Industrialized Building

In the third edition of G (10 June 1924) Mies van der Rohe, using his own concise style of expression, demanded a fundamenta1 revision of the whole building industry. The demand for economy of materials and constructions, made a year earlier in the first issue of G, was now extended to the whole building process, beginning with the manufacture of new building materials and ending with mere assembly work on the site. For the first time with such unequivocal clarity attention was directed not exclusively to the result- architecture - but also to the prerequisites for industrialized forms of building. Ed.

A little while ago the need for an industrialization of the building trade was still contested by almost all interested parties, and I regard it as progress that this question is now seriously discussed by a larger circle, even if few of those concerned are really convinced of this need. The increasing industrialization in all fields would also have spread to the building trade with no regard for outmoded outlooks and emotional values, if special circumstances had not here barred the way. I see in industrialization the central problem of building in our time. If we succeed in carrying out this industrialization, the social, economic, technical, and also, artistic problems will be readily solved. The question of how industrialization is to be introduced is easily answered once we know what stands in the way. The supposition that antiquated forms of organization are the cause is incorrect. They are not the cause but. the effect of a situation, and they in no way clash with the character of the old building trade. Repeated attempts have been made to arrive at new forms of organization, but they have succeeded only in those parts of the trade that permitted industrialization. Moreover, the extent to which modern building has become a matter of assembly has undoubtedly been exaggerated. Prefabrication has been carried out almost exclusively in the construction of hangars for industry and agriculture, and it was the iron foundries that first prefabricated parts for assembly on the site. Recently timber firms have also begun to prefabricate

parts so that building shall be a matter purely of assembly. In almost all other buildings the whole of the main frame and large parts of the interior have been constructed in the same manner since time immemorial and are entirely manual in character. This character can be changed neither by economic forms nor by working methods and it is precisely this which renders small undertakings viable. Naturally, material and wages can be saved by the use of larger and different types of building units, as new methods of building show; but even this in no way changes the manual character of building. Moreover, it must be borne in mind that the brick wall has incontestable advantages over these new methods of construction. It is not so much a question of rationalizing existing working methods as of fundamentally remodeling the whole building trade.

So long as we use essentially the same materials, the character of building, will not change, and this character, as I have already mentioned, ultimately; determines the forms taken by the trade. Industrialization of the building trade is a question of material. Hence the demand for a new building material is the first prerequisite. Our technology must and will succeed in inventing a building material that can be manufactured technologically and utilized industrially, that is solid, weather-resistant, soundproof, and possessed of good insulating properties. It will have to be a light material whose utilization does not merely permit but actually invites industrialization. Industrial production of all the parts can really be rationalized only in the course of the manufacturing process, and work on the site will be entirely a matter of assembly and can be restricted to a far shorter time than was ever thought possible. This will result in greatly reduced building costs. Moreover the new trends in architecture will find their true tasks. It is quite clear to me that this will lead to the total destruction of the building trade in the form in which it has existed up to now; but whoever regrets that the house of the future can no longer be constructed by building craftsmen should bear in mind that the motor-car is no longer built by the wheelwright.

1924, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe