Tony Garnier - Cite Industrielle.pdf

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Utopian Aspects of Tony Garnier's Cit IndustrielleAuthor(s): Dora WiebensonSource: The Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, Vol. 19, No. 1 (Mar., 1960), pp.16-24Published by: Society of Architectural Historians

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U t o p i a n A s p e c t s o o n y G a r n i e r sCite Industrielle*DORA WIEBENSON

THE Cite Industrielle was first conceived as a project foran industrial city by Tony Garnier (1867-1948) in 1899when he was a student at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts inParis.1 When Garnier arrived at the French Academy atthe Villa Medici in Rome as a Prix de Rome winner in1899 he began developing his original concept into a cityplan of very wide scope, incorporating the most advancedsocial and technical ideas of his time. Although the firststage of the project was exhibited in 1901, and the secondstage in 1904, Garnier probably continued work on theCite until the year of its publication in 1917.2

Although Garnier's city is not real in the sense that itwas not designed for a specific site and was not actually

* A more extended form of this paper was accepted as an M.A.dissertation by New York University in June 1958. Dr. RichardKrautheimer was my advisor during the preparation of the disserta-tion. The following illustrations were used with copyright permis-sion: figs. i, 5, 6, 8, 1l, 13, 14, 16, 17, from Tony Garnier, Une CiteIndustrielle, permission M. Louis Weckerlin; figs. 7, lo, permissionLa constructionmoderne;fig. 9 from Latham, The Gardens of Italy,permission Country Life, Ltd.; fig. 12 from Whittick, European Ar-chitecturein the Twentieth Century, permission Crosby, Lockwoodand Son, Ltd.; fig. 15 from Monumentsantiques releves et restaures,permission Editions Charles Massin et Cie.; and fig. 18 from Wag-ner, Die Groszstadt,permission Anton Schroll und Komp.1. Louis Piessat, Tony Garnier; 1869-1948 (Lyon, 1954); andGiulia Veronese, Tony Garnier; 1869-1948 (Milan, 1948), p. 12.2. Tony Garnier, Une CiteIndustrielle; etudepour la constructiondes villes (Paris, 1917). As the drawings, with a few exceptions, re-main undated, it is impossible either to know exactly the manner inwhich Garnier developed his ideas or to limit his sources eithergeographically or chronologically. Arnold Whittick, European Ar-chitectureof the TwentiethCentury,2 vols. (London, 1950), i, 87-88,briefly discusses this problem. The known later additions to thepublication are the photographs of Garnier's own house which wasbuilt in 1911 (plates 121-122), and the colored perspective sketchesof pools which are dated from 1912 to 1917 (plates 81-84). Theoriginal perspective drawings of five views of the Cite (Musee desBeaux-Arts, Lyon) are dated 1917, but no dates appear on the pub-lication plates (plates 3-6, and 164). Other possible later additionsare the slaughterhouses (plate 156), the surgical building (plates50-51), and the residential plans (plates 65-132). These do not con-16

built, it was designed with a specific locale in mind. Gar-nier, in his preface to the Cite Industrielle,3 places it inthe southeast of France, and relates it in type to some ofthe real towns of the area. Also, Garnier was appointed asArchitecte-en-chefde la ville de Lyon by the mayor of Lyon,Edouard Herriot, partly because Herriot wished to trans-form Lyon into an actual version of Garnier's projectedcity.4 Finally, the Cite seems real because of the great de-tail with which it was thought out. A glance at the siteplan (fig. 1) shows the scope of this project.The Cite Industrielle is composed of the main city andappendages, and is situated on a plateau with high landand a lake to the north, a valley and a river to the south.The main area of the city includes the residences and thepublic buildings. The public buildings are grouped intothree sections; the administrative services and assemblyrooms, the collections, and the sports and spectacles. Theresidential area is composed of rectangular blocks, run-ning east-west, which give the city its characteristic linearform. A main artery connects the station quarter to thecity. On the northeast side of this quarter is the old town.South of this quarter is the large metallurgic factory area.Mines related to the factory are on the east side of theriver. A silk manufacturing factory is to the north of theold city. Above this area is the source of the city's power-the hydroelectric station and the dam. To the south-west of the dam, and sheltered by the mountains behindit, is the hospital plant. All these major areas are separatedfrom each other by green belts. Small areas are developedfor other uses along the river bank and in the plateau ter-ritory. Sections of the surrounding region are rendered

form to the 191o site plan (plate 1) but do conform to buildingslater designed by Garnier and constructed in Lyon. However, what-ever the date of the drawings may be, their remarkable consistencyindicates that any additions after 1904 grew out of the original con-ception, and did not in any way reflect a change in the philosophyof the work.3. Garnier, Cite,preface.4. Veronese, Garnier, pp. 15, 39.


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Fig. 1. First study, Cite Industrielle, by Garnier (from Garnier,Citi).

as regularly planted fields, indicating agriculturaldevel-opment. As we can see, Garnierhas considered all the as-pects of a realcity, including governmental,cultural, resi-dential, manufacturing,and agriculturalfacilities.But the realism of the Cite Industrielle is an ideal real-ism, falling within the pattern of Utopian schemes pre-viously existing in France. An early example of such ascheme was Ledoux' Salines at Chaux of 1773-1779 (fig.2). By the turn of the century the scope of Utopian proj-ects was broadened from Ledoux' ideal environment forfactoryworkersto such schemes as Fourier'sPhalanstere(fig. 3), which included all types of people in all types ofoccupations. In the middle of the nineteenth centurythere was an emphasis on the practical achievement ofthese ideals, resulting in such projects as Godin's Famil-istere (fig. 4), based on Fourier's earlier scheme, and inthe founding of new cities in remote corners of the world.All these projects were based on a socialist type of gov-ernment.

Garnier'sCite can be placed within the frameworkofthese Utopian schemes. In fact, it is closely related to theearly nineteenth-century Utopias. The literary counter-part of the Cite Industrielle, Emile Zola's Travail,5writ-ten contemporaneouslywith the planning of the Cite, isalmost solely based on the early socialist Utopian doc-trines of Fourier. Garnier, like Fourier, believed in thebasic goodness of man, and when asked why his city con-tained no law court, police force, jail, or church, replied5. Garnierhadalready enthis firststudyof the CiteIndustrielleto Paris when Zola's Travailwas published (Paris, 1901), but herecognizedthe affinityof his work to Zola's, accordingto PierreBourdeix,'La Cite Industrielle de Tony Garnier',La constructionmodernelo January 1926), 171, and GabrielHenriot, Tony Gar-nier',JardinsetcottagesOctober1926), 14.Also, Garnierncludedin his publicationa drawing(plate 15) of the assemblybuildingin-scribedwith the words 'TRAVAIL E. ZOLA' (fig. i1, text).

Fig. 2. Plan of the Salines, Chaux, by Ledoux (from Ledoux, L'ar-chitecture)

Fig. 3. Project for a phalanstery, by Fourier (from Briancourt, Visiteau Phalanstere).

Fig. 4. Project for afamilistere, by Godin (from Godin, Social So-lutions).


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18that the new society, governed by socialist law, wouldhave no need of churches, and that, as capitalism wouldbe suppressed, there would be no swindlers, robbers,ormurderers.6Garnier went beyond the elimination of con-temporarysocial restraints and introduced building typesbased on socialist tenets in his Cite. Thus employmentservices and free hostels, as well as the many meetingrooms,were createdfor the syndicates that such a form ofgovernment presupposed. Public facilities were empha-sized. Equalityof the sexes in education was established.Courts for arbitrationwere included, substituting for theusual law courts. Public services, such as the slaughter-houses, the flour mills, the bakery, the dairy, and thepharmaceuticalproducts, wereplaced under thejurisdic.tion of the administration,and liable to its special dispo-sitions. The administrationwas also concerned with theregulationof the dam, and thus with electricaloutput, in-cluding heat and light for the city, as well as the moreusual functions of street cleaning, etc.7In other aspects Garnier's Cit6also compareswith Uto-pian thought. In nineteenth-century Utopias nature, andall types of life related to nature, were considered good.The ideal qualitiesof fraternity, goodness, and workwereassumed to be a fundamentalpartof man'sbehavior.Evenreligion was discarded, and the worship of nature wassubstituted in its place. Garnieromits churches from hisCite, and, one assumes, substitutes a more 'natural'formof worship, such as that existing in Zola's Travail. In acharacteristicnineteenth-centuryparallelof architecturalexpression with symbolic content, Garnierbases his ar-chitectural style on the long horizontals and verticals ofthe buildings, which, in their simplicity, were to har-monize with natural forms.8The consciousness of exer-cise, health, and physical well-beingwere corollaryto thewakeninginterest in rudimentary ife. Such an expressionof Utopiandoctrines as Ledoux' Salines stresses the healthof the body as well as that of the soul.9Garnier'semphasison sports, seen in the large public area that he devotes tosports and spectacles, has its foundation in this philoso-phy, which looks backward to a more 'natural'pagan an-tiquity and its love of games.10The greateruse of natural

6. Bernard Champigneulle, 'Tony Garnier, le premier architectequi ait concu la Cite Industrielle', Lefigaro litteraire (28 February1948), 5.7. Garnier, Citf, preface.8. Garnier, Cite,preface.9. Ledoux included a building for physical exercise in his city ofChaux, as well as several temples and a church. Claude-NicholasLedoux, L'architectureconsideree ous la rapport de l'art, des moeurset de la legislation (Paris, 1804), plates 43, 72, 83, and 87.lo. Although Sigfried Giedion, Space, Time and Architecture,5thed. (Cambridge, 1944), p. 513, note 1l, feels that Garnier's empha-sis on sports is 'progressive' for its period, at the same time thatGarnier's Cite was conceived Patrick Geddes, 'The Closing Exhibi-tion-Paris 1900', ContemporaryReview (19oo), 665, spoke of the'revival' of the Olympian games in Athens and Paris.

Ea 0El0 M [: 0l 0o X0 a [1I 00| ?R lM;mO D no m DM ID nlo ELX nI o 0 M 0 I 0 M El0 M Oll E:ll [B|DO:RDi:::ID:]D,IBn Do,-IIDI M D D |r-El M::oI II,] - _, i' il llIuII [u11 11 I[u a, IUi gI U ' 1Idt.no SU...I l I- I . p n n _n nm l I

-imn nnin-^inlnm hrnlnmn nm rm in nmn inmhri-1mnnmn n l Io himn nmnlnmmnlnmnn -nM r Olmnnlnm r1mninmnml nIIII i111iu I l ll I u11 f11 II 11 11111 111ulIlu11-11111u I i 111?I I j. '_I II',

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Fig. 5. Project for an apartment house, by Garnier (from Garnier,Cit) .

settings within planning is another direction that thisemphasis on nature took;its ultimatenineteenth-centurysolutions were in the garden city and Garnier'spark-likeCite Industrielle.11However, the individual was not alwaysequated solelywith his most primitive state. Early nineteenth-centuryUtopias, such as Fourier'sPhalanstere,werebased on the

assumption that the highest forms of civilization were asdesirableas themost primitive.The Phalanstere,or palacefor living, was designed to approximatethe living condi-tions of royalty in accommodations.Fourier deliberatelyfollowed the plan of the Louvre so that the inhabitants ofhis Phalansterecould live like kings.12 ndeed the inhabi-tants were better situated than royalty, according toFourier,because they weremoreclosely related to nature.LaterUtopias discarded aristocraticimplications in favorof the principle of the basic individualism of each memberof society. Garnierexpresses this qualityin his individualhouse designs for the Cite. However,the resemblancethathas been noted by Pevsner of the open stairwell of Gar-nier's typicalapartmenthouse (fig.5) to thatof Francis i'sat Blois may spring fromthe revivalof the earlierUtopiantheories.13 n Utopias nature was to be improvedupon, sothat only her better qualities remained. Fourier boasted

11 However, by the end of the nineteenth century the concept ofthe city as a park was not a new idea. Trees had been incorporatedinto city planning since the end of the eighteenth century. Earlytree-lined streets, such as the Champs Elysees and the Unter-den-Linden were created in the seventeenth century, and were, as Pat-rick Abercrombie observes, 'Berlin, Its Growth and Present State',Town Planning Review (1913), 222-223, private park features ofroyalty.12. Charles Fourier, Traite'de l'association domestiqueagricole, 2vols. (Paris, 1822), II, 38.13. Nikolaus Pevsner, Pioneers of Modern Design (New York,

1949), P. 113.


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that even the king had no shelter from the rain when heentered his carriage,while open corridorsprovided shel-ter throughout the Phalanstere.14Godin, by enclosing thecourtsof his Familisterewith glass,providedsunlit recrea-tion areasin winter months.'5 Les Halles of Second Em-pire Paris were conceived as an umbrella, protectingagainstrainand dirt, while allowing sunlight, ventilation,andpedestriancirculation.'6Followingthis tradition,Gar-nier's assembly building has an enormous portico wherepeople could promenadein periods of inclement weather.But Utopian thinking is composed of two majorfactors.One factor is the desire for an ideal condition which ig-nores many of the problems of an existing society; theother is the pervasion of Utopian projects with a realismapproachingapresumedconditionofactuality,andthoughtout in great detail. Garnier's Cite Industrielle demon-stratesthe real as well as the ideal side of Utopian thought.Forinstance, the necessity for a realistic basis for Utopianthinking caused Garnier'sCite to be related to the polit-ically active French regionalist movement in its generalconcept rather than to earlier and more abstractUtopianschemes. French regionalismformulatedits methodologyduring the 8os and 9os of the nineteenth century,17andat the time of the creation of the Cite Industrielle stoodfor a preservationof provincialcharacteristicsin France,governmentaldecentralization, regional universities andmuseums, local historical monuments and sites, and theencouragement of native arts and crafts, as well as oflocal industries. Garnierspecificallyincluded all of theseelements in the Cite Industrielle.18The Cite representsone of a federation of cities, with communication andinterchange of goods emphasized, and the Cite is a re-gional city, forlocal conditions areexploited.19Also, localhistorical and botanicalmuseums, an exhibition buildingfor local expositions, and local schools of arts and indus-tries are included in this project. Local craftsare taught,and two local industries exploit the wealth of naturalresources in the area. The deliberate relation of the oldtown to the station, as if to make a visit for sightseerseasier, can also be understood as an interpretation of theregionalist philosophy of the preservation and fosteringof interest in local monuments.Garnier's Cite Industrielle also includes some of thegoals towardwhich regionalism,throughactualmunicipalreforms,was oriented. By the turn of the century munici-

14. Fourier, Traite, II, 40.15. Andre Godin, Social Solutions (New York, 1887), p. 232.16. Giedion, Space, Time and Architecture,p. 167.17. Charles Brun, Le regionalism (Paris, 1911), p. 277.The Feder-ation regionalistefranCaisewas founded in 19ol.18. Bourdeix, 'La Cite Industrielle de Tony Garnier', p. 171,strongly emphasizes the regional character of the Cite Industrielle.19. Garnier, Cite,preface.

19pal reforms placed great emphasis on practicality of ex-pansion and the zoning of the various functions of thecity,20as well as stringent building laws relating to in-terior courts and regulating the maximum amount ofsite to be used for building.21Also, the variousfunctionsof the city were placed in relationship to each other, sothat factories, shipping yards, and railroadstations wereremoved from the city center and grouped together,22while manufacturingcities began to provide tradeschoolsadapted to their local production.23The future growth ofthe Cite Industrielle is carefully stressed in Garnier'spreface, though there is no provision for the expansionof the center of the city or for growthof the trafficsystem,if expansion did occur. The variousfunctions of the city,such as industry, residences, and public, administrative,and hospital quarters are emphatically separated fromeach other by green belts for independent expansion.They are also related to each other for functional prox-imity and for ease of transportation.Garnierexcels in theorganicinterrelationshipof thevarioussectionsof the city,and it is more this factorthan any other which has causedhim tobe acceptedas the firsttwentieth-centuryplanner.24Southern orientation for all bedrooms is stressed. It isbecause of this orientation that the linear characterof the Cite is established, for the residences are spreadout in an east-west direction in order to provide a south-ern exposure for these rooms.Light wells arebanned, anddensity and building heights are carefully regulated, notin terms of appearance,but in termsof the establishmentof ideal conditions of hygiene. All tallbuildings areplacedwithin the station quarterto free the rest of the city, andthe park-like nature of the city is achieved by carefullyzoning the area of the building on its plot and by pro-viding right-of-waysbetween buildings as well as banningwalls, fences, and other enclosures.25Also, the actual building forms in the Cite Industrielleare related to contemporary practice. The elementaryschool of the Cite (fig. 6) is similar to a contemporaryEcole des Beaux-Arts project for a school (fig. 7). Thecovered passageways,a roof garden, and a division of theschool into two parts for younger and older children are

20. According to Abercrombie, Town and CountryPlanning (Lon-don, 1943), p. 95, Germany invented the concept of zoning and eventhe term itself.21. Thomas Coglan Horsfall, TheImprovementoftheDwellings andSurroundings of the Peoples; the Example of Germany (Manchester,1904), p. 65. Horsfall further says (p. 132) that by 1897 in Frankfurtthe uncoveredpart of a site for multipledwellingshad to be con-siderablymorethanhalf the totalareaof the lot.22. Albert Shaw, Municipal Government in Continental Europe(New York, 1895), p. 303.23. Shaw, Municipal Government,p. 375.24. Architectural Review (April 1943), 90, xxxix; and Giedion,Space, Time and Architecture,pp. 512-513.25. Garnier, Cite,preface.


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Fig. 6. Project for an elementary school, by Garnier (from Garnier, - ---.-BBcit . L_Fig. 7. Ecole des Beaux-Arts competition for a school, by Bergerand Maistraisse (fromLa constructionmoderne1897).

comparable in both these schemes.26 The hospital is re-lated to many developed projects containing small, sep-arate buildings connected by tunnels, such as a contem-porary project designed at the Ecole by Marcel Prost.7,Nor was Garnier's reliance on existing building types con-fined exclusively to French architecture. He adopted ele-ments that he observed while in residence at the VillaMedici. His stadium track (fig. 8) shows a remarkable re-semblance to the amphitheater at the Villa Borghese (fig.den"oIaly-"9.Se 9) as well as to a contemporary French hippodrome proj-ect (fig. lo). The 'Mediterranean atmosphere' in the CiteFig. 8. Projectfor a stadium,by Garnier fromGarnier,Citt). Industrielle, of which Giedion speaks,28 can come onlyfrom Garnier's absorption of the Italian manner of lifearound him while he was at Rome.29

Regionalism and civic reforms seem to be solidly at-tainable ideals. However, in a characteristically Utopianmanner, Garnier exaggerates and glorifies realism for itsown sake. For instance, he is extremely interested in tech-nical details. Thus all interior walls are specified by himto be smooth with rounded corners, and he emphasizes

26. Othercontemporarychoolprojectsshowa general ypesim-ilar to that of the Cit6Industrielle, houghwith the classes of boysand girls separated.An example s the Rue SaintLambert choolproject,published n L'architecture28 April 1894), i-iv.27. Laconstruction oderne4 March1899),269. Similarhospitalprojectspublishedin La constructionmodernewere 'Hopital d'en-fants' (19 September1896),602-603, and'Concoursde Montpellierasile d'alienesde l'Herault' (15 May1897),388-390.Fig. 9. Amphitheater,Villa Borghese,Rome (fromLatham,Gar- 28. Giedion,Space,Time ndArchitecture,. 515.densofItaly). 29. Seenote39forspecificRomannfluences.


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21

------- ... .. ....--------.............---00

Fig. 11. Project for an assembly building, by Garnier (from Garnier,Cit) .

Fig. lo. Project for a hippodrome (from La construction moderne1898).

detailed improvements, such as straight tracks at the sta-tion so that the trains can run faster, and a movable stagein the theater so that entr'actes will not be needed.30Indeed, the latest technical developments are basic as-

sumptions in the Cite Industrielle and Garnier reliesheavily on them in his design of the city. One importanttechnical achievement of the 189os was electricity, whichoccupied a recent and important place in the wideningfield of architecture and planning, though it was not untilthe 19oo exhibition that this development assumed a roleof primary importance.31 Electricity was associated with afuture mastery of the machine and the emancipation ofman from its enslavement; particularly its cleanlinessmade it attractive to include in cities of the future. Thereaction against the dirt and waste of early manufacturingtowns placed this advancement high on the list of thenineteenth-century reformer, for whom cleanliness hadreal meaning. The first installation of a hydroelectricplant at Geneva in 1895 was announced by architecturaljournals to be the solution to all problems related to elec-tric power; many future installations were predicted.32Garnier included a similar hydroelectric plant in the CiteIndustrielle.

30. Garnier, Cite,preface.31. Kenneth W. Luckhurst, The Story of Exhibitions (London,

1951), p. 145.32. 'La construction a Geneve', La constructionmoderne(26 Octo-ber 1895), 42.

Also, reinforced concrete at this period was of majorimportance because of its unlimited potentialities. Con-temporarypublications heralded concrete as the materialof the future and idealized its character.33As new rein-forced concrete systems were advanced, they were caughtup and published by the press,34 which stressed the mys-teries of this complex material that would answer all thebuilding problems of the age.35Reinforced concrete waseasily associated with idealized projects. It was the asso-ciation of this materialwith an ideal future state ratherthan its technical aspect that was uppermost in Garnier'smind when he chose it as the materialfor his Cite Indus-trielle. In fact, techniqueswere so small a problemto himthat in his publication of the Cite there are no technicaldata on concrete, and as representativeof the materialon-ly severalplates of photographs showing concrete build-ings under construction,but with no explanatorytitles.36Garnierdoes not follow one system of reinforced con-crete for the development of his material, but borrowsfreely from all systems availableto him. The chamferededges of columns and the post, beam, andjoist system ofconstruction used in his assembly building (fig. 11) areimportant features of the Hennebique system (fig. 12)which must have fascinated Garnier as he watched theerection of Hennebique'sbuildings for the 19oo Parisex-hibition. Baudot's use of simplifiedconcrete tracery n thechurch of Saint-Jeande Montmartreof 1894 is paralleledin the tracery of Garnier's assembly building, while the

33. A. L. Cordeau,Les cimentsarmes',Lemoniteur esarchitectes(April 1899), 25-30.34. An early series of articleson this subjectwas writtenby P.Planat,'Le theoriedes ciments-armes',La construction oderne30December1893), 150-153 ff.35. Anatolede Baudot,L'architecture;epasse... lepresent Paris1916),p. 68, compares hepossibilitiesof concrete o therealizationof Utopiandreams.36. Garnier,Cite,plates,151-155.


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22r - t - --+-At Xn r t-r-----t--rt----t -l-t"'"'-t' A'l'l----t-t't t - t ''l' A

c

Fig. 13. Project for a station, by Garnier (from Garnier, Cite).D J.- .-

.; ' - .;.*'' 3'E

HENNEBIQUESYSTEMOF tREINFORCED CONCRETEA. SECTION THROUGH BEAM.B. JUNCTION OF BEAM ANDCOLUMN.C. CROSS-SECTION THROUGH

BEAM AND FLOOR.D. SECTION THROUGH MAINBEAM. AE. SECTION THROUGH SECON- Lj

DARY BEAMS AND FLOOR. ' ,F. MAIN BEAMS, SECONDARY

BEAMS AND FLOOR, FORM-ING A MONOLITHIC MASS.

O. METHOD OF REINFORCINGCOLUMNS. F G

Fig. 12. System of reinforced concrete, by Hennebique (from Whit-tick, European ArchitectureI).

use of reinforced concrete as a skeletal material containingin its structure its own decoration, an exception to Gar-nier's philosophy of separate architectural and ornamen-tal forms, and similar to Baudot's use of concrete, is seenin Garnier's station tower (fig. 13). In this tower concretehas a more direct relationship to iron, especially to theexpression of this material in the Eiffel Tower.37 Only inthe station and the stadium does Garnier dramatize thelightness and strength of reinforced concrete by usingthin members, glass curtain walls, and wide cantilevers.38Thus, though Garnier understands the basic cast charac-ter of concrete, his emphasis on its technical aspects issuperficial, and his exploitation of its possibilities, deriva-tive. In his use of concrete Garnier is sympathetic to allthat he observes around him, and eclectic in his borrow-ings. Especially did Garnier borrow those Roman charac-teristics of the material that he saw while he was a pension-naire at the Villa Medici. Many of the buildings, such as

37. Veronese, Garnier, p. 89, has also noted a resemblance be-tween Garnier's Lyon abattoirs and the Galerie des Machines inParis.38. It is possible that both Garnier's station and his stadium areto be dated later than the rest of the project (see note 2).

the bath building, are handled as if concrete were a mas-sive, monolithic material.Also Garnier'sdam is relatedinits scalloped form and its function of a retaining wall tothe type of concrete design found in Roman cisterns andin ruined niched walls that could easily have been seenby Garnier.39Indeed Garnierappearsto identify himselfclosely withantique life, deliberatelyusing past forms to symbolize-or recreate-a spirit similar to thatin which the forms hadoriginally existed. Thus the general site of the Cite (fig.14) is reminiscent of the acropolis of such a Hellenisticcity as Pergamon (fig. 15). Both have foundation wallstoweringabovethe plain, and the Pergamonamphitheaterdominates the site in the same manner as does Garnier'sdam. Garnier'shighway, spanning the declivities of theplain, is closely relatedin its archedformto Romanaque-ducts. Among the buildings, the most specific referenceto antique prototypes, and the only one mentioned byGarnier,40 is the outdoor theater, which borrows theGreekamphitheaterform. But severalof the other build-ings are related to ancient architecture.For instance, thebath building (fig. 16) resembles the symmetricalplan ofthe imperialRoman thermae41with the largecalidariumofthe main pool placed in the center of the composition.Furthermore, both are divided into three sections, by

39. Mr. Norman Neuerberg has called my attention to the closerelationship of Garnier's dam to the cisterns at Villa le Vignacce,Sette Bassi, Hadrian's Villa in Palestrina, and Cecchignola, as wellas substructures to such buildings as the Villa le Cappellette, theTemple of Claudius in Rome, and especially the ruins of the villaknown as Muro Torto, very near the French Academy at the VillaMedici. In these examples reverse niches were used as a method ofreinforcing against water or earth, similar to the function of thescallops in Garnier's dam.

40. Garnier, Cite,preface.41. Bourdeix, 'La Cite Industrielle de Tony Garnier', p. 171, has

pointed out this relationship.

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Fig. 14. View, Cite Industrielle,by Garnier fromGarnier,Cite).

Fig. 16. Projectfor a bath, by Garnier fromGarnier,Cite).

M t | f X

g 17Fig. 17. Project or a residence, y GarnierfromGarnier, ite).

Fig. 15. Present state and reconstruction,Pergamon fromMonu-ments antiques releves et restaures par les architectespensionnaires deI 'academiede Franced RomeI).

vaultingin the case of the thermae,and by skylightsin thecase of Garnier'sbaths. The temporaryexhibition build-ing of the Cite is relatedto the Altar of Zeus at Pergamon,for both are rectangular structures with four stairwaysalong their sides. One house (fig. 17) has a Romanatriumcomplete with impluviumthat could have been borroweddirectlyfromone of the Roman houses of Pompeiior Her-culaneum. The use of small fountains, resembling nym-phaea, and of enclosed garden areas, has much of theflavorof antiqueresidentialsections.But the relationshipto antiquity goes beyond the actualapplication of classical forms to that of their associationwith an ideal state. For whatGarnierenvisions in his CiteIndustrielle is a simpler,more Arcadianage. Indeed, theArcadianconcept was expressed in severalprojectsin the189os. In Olmsted's landscaping of the ColumbianExpo-sition of 1893 the setting is romanticized,especially in thesecluded, natural, and 'sylvan aspect' of the Lagoon,which was an important feature in the conception of theFair.42Wagner's scheme for the remodeling of Vienna(fig. 18), begun in 1898, also has, to a less obvious degree,

42. Charles Moore, Daniel Burnham; Architect and Planner ofCities,2 vols. (New York, 1921), I, 31.


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Fig. 18. Project for the reconstruction of Vienna, by Otto Wagner(from Wagner, Die Groszstadt).

similar elements in the central municipal area, where alarger rectangularpool in a park is bordered by poplarsand covered walkways.The use of the reflectivequalities

of the pool and the shimmeringwhite of the buildings inboth of these schemes, as well as the importanceof land-scapearchitecture as a setting for the architecturalmonu-ments, is descriptive of the style called by Tunnard the'Arcadianrevival'.43 his term mplies a returndirectly toantique,and thus to pagan, forms. It also implies a grow-ing interest in the spirit of ancient architecture-in itsmunicipal character, its feeling for beauty as a functionmeaningful n society, and its utilizationof art. And with-in the context of this revivalGarnier'sCite Industriellebecomes especiallymeaningful.The Cite is an ideal proj-ect based on Utopian tenets with Arcadianimplications,a monumentallyconceived and co-ordinatedplan return-ing in style to antiqueforms and in philosophy to the an-tiquespirit thatare behind the academictradition.

43. ChristopherTunnard, TheCityof Man (New York, 1953),308.

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Tony Garnier - Cite Industrielle.pdf