Look Them in the Eyes, and Prove Them Wrong
In the bustle of a small Berlin theatre, the heavy camera is placed on a stand. We are in the 1920s; during the shot, which lasts several seconds, Sibyl Pietzsch stares at the lens, her gaze insolent and graceful, without blinking. She is about to go on stage, to take the first steps of an emancipation that she will strive to pursue throughout her life. She was a secretary, a bookseller, an actress, a playwright, a wife, a mother, a widow, a professor, a critic, a theorist: for Sibyl Pietzsch, later Moholy-Nagy, devoting herself to urban design was a much broader role than simply drawing up a master plan.
Sibyl Moholy-Nagy was an architectural and art historian. Originally a German citizen, she moved to the USA in 1937 with her second husband, the Hungarian Bauhaus artist, László Moholy-Nagy. After his death, she worked as a journalist, teacher and academic. She was critical of the modernist movement and its leaders, notably for their lack of sensitivity to the site and their ideological way of building. Nevertheless, she was interested in functionalist thinking, though she found its expression in anonymous architecture that ‘was preserved for no other reason than its adequacy beyond the life of the builder.’ [1]
She taught at the Pratt Institute in New York for twenty years [2], whilst working as a critic for major architecture magazines such as Progressive Architecture and Architectural Forum. She also published pioneering books concerning vernacular architecture and the history of the urban environment, such as Native Genius in Anonymous Architecture and Matrix of Man: An Illustrated History of Urban Environment.
As a professor, she lived long in her students’ memories by capturing their attention, and bringing to light her conviction of the importance of vernacular architecture. She was also convinced of the relevance of constructions without architects, and taught an urbanism history starting with the first settlements, established in different regions of the world, with judicious architecture adapted to climate, materials and geography. Her sharp eye and independent mind were not impressed by modernist masterpieces made of glass and steel, or well-drawn masterplans. Rather, she was interested in anonymous buildings, and observed spontaneous urban fabric, analysing their qualities. As a journalist, Sybil Moholy-Nagy did not hesitate to criticise the functionalism in vogue in the 1950s.
In her writing, she forged a unique voice and style, sharp and courageous, directly attacking respected architects and incorporating a political dimension in her architectural critiques. She claimed that the import of German functionalism had destroyed the vitality of indigenous American architecture, and that functional architecture was no longer providing the urban and architectural qualities it once possessed. [3]
In her books, she developed a history of architecture against the narrative of her time. Native Genius in Anonymous Architecture (1957) highlights how attention to site, local materials and climate generated a strong vernacular tradition. Matrix of Man: An Illustrated History of Urban Environment (1968), which explored the physical forms of cities from Classical Greece to the present day, argued for the generation of urban form starting from site-specific characteristics, at a time when many planners were imposing a unified approach to urban planning and renewal. Proving the importance of vernacular architecture and site-generated urbanism, rather than design and ideology, Moholy-Nagy made a lasting impression on architecture history. Her works are nowadays considered as references of architectural culture, and scholars have recently conducted extensive research on Moholy-Nagy and her contribution to architecture history and urbanism. [4]
Working hard to bring her convictions to light, Sybil Moholy-Nagy was an important voice on the post-war architectural scene in the United States. She also contributed to the increasing interest in the urban and historical dimensions of architecture, which is linked to the idea that urban design is not supposed to impose the new, but rather react to the existing.
Image Credits: Estate of Laszlo Moholy-Nagy/Artists Rights Society, New York.
1. Moholy-Nagy, Sibyl. Native Genius in Anonymous Architecture. Horizon Press, 1957.
2. She had also been guest professor at other universities, including Braunschweig, Houston and Columbia.
3. Her critical attitude culminated in her 1968 article, “Hitler’s Revenge,” which begins as follows: “In 1933 Hitler shook the tree and America picked up the fruit of German genius. In the best of Satanic traditions some of this fruit was poisoned, although it looked at first sight as pure and wholesome as a newborn concept. The lethal harvest was functionalism, and the Johnnies who spread the appleseed were the Bauhaus masters Walter Gropius, Mies van der Rohe and Marcel Breuer.” Moholy-Nagy, Sibyl.“Hitler’s Revenge.” Art in America, September–October 1968: pp. 42-43.
4. The researcher Hilde Heynen has written a book about Moholy-Nagy, in a series edited by Tom Avermaete and Janina Gosseye: Sibyl Moholy-Nagy: architecture, modernism and its discontents. Bloomsbury Visual Arts, 2019.
