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THE VOYAGER The voyager who, passing through the town of Vyborg, a few miles after having trespassing the Russian-Finnish State border, and driving along the boulevards, is interested in architecture, might suddenly meet a public building in the Russian National Style, clearly inspired by the tradition of the nearby San Petersbourg. Immediately captured by that vision, the voyager consults again his architectural guide book and, more and more upset, looks again at the building which has drawn his attention. It is evident ly the railway station of the town, but what does this "baroque" railway station stand for the remarkable work of Gesellius and Saarinen, built in 1904-1913 with the same style of the better known Helsinki station ? Scandal ! One can understand the war, the terrible Russian-Finnish war first, and then the Second World War, nevertheless, how is it possible that, in the middle of XX century, perhaps between the 40s and 50s, a huge public building was still constructed in Classical style ? Official Historians have always denied that in the name of the unavoidable progress towards the affirmation of the International Style. The question breaks the clouds of an embarrassing "affaire", hidden for a long time because of evident reasons of intellectual conformism: the presence of Classical tradition in XX century. The fall of the Berlin wall seems to have removed the tombstone which forbade a serene analysis of XX century Architectural History. Suddenly, Traditional and Classical buildings appear in every country. What seemed to be a fascist degeneration, or the last attempt of the "reactionary" forces to forbid the natural "progress" of science and arts, suddenly appear to be a reality which has been denied by prejudicing historians, more interested in hiding than in documenting. Such a widespread reality, with remarkable buildings constructed in Classical way not only in national socialist Germany or fascist Italy, but also in the Soviet Union during the 50s and 60s, or in Spain during the 40s and 50s and, furthermore, in the United States during the 40s and 50s, in the European Northern Countries, in the highly democratic Great Britain. Then, what about Speer and Piacentini ? Damned architects or, perhaps, great architects, such as Eliel Saarinen who was building in national-romantic style in 1920s Finland, McKim, Mead and White who built New York Pennsylvania Station (1906-1910), Cass Gilbert who built the Supreme Court Building in Washington D.C. (1935), John Russell Pope who built the National Gallery in Washington D.C. (1941) ? Huge archives become available everyday in every country, thus offering researchers unpublished material which might be useful to re-write a new History of Architecture and Urbanism in XX century. A History without any ideological prejudice such as the ones which a Modernism unrivalled until a few years ago had established, like the dictatorship described by George Orwell, in order to better control the Present with its dogmatics. Therefore, the matter is not to state that post-war National-style architecture in Vyborg is more interesting than the romantic attempt of the famous team of Finnish designers to meet modernity with tradition. What we believe as crucial is to deeply study the presence of Classical tradition in XX century, since Lindgren, Gesellius, Saarinen up to Raymond Erith, and passing through the Pentagon architects in Washington D.C. (1942), the ones of the Palace of Culture and Science in Warsaw (1955-56), the authors of the Spanish new towns built after the Civil War, not to say of Edwin Lutyens, Paul Ludwig Troost, Karl Gruber, Heinrich Tessenow, Demetri Pykionis, Saverio Muratori. The matter is to investigate on the permanence of Classical culture in XX century as a sign of continuity with millennial Western architectural tradition. A scandalous continuity for some, but absolutely original, which the way that leads up to contemporary movement for a new Urban Renaissance is enriched by through new contents and new stories such as the one of Pierre Barbe. Avant-guard architect in the 20s, co-founder with Robert Mallet-Stevens of the Modern Artist Union in 1929, he later turned to a research for modern Classicism, around the 40s, up to his recent works for Pierre Schlumberger, in Paris (1969) and Quinta do Vinagre (1975), and the Aga Khan in the Domaine d'Aiglemont (1980). Studies and researches made by David Watkin, Maurice Culot and Leon Krier have allowed us to start a new stimulating trip at the search of Classical architecture of our century, at the search of unknown but authors of remarkable public and monumental buildings architects. The XX century Archives will try to find out new material in order to enrich with new suggestion such a trip, with the aim to meet that great challenge for the discovery of the truth, which is going to be a main task for XXIst century historians.
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