Many architects, designers and artists penned their own manifestos, particularly during the 20th century’s proliferation of various “-isms.” These manifestos are as abundant as blossoms in a vibrant spring. If you are seeking enlightening manifesto examples among this profusion, here are the most important five manifestos to delve in:
- De Stijl Manifesto I, by De Stijl architects and artists, 1918
- Bauhaus Manifesto, by Walter Gropius, 1919
- 5 Points of Architecture, by Le Corbusier 1926
- No-Stop City, by Archizoom, 1969
- Plus, manifesto by Lacaton & Vassal, 2004
What sets these five manifesto declarations apart from the others? They hold significance as pinnacle representatives of their generational wave, be it in societal, cultural, economic, or professional spheres. They not only distilled the authors’ personal realizations and aspirations, but they also responded to the broader and critical changes in society at their time.
Below you will find a summary of each manifesto, their significance, the actual manifesto, along with representational images. Let’s dive in!
Thinking of writing your own design or architectural manifesto? Check out my other post on how to write a manifesto.
I. De Stijl Manifesto I
| Author | Theo Van Doesburg, Robt. Van T Hoff, Vilmos Huszar, Antony Kok, Peit Mondriaan, G. Vantongerloo, Jan Wils |
| Year | 1918 |
| Summary | This manifesto highlights the shift from an individual-centered consciousness to a universal one in the modern age. The ongoing struggle between the individual and the universal is mirrored in both global conflicts and contemporary art. The old world, marked by individual dominance, is being dismantled by war. New art reveals a harmony between the universal and individual, reflecting the evolving age. The manifesto calls for the removal of traditions, dogmas, and individual dominance hindering this progress. It urges supporters of art and cultural reform to eliminate obstacles and work towards international unity. Artists worldwide share a common consciousness that opposes individualism, aligning with those striving for global unity in life, art, and culture. |
| Significance | If one examines European history, one may find violence prevalent since the Renaissance. Despite significant advancements and scientific inventions, an excessive focus on individual ego has fueled numerous violent events. Published at the end of World War I, this manifesto represents an attempt to shift human consciousness to a more balanced equilibrium. |
| The Manifesto | 1. There is an old and a new consciousness of the age. The old one is directed towards the individual. The new one is directed towards the universal. The struggle of the individual against the universal may be seen both in the world war and in modern art. 2. The war is destroying the old world with its content: individual pre-dominance in every field. 3. The new art has brought to light that which is contained in the new consciousness of the age: a relationship of equality between the universal and the individual. 4. The new consciousness of the age is prepared to realize itself in everything, including external life. 5. Tradition, dogmas and the predominance of the individual stand in the way of this realization. 6. Therefore the founders of the new culture call upon all who believe in reform of art and culture to destroy these obstacles to development, just as in the plastic arts – by doing away with natural form – they have eliminated that which stood in the way of pure artistic expression, the logical conclusion of every artistic concept. 7. The artists of today, all over the world, impelled by one and the same consciousness, have taken part on the spiritual plane in the world war against the domination of individualism, of arbitrariness. They therefore sympathize with all who are fighting spiritually or materially for the formation of an international unity in life, art, and culture. 8. The organ De Stijl, founded for this purpose, seeks to contribute towards setting the new conception of life in a clear light. The collaboration of all is possible by: (1) Sending in (to the editorial board) as proof of agreement the (exact) name, address, and profession. (2) Contributions in the broadest sense (critical, philosophical, architectural, scientific, literary, musical, etc., as well as reproductions) to the monthly magazine De Stijl. (3) Translation into other languages and propagation of views published in De Stijl. |
II. Programme of the Staatliches Bauhaus in Weimar
| Author | Walter Gropius |
| Year | 1919 |
| Summary | The Bauhaus Manifesto emphasizes a synthesis of art, craft, and technology, aiming to bridge the gap between artistic creativity and industrial production, to a “unified work of art.” The manifesto envisions a collaborative environment where artists, craftsmen, and architects work together, guided by a universal design language. It advocates for the dissolution of barriers between different artistic disciplines. The manifesto includes the aims, principles, and range of instructions of Bauhaus. |
| Significance | Bauhaus is the forebear of modern architecture, design and art education. The Bauhaus Manifesto sets the foundation for a holistic approach to design education, blending art and technology to create a new aesthetic that serves society’s needs. |
| The Manifesto | The ultimate aim of all visual arts is the complete building! To embellish buildings was once the noblest function of the fine arts; they were the indispensable components of great architecture. Today, the arts exist in isolation, from which they can be rescued only through the conscious, co-operative effort of all craftsmen. Architects, painters, and sculptors must recognize anew and learn to grasp the composite character of a building both as an entity and in its separate parts. Only then will their work be imbued with the architectonic spirit which it has lost as ‘salon art’. The old schools of art were unable to produce this unity; how could they, since art cannot be taught. They must be merged once more with the workshop. The mere drawing and painting world of the pattern designer and the applied artist must become a world that builds again. When young people who take a joy in artistic creation once more begin their life’s work by learning a trade, then the unproductive ‘artist’ will no longer be condemned to deficient artistry, for their skill will now be preserved for the crafts, in which they will be able to achieve excellence. Architects, sculptors, painters, we all must return to the crafts! For art is not a ‘profession’. There is no essential difference between the artist and the craftsman. The artist is an exalted craftsman. In rare moments of inspiration, transcending the consciousness of his will, the grace of heaven may cause his transcending the consciousness of his will, the grace of heaven may cause his work to blossom into art. But proficiency in a craft is essential to every artist. Therein lies the prime source of creative imagination. Let us then create a new guild of craftsmen without the class distinctions that raise an arrogant barrier between craftsman and artist! Together let us desire, conceive, and create the new structure of the future, which will embrace architecture and sculpture and painting in one unity and which will one day rise toward heaven from the hands of a million workers like the crystal symbol of a new faith. Walter Gropius Programme of the Staatliches Bauhaus in Weimar The Staatliches Bauhaus resulted from the merger of the former Grand-Ducal Saxon Academy of Art with the former Grand-Ducal Saxon School of Arts and Crafts in conjunction with a newly affiliated department of architecture. Aims of the Bauhaus The Bauhaus strives to bring together all creative effort into one whole, to reunify all the disciplines of practical art – sculpture, painting, handicrafts, and the crafts – as inseparable components of a new architecture. The ultimate, if distant, aim of the Bauhaus is the unified work of art – the great structure – in which there is no distinction between monumental and decorative art. The Bauhaus wants to educate architects, painters, and sculptors of all levels, according to their capabilities, to become competent craftsmen or independent creative artists and to form a working community of leading and future artist-craftsmen. These men, of kindred spirit, will know how to design buildings harmoniously in their entirety – structure, finishing, ornamentation, and furnishing. Principles of Bauhaus Art rises above all methods; in itself it cannot be taught, but the crafts certainly can be. Architects, painters, and sculptors are craftsmen in the true sense of the word: hence, a thorough training in the crafts, acquired in workshops and on experimental and practical sites, is required of all students as the indispensable basis for all artistic production. Our own workshops are to be gradually built up and apprenticeship agreements with outside workshops will be concluded. The school is the servant of the workshop and will one day be absorbed in it. Therefore there will be no teachers or pupils in the Bauhaus but masters, journeymen, and apprentices. The manner of teaching arises from the character of the workshop: 1. Organic forms developed from manual skills. 2. Avoidance of all rigidity; priority of creativity; freedom of individuality, but strict study discipline. 3. Master and journeyman examinations, according to the Guild Statutes, held before the Council of Masters of the Bauhaus or before outside masters. 4. Collaboration by the students in the work of the masters. 5. Securing of commissions, also for students. 6. Mutual planning of extensive, Utopian structural designs – public buildings and buildings for worship – aimed at the future. Collaboration of all masters and students – architects, painters, sculptors – on these designs with the object of gradually achieving a harmony of all the component elements and parts that make up architecture. 7. Constant contact with the leaders of the crafts and industries of the country. 8. Contact with public life, with the people, through exhibitions and other activities. 9. New research into the nature of the exhibitions, to solve the problem of displaying visual work and sculpture within the framework of architecture. 10. Encouragement of friendly relations between masters and students outside of work; therefore plays, lectures, poetry, music, fancy-dress parties. Establishment of a cheerful ceremonial at these gatherings. Range of Instruction Instruction at Bauhaus includes all practical and scientific areas of creative work. A. Architecture B. Painting C. Sculpture Including all branches of the crafts. Students are trained in a craft (1) as well as in drawing and painting (2) and science and theory (3). 1. Craft training – either in our own, gradually enlarging workshops or in outside workshops to which the student is bound by apprenticeship agreement – includes: (a) Sculptors, stonemasons, stucco workers, woodcarvers, ceramic workers, plaster casters; (b) Blacksmiths, locksmiths, founders, metal turners; (c) Cabinetmakers; (d) Scene-painters, glass painters, mosaic workers, enamellers; (e) Etchers, wood engravers, lithographers, art printers, enchasers; (f) Weavers. Craft training forms the basis of all teaching at the Bauhaus. Every student must learn a craft. 2. Training in drawing and painting includes: (a) Free-hand sketching from memory and imagination; (b) Drawing and painting of heads, live models, and animals; (c) Drawing and painting of landscapes, figures, plants and still-lifes; (d) Composition; (e) Execution of murals, panel pictures, and religious shrines; (f) Design of ornaments; (g) Lettering; (h) Construction and projection drawing; (i) Design of exteriors, gardens, and interiors; (j) Design of furniture and practical articles. 3. Training in science and theory includes: (a) Art history – not presented in the sense of a history of styles, but rather to further active understanding of historical working methods and techniques; (b) Science of materials; (c) Anatomy – from the living model; (d) Physical and chemical theory of color; (e) Rational painting methods; (f) Basic concepts of bookkeeping, contract negotiations, personnel; (g) Individual lectures on subjects of general interest in all areas of art and science. Divisions of Instruction The training is divided into three courses of instruction: I. Course for apprentices; II. Course for journeymen; III. Course for junior masters. The instruction of the individual is left to the discretion of each master within the framework of the general programme and the work schedule, which is revised every semester. In order to give the students as versatile and comprehensive a technical and artistic training as possible the work schedule will be so arranged that every architect-, painter-, and sculptor-to-be is able to participate in part of the other courses. Admission Any person of good repute, without regard to age or sex, whose previous education is deemed adequate by the Council of Masters will be admitted, as far as space permits. The tuition fee is 180 marks per year (it will gradually disappear entirely with increasing earnings of the Bauhaus). A non-recurring admission fee of 20 marks is also to be paid. Foreign students pay double fees. Address enquiries to the Secretariat of the Staatliches Bauhaus in Weimar. April 1919. The Administration of the Staatliches Bauhaus in Weimar: Walter Gropius |
III. Five Points towards a New Architecture
| Author | Le Corbusier |
| Year | 1926 |
| Summary | Le Corbusier’s “Five Points towards a New Architecture,” 1926 manifesto, advocate for elevating buildings on pilotis (columns) to create open space, employing a free façade through load-bearing columns for design flexibility, adopting open floor plans for adaptability, using continuous ribbon windows for uniform light distribution, and incorporating rooftop gardens for green space and comfort. These principles encapsulate his vision for a modern, functional, and harmonious architectural approach that continues to impact design philosophy. |
| Significance | Le Corbusier distilled the benefits of the new construction method of reinforced concrete buildings into a concise set of five points. Although he wasn’t the first person to design buildings in such a way, he stands out for crystallizing these principles so articulately and forecasting their long-term significance. We can still see how these principles are being applied in contemporary architecture, and how other architectural movements stemmed from these ideas in the following decades. |
| The Manifesto | The theoretical considerations set out below are based on many years of practical experience on building sites. Theory demands concise formulation. The following points in no way relate to aesthetic fantasies or a striving for fashionable effects, but concern architectural facts that imply an entirely new kind of building, from the dwelling house to palatial edifices. 1. The Supports. To solve a problem scientifically means in the first place to distinguish between its elements. Hence in the case of a building a distinction can immediately be made between the supporting and the non-supporting elements. The earlier foundations, on which the building rested without a mathematical check, are replaced by individual foundations and the walls by individual supports. Both supports and support foundations are precisely calculated according to the burdens they are called upon to carry. These supports are spaced out at specific, equal intervals, with no thought for the interior arrangement of the building. They rise directly from the floor to 3, 4, 6, etc. meters and elevate the ground floor. The rooms are thereby removed from the dampness of the soil; they have light and air; the building plot is left to the garden, which consequently passes under the house. The same area is also gained on the flat roof. 2. The Roof Garden. The flat roof demands in the first place systematic utilization for domestic purposes: roof terrace, roof garden. On the other hand, the reinforced concrete demands protection against changing temperatures. Over-activity on the part of the reinforced concrete is prevented by the maintenance of a constant humidity on the roof concrete. The roof terrace satisfies both demands (a rain-dampened layer of sand covered with concrete slabs with lawns in the interstices; the earth of the flowerbeds in direct contact with the layer of sand). In this way the rain water will flow off extremely slowly. Waste pipes in the interior of the building. Thus a latent humidity will remain continually on the roof skin. The roof gardens will display highly luxuriant vegetation. Shrubs and even small trees up to 3 or 4 meters tall can be planted. In this way the roof garden will become the most favored place in the building. In general, roof gardens mean to a city the recovery of all the built-up area. 3. The Free Designing of the Ground-Plan. The support system carries the intermediate ceilings and rises up to the roof. The interior walls may be placed wherever required, each floor being entirely independent of the rest. There are no longer any supporting walls but only membranes of any thickness required. The result of this is absolute freedom in designing the ground-plan; that is to say, free utilization of the available means, which makes it easy to offset the rather high cost of reinforced concrete construction. 4. The Horizontal Window. Together with the intermediate ceilings the supports from rectangular openings in the facade through which light and air enter copiously. The window extends from support to support and thus becomes a horizontal window. Stilted vertical windows consequently disappear, as do unpleasant mullions. In this way, rooms are equably lit from wall to wall. Experiments have shown that a room thus lit has an eight times stronger illumination than the same room lit by vertical windows with the same window area. The whole history of architecture revolves exclusively around the wall apertures. Through use of the horizontal window reinforced concrete suddenly provides the possibility of maximum illumination. 5. Free Design of the Facade. By projecting the floor beyond the supporting pillars, like a balcony all round the building, the whole facade is extended beyond the supporting construction. It thereby loses its supportive quality and the windows may be extended to any length at will, without any direct relationship to the interior division. A window may just as well be 10 meters long for a dwelling house as 200 meters for a palatial building (our design for the League of Nations building in Geneva). The facade may thus be designed freely. The five essential points set out above represent a fundamentally new aesthetic. Nothing is left to us of the architecture of past epochs, just as we can no longer derive any benefit from the literary and historical teaching given in schools. Constructional Considerations Building construction is the purposeful and consistent combination of building elements. Industries and technological undertakings are being established to deal with the production of these elements. Serial manufacture enables these elements to be made precise, cheap and good. They can be produced in advance in any number required. Industries will see to the completion and uninterrupted perfecting of the elements. Thus the architect has at his disposal a box of building units. His architectural talent can operate freely. It alone, through the building programme, determines his architecture. The age of the architects is coming. |
IV. No-stop City
| Author | Andrea Branzi / Archizoom |
| Year | 1969 |
| Summary | The project “No-Stop City,” conceptualized by Archizoom, envisions an extensive, continuous, and adaptable urban environment that defies traditional notions of city planning. Rejecting fixed structures, the project proposes a sprawling, interconnected framework where architecture and infrastructure seamlessly merge. It aims to accommodate ever-changing needs and activities, providing a space that evolves organically with its inhabitants. |
| Significance | No-Stop City is an ironic critique of the ideology of architectural modernism taking onto its absurd limits. This project had a strong impact on design discourse. The project fueled the discussion about the balance between flexibility and stability in urban design, as well as the relationship between architecture and social dynamics. We can see how later cities and suburban areas developed in a different way, yet similar in their underlying principles. |
| The Manifesto | The manifesto of the No-stop city is not composed with short-form texts. Rather, they are a set of images to explain the ideas: “The idea of an inexpressive, catatonic architecture, outcome of the expansive forms of logic of the system and its class antagonists, was the only form of modern architecture of interest to us. A society freed from its own alienation, emancipated from the rhetorical forms of humanitarian socialism and rhetorical progressivism: an architecture which took a fearless look at the logic of gray, atheistic and de-dramatized industrialism, where mass production produced infinite urban decors.” |
V. Plus
| Author | Locaton & Vassal |
| Year | 2004 |
| Summary | In just as short as one sentence, french architects Lacaton & Vassal, announced their approach opposite to the french government, when the government has been demolishing post-war housings in order to build new ones. |
| Significance | Amidst the challenges posed by climate change, economical inequality, and ever-present mental health among society, Lacaton & Vassal’s housing projects, accompanied by their succinct manifesto demonstrate a gentler, resource-mindful, and human-life-centric approach. Their projects are about “place-transforming” for the people, rather than “space making” for the capital. |
| The Manifesto | Never demolish, never remove or replace, always add, transform, and reuse! |
VI. Books You Should Read:
If you are in the process of writing a manifesto or you think writing a manifesto will be important for you in the future, you should read the books below. The first book by Conrads contains great examples of manifestos written by modern designers, architects, and artists. The second book by Caws is thicker and it categorizes manifestos according to various -isms.
Book Title: Programs and Manifestoes on 20th-Century Architecture
Editor: Ulrich Conrads
Translator: Michael Bullock
Publish Date: Nov. 15, 1975
Thinking of writing your own design or architectural manifesto? Check out my other post on how to write a manifesto.
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