ meaning. Another argument was related to industrial production and the intention, which underlay the design of Pessac and the Bauhaus experimentations of the 1920s, to synchronize architectural design with the logic of serial production. This necessarily meant a focus on the essential architectural elements at the expense of everything that appeared gratuitous, following ideas of standardization and eciency widely discussed around 1914-30. The logic of industrial production focused on the quality of the object and its use value rather than on its meaning, rendering the symbolic properties of architecture superuous.
