If you can’t fight them, join them

In the second half of the 30s there seems to be visible shift towards acceptance of the widespread trend of the Modernism. More and more ads praising the advantages of the ‘modern’ appear in the trade press. This article published in The Irish Builder and Engineer in 1937 (4.4.1) sees the future in the Modernism (although the word itself only appears in the title) for not being backwards and repetitive, unlike all 19th and 20th century Revivals and the ‘absurd battles of the styles’. The only way is to evolve, and the author pints recent lack of creativity in the architectural field. Praised is the contemporary architecture of Norway, Sweden (quite often Scandinavia is presented as the architectural benchmark in the late 30s) and America. Sources of these architectural virtues the author reasons by lack of influence in the Renaissance in these countries, which seems to be the main source of the plagiarisms and endless neo- styles.