To model the plain surface of a primary and simple form is to bring into play automatically a rivalry with the mass itself: here you have a contradiction of intention—the boulevard Raspail.
To model the surface of masses which are in themselves complicated and have been brought into harmony is to modulate and still remain within the mass: a rare problem—the Invalides of Mansard.
A problem of our age and of contemporary æsthetics: everything tends to the restoration of simple masses: streets, factories, the large stores, all the problems which will present themselves to-morrow under a synthetic form and under general aspects that no other age has ever known. Surfaces, pitted by holes in accordance with the necessities of their destined use, should borrow the generating and accusing lines of these simple forms. These accusing lines are in practice the chessboard or grill-American factories. But this geometry is a source of terror.
Not in pursuit of an architectural idea, but guided simply by the necessities of an imperative demand, the tendency of the engineers of to-day is towards the generating and accusing lines of masses; they show us the way and create plastic facts, clear and limpid, giving rest to our eyes and to the mind the pleasure of geometric forms.
Such are the factories, the reassuring first fruits of the new age.
The engineers of to-day find themselves in accord with the principles that Bramante and Raphael had applied a long time ago.
