Sigfried Giedion: The New Space Conception of ‘Space-Time’

Giedion’s conception of history is Hegelian because Hegel say’s ‘Every historical period is unified within itself’ so as Giedion put in his text, developments in art and science show different expressions of simultaneity. Art shows this through Cubism and Science shows this through Einstein’s Theory of Relativity. The theory of relativity and cubism both came about in the 20th century so Giedion’s conception is Hegelian because they both fell under the same period in time.
Giedion’s idea of history guides his opinions on architecture as he says that Space and time are unified into a 4 dimensional model through his own interpretation of Einstein’s theory of relativity. This is seen in Walter Gropius, The Bauhaus, Dessau (1926) where space and time coincide with one another.
Giedion believes that the real role of the artist and architect is to unify thought and feelings. One without the other would lead to a society with too much rationality (if there were no feelings) or a society that is too emotional so cannot make any rational decisions. He says that ‘feeling continues to filters through every activity and situation’ this means that the artist and architect would need to be able to filter the feelings properly so the society is not deemed too emotional but has some rationality to balance it out.
The ‘form-giving principals of the new space conception’ of modernism derive from a cubist painting from Paris where cubism was first seen, as Giedion says in his text, ‘The half-century previous to the rise of cubism had seen paintings flourish almost nowhere outside of France.’ Modernism means something that is new and anti-traditional, so in France they were able to create a new visual language that represents multiple views therefore breaking the rules of standard perspective.
Cubism provides a new representation of perception by being able to create one picture from different vantage points. It is very anti-traditional as it breaks rules of standard perspective by being able to show different perspective through one image. An example of this is in Picasso’s L’Arlesenne (1911-12). This cubist painting shows provides a new representation of perception as it is able to show the full face and profile of a person through one image.
Cubism utilizes the principal of the new space conception as it seeks to represents the world from multiple views. The idea of the plane is applicable throughout modernism as it is able to view multiple times in space from one point. This means that it is able to create a new visual language that can represent multiple views which is what modernism is.
Both images that Giedion speaks about in his text (Picasso’s L’Arlesenne (1911-12) and Walter Gropius The Bauhaus, Dessau (1926)) have the idea of cubism as both images attempt to show the world from different vantage points. They both show two aspects of their individual images simultaneously. Picasso’s cubist painting shows the profile of the face while also showing the full face. Gropius’ shows the inside and the outside of the building at the same time. Both images have interpretations of space and time present. Through the Gropius image you are able to see multiple times in space from one point. In Picasso’s painting each square represents a different moment in time.
Through Giedion’s analysis we are able to perceive how developments in arts and science go hand in hand. Giedion makes attempts at understanding the images and tries to see how they relate by stating the similarities they have. Although Giedion’s analysis of space and time has some strength it also has many weaknesses. Giedion said ‘Picassos Cubist paintings harmonise perfectly with Einstein’s theory of a four dimensional space time continuum.’ This is wrong as Einstein’s theory of relativity argued that there was no such thing as simultaneity so this means that Giedion distorted Einstein’s idea to complete his unified picture of history. Giedion also chose a specific painting to compare with Gropius’ building. Although there are many similarities with the two images they have one main difference which is that with Picassos painting the viewer would have to move around to see different angles of the painting whereas with Gropius’ the viewer wound have to be in a specific place to see multiple times into space.