Architecture, Aesthetics, and the Predicaments of Theory (Routledge Research in Architectural History) [1 ed.] 1032008016, 9781032008011

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Architecture, Aesthetics, and the Predicaments of Theory

Architecture, Aesthetics, and the Predicaments of Theory offers a critical analysis of the methodological constants and shared critical strategies in the history of theoretical discourse on Western architecture. Central to these constants is the persistent role of aesthetics as a critical tool for the delimitation of architecture. This book analyzes the unceasing critical role aesthetics is given to play in the discourse of architecture. The book offers a close and critical reading of three seminal texts from three different periods in the history of theoretical discourse on Western architecture— the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, and 19th-century Romanticism. The first text is Leone Battista Alberti’s The Ten Books on Architecture of 1452, the next Marc-Antoine Laugier’s An Essay on Architecture of 1753, and last, John Ruskin’s The Seven Lamps of Architecture of 1849. Additional influential texts from, among others, the 20th and 21st centuries are engaged with along the way to locate and contextualize the arguments within the broader discursive tradition of Western architecture. The book will interest scholars and students of architecture, architectural history and theory, as well as scholars and students of cultural studies, aesthetic philosophy, art history, literary criticism, and related disciplines. Amir H. Ameri is Professor of Architecture at the University of Colorado, Denver. He has taught architectural history, theory, and design at various academic institutions throughout the United States. His research and teaching explore the multifaceted dialogue between architecture and culture. His previous book, The Architecture of the Illusive Distance, was published by Ashgate/ Routledge.

Routledge Research in Architectural History Series Editor: Nicholas Temple

Books in this series look in detail at aspects of architectural history from an academic viewpoint. Written by international experts, the volumes cover a range of topics from the origins of building types, the relationship of architectural designs to their sites, explorations of the works of specific architects, to the development of tools and design processes, and beyond. Written for the researcher and scholar, we are looking for innovative research to join our publications in architectural history. Architecture and the Language Debate Artistic and Linguistic Exchanges in Early Modern Italy Nicholas Temple Urban Architectures in Interwar Yugoslavia Tanja D. Conley The Architecture and Landscape of Health A Historical Perspective on Therapeutic Places 1790–1940 Julie Collins Architecture and Urbanism in Viceregal Mexico Puebla de los Ángeles, 16th–18th Centuries Juan Luis Burke Architecture, Aesthetics, and the Predicaments of Theory Amir H. Ameri Mexico City’s Zócalo A History of a Constructed Spatial Identity Benjamin Bross For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/ architecture/series/RRAHIST

Architecture, Aesthetics, and the Predicaments of Theory

Amir H. Ameri

First published 2022 by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 and by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2022 Amir H. Ameri The right of Amir H. Ameri to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Ameri, Amir H., author. Title: Architecture, aesthetics, and the predicaments of theory / Amir H. Ameri. Description: New York : Routledge, 2022. | Series: Routledge research in architectural history | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2021032121 (print) | LCCN 2021032122 (ebook) | ISBN 9781032008004 (hardback) | ISBN 9781032008011 (paperback) | ISBN 9781003175780 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Architecture—Philosophy—History. | Aesthetics. | Alberti, Leon Battista, 1404–1472. De re aedificatoria. | Laugier, Marc-Antoine, 1711–1769. Essai sur l’architecture. | Ruskin, John, 1819–1900. Seven lamps of architecture. Classification: LCC NA2500 .A496 2022 (print) | LCC NA2500 (ebook) | DDC 720.1—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021032121 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021032122 ISBN: 978-1-032-00800-4 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-032-00801-1 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-003-17578-0 (ebk) DOI: 10.4324/9781003175780 Typeset in Bembo by Apex CoVantage, LLC

With love and gratitude this work is dedicated to the memory of Ezat and Jalal Ardeshir-Rokni.

Contents

1

In Retrospect

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Leone Battista Alberti or The Ten Books on Architecture: From the Beautiful to the Ornamental

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On Design and Matter 20 In the Cause of Perfection: On Drawings and Models 23 The Ethics of Convenience: On Tyrants and Kings 30 Opinions and Judgments: On the Beautiful and the Ugly—With Pleasure and Disgust 37 On the Ornamental and the Theoretical 60 3

Marc-Antoine Laugier or An Essay on Architecture: From the True to the Supplemental

66

Transformations 66 On Cause and Effect 68 The Lesson and the Gift 75 On the True and the Beautiful 78 On Origination and Substitution 87 On the Essential and the Inconsequential 107 The Aftermath 113 4

John Ruskin or The Seven Lamps of Architecture: From Incorporation to Dissolution On Laws and Lights 125 On the Gift With/Out Return 127 On Truth and Deception 136 On Life and Death, by Analogy 155 On Power and Awe 168

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On Pleasure and Disgust 174 On the Borderline 184 The Assimilation 190 5

The In/Terminable Return

215

The Theory’s Predicament 215 Index

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In Retrospect

In the least since the 18th century, the history of Western architecture has been conceived and written as a history comprised of distinct epochs, each marked at its wake by a break with the immediate past. This has been primarily in deference to the distinctive architecture of each epoch and the theoretical proclamations of the proponents of the architecture of that epoch. The beginning and the end of each epoch have been and are likely to remain a matter of debate among the historians of Western architecture. The placing of these parameters, on the other hand, has hardly been a matter of question. In the various efforts to identify and isolate each period’s unique architectural characteristics, the potential continuities in this history and what may have persisted despite the overt formal and theoretical differences between the various periods have received little attention. This may seem a small but inevitable oversight in the cause of understanding the particular characteristics and the unique identity of each period—conceived as such within distinctly defined or definable parameters in space and time. Although attention to what is overlooked in this view and what constitutes the subject of this study could hardly facilitate the task of identifying the parameters in question, it would perhaps be the more telling not only insofar as each period and its relationship to the preceding periods is concerned, but perhaps also insofar as our own relationship to the past is concerned. The prevalent use of the prefix “Western” in itself suggests certain continuities or commonalities that presumably transcend the epochal differences. Yet, what exactly is designated by the prefix is rarely addressed, much less methodically specified.1 What is evident is that the referent is not merely geographical. It is difficult to pinpoint geographic boundaries beyond which one may not find examples of the architecture that is presumed unique to the West. Colonial as most of these latter architectural examples may be in origin—standing in sharp, if not often glaring contrast to the indigenous architecture—what each displaced “Western” example inevitably points to is that the prefix’s referent points to certain cultural continuities in space and time—to certain as yet unspecified shared views, objectives, and/or strategies—that persist through space and time irrespective of the significant divergence of the periods that constitute the history of Western architecture. DOI: 10.4324/9781003175780-1

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In Retrospect

Despite the many stylistic revivals beginning with the Renaissance and including the Neo-Classical, Greek, and Gothic Revival movements, among others, it is important to note that any constants in time are evidentially not formal or stylistic. Even the Greco-Roman vocabulary’s resurgence time and again points to no formal continuity. For instance, as we shall see, what the Renaissance architects saw in the vocabulary could not be any different from what the architects of the Age of Enlightenment saw. This is to say that the constants in question are likely conceptual and, to a degree, methodological rather than formal or stylistic. As such, they are likely and more readily encountered in Western architecture’s discursive tradition and the canonical treatises that set out to elucidate the conceptual underpinnings of the architecture of each epoch. The general disciplinary approach to the study of these historic texts has been to treat each as a unique and context-specific document that opens a window onto the distinct conceptual/theoretical underpinnings of the architecture of its epoch. Accompanied in various degrees with autobiographical information about the authors, the scholarly stress in the individual study of these texts has been on identifying and specifying the unique point of view of each text/ author as a reflection of a specific historical context.2 Else, these texts have been variously collected into anthologies that offer chronologically organized selective excerpts that are often preceded by brief commentaries that together are intended to offer a glimpse into the specific argument of each text/author in contradistinction to the others.3 Although the intent here is not to diminish or in any way refute these informative approaches to the study of Western theoretical texts, what they generally forgo is the recognition of a broader temporal context to these texts. It is the recognition that each text/author partakes of a tradition of discursive speculation on architecture that precedes and endures it. This is a discursive tradition that, as such, may well have defined objectives, specific critical strategies, and explicit modes of self-validation. This would be a tradition that defines what theoretical speculation entails, which topics/subjects/issues are, and which are not legitimate and worthy of theoretical pursuit, what are the rules of discursive engagement with architecture, and what methodologically constitutes the truth in and of architecture. These are, in turn, the specific focus of this study, i.e., the distinct modes of delimitation and the unique strategies of validation in the Western theoretical discourse on architecture.4 Before going further, we may legitimately ask why architects in the West have found it necessary to write about architecture and that too in relative profusion? There are a significant number of architectural traditions that don’t rely on or resort to writing on architecture, at least not in any volume, if at all. Examples include the Islamic architectural traditions, the architectural traditions of the Americas and Africa, among others. Also, concerned as the profession of architecture has been with making habitable artifacts, the place and role of writing on architecture may seem, if not superfluous, in the least tangential. Nevertheless, the Western tradition has historically delegated the crucial task of

In Retrospect

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defining the discipline’s parameters to writing, setting forth a concise definition of its subject matter, and prescribing what the architecture practitioner must do. Consequently, since the resurgence of theoretical discourse on architecture at the outset of the Renaissance, numerous architectural theoreticians, some of whom over time were not practitioners, have made concerted efforts to isolate and mark, once and for all, the boundaries and the margins of the discipline and thereby separate its internal and inherent concerns from the marginal and the extraneous issues that are often said to encumber its progress. With the significant role the discipline has traditionally assigned to theoretical writing has come not only a persistent divide but also an admittedly tenuous relationship between thinking and making or theory and practice. Seeking a judicious balance between the two has been as persistent an objective in the history of theoretical discourse on architecture as has its deployment as a potent critical tool and regulatory strategy. The proposition that architecture must perpetually seek a “balance” between thinking and making or else the theoretical and the practical goes as far back as Vitruvius’ proclamation in first century bce that “architects who have aimed at acquiring manual skill without scholarship have never been able to reach a position of authority to correspond to their pains, while those who relied only upon theories and scholarship were obviously hunting the shadow, not the substance. But those who have a thorough knowledge of both, like men armed at all points, have the sooner attained their object and carried authority with them” (Vitruvius 5). Being armed at all points has since proved not a simple metaphor but an essential and critical tool for regulating architecture. Cases in point are the various canonical treatises on Western architecture since the Renaissance, formulated as each has been in response to a cultural paradigm shift. Each treatise sets out to rearm architecture anew by supplanting the prevailing architecture, criticized for lacking sufficient armor. At the outset of the Renaissance, it was the demand for theoretical content in architecture, as a counterbalance to mere practical considerations, that proved paramount to the legitimization and transformation of architecture from a medieval trade to a professional discipline. Leone Battista Alberti laid the foundation in 1452 when he claimed: “I should explain exactly whom I mean by an architect; for it is no carpenter that I would have you compare to the greatest exponents of other disciplines: the carpenter is but an instrument in the hands of the architect. Him I consider the architect, who by sure and wonderful reason and method, know both how to devise through his own mind and energy, and to realize by construction, whatever can be most beautifully fitted out for the noble needs of man, by the movement of weights and the joining and massing of bodies. To do this he must have an understanding and knowledge of all the highest and most noble disciplines. This then is the architect” (Alberti, Art Of Building 3). For Marc-Antoine Laugier, writing at the outset of the age of enlightenment, it was, as it had been for Alberti at the outset of Renaissance, once again insufficient theoretical armor that called for a new architecture. Proclaiming “there is no work as yet that firmly establishes the principles of architecture,

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explains its true spirit and proposes rules for guiding talent and defining taste” (Laugier 1), he placed the blame back on Vitruvius because “always avoiding the depths of theory, he takes us along the road of practice and more than once we go astray. All modern authors . . . give no more than commentaries on Vitruvius, following him uncritically in all his errors” (Laugier 2). In turn, John Ruskin in 1849 would try to regain the balance that he saw lacking in the work of his immediate predecessors and contemporaries, noting “uniting the technical and imaginative elements as essentially as humanity does soul and body, it [architecture] shows the same infirmly balanced liability to the prevalence of the lower part over the higher, to the interference of the constructive, with the purity and simplicity of the reflective, element. This tendency, like every other form of materialism, is increasing with the advance of the age” (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 10). The proponents of Modernity, and in turn Post-Modernity, would attribute no less imbalance to the works of their immediate predecessors and contemporaries in justification for their own theoretical undertakings. Of course, the oft-repeated and much-desired balance has been as diverse and seemingly ever-shifting in definition as it has been persistent through time. The purported imbalance—invariably voiced from a middle point—may be made to point to either side of the theoretical/practical dichotomy to the same effect. A case in point are the purported theoretical excesses of the 1980s and 1990s, which are to be remedied and ‘balanced’ by a new pragmatism in the early 21st century.5 Lamenting the theoretical excesses of the 1980s and 1990s, we are told: “more perhaps than anything else, the certainty of theory vanguardism has retarded the development of a culture of innovation in schools of architecture, which requires a more fluid, interactive relationship between thinking and doing, as well as an expanded definition of what counts for architectural knowledge” (Speaks, “After Theory” 74). We are offered a similar assessment noting, “after their great flowering in the 1990s, history and theory are now content to rest on passé, post-structuralist laurels” which account for “the inutility of history and theory, not their instrumental value” at present (Lavin 83). As a counterbalance, a new “pragmatic/entrepreneurial disposition,” we are told, “has made a strong break with the avant-garde. Not simply another intellectual fad or crutch for architecture, however, this break requires that we reexamine in architecture the problematic relationship between thinking and doing” (Speaks, “Theory Was” 212). Prudently armed and balanced “interactively” in thinking and doing, a new class of “intellectual entrepreneurs and managers of change,” we are promised, will “confront the fiercely competitive world thrown up by the forces of globalization” in search of the very balance that, from a 21st-century perspective, proved all too elusive in the 1980s and 1990s, due no less to the purported theoretical excesses of the age (Speaks, “Theory Was” 212). In sympathetic response, another author agrees “that design theory is finally and fortunately shedding the negativism and nihilism of Deconstruction and Marxism” (Kelbaugh 19). However, the author asks, “let’s continue to be theoretical,

In Retrospect

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but in a more pragmatic way that addresses environmental, social, and economic problems and opportunities, as well as aesthetic issues. . . . Let’s stop the pendulum before it swings from too little theory to too much theory. Maybe a little balance—that would be radical” (Kelbaugh 19). The irony is not so much that a little balance would be radical. Rather, it is the sheer number of times it is evoked as if for the first time and at that with recourse to a pendulum analogy that is not simply one among others. Voiced or not, the pendulum has been present and in operation from the moment theory and practice appeared as dichotomies, albeit in the theoretical discourse of architecture, and at that inevitably in search of an elusive “middle ground.” From the outset, theory’s perception of its task has been not to advance the cause of theory per se but to reach a balance between theory and practice through the practice of theory! Theory has been, in other words, a perpetual check on itself. It has been perpetually mindful and fearful of too little or too much of itself ! Reasonable and prudent as the search for balance or the middle ground is and commonplace as the distinction between theory and practice, thinking and making and all related dichotomies are in Western architecture—to the point of being synonymous with it—they are rarely if ever resurrected or resorted to for reasons other than the deprecation and exclusion of an entrenched architecture, which is invariably purported to speak with the voice of excess—be that theoretically or practically. The irony is, of course, that every entrenched architecture in this history itself had been put forth and justified in the name and the cause of a balanced armor or middle ground in response to the purported theoretical or practical excesses of the architecture preceding it. The imbalance has not been, in other words, so much an actuality as a critical and exclusionary strategy deployed to a portended end. Considering the plurality of the theoretical pronouncements made across time, as well as the considerable contextual differences between them, it is remarkable that this portended end has been a virtual constant. It was Vitruvius, the Roman architect and theoretician, who laid the foundation in the first century bce when he proclaimed that all buildings “must be built with due reference to durability, convenience, and beauty” (Vitruvius 17). Virtually every influential Western author on architecture since has upheld these principles, with various degrees of emphasis on each, as the fundamental objectives/principles of the art of building. Leon Battista Alberti reiterated them in 1452 when he mandated “that what we construct should be appropriate to its use, lasting in structure, and graceful and pleasing in appearance” (Alberti, Art Of Building 155).6 Henry Wotton re-phrased them in 1624 in terms that are more readily familiar to the succeeding generations of architects, including our own, as “Commodity, Firmness, and Delight” (Wotton 1).7 Although architectural theoreticians are generally critical, if not outright contemptuous of their predecessors’ works—as we glimpsed earlier—nevertheless, from Vitruvius to Le Corbusier and beyond, there appears to be not only a broad consensus on these three principles but also on the greater importance of the third principle mandating all buildings to be beautiful. Historically, of

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In Retrospect

the three principles, beauty is deemed the most important because time and again, it is said to constitute the limits that separate the art of building—the proper subject of theoretical speculation in this discourse—from the mere building—considered a menial activity unworthy of theoretical pursuit. For instance, Alberti, emphasizing the fact that the principle of delight is “the noblest and most necessary of all,” reasoned that “to have satisfied necessity is trite and insignificant, to have catered to convenience unrewarding when the inelegance in a work causes offense.” Therefore, to evade the “offense” that invariably stands to reason the necessity of beauty in this discourse—he concludes: “All care, all diligence, all financial consideration must be directed to ensuring that what is built is useful, commodious, yes-but also embellished and wholly graceful” (Alberti, Art Of Building 156).8 Ruskin went so far as to suggest that “Architecture concerns itself only with those characters of an edifice which are above and beyond its common use” (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 29). Le Corbusier expressed a similar, though a less radical sentiment when he wrote: “When a thing responds to a need, it is not beautiful. . . . Architecture has another meaning and other ends to pursue than showing construction and responding to needs” (Le Corbusier, Towards a New Architecture 102–03). The “aim of architecture,” as Le Corbusier put it, or rather the aim that is architecture insofar as this aim, this other “meaning” or “end” distinguishes architecture from the mere building, is an aesthetic ideal over whose definition there appears to be a wide-spread consensus. The desired “end” is, in principle, a state of formal and compositional saturation to which addition is superfluous and subtraction detrimental. John Ruskin summed up an oft-repeated sentiment in the history of theoretical discourse on Western architecture when he concluded that the “end” in every work of architecture is “a perfect creature capable of nothing less than it has, and needing nothing more” (Ruskin, Stones 452). The edification of “beauty” as the ultimate “aim” of architecture, much as the recourse to aesthetics as a critical tool for the delimitation of practice to a specific mode of design are, it is important to note, peculiar to Western architectural discourse. They are not to be found—not by the same definition, at any rate—in other discursive traditions. Two prominent examples are the Indian and the Chinese traditions.9 The criteria used for restricting and regulating architectural practice in these other examples differ markedly from those in the West. They appear to condone or proscribe specific modes of design not based on aesthetic merit, that is, beautiful or ugly, perfect or imperfect, but, at the risk of simplification, based on humane consequences, that is, auspicious or inauspicious for the inhabitants, conducive to good fortune or bad, beneficial to health or not, and so on. What both the Eastern and the Western traditions intend to achieve in the end is a restricted and regulated practice. However, their approaches are particular to each and should not be confused with or viewed through the lens of the other. Although there is broad consensus among Western architectural theoreticians over the “aim” of architecture, there is, predictably, no consensus over its

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literal form. The path to perfection has had virtually as many twists and turns as there have been theoreticians of architecture. The origin of this path and the place of its meandering, on the other hand, has not been a source of dispute. It, too, has been a constant: to reach perfection, one must turn to and imitate “nature.” In succession, numerous architectural theoreticians, extending from Vitruvius to Frank Lloyd Wright and beyond, have turned to nature in search of an absolute whose mimesis is presumed to assure the fulfillment of their shared “aim.” Even though the prevalent attitude in this discourse is one of utter contempt for imitation, the unwavering proposition of the discourse is the imitation of nature as the origin of all that is beautiful and perfect. This concurrent approbation and denunciation of imitation does not imperatively point to an obvious contradiction but instead a pervasive distinction between two types of imitation: the good and the bad imitation or the formative and the formal reiteration. The term “nature” has had both a passive and an active sense in this discourse. It refers both to a body of objects—be they all beautiful or not—and to an active process of formation—the formation of beautiful bodies. It is in this latter sense that various authors have proposed the imitation of nature as the ultimate “aim” of architecture. The imitation at issue, in other words, is not the imitation of natural forms—this is generally considered to be a nefarious activity for architects—but the imitation of nature as “the greatest artist at all manner of composition” (Alberti, Ten Books 195). This is the greatest artist whose work is said to be regulated by a set of self-imposed rules and principles that collectively warrant the perfection of every composition. These are a set of constant, though secret laws that every author, in turn, seeks to unravel and reveal. It is perhaps needless to point out that along with beauty, the laws of nature have had nearly as varied an interpretation in the theoretical discourse of architecture as there have been texts enumerating them. What the Renaissance theoreticians proclaimed as the laws of nature differs markedly from their counterparts’ proclamations during the 18th, 19th, or 20th centuries. The ideal and the invariably natural composition to which nothing could be added or taken away without loss could not be any different, at times from one generation to the next. However, it is precisely these overwhelming differences in both the definition of the purported laws of nature and how the ideal composition is circumscribed that make the constancy of the proposal to imitate nature ever more curious. Equally curious about this turn to nature is that architecture has been and remains an artificial cultural construct in every one of its ascribed natural incarnations through time. One implication of this constant proposal is that the ideal, the “aim,” or the “end” in architecture is, by force of definition, always prefigured by nature. As innocuous as this may seem, it has far-reaching consequences for the perception of the role of theory in architecture. Since the subject of the written discourse—the absolute that constitutes and separates architecture from the

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mere building—is always presumed to precede the discourse as a natural phenomenon, the task of theorizing about architecture is, as Laugier were to succinctly put it, no more and no less than “to tear away the veil which covers it” (Laugier 2). From Laugier’s torch to Ruskin’s lamps, light has been the prevalent metaphor for comprehending the task of writing on architecture.10 The theoretical discourse is purported to do nothing other than shed an insightful light on the eternal nature of a subject whose parameters each generation presumes hidden from the last due to blindness, ignorance, or sheer indolence. Although the perception of theory as an act of revelation or unmasking of the concealed parameters of architecture may initially appear to give theory a significant role in the discipline, in effect, it self-marginalizes theory by reducing the conception of its role to a supplemental source of light shed from without on an otherwise autonomous subject. The prevalent perception of the relationship between architecture and theoretical writing is that of a sovereign subject, secure inside its inherent, natural parameters, to a subservient text that is said to contemplate, reveal, or unmask the subject from the outside. Why, we may ask, this invariable emphasis on beauty? Why this ever variable ideal to which, invariably, addition or subtraction spells demise? Why search for this peculiar ideal with such constancy in nature? Why these particular and other related threads binding so many different theoretical speculations across time into a tradition? What may not constitute an answer, but only point to another constant, is the emphasis on beauty in this tradition as a cure to a disease or a disorder, i.e., a cure for imperfection conceived as a disease or a disorder of architecture. The motivation behind theoretical speculation in this tradition has had as much to do with a taste for the beautiful as it has with a distaste for the ugly. The two terms have been, in a manner, indissociable. This constant, in turn, points to yet another. Virtually every heralded theoretical treatise in this tradition begins with a statement of crisis that not only justifies but necessitates the theoretical speculations. Appear as these speculations often do in the wake of a cultural paradigm shift, they purport architecture to be in a state of disarray from which the theoretical text seeks to redeem it. As we may reasonably expect, the purported crisis is the crisis of imperfection, of something missing in architecture that needs to be returned or something extra that needs to be removed to cure and restore architecture to the ever desired healthy and vibrant state of perfection. Central to these statements of crisis in architecture has been the question of expression or signification in architecture. Both how and what the architecture of the preceding generation expresses or signifies, as well as how and what it must at a given present, have been matters of vigorous theoretical contention across generations. Exemplar of this theoretical debate is Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown’s critique of “Modern architecture” formulated in Learning from Las Vegas. The critique presented in this text bears closer scrutiny given that, as we shall see, it shares its critical strategy with those of the preceding and succeeding generations, even though the prognoses are, in each case, quite different.

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To illustrate “the discrepancies between substance and image in Modern architecture’s technological machismo and the costliness of its frequently empty gestures” (Venturi et al. 150) as well as the “confusions and ironies” that have resulted from “this unpleasantly complex and contradictory situation” (Venturi et al. 148) the authors of Learning From Las Vegas present us with a comparative analysis of two buildings: one the Crawford Manor by Paul Rudolf, as an example of the ill-fated Modernist approach, the other Venturi and Roch’s Guild House, as an example of an alternative contemporary approach. Both are housing projects for the elderly built in the mid-1960s, the latter in Philadelphia, the former in New Haven. The authors delimit their comparative analysis to three issues: construction techniques, construction material, and the articulation of the facade. Both buildings’ construction techniques and materials are “ordinary and conventional” (Venturi et al. 90), but the two buildings express these facts very differently.1 The structure and the construction materials of the Guild House are “ordinary and conventional and look it” (Venturi et al. 90). In Crawford Manor, they appear “more advanced technologically and more progressive spatially,” i.e., they are “ordinary and conventional but do not look it” (Venturi et al. 90–91). The analysis extends in the same vein to the exterior facade of both buildings. For instance, the Guild House windows, we are told, “Look like, as well as are windows” (Venturi et al. 91). In Crawford Manor, the windows appear as “modulated” voids set between and in contrast to the solid structural elements, marking the transition of interior and exterior spaces. They are, in other words, windows, “But do not look it” (Venturi et al. 91). On the Guild House’s exterior facade, the authors tell us, no attempt is made to convey the interior spatial arrangement of the building. Contrary to the six equal stories of the interior, the facade is divided into three unequal stories.2 On the whole, the compartition is said to suggest the proportions of a Renaissance Palazzo, while the projecting frontal piece suggests a “giant Order” (Venturi et al. 92). The facade of the Guild House with its historical allusions to Renaissance palazzos and classical Orders—contrary to the internal arrangement of the building—may appear, therefore, to be doing precisely what the Crawford Manor is elsewhere criticized and disdained for doing, i.e., to “look” and not be or conversely, to be and not “look” it. However, the historical allusions of the facade of the Guild House are owed to “appliqué” ornamental features, e.g., string courses, ornamental grills, etc., that are, the authors contend, quite “explicit” as external adornment. They are ornamental, extraneous, and “look it.” Although the Guild House is neither a Renaissance Palazzo nor a giant Order, its historical allusions do not purport to be anything but allusions in substance as well as image. It is in this “explicit” confession to representational allusion, in this venerated correspondence of “image” to “substance,” that all the critical difference is said to lie. On the exterior facade of the Crawford Manor, in contrast, there are no overt ornamental features. The expression is limited “to strident articulations

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of the pure architectural elements of space, structure, and program.” These are said to convey “implicit” and at that “abstract meanings” that though purportedly in reference to the functional “substance” of the building, actually contradict it. For instance, the vertical shafts “connote structural piers (they are not structural) . . . harboring servant spaces and mechanical systems (actually kitchens), terminating in the silhouettes of exhaust systems (suitable to industrial laboratories)” and not housing for the elderly, etc. (Venturi et al. 93). The same criticism is said to hold for virtually all of Modern architecture whose formal expressions are “technological and functional” in nature, though when the “functional elements work symbolically, they usually do not work functionally” (Venturi et al. 137). Additional examples of this type of “contradiction—or at least the lack of correspondence—between image and substance” in which Modern architecture is said to abound, are such follies as “the use of flowing space for private functions, industrial clerestories for suburban high schools, exposed ducts that collect dust and conduct sound,” etc. (Venturi et al. 137). At the root of the crisis of signification in Modern architecture, and at the root of all the “confusions and ironies” that have resulted from its “unpleasantly complex and contradictory” expressions, lies a gap between “image” and “substance.” It is, in turn, the closure of this gap that the authors appear to seek in search of a solution to the crisis at hand. However, the authors tell us that their criticism of the Crawford Manor and “the architecture it represents” is not concerned with “honesty in architecture or a lack of correspondence between substance and image, per se” (Venturi et al. 101). They criticize Modern architects not only for “denying in theory what they were doing in practice,” not only because “they said one thing and did another,” but above all because: By limiting itself to strident articulation of the pure architectural elements of space, structure, and program, Modern architecture’s expression has become a dry expressionism, empty and boring—and in the end irresponsible. Ironically the Modern architecture of today, while rejecting explicit symbolism and frivolous appliqué ornament, has distorted the whole building into one big ornament. In substituting “articulation” for decoration, it has become a duck. (Venturi et al. 103) The “duck” is in reference to buildings with a singular, self-referential message as opposed to the “decorated shed,” e.g., the Guild House, with its multiple layers of representational messages and historical allusions. The former denotes nothing beyond what it is; the latter’s expression is always in excess of what it is. It is not, however, because Modern buildings are “ducks” that the authors criticize them but because “the content of the unacknowledged symbolism of current Modern architecture is silly. We have been designing dead ducks” (Venturi et al. 162). What the authors criticize is, in other words, Modernism’s delimitation of expression to self-referential signs whose statements are

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inevitably “dry, empty, and boring” when they are “functional,” i.e., “limited to strident articulation of the pure architectural elements of space, structure, and program,” or else “silly, meaningless, and irrelevant” when they are “technological,” i.e., limited to the celebration of “the ‘modern’ technology of the Industrial Revolution”—“nineteenth-century style”—and not the “current electronic technology” (Venturi et al. 115/151). What the authors criticize is the misconception of Modern architects “that Firmness and Commodity equal Delight,” whereas in the end, it results in nothing but the production of “dead forms, irrelevant, or irresponsible” expressions and “empty” or “meaningless” signs (Venturi et al. 134). Although the broader critical issues are, on the one hand, an “unacknowledged” recourse to representation in Modern architecture—giant ducks— and on the other and most crucial, the “content” of this representation—giant dead ducks—the critical criterion is the same as that applied to Crawford Manor. The self-absorbed and, as such empty and dead expressions of Modern architecture are “meaningless and irrelevant” because “this is not the time and ours is not the environment for heroic communication through pure architecture” (Venturi et al. 134). The irresponsible images of Modernism contradict or at least do not correspond to the substance of life as it was lived in the 1970s. Needless to say, it is living forms, relevant expressions, and meaningful signs that the authors seek in their quest to bridge the gap between image and substance or else form and content in the “electronic” age.11 Though certainly not the same prognosis, we find, nevertheless, the same critical criterion, the same critical reasoning, and to an extent even the same critical vocabulary in Le Corbusier’s text: “Towards a New Architecture”: A great epoch has begun. There exists a new spirit. There exists a mass of work conceived in the new spirit; it is to be met with particularly in industrial production. Architecture is stifled by custom. The “styles” are a lie. Style is a unity of principles animating all the work of an epoch, the result of a state of mind which has its own special character. Our own epoch is determining, day by day, its own style. Our eyes, unhappily, are unable yet to discern it. (Le Corbusier, Towards a New Architecture 9) Le Corbusier contends later in the text that the architectural forms of the age of “styles” remain “the intolerable witnesses to a dead spirit,” the “old clothes of a past age” (Le Corbusier, Towards a New Architecture 85–88). He could as well have said the irrelevant or irresponsible expressions of a past age and the meaningless or empty forms of a dead spirit. Nevertheless, even though the agendas difer, the critical reasoning, if not the vocabulary, is identical. Here

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as well, it is the critical absence of content in architecture that is at issue. Here as well, at the root of the crisis of expression in architecture is a discrepancy between substance and image: the substance of life in a great new epoch and the “intolerable” architectural images of a “dead spirit.” The desire to eradicate this discrepancy is what Le Corbusier, in turn, dramatizes as “architecture or revolution,” i.e., either new architectural clothes for the “spirit” of the great epoch or else societal revolt against the discrepancy. Despite the similarity of their critical reasoning, Le Corbusier and Venturi/ Scott Brown clearly differ in their proposed solutions. Whereas Le Corbusier seeks the remedy to the malaise of old and dead architectural signs in the addition of Firmness to Commodity in search of Delight, the other authors seek to redeem the lost content of architecture, at the risk of simplification, by learning from Las Vegas. From the first decades of the 20th century, we may fast forward to the first decades of the 21st century to find, once again, the relationship of a present to an immediate past dichotomized along familiar fault lines, using a well-worn critical strategy. The critical fault-lines separating the “duck” from the “decorated shed,” i.e., the self-referential from the representational, get recast to now separate a “cool” from a “hot” performance in architecture and correspondingly a new self-referential, “post-critical” architecture from an entrenched “representational,” “critical” architecture (Somol and Whiting 25). The labels are, to a degree, perfunctory here. What is again at issue at the generational fault lines is the question of representation. “As the impacts of theory on practice fade, as new buildings abandon the scenography of metaphor and meaning, and as architecture as performance flourishes” (Johnson 2), a purported “critical architecture” loses all currency because we are told, this architecture is “inevitably and centrally preoccupied with its status as representation, and its simultaneous commentary on that condition” (Somol and Whiting 26). Along with a “paradigmatic shift away from representation” (Johnson 2) and “guided less by what architecture means or intends than by how it works, and what it does” (Doucet 2), “critical architecture” ceases to be of relevance because “it is still tied to a semiotic, representational, and sequential ambition” (Somol and Whiting 26) and because “It is clearly labored, narrative, or representational or expresses a relationship of the representation to the real” (Somol and Whiting 32). The new architecture, in turn, “is not about signs, messages, codes, programs, or collages of ideas projected onto an object but about technologies that allow matter to be performative” (van Toorn 66). It is one that “allows for an increased programmatic complexity to coincide with a relative reduction of visual complication by means of integrating multiple elements into a coherent and continuous formal and spatial system” (Schumacher 35). Seen from the perspective of the Venturi and Scott Brown critique of decades earlier, the Post-Critical argument, in essence, is to resurrect the “duck,” or else the “strident articulation of the pure architectural elements of space, structure, and program” to cure the ills of a purportedly representational architecture.

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In the enduring decades, the designates may have changed, but the oscillating debate over the status of representation and the alternating remedy of conditional inclusion or exclusion of representation endures. So does the seemingly indelible question of beauty in whose cause the debate rages on. Once again, we are told, “architecture is allowed to be beautiful without any tortured worrying over accompanying dangers of superficiality or slickness” (van Toorn 60), since “the avoidance of the loaded concept of beauty and its attendant disputes does not exclude the recognition that there are certain (perhaps inevitable) continuities with certain prior reflections around the concept of beauty” (Schumacher 36). In this process, one may substitute the word “elegance” for beauty with the caveat that “the notion of elegance promoted here still gives a certain relevance to Leon Battista Alberti’s criterion of beauty: you can neither add nor subtract without destroying the harmony achieved” (Schumacher 33). In this, as in the previous cases, the validity of the critique offered is not at issue here, much less is the pronounced end of criticality, theory, history, and so on. This is, in part, because theoretical pronouncements in architecture are, in a sense, as wishfully “performative,” as they are wishfully gauged as “constative” statements. My reference here is to the distinction Austin introduced long ago. Whereas a constative statement is meant, Austin tells us, “to ‘describe’ some state of affairs, or to ‘state some fact,’ which it must do either truly or falsely,” a performative statement is one “in which to say something is to do something; or in which by saying or in saying something we are doing something” (Austin 1–2). For instance, “as official acts, a judge’s ruling makes law; a jury’s finding makes a convicted felon,” and so on (Austin 154). In each of these and other performative utterances, the described condition does not precede nor does it exist independent of the utterance. On the contrary, the utterance creates the very condition it depicts. In this sense, appearances to the contrary notwithstanding, theoretical pronouncements in architecture do not merely describe some state of affairs or state some facts. If they did, the pronouncements would be simply redundant and unnecessary. On the other hand, if they are insistent and forceful, it is because each is, in effect, an inaugural statement. Each produces its pronounced crisis and its nemeses, only to report its demise and the rise of a new (always yet to come)—be this the end of the critical and the rise of the projective, the end of the self-referential and the rise of the referential, or the end of styles and the rise of the style, and so on. Of course, neither of the seemingly opposed solutions to the crisis of architectural signification referenced here are without precedent in the history of critical discourse on architecture. Le Corbusier’s solution is similar, if not fundamentally identical, to that proposed by the reform-minded theoreticians of the Enlightenment, e.g., Laugier, Boulleé, and for that matter, despite formal differences, the Gothic Revivalist, Pugin. These otherwise distinct points of view converge in their definition of the living or the true architectural expression as opposed to the dead, the empty, or the false expression. What this group of theoreticians considers a solution to the crisis of signification in architecture is an expression whose form is determined by its signified content, i.e., a

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self-referential expression or an in-formed expression. The solution this group offers is an expression that represents nothing but itself, nothing but what is present, i.e., a “duck” in Venturi and Scott Brown’s terms. Venturi and Scott Brown’s critique of the Modernist stance as “irresponsible” and “irrelevant,” on the other hand, leads to much the same solution offered by the theoreticians of the Romantic age, e.g., Ruskin, or the Renaissance, e.g., Alberti. The point of convergence for these otherwise diverse points of view is architecture defined as a mode of representation. This group of theoreticians views the architectural form not only as a means to the procurement of firmness and commodity but also, linked inextricably to the question of aesthetic delight and beauty, as a means to the representation of the very ideas or meanings deemed absent in the architectural expressions of the former group. These ideas or meanings, these intelligible mathematical verities that are “the spouse of the soul and of reason” as Alberti viewed them (Alberti, Art Of Building 303), these “divine and not human attributes” as Ruskin saw them (Ruskin, Modern Painters II 132), these edicts of history and culture as, among others, Venturi and Scott Brown presented them, are not viewed as inherent to the architectural form but only re-presented by them. Of course, the oscillating debate over the question of expression in architecture—true or false, dead or alive, self-referential or representational, etc.—is waged and passionately fought over in direct deference to the invariable and protracted search for the beautiful to which, from before the 1st century to the 21st century, nothing can be added or subtracted without loss, and that in direct imitation of the nature artist. In a manner, the conceptual labels and their abstract and interchangeable definitions—true, living, beautiful, natural—remain constant, whereas to what they are critically and strategically affixed could not be any different at times from one generation to the next. These conceptual labels, in other words, do not designate stable, much less invariable entities. Rather they constitute powerful, authoritative, strategic, and critical instruments for inaugurating and justifying stratification, division, delimitation, exclusion, and in short, the regulation of architecture at any point in time. They are critical instruments that broadly allow culture to assume the guise of nature, the particular that of the universal, the variable that of the invariable, the mutable that of the immutable. To what this critical instrument’s seemingly inexhaustible power and authority are owed across time remains the essential question. Is it, then, we may ask, a mere coincidence that the concept of beauty or perfection has dominated and shaped the history of theoretical discourse on Western architecture; that the theoreticians of this discursive tradition in the name of ugly forms, dead entities, meaningless signs, and false expressions have repeatedly critiqued and condemned the works of their immediate predecessors as they did the works of their predecessors, each in the name of perfect forms, living entities, meaningful signs, and true expressions? Does the idea of an architecture governed by the laws that govern nature posited as the objective by the theoreticians in search of absolute beauty and perfection in architecture

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constitute a choice that could have been or could be avoided in dealing with Western architecture theoretically or critically? Is, and perhaps most important, the ever-present search for beauty or perfection in architecture itself a choice that could have been or could be avoided? Is the incessant turn to nature by, the irony notwithstanding, the makers of cultural artifacts a choice that could have been or could be avoided? In brief, what culturally subsists and persists in the West to explain the strategic continuities and the shared objectives in the history of theoretical discourse on Western architecture? Seeking provisional answers to these and related questions, what is to follow is a close and critical reading of three seminal texts from three different epochs in the history of theoretical discourse on Western architecture—the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, and 19th-century Romanticism. The first text is Leone Battista Alberti’s The Ten Books on Architecture of 1452, the next Marc-Antoine Laugier’s An Essay on Architecture of 1753, and the last, John Ruskin’s The Seven Lamps of Architecture of 1849. The choice of these three texts is provisional insofar as several other texts could have been substituted for either one of these three texts. I will reference a number of these texts along the way for comparative purposes. Otherwise, the choice is based on the extent of the text’s influence and contribution to the subsequent developments in architecture and the comprehensive discussion of the various concepts introduced by the author. The intent of this study is not to locate these texts within their specific historical contexts or the author’s autobiography. There are a sizable number of studies on each text/author that effectively accomplish this important task. Instead, through a close analysis of the argument, the intent is to disentangle the text’s inherited discursive logic, critical methodology, and self-validation strategies. It is to follow the logic of the argument to the seeds of discontent within each that ultimately lead to the articulation of the next in an unending search for an elusive beauty. Far from being exhaustive in scope, this study is merely meant to raise questions and engender debate over both a subject and a methodology that have been impervious to question for far too long. To this end, the next chapter offers a close critical analysis of Alberti’s methodical argumentation, from his foundational distinction between design and matter with recourse to the soul and body analogy to the systematic and motivated distinctions between modeling and drawing, judgment and opinion, nature and culture, and ultimately the beautiful and the ugly. I point out the aporias and the unavoidable contradictions that Alberti’s argumentation confronts along the way. Alberti tries to resolve these with ultimate recourse to nature and theology, only to have to confront the aporia of ornamentation with no resolution short of his theory assuming the role of the very ornamentation he tries to marginalize and control, in theory. Chapter three follows the persistence of Alberti’s arguments through Palladio’s Four Books to the onset of the Age of Enlightenment and the debate between the Ancients (Blondel) and the Moderns (Perrault) in France. I outline the changing aesthetic ideals of the age of reason as Perrault articulates

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them, and in time, Laugier systematically expounds them. I follow Laugier’s relentless effort to overcome the divide between being and appearing in the cause of a new aesthetic ideal through the vehement exclusion of every form of representation other than the self-referential. Nevertheless, Laugier fairs no better than Alberti in avoiding the aporias and the contradictions Alberti faced in his similar appeal to nature and theology. Consequently, Laugier too comes to face the inevitable undoing of his aesthetic edifice by ornamentation, as had Alberti before him. In turn, Boullée’s, Durand’s, and Pugin’s theoretical reforms were to fare no better since the methodological and critical outlook of each were to remain the same as its predecessors. Chapter four critically traces Ruskin’s enumeration and defense of 19thcentury Romantic aesthetic ideals with recourse to new and familiar dichotomies. His forceful and strategic distinctions between the technical and the imaginative, truth and deception, living and dead imitation, the real and the apparent, the beautiful and the ugly, the authentic and the copy, often overlap with Frank Lloyd Wright’s, though the latter was offered in defense of Organic Modernism rather than Romanticism. I follow both arguments to their inevitable appeal to nature and theology in the cause of the same elusive autonomous, self-referential aesthetic ideal. Along the way, much as Ruskin tries to incorporate rather than marginalize ornamentation as his predecessors had, nevertheless, he finds himself once again at the margins, unable to internalize or externalize ornamentation, not because of ornamentation, but the aporia named by ornamentation. If architecture’s search for an elusive non-contingent beauty appears to indispensably and irresolutely self-perpetuate into an unremitting chain of theoretical texts united by their resistance to contingency, the reason is, the last chapter points out, that much as theory’s authority to speak conclusively of the truth of architecture is vested in its appeal to the metaphysics of presence in the guise of nature, conversely, theory’s methodical and concerted resistance to contingency indispensably upholds and protects that metaphysics by way of supplementation and/or ornamentation. What might accept “neither addition, nor subtraction without loss” must accept an addition that is neither internal nor external to it. This is the problem and the paradox that neither inclusion nor exclusion of the ornamental can overcome. This is, however, a problem and a paradox only insofar as one wishes to sustain the power and the authority to exclude and delimit in the name of the beautiful, that is, the power and the authority to control architecture. Hence, the preoccupation with the place and the placing of ornamentation, with its marginalization or domestication, if only to sustain the pervasive and persuasive illusion of an outside to contingency. This is an outside to contingency that is perpetually contingent on theoretical supplementation—be the theoretical supplement a text or, for that matter, any architectural construct that fabricates and imposes limits between the self-referential and the representational, the original and the copy, the authentic and the replica, the real and the imaginary, and so on. This is the predicament of theory—always striving and never able to overcome the contingency that is itself.

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Notes 1. Although the term Western architecture has been widely used, it is rarely explicated. For instance, see A Concise History of Western Architecture (Jordan); Guide to Western Architecture (Gloag); Meaning in Western Architecture (Norberg-Schulz); The Story of Western Architecture (Risebero); Western Architecture: A Survey from Ancient Greece to the Present (Sutton); A History of Western Architecture (Watkin). 2. For instance, see Leon Battista Alberti: Master Builder of the Italian Renaissance (Grafton and Alberti); On Leon Baptista Alberti: His Literary and Aesthetic Theories 989 (Jarzombek); On Alberti and the Art of Building (Tavernor); Laugier and Eighteenth Century French Theory (Herrmann); Ruskin On Architecture: His Thought and Influence (Garrigan); The Aesthetic and Critical Theories of John Ruskin (Landow); Ruskin’s Poetic Argument, The Design of the Major Works (Sawyer); Looking at Architecture with Ruskin (Unrau). 3. For instance, see Architecture Theory since 1968 (Hays); A History of Architectural Theory: From Vitruvius to The present (Kruft); Architectural Theory (Mallgrave); Modern Architectural Theory: A Historical Survey, 1673–1968 (Mallgrave); An Introduction to Architectural Theory: 1968 to the Present (Mallgrave and Goodman); Theorizing a New Agenda for Architecture: An Anthology of Architectural Theory 1965–1995 (Nesbitt); Constructing a New Agenda: Architectural Theory 1993–2009 (Sykes and Hays). 4. This is with the assumption that it is precisely the constants of the tradition and the possibility of shared assumptions across time that opens the possibility of contentious debate and discord from generation to generation. 5. My intent here is not to offer a close reading of the Post-Critical literature. It is only to point out certain critical and methodological continuities over time, extending to the present. 6. Leoni translation: “be accommodated to their respective purposes, stout and strong for duration and pleasant and delightful to the sight” (Alberti, Ten Books 112). 7. Also, see Learning from Las Vegas (Venturi et al.). 8. Leoni translation: “the having satisfied necessity is a very small matter, and the having provided for conveniency affords no manner of pleasure, where you are shocked by the deformity of the work . . . your whole care, diligence and expense . . . should all tend to this, that whatever you build may be not only useful and convenient, but also . . . delightful to the sight” (Alberti, Ten Books 112–13). 9. See Canons of Orissan Architecture (Bose), Mayamata: An Indian Treatise on Housing Architecture and Iconography (Dagens); The Living Earth Manual of Feng-Shui: Chinese Geomancy (Skinner). 10. This is the contemporary version of the same: “Theory has the responsibility to make explicit what is implicit, to surface what is latent. Theory should hold up a mirror to practice, making practitioners see more clearly what it is they actually do” (Gardner 28). 11. The validity of this critique and whether or not historical or contextual allusions in the form of “appliqué ornaments” constitute a relevant or responsible stance and whether lack of correspondence between image and substance constitutes a critical criterion is not at issue in this study. Rather, at issue is the use of the same critical criterion, the same critical reasoning, and to an extent even the same critical vocabulary nearly a halfcentury earlier by Le Corbusier in Towards a New Architecture (Le Corbusier, 1923).

Reference List Alberti, Leon Battista. On the Art of Building in Ten Books. MIT Press, 1988. ———. Ten Books on Architecture. Leoni Edition, Transatlantic Arts Inc, 1966. Austin, J. L. How to Do Things with Words. Edited by Ed J.O. Urmson and Marina Sbisà, Harvard University Press, 1975. Bose, Nirmal Kumar. Canons of Orissan Architecture. Cosmo, 1982.

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Dagens, Bruno. Mayamata: An Indian Treatise on Housing Architecture and Iconography. Sitaram Bhartia Institute of Scientific Research, 1985. Doucet, Isabelle. “Agency in Architecture: Reframing Criticality in Theory and Practice.” Footprint, vol. 4, 2009, pp. 1–6. Gardner, Edwin. “Architecture Left to Its Own Devices, or How Theory Stopped Guiding Architectural Practice.” Volume, no. 22, Jan. 2009, pp. 27–8. Garrigan, Kristine Ottesen. Ruskin on Architecture: His Thought and Influence. University of Wisconsin Press, 1973. Gloag, John. Guide to Western Architecture. 2nd edition revised, Spring Books, 1969. Grafton, Anthony, and Leon Battista Alberti. Leon Battista Alberti: Master Builder of the Italian Renaissance. 1st edition, Hill and Wang, 2000. Hays, K. Michael, editor. Architecture Theory since 1968. The MIT Press, 1998. Herrmann, Wolfgang. Laugier and Eighteenth Century French Theory. A. Zwemmer, 1962. Jarzombek, Mark. On Leon Baptista Alberti: His Literary and Aesthetic Theories. MIT Press, 1989. Johnson, Scott. “Once Theory to Practice, Now Practice to Theory?” Harvard Design Magazine, vol. 33, Oct. 2010, pp. 82–91. Jordan, R. Furneaux. A Concise History of Western Architecture. Harcourt, Brace & World, 1970. Kelbaugh, D. “Not the End of Theory.” Architectural Record, vol. 193, no. 8, 2005, p. 19. Kruft, Hanno-Walter. A History of Architectural Theory: From Vitruvius to the Present. Zwemmer, Princeton Architectural Press, 1994. Landow, George P. The Aesthetic and Critical Theories of John Ruskin. Princeton University Press, 1971. Laugier, Marc-Antoine. An Essay on Architecture. Translated by Wolfgang Hermman and Annie Hermman, Hennesey & Ingalls Inc, 1977. Lavin, S. “A Little Less Conversation Please.” Journal of Architectural Education, vol. 64, no. 2, 2011, p. 83. Le Corbusier. Towards a New Architecture. Praeger Publishers, 1960. ———. Towards a New Architecture (1923). Getty Publications, 2008. Mallgrave, Harry Francis, editor. Architectural Theory. Blackwell, 2006. ———. Modern Architectural Theory: A Historical Survey, 1673–1968. Cambridge University Press, 2005. Mallgrave, Harry Francis, and David Goodman. An Introduction to Architectural Theory: 1968 to the Present. Wiley-Blackwell, 2011. Nesbitt, Kate, editor. Theorizing a New Agenda for Architecture: An Anthology of Architectural Theory 1965–1995. 2nd edition, Princeton Architectural Press, 1997. Norberg-Schulz, Christian. Meaning in Western Architecture. Praeger, 1975. Risebero, Bill. The Story of Western Architecture. 3rd edition, MIT Press, 2001. Ruskin, John. Modern Painters II. Edited by E.T. Cook and Alexander Wedderburn, 1903rd edition, vol. 2, George Allen, 1846. ———. The Seven Lamps of Architecture. Edited by E.T. Cook and Alexander Wedderburn, 1903rd edition, George Allen, 1849. ———. Stones of Venice. Edited by E.T. Cook and Alexander Wedderburn, 1903rd edition, vol. 1, George Allen, 1851. Sawyer, Paul L. Ruskin’s Poetic Argument, the Design of the Major Works. Cornell University Press, 1985. Schumacher, Patrik. “Arguing for Elegance.” Architectural Design, vol. 77, no. 1, 2007, pp. 28–37.

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Skinner, Stephen. The Living Earth Manual of Feng-Shui: Chinese Geomancy. Routledge & K. Paul, 1982. Somol, Robert, and Sarah Whiting. “Notes around the Doppler Effect and Other Moods of Modernism.” The New Architectural Pragmatism, University of Minnesota Press, 2007, pp. 22–33. Speaks, M. “After Theory.” Architectural Record, vol. 193, no. 6, 2005, pp. 72–5. ———. “Theory Was Interesting . . . But Now We Have Work.” Architectural Research Quarterly, vol. 6, no. 3, 2002, pp. 209–12. Sutton, Ian. Western Architecture: A Survey from Ancient Greece to the Present. Thames & Hudson, 1999. Sykes, A. Krista, and K. Michael Hays. Constructing a New Agenda: Architectural Theory 1993– 2009. Princeton Architectural Press, 2010. Tavernor, Robert. On Alberti and the Art of Building. Yale University Press, 1998. Unrau, John. Looking at Architecture with Ruskin. University of Toronto Press, 1975. van Toorn, Roemer. “No More Dreams? The Passion for Reality in Recent Dutch Architecture . . . and Its Limitations.” The New Architectural Pragmatism, University of Minnesota Press, 2007, pp. 54–74. Venturi, Robert, et al. Learning from Las Vegas. MIT Press, 1977. Vitruvius. The Ten Books on Architecture. Translated by Morris Hicky, Morgan, Dover Publications, Inc, 1960. Watkin, David. A History of Western Architecture. 6th edition, Laurence King Publishing, 2015. Wotton, Henry. The Elements of Architecture. Da Capo Press, 1624.

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Leone Battista Alberti or The Ten Books on Architecture From the Beautiful to the Ornamental

This part of building, which relates to beauty and ornament, being the chief of all the rest, must without doubt be directed by some sure rules of art and proportion, which whoever neglects will make himself ridiculous. But there are some who will by no means allow of this, and say that men are guided by a variety of opinions in their judgment of beauty and of buildings; and that the forms of structures must vary according to every man’s particular taste and fancy, and not be tied down to any rules of art. A common thing with the ignorant, to despise what they do not understand. (Alberti, Ten Books 113)1

On Design and Matter Amid an “unhappy state of things,” Alberti—“grieved . . . that so many great and noble instructions of ancient authors should be lost by the injury of time”— sees it “the duty of an honest and studios mind” to write on “a subject otherwise knotty, awkward, and for the most part thoroughly obscure” (Alberti, Ten Books 1). Avidly intent on reviving theoretical discourse on architecture— seemingly dormant for well over a millennium—Alberti’s stated objective is no less than “saving” architecture “from its present ruin and oppression” and the impending “total extinction” (Alberti, Ten Books 112). To this end, he sets out to explicate and bring to light the long “obscured” disciplinary limits of architecture by enumerating the principles that intrinsically and indelibly delimit its operations. Alberti begins this endeavor with a seemingly innocuous observation: “an edifice,” he tells us, “is a kind of body consisting, like all other bodies, of design and of matter; the first is produced by the thought, the other by nature; so that the one is provided by the application and contrivance of the mind, and the other by due preparation and choice” (Alberti, Ten Books xi). This observation will serve as the foundation over which Alberti will erect his entire theoretical edifice. Innocuous and factual as this inaugurating observation may seem, it has distinct and wide-ranging consequences whose unfolding we shall follow in time. For now, we should note that it is evident to Alberti that there are always two distinct and separate aspects to every work of architecture: the intelligible design and the sensible matter. Of the two, the former DOI: 10.4324/9781003175780-2

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is always the prior term. For Alberti, the genesis of architecture is in the mind or the consciousness of a subject. Design is “a firm and graceful pre-ordering of the lines and angles conceived in the mind and contrived by an ingenious artist” (Alberti, Ten Books 2). Being a property of the mind and properly of the mind, design as a pre-ordering “force” precedes matter, animates it, and remains in its ideality divorced from it: It is the property and business of the design to appoint to the edifice and all its parts their proper places, determinate number, just proportion and beautiful order; so that the whole form of the structure be proportionable. Nor has this design anything that makes it in its nature inseparable from matter; for we see that the same design is in a multitude of buildings, which have all the same form, and are exactly alike as to the situation of their parts and the disposition of their lines and angles; and we can in our thought and imagination contrive perfect forms of buildings entirely separate from matter, by settling and regulating in a certain order, the disposition and conjunction of the lines and angles. (Alberti, Ten Books 1) Why Alberti deems it necessary to declare and adamantly insist on the priority, independence, and self-sufciency of design is a question to which we will have to return later. For now, we should note that an edifice is, for Alberti, a material efect or afected matter. The order of the edifice’s appearance is that of “formed after” or imprint. What is proper and original in architecture is the design which is a mental discourse accomplished in the intimacy of a subject’s consciousness. After the fact, this mental discourse, having been accomplished in the mind alone, is given to assume material form for the sake of presentation, or more to the point: re-presentation. As an informed matter, the edifice is a copy or replica of what is in the mind and properly of the mind. Within this mimetic system, the imitated intelligible design is always apart, above and beyond the imitator sensible body or informed matter. The latter always marks a fall from grace. “Mathematicians,” Alberti tells us, “measure the shapes and forms of things in the mind alone and divorced entirely from matter. We, on the other hand, who wish to talk of things that are visible, will express ourselves in cruder terms” (Alberti, On Painting 38). The architect’s position in this view of things is akin to the mathematician because not only does he accomplish his task in the mind before any expression in “cruder terms,” but also what he accomplishes is mathematical through and through.2 Beyond the materiality of each body and aside from the material qualities of sensible phenomenon, there is, Alberti assumes, a stable and permanent mathematico-geometrical order regulating and generating the form of the body. Each body, and by that we should understand an informed matter, is said to be comprised of a series of surfaces which in themselves are formed by intertwining lines like “threads in cloth.” Lines, in turn, consist of a series of points placed side by side. The point here being the indivisible part of each visible surface or

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body. The form of the body is the outcome of the interaction and a determined relationship between these elements. This mathematico-geometrical characteristic of informed matter is not so much sensible as supersensible. Although visible, it is intelligible visibility. It can only be seen by the proverbial mind’s eye. As a mathematical ideal, design, as the “pre-ordering of lines and angles” concerned with numbers, proportions, and order can be repeated and be the same in numerous material guises because it is constant, self-sufficient, and divorced from matter in its ideal existence as all things mathematical. Having defined design as what is original, essential, and proper to architecture, and the edifice as what is always a secondary “cruder term,” or else an imitation whose value can only be measured in light of what it imitates and how well it imitates, Alberti draws on this framework to define the role of each and the differences between the architect, the man of design and mental discourse and the craftsman, the man of matter and inscription. For it is not a carpenter or a joiner that I thus rank with the greatest masters in other sciences; the manual operator being no more than an instrument to the architect. Him I call an architect, who, by sure and wonderful art and method, is able, both with thought and invention, to devise, and, with execution, to complete all those works, which, by means of the movement of the great weights, and the conjunction and amassment of bodies, can, with the greatest beauty, be adapted to the use of mankind: And to be able to do this, he must have a thorough insight into the noblest and most curious sciences. Such must be the architect. (Alberti, Ten Books IX) This must indeed be the architect because his privileged position over the craftsman is the privileged position of the intelligible over the sensible and mind over matter. The architect is to be privileged and ranked with the greatest masters in other sciences because theirs is the domain of the intelligible, of mental discourses, and mathematical ideas. The craftsman’s domain is, in contrast, that of the sensible matter. His task is only to “form his material after a just design” furnished to him by the architect. Being a man of matter, the craftsman is equal in value to that matter. Just as matter is only an instrument to design, the craftsman is nothing but an instrument to the architect. He is a useful and yet inessential addition to a self-sufcient ideal that proceeds, guides, animates, and remains in its ideality always independent of the addition. Alberti’s quest to transform architecture from a medieval trade into a scientific profession at the outset of the Renaissance is an integral part of a theoretical edifice that has the hierarchical dichotomy between design and matter as its indispensable foundation. Over this foundation—one that is not, as we shall see, but an onto-theological foundation—Alberti proceeds to erect the remainder of his theoretical edifice, all the while trying never to transgress the boundaries of the framework thus established. He begins with a discussion of the origin and purpose of edifices.

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In the Cause of Perfection: On Drawings and Models The history of building for Alberti is a history of meager beginnings and a magnificent end, if, of course, the end here is to denote the architecture of the Roman Empire. It is a history of progressive improvements that begin with buildings that provide for life’s necessities, later for its conveniences, and in the final stage of development, for pleasure. It is plain that building was invented for the service of mankind; for if we consider the matter ever so little, it is natural to suppose that their first design was only to raise a structure that might defend them and theirs from the ill qualities of the weather; afterwards they proceeded to make not only everything that was necessary to their safety, but also everything that might be convenient or useful to them. At last, instructed and allured by the opportunities that naturally offered themselves, they began to contrive how to make their buildings subservient to their pleasures and recreations and proceeded everyday further and further in so doing: So that if upon considering the various sorts of buildings, we should say, that some were contrived by necessity, some by convenience, and some by pleasure, it might, perhaps be no ill definition of the matter. (Alberti, Ten Books 64) Once pleasure is considered, along with the necessities and conveniences of life, building construction becomes the “art of building” proper. This latter has its own progressive history. “All arts were bigot,” Alberti tells us, “by chance and observation, and nursed by use and experience, and improved and perfected by reason and study.” This progressive rise and development of aesthetics in architecture follows a timeline in which, Alberti notes, the “art of building, as far as I can gather from the works of ancients, spent the first vigor of its youth (if I may be allowed that expression) in Asia: it afterwards flourished among the Greeks; and at last came to its full maturity in Italy” (Alberti, Ten Books 113–14). Having given architecture a progressive history, Alberti goes on to discuss the parts that constitute the “art of building” at its zenith. He tells us, “the whole art of building consists in six things, which are these: the Region, the Site or Platform, the Compartition, the Walling, the Covering, and the Apertures” (Alberti, Ten Books 2).3 These six titles are general headings under which Alberti includes a number of different forms, all serving the same end despite their differences. For instance, Alberti includes columns and pilasters under the heading Wall because he reasons, a row of columns is “nothing else but a wall open and discontinued in several places” and the pilaster nothing but a column “cut square.”4 These six elements constitute the first common denominator in all buildings, regardless of variation in type. The second common denominator is three properties that Alberti requires all buildings to possess, namely “that they be accommodated to their respective purposes, stout and strong for duration,

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and pleasant and delightful to the sight” (Alberti, Ten Books 112). Much as Alberti here is paraphrasing Vitruvius’s dictum, the generations of theoreticians to follow would do the same under the more widely known headings Commodity, Firmness, and Delight as Henry Wotton would formulate them in 1624 (Wotton 1). For Alberti, these three principles are the art of building’s reason for being.5 They are the end toward which all buildings must strive. They are also the organizing principles for the text under study, where of the ten books, the first is devoted to design, the next two books to the discussion of the second principle, the next two to the discussion of the first principle, and the next four to the discussion of the third and last principle, in this order, while the last book is a collection of afterthoughts. Alberti’s discussion of the principle requiring all buildings to be “stout and strong for duration” centers around different materials, construction techniques, and the appropriate time and season for construction. It includes such information as different types, properties, and qualities of wood, stone, brick, sand, mortar, and plaster. He specifies which, when, and how to choose and prepare each construction material and different construction techniques proper to each material used. The information provided guides the architect from choosing the proper region for construction with respect to the quality of air, water, and land, to laying the foundation, all through the final finishing of the walls and roof and completion of a project which consequently would be “stout and strong for duration.” All here is quite technical, and all have to do with materiality as the other sensible side of the art of building which Alberti, having separated it from the intelligible design, has referred to as that which is provided by “nature” and requires “due preparation and choice.” Before undertaking the actual construction of a building, Alberti suggests it to be “part of a wise man to weigh and review every particular thoroughly in his mind: that he may not afterwards be forced to say, either in the middle or at the end of this work, I wish this, or I wish that were otherwise” (Alberti, Ten Books 22). One should, in other words, make the design a complete and perfect whole in one’s mind and then and only then submit it to the act of construction. Curiously enough, a thorough examination of design in search of possible mistakes and imperfections, Alberti tells us, may prove inadequate if performed in the mind alone. A design conceived in the mind alone may prove to be imperfect or assumed to be imperfect as a result of what Alberti refers to as “levity and instability of mind,” that is, of either “not sufficiently considering what was requisite at first, or else afterwards for disliking through levity what might really not be amiss” (Alberti, Ten Books 22). The mind could miss or fail to take itself seriously. To remedy this inadequacy of the mind, Alberti highly recommends “the ancient custom of builders, who not only in draughts and painting, but in real models of wood or other substances, examined and weighed over and over again, with the advice of men of the best experience, the whole work and the admeasurements of all its parts, before they put themselves to the expense or trouble” (Alberti, Ten Books 22).

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The model can aid the mind to examine and evaluate the design more accurately than it would be able to otherwise. The model is, therefore, a useful tool for eradicating mistakes and avoiding imperfection in design. The model is useful because it appeals to the eye, and the eye is, in questions of judgment, above all other senses: It is really wonderful, how, by a kind of natural instinct, all of us knowing or ignorant, immediately hit upon what is right or wrong in the contrivance or execution of things, and what a shrewd judgement the eye has in works of this nature above all other senses. (Alberti, Ten Books 21) Although the eye with its shrewd judgment can compensate for the apparent inefciencies of the mind, we must, nevertheless, exercise significant caution in enlisting the model’s aid. If the mind, to accurately examine the design has to distance it from itself, place the design in front of itself, and judge it from afar due to a certain internal deficiency, and if, to reach perfection, design has to leave its native domain, go outside, call on matter and make a worldly appearance, it is necessary to take certain precautionary steps. It is necessary to apply certain rules, if only to make sure that what is given out to matter does not leave the sight, traveling beyond the possibility of reappropriation. What is invested in matter must always return to the investor and to its proper domain in the final account. This is all because the model, useful as it is otherwise, may readily exceed the bounds of its assigned role, i.e., simply present and put forth in front of the eye and consequently the mind, the design itself. The model can readily charm and lure away the eye by its material substance and thereby have the eye lose sight of the “thing itself.” The medium of expression stands to supplant the expression itself. Hence: I must not omit to observe, that the making of curious polished [colored] models, with the delicacy of painting, is not required from an architect that only designs [wishes, desires] to show the real thing itself; but is rather the part of a vain architect, that makes it his business by charming the eye and striking the fancy of the beholder, to divert him from a rigorous examination of the parts which he ought to make, and to draw him into an admiration of himself. For this reason, I would not have the models too exactly finished, nor too delicate and neat, but plain and simple, more to be admired for the contrivance of the inventor, than the hand of the workmen. Between the design of the painter and that of the architect, there is this difference, that the painter by the exactness of his shades, lines and angles, endeavors to make the parts seem to rise from the canvas, whereas the architect, without any regard to the shades, makes his relieves from the design of his platform, as one that would have his work valued not by the apparent perspective, but by the real compartments founded upon reason. (Alberti, Ten Books 22)

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What is exactly, we may ask, this disquieting charm of the finished painted model, the seductive power of its appearance, and the violence and vanity of it all that has Alberti condemn the finished painted model as vehemently as he does? What inviolable line or limit has been transgressed here? Before we take up these questions, we should follow Alberti in drawing a clear distinction between painting and modeling. We already know, from another passage, that the model is a more viable alternative to painting and draft: “not only in draughts and paintings but in real models of wood or other substances.” The same gesture is repeated in the earlier passage. Insofar as an accurate presentation of design is concerned, Alberti considers the model to be better and more real than painting because the latter is a two-dimensional representational art. It works through allusion and illusion, being primarily concerned with the re-presentation of what is seen. The painter “is not concerned with things that are not visible” (Alberti, On Painting 43) and then only strives to create an appearance—an as if. Whereas painting is a sensible appearance that has, or rather, as Alberti insists, must have another sensible appearance as its referent, the model is, in contrast, a direct presentation. It is the first order of appearance guided not by another sensible appearance but by the “thing itself ”: the intelligible design. Even though both the model and the painting aim at expressing the “thing itself,” the model is superior to the painting in this case because the model is a direct investment while the painting must properly go through the detour of prior investiture. “We must avoid,” Alberti warns, “the habit of those who strive for distinction in painting by the light of their own intelligence without having before their eyes or in their mind any form of beauty, taken from nature to follow. They do not learn to paint properly, but simply make habits of their mistakes” (Alberti, On Painting 99). The painting should follow an original appearance that either has been or is in immediate sight. It should look to and fashion itself after the visible rather than the imagined or the intelligible. This is what is proper for painting and properly painting. The question here is not whether we can or cannot represent design through painting. We obviously can, or else there would be no issue or prohibition to insist on. Rather, the problem for Alberti is that if we do, we only create an illusion, and no mistake can be discerned from an illusion.6 Without an original appearance, the painting will always allude to what design could be and not what design is: an “apparent perspective” and not the “real compartments.” What is at issue in the choice between modeling and painting, presented as a choice between a medium of expression that can present the “thing itself ” accurately and directly and one that cannot, is the use of a medium of expression that does not stand in the way and obstruct the return of the invested design. If design has to leave its proper domain—an unfortunate and unwelcomed necessity—then the matter, whose aid design has to acquire, should be made to bear no effect on the “thing itself.” Matter should simply receive and deliver. It should behave as if it is nothing, as if it is not there. The intelligible design, throughout the process, should remain above, beyond, and untouched by the sensible matter. It should always remain visible to the eye and consequently

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the mind. To this end, not every model is equal in value. A colored model, for instance, is a violation. As painting’s primary medium of expression and its main problem insofar as the evaluation of design is concerned, color is the very substance by which appearances are made, and illusions created. Color is always on the side of sensible visibility. The association for Alberti is unmistakable because “nothing is visible that is not endowed with light and color” (Alberti, On Painting 49). Thus, coloring the model is an unacceptable practice for Alberti because if we aim to show the “real thing itself,” that which is intelligible and mathematical only, then color could at best serve no purpose at all or, worse, only serve to distract us from our aim. Color is unnecessary because design has nothing to do with color. Alberti, apparently, only thought in colorless mathematical terms. Color could also be disruptive because being visible and sensible, it can “by charming the eye and striking the fancy of the beholder” divert our attention from the “real thing itself.” Color can capture the eye and rob the mind of its sight—blindness as opposed to insight. Cicero, being guided by Plato’s opinion, thought it necessary that the people should be admonished by the laws to lay aside all manner of delicacy in the adorning their temples, and take care only to have them perfectly clean and white. However, says he, let the structure be beautiful. I confess, for my own part, I am very ready to believe, that purity and simplicity of color, as of life, must be most pleasing to the divine being; and that it is not proper to have anything in a church that may be likely to draw off men’s thought from devotion and fix them upon the pleasure and delight of the senses. (Alberti, Ten Books 149) The pleasure and delight of the senses, as opposed to the mind, is the violence and the seductive power of color. The same also applies to any “delicacy” or “neatness” in the model. What is and should remain important and essential throughout this precarious process is the “thing itself ”—“the contrivance of the inventor”—any emphasis on the sensible, any attention to the materiality of matter, or the “hand of the workmen,” is a grave and dangerous violation. It is always the “part of a vain architect,” one concerned with the apparent and not the real, the sensible and not the intelligible, to color and finish with “delicacy” or “neatness” a model whose only aim should be to appeal to the mind and never the eye per se. The vanity and violence of the finished painted model lie, in no small measure, in its destabilizing impact on the founding principle of Alberti’s theoretical edifice. It lies in its disregard for the privileged position of the intelligible over the sensible, the real over the apparent, and the architect over the workman. What Alberti wishes to accomplish with the condemnation and prohibition of the finished painted model is the reduction of the effect of the sensible material aspect of the model to nothing. What he wants is the effacement of the otherness of the model, that is, its materiality and its opacity. Alberti has a good reason for wishing and demanding this effacement. If we recall, Alberti

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has set forth as his first and foundational principle the separation and priority of the intelligible over the sensible. The first and the most fundamental assumption has been that we can “in our thought and imagination contrive perfect forms of buildings entirely separate from matter.” The assumption has been that design can be perfected in and by itself without ever having to leave the inner security of the intelligible domain, that is, without ever requiring the aid of something other, especially that of matter. If, however, that is not exactly the case, if design must distance itself from the mind, to acquire the aid of matter and make a worldly appearance to be purged of all imperfections, Alberti has to make sure the mind never loses immediacy and control over the design throughout the process. Hence the importance of the eye because it can compensate for the lost immediacy and the distance created by the model between the mind and the “thing itself.” Alberti venerates the eye because, under its watchful gaze, design appears to remain always only a glance away, as if it had never left, never distanced itself from the mind. The compensatory eye, however, is not as beneficial as Alberti wishes it to be. Whereas the mind could not see enough, the eye can see more than is called for. The gaze can capture or be captured by both the sensible and the intelligible. Like medicine, the eye is capable of both cure and destruction. It is a cure for the ailment of the mind capable of assured judgment only insofar as it simulates immediacy and permits the mind to see the “thing itself.” When instead of seeing the “thing itself,” it is given to be allured by the neatness, delicacy, and the color of the medium of expression, the cure turns into a poison. To make certain that the medicine always remains a good remedy, Alberti has to do his best to neutralize the destructive potential of the sensible in order to make the difference between the material model and the intelligible design appear as none. A good model is one coming closest to the purity of the “thing itself.” It is a representation whose medium behaves as if it is not or is nothing: transparent, obedient, and silent. Therefore, Alberti has to raise his voice against the polished model, whose materiality is nothing but an eyesore to him, in an attempt to silence a voice that cannot be easily silenced. This is because the problem here goes beyond color or any neatness and delicacy. The model is always other than the intelligible design, no matter how much Alberti may wish to reduce the difference. The model is always other because it is neither the design in its intelligible ideality nor is it simply the incontrovertible other: the sensible matter. What the model receives and makes visible is an imperfection. What it returns with deference to its materiality is an unforeseen perfection. Being both other and the same as the site of design’s perfection, the model, in any guise, perpetually challenges and places in question the possibility of being able “in our thought and imagination contrive perfect forms of buildings entirely separate from matter.” This is the original sin of the model. One that Alberti tries to cover up with the appearance of the possibility of a good model and the illusion of control over the signifying process. This is a violation that he tries to counter and control by closing an eye to the signifying face so as to

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see what he would rather see. However, it was an inability to see in the first place that forced the opening of the reluctant eye. If the “thing itself ” could have perfected itself in the mind, and if we could indeed “in our thought and imagination contrive perfect forms of buildings entirely separate from matter,” the eye would have never been forced open to matter. Having been opened, the eye cannot help but to see both the intelligible and the sensible. It cannot help but be both a remedy and a poison at once. Since buildings, and for that matter all other bodies, are also comprised of sensible matter and intelligible design, shouldn’t they be subjected as well, we may ask, to the same rules and prohibitions as the model? Apparently not. The materiality of these representations does not present the same problem to Alberti as the model. Within certain limitations, it is not inappropriate to paint buildings. It is not only permissible but desirable to make buildings “delicate and neat.” In fact, Alberti devotes four of the ten books to the ways and means of making buildings “delicate and neat.” The difference in treatment here is primarily due to a difference in the effect the model and the building each has on the design’s privileged status as the non-contingent term. If we recall, Alberti had assigned the origin of buildings to the formal presence of design in the intelligible domain. Insofar as Alberti is concerned, an edifice (effect) renders visible a design (cause) which has always already accomplished itself and asserted its non-contingent presence in intelligible ideality before any (re)presentation. As such, the edifice’s materiality can have no bearing on the “thing itself ” because design, always preceding the visible appearance, remains independent and unaffected by that appearance in ideality. A design can be repeated endlessly and remain the same in each iteration, so Alberti tells us, regardless of any material differences between the various deployed media. The edifice is deemed a neutral expression that is irresistibly reducible to a perfected intelligible design as its provenance. Such is not, of course, the case with the model. The latter puts this entire order of appearance in question because the model—that added other—succeeds no perfection as such. Being indispensable to design’s perfection, the model affects the design in its very process of becoming. Design, to become perfect, has to double itself and substitute the double (sign, image, proxy, etc.) for itself. The worldly appearance, however, that which by definition should be a secondary, inconsequential “cruder term” exceeds what was given to it—the “thing itself ”—in the process. The faults that could not be seen in the “thing itself ” shine forth in the double image. What was not apparent in the transparency of the intelligible domain becomes apparent in the opaqueness of a worldly appearance, where Alberti tells us, “you may easily and freely add, retrench, alter, renew, and in short change everything from one end to the other till all and every one of the parts are just as you would have them without faults” (Alberti, Ten Books 22). The model adds itself and thus adds the missing ease and freedom in the “thing itself.” The model adds to complete. Whereas the edifice could be said to present what is simply there, in the intelligible domain, and is given out to it or invested in it, the model, at the outcome, could not be said to present simply

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what precedes it. What the model presents is always other, always different. What it returns is not simply what was given out to it. As such, the model cannot be reduced to the “thing itself,” nor can the materiality of the matter be set aside because it is the very condition of addition and completion. If the model adds itself, it is only to replace, that is, to replace the “thing itself ” with something more, which is the same as saying something other. This is because the more can only be gained with the aid of matter. The model incurs a profit. The profit, however, also points to a loss. It can only be incurred at the cost of a loss. This is the loss of the self-sufficiency of the “thing itself.” The model can add and complete only on one condition: that the intelligible “thing itself ” is not selfsufficient and complete in and by itself, that there are a deficiency and a fault that call for addition and substitution. If not for this deficiency and fault, the need for the model would have never arisen. The perfected design with all privileges entailed has never been before the addition, which is always other and could never be without the double, which is never simply the same. To gain, design has to expose its imperfection and call on matter to fill the gap. In its perfection, design always already bears the mark of contingency on its sensible other. The implications here would have us abandon any rigorous and hierarchical distinction between the “thing itself ” and its double image, between the intelligible and the sensible, up to and including the distinction between design, model, and painting. In the latter case, the profit incurred by the model would place design in the same position as painting for design in its perfection, like painting, always refers back to another visible, worldly appearance. Design in its perfection would be a copy in the mind alluding, imitating, and re-presenting the perfection of a worldly appearance. In sum, what we end up with as the result of this process is a system in which no autonomous presence nor any simple origin is to be found anywhere. Every full intelligible term in this system is marked by a prior sensible and every sensible term by an intelligible. Each complete term refers back to another because no term is complete without the other. Same and other, and the copy of a copy is the structure of all: design, model, and painting. The very foundation of the theory at hand may then have to be reevaluated. This is, however, something Alberti does not and cannot acknowledge. He has to hold on to this foundation for certain onto-theological reasons, the discussion of which we would have to defer for now. For the good of the theory, he has to dim his sight to only see what he wants to see, only that which pleases. Alberti has to condemn and strive to neutralize the materiality of the model to hold on to the self-sufficiency and non-contingency of the intelligible design. He has to set aside and cover up the loss, only to see a pure profit. He must keep to the illusion of the possibility of a good model so as not to lose track and march on.

The Ethics of Convenience: On Tyrants and Kings Alberti begins the discussion of the second principle mandating all edifices “be accommodated to their respective purposes,” stating: “when we take a view of the great plenty and variety of buildings all about us, we easily perceive . . . that

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this great variety and difference among them, are owing principally to the variety there is among mankind” (Alberti, Ten Books 64). Therefore, any inquiry into how to accommodate buildings to their respective purposes must begin, Alberti tells us, with a “disquisition, namely, from the nature of mankind, and wherein they differ from one another; since upon their account it is that buildings are erected, and for their uses varied” (Alberti, Ten Books 64). The variety of required services and the requisite building types reflect the differences in the nature of mankind who differ: In the very particulars wherein they differ from brutes; namely in reason and the knowledge of useful arts, to which if you please you may add prosperity of fortune: in all which gifts there are very few that excel at the same time. This then opens us to our first division, and instructs us to select from the multitude, a small number, whereof some are illustrious for their wisdom, experience and capacity; others for their progress, and knowledge in useful arts; and others, lastly, for their riches, and abundance in the goods of fortune. And who will deny that these are the most fit to be entrusted with the principal offices in the commonwealth? The most excellent persons, therefore, who are endued with the greatest share of wisdom, ought to be entrusted with the chief care and power of moderating in all affairs. (Alberti, Ten Books 65) Mankind difers in nature based on a qualitatively or quantitatively diferent gift of knowledge or fortune. Over this foundation is set to rest a natural social order in which individuals fall into distinct and hierarchical classes based on their gifts of wisdom and fortune—the top ofces being the natural privilege of the wisest and the most fortunate of all mankind. This is a “natural” social order because knowledge and fortune are gifts of nature. Neither gift is, however, an end in itself. Each can and should be cultivated: “Nature gave to each mind its own gifts; but we should not be so content with these that we leave unattempted whatever we can do beyond them. The gift of nature should be cultivated and increased by industry, study and practice” (Alberti, On Painting 103). Alberti’s natural social order is, therefore, not static. It ofers conditional mobility. Through industry, study, and practice, individuals stand the chance of moving up the social ladder because at the very base of this social structure is a direct relationship between knowledge and power: be this the knowledge of “useful arts” or the art of making money. The will to knowledge here, including Alberti’s own will to discover an immutable theory of architecture, is a will to power. The most knowledgeable and fortunate of mankind must be trusted with the exercise of power because that is the natural order of things. It is the same order that places man above beasts due to “his” wisdom and knowledge. “We do not set one of the beasts themselves,” Alberti tells us, “to take care of a flock or herd, but a shepherd; so it was reasonable that the guardians appointed over men, should be some other kind of beings of superior wisdom and greater virtue than common men” (Alberti, Ten Books 133). These enumerations

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should underscore for us the reasons for Alberti’s earlier distinction between the architect and the craftsman and his ardent wish to transform architecture from a medieval trade to a scientific profession. To this end, the text under study is an indispensable instrument. Men and beasts, shepherds and herds—such are the allegories of Alberti’s vision of a natural social order. Its demands are to be imperatively met in the art of building. The unique and specific needs and requirements of the society as a whole, as well as each social group, down to the individuals that differ in nature and consequently social class and status, require distinct and different building types, all uniquely “accommodated to their respective purposes.” Alberti’s discussion of this accommodation principle is comprehensive and meticulous. In general, he assigns each building type to one of two categories: sacred or profane. Furthermore, he divides each category into public and private. This is simply a reflection of the natural state of affairs because: The republic consists of things sacred, which appertain to the public worship: the care of which is in the priests; and of things profane, which regard the welfare and good of the society; the care of which is in the senators and judges at home, and in the generals of armies and fleets abroad. To each of these belongs two kinds of buildings, one upon account of the person’s office, the other for the use of his own private family. Everyman’s house should certainly be suited to the condition of life which he is in, whether he is a king, a tyrant, or a private person. (Alberti, Ten Books 89) The list of all building types discussed is quite extensive, ranging from the fortification of cities, to temples (public and sacred), senate-houses (public and profane), public baths, hospitals, squares, bridges, oratories (private and sacred), palaces (private and profane), townhouses, villas, etc. In each case, Alberti provides detailed information on the purposes to be accommodated by each considered building type, diferent requisite parts to that end, the required relation of the parts to each other, and the proper relationship between the building type as a whole and other buildings. He does not omit the minutest detail, the smallest element that can be of some utility, in his attempt to make certain that every given building type, sacred or profane, public or private, provides for the necessities and conveniences of life of its inhabitants. Two examples should suffice to make the extent of his concerns clear: The husband and the wife should each have a separate chamber, not only that the wife, either when she lies in or in case of any other indisposition, may not be troublesome to her husband; but also that in summer time, either of them may lie alone whenever they think fit. Each of these chambers should have its separate door, besides which there should be a common passage between them both, that one may go into the other without being observed by anybody. The wife’s chamber should go into the wardrobe;

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the husband’s into the library. Their ancient mother, who requires tranquility and repose, should have a warm chamber, well secured against cold, and out of the way of all noises either from within or without. Be sure particularly to let it have a good fireplace, and all other conveniencies necessary for an infirm person, to comfort and cheer both the body and mind. Out of this chamber let there be a passage to the place where you keep your treasures. Here place the boys; and by the wardrobe the girls, and near them the lodgings for the nurses. (Alberti, Ten Books 107) Place your dove-house so as to be in view of water, and do not make it too lofty, but of such an easy height, that the pigeons wearied with flying, or after sporting about in the air with one another, may gently glide down upon it with ease and pleasure it is best for the dove-house to be at a pretty good distance from its water, that the pigeons may not chill their eggs by coming to them with their feet wet. (Alberti, Ten Books 103) Alberti notes that “in these particulars, the custom of every country are always to be principally observed” (Alberti, Ten Books 107). Customs may difer, and the means must correspondingly vary, but the result must be the same. Each building must accommodate its respective purposes. This accommodation, it is important to note, is not merely utilitarian. Buildings are required to not only fulfill the needs and requirements of the users and the necessities and “conveniencies” of life but also and imperatively to reflect the social status of the users. However, the two are not separate but intertwined in that each individual’s needs and requirements stem from and vary according to “his” social status. Each building type is required to reflect and reinforce the position of its user(s) in the social hierarchy. Buildings are required to act as status indexes that do not simply express but, in efect, construe the natural order of things as such. Here, Alberti is merely underscoring the age-old utility of architecture as an instrument of social stratification. To put everything and everyone in the right place and to maintain the social order is a purpose common to all buildings regardless of type. Not any temple or senate-house, for instance, is proper for a given city. The right temple or senate-house for a given city is one that properly reflects the power and wealth of the city. Nor is a single house type proper to every individual. Alberti divides the society into three general but distinct groups: the principal citizens—those “other kind of beings of superior wisdom and greater virtue”—the “middling sort” and the “meaner sort.” Alberti contends that the meaner sorts build only for necessity while the principal citizens build for beauty and pleasure as well. The middling sorts fall somewhere in between, though they are closer to those “other kind of beings” than the meaner sorts. Alberti has a greater interest in buildings for the principal citizens than the other two groups because building for those “other kind of beings” constitutes

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the art of building proper, that is, building for beauty and pleasure as well as necessities and conveniences of life. Nonetheless, he provides guidelines for the buildings of the meaner and middling sort, making certain that distinction and separation are properly maintained between the three categories at all times. First, Alberti recommends that the city be divided into two distinct parts, like two concentric circles. The outer circle is for the habitation of the nobler citizens who require more space and the inner circle for the common sort: “cooks, butchers and the like will be less dangerous there than if they were not to live separate from the nobler citizens” (Alberti, Ten Books 83). Furthermore, he recommends three different house-types for the principal citizens, one being proper for “those who bear the weight of the public counsels and deliberations, another for those who are employed in the execution, and another for such as apply themselves to the amassing of wealth” (Alberti, Ten Books 66). Alberti also makes a distinction between townhouses and country houses. The country houses of those “other kind of beings,” being primarily for use in summer, must be different from their townhouses used primarily in winter. Also, as there ought to be a difference between the townhouses of the nobler citizens and those of the common sort, there ought to be a difference between the country houses of the principal citizens and those of the other sorts which reside in the country. The villas of the nobler citizens should be built for beauty and pleasure, the habitation of the “husbandmen” for use and necessity, while the middling sort should again fall in between: The habitation of middling people out to resemble the delicacy of those of the richer sort, in proportion to their circumstances; still imitating them with such moderation, as not to run into a greater expense than they can well support. The country houses for these, therefore, should be contrived with little less regard to their flocks and herds, than to their wives. Their dove-houses, fish-ponds, and the like should be less for pleasure, than for profit: but yet their country houses should be built in such a manner, that the wife may like the adobe, and look after her business in it with pleasure. (Alberti, Ten Books 109) What is of primary import in all these distinctions is the provision of the proper, that is, distinct and diferent habitation for every social group, reflecting in each case their “condition of life.” Placed above the three social classes identified so far is the king or, as it may be the case, the tyrant. Each requires a diferent building type as well as a city. “The city of a tyrant difers from that of a king,” Alberti notes, “a town in a plain is most convenient for a free people; but one upon a hill the safest for a tyrant” (Alberti, Ten Books 83). Elsewhere, unperturbed by the political ramifications—given that it is not his to question the natural order of things—Alberti states: The palace of a king should stand in the heart of a city, it should be easy of access, beautifully adorned; and rather delicate and polite than proud and

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stately: but a tyrant should have rather a castle than a palace, and it should stand in a manner out of the city and in it at the same time. It looks noble to have the palace of a king be near adjoining to the theater, the temple, and some noblemen’s handsome houses: the tyrant must have his castle entirely separate from all other buildings. Both should be built in a handsome and noble manner, but yet so that the palace may not be so large and rambling as to be not easily defended against any insult; nor the castle so close and so crampt up, as to look more like a jail than the residence of a great prince. We should not omit one contrivance very convenient for a tyrant, which is to have some private pipes concealed within the body of the wall, by which he may secretly hear everything that is said either by strangers or servants. (Alberti, Ten Books 86) Alberti recommends many other necessary features for the exercise of power either by the tyrant or the king. He recommends, for instance, that the city of a tyrant be divided into separate quarters that can be sealed of at times of internal uprising so that disturbances in one quarter would not spread to others and can be, thus, contained and dealt with promptly. Also, “there should be no arches nor towers in the streets that lead from the fortress into the city; nor leads or terraces from whence the soldiers may be molested with stones or darts as they pass to their duty” (Alberti, Ten Books 83). Alberti here reaffirms the enduring instrumentality of edifices as sociopolitical constructs. He confirms the permissive and the prohibitive role architecture can play in the game of power: the permissive in facilitating the exercise of power and the prohibitive in thwarting challenge to power. Through all these guidelines, Alberti carries his pragmatism to its logical conclusion. The purpose of an edifice is to serve, and the required service is three-fold. Buildings must, and the second principle sums up these demands, fulfill the need for shelter and other such requirements, express the proper social structure and the natural order of things, and make provisions for the enforcement of the social order and exercise of power by the chosen few. The responsibility of an architect is to provide a service in the most effective manner, be this to a king or a tyrant, be it to those “other kind of beings” or the “middling” and the “meaner” sorts. The architect’s task is to have the buildings best serve their intended purposes, be these utilitarian or socio-political in trajectory. The architect’s place is not to question but to conform, and the worth of his endeavor shall rest on the degree of conformity. We should not here assume that what Alberti is proposing is amoral professionalism for architects. That he is not because what he is proposing is conceived and justified in moral terms through and through. Alberti assumes there to be a natural, true, and proper order of things that edifices must reflect and reinforce. If Alberti requires architects to conform, the conformity is not necessarily to the status quo, even though that may well be the case, but to “what is fit and decent,” that is, conformity to the true and natural order of things.

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This is that one proper way of life whose details may vary according to custom, but which remains the same in essence despite minor differences in appearance, or so Alberti appears to believe. What Alberti demands is conformity with the will of nature, or what is the same: the will of God. Tyrants and the meaner sorts, shepherds and herds, such are the facts of Alberti’s nature. If this nature has given a greater gift of knowledge or fortune, that is, the right to the exercise of power to a chosen few, it is not the architect’s to question. The architect’s responsibility is to do the utmost to reflect and maintain the will of nature and provide each individual an edifice commensurate with his or her rank in the social and political structure. Hence, from the outset of architecture’s edification as a profession— wherever one may choose to place that date, before or with Vitruvius, with or after Alberti—any potential ethical dilemma or moral quandary with the socio-political instrumentality of architecture has been mitigated by the essential and yet simple demand that all edifices “be accommodated to their respective purposes,” each of which is preceded and dictated by nature’s ordinance and naturally colored by local custom. The assumption that an edifice must accommodate and reflect what, naturally and inherently, precedes it, if not dissolves, to a good extent relieves the architect of having to assume responsibility for what after all is no more than an accommodation of what precedes and independently persists regardless. Yet, appearances to the contrary notwithstanding, the socio-political structure and the social order do not simply precede, nor exist, independent of architecture’s complicity. What allows the architecture to forego the ethical quandary of its role and function is the simple assumption of its role as the accommodator and reflector of what is. What is perpetually sidelined by this second all-important principle of architecture is the necessity of acknowledging that architecture is not a simple constative statement that merely reflects the social order and the socio-political structure. Rather, it is a performative statement that perpetually and actively constructs the social order and the socio-political structure it purports to merely reflect. After all, what is a tyrant without the instruments of tyranny, of which architecture, by Alberti’s enumerations, is a critical part? Or else, what is social stratification without the instruments of differentiation, of which architecture, by Alberti’s enumerations, is an indispensable part? Before Alberti and since, architecture has been and remains to date in the service of every power structure, social order, and political system in place and all to the same end and with the same justification. A simple glance across the globe in space and time readily evinces the service. The only change since Alberti is that over time fewer and fewer theoreticians of architecture have engaged and that to lesser and lesser sums the discussion of the second principle of architecture with the degree of frankness and clarity of purpose that Alberti engaged it. Nonetheless, the significance of the second principle has not dissipated and continues to hinge on a desire for control over the expressive potential of architecture. Alberti’s demand for compatibility or correspondence between the

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natural order of things and architectural expressions, between, for instance, the “natural” socio-political rank of the inhabitants and what their edifices express, is a desire and a demand for correspondence between what the edifice expresses and what it does. The demand is instigated by the possibility of slippage and non-conformity, which looms overhead in any play of signs. The possibility of slippage between what the edifice signifies and what it does, the possibility of similarity in appearance, for instance, between a habitation fit for those “other kind of beings” and one fit for the common sorts, or a temple not in keeping with the wealth of the city where it is located, is just that, a possibility. This possibility points to the fragility and vulnerability of any demand to its exposure as a construct and not a given. It exposes the demand’s dependence on the expression, not as a prior term, but the performative construct of the expression. At stake is the authority of the expression’s claim to mere representation of what is and is natural, thus absolving the profession of ethical quandary.

Opinions and Judgments: On the Beautiful and the Ugly—With Pleasure and Disgust “Of the three properties required in all manner of buildings, namely, that they be accommodated to their respective purpose, stout and strong for duration, and pleasant and delightful to the sight,” Alberti tells us, “we have dispatched the two first, and are now to treat of the third, which is by much the most noble of all and very necessary besides” (Alberti, Ten Books 112). Although all three principles are requisite, Alberti makes it adamantly clear at the outset of enumerating the third principle that the three are not on par. What pertains to pleasure and delight in an edifice is not only nobler than durability or convenience but also imperative to the point of being synonymous with the art of building, as distinguished from mere building. Alberti reasons: How are we moved by a huge shapeless ill-contrived pile of stone? The greater it is, the more we blame the folly of expense, and condemn the builder’s inconsiderable lust for heaping stone upon stone without contrivance. The having satisfied necessity is a very small matter, and the having provided for conveniency affords no manner of pleasure, where you are shocked by the deformity of the work. . . . Your whole care, diligence and expense, therefore should all tend to this, that whatever you build may be not only useful and convenient, but also . . . delightful to the sight. (Alberti, Ten Books 112–13) If we recall, it was provision for pleasure and delight in buildings that marked the final stage of an evolutionary process which began in Asia and culminated in Rome where building construction, “perfected by reason and study,” became the “art of building” proper. This last provision’s nobility and its superiority over the “useful and convenient” directly relate to the sources of their respective appeal. The “useful and convenient” appeal to some worldly interest.

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They tend either to the needs and comforts of the body or else to sociopolitical interests. In either case, the worldliness of the end is only self-evident. On the other hand, what tends to pleasure and delight in buildings appeals to a much higher end. Indeed, the distinction made between the two is akin to the distinction between “lust” and “love.” In contrast to “inconsiderable lust for heaping stone upon stone” for some worldly gain, there is the love of “contrivance.” What is missing in any pleasureless, shocking, deformed, “huge shapeless ill-contrived pile of stone” is “contrivance,” i.e., a “firm and graceful preordering of lines and angles conceived in the mind.” The pleasure and delight felt in view of a well-contrived building, having to do with the mathemticogeometric properties of its design, are of the mind and for the mind, as is the design itself. What is pleasing and delightful in a building is so to the “sight.” The sight for Alberti is the sight of an eye that is blind to or at least unafected by matter and its corruptive sensual pleasures. The sight is the redeeming mind’s sight that afords insight onto the intelligible design alone. The infinite superiority and nobility of the mind’s “pleasure and delight” over the efficacy of the “useful and convenient” to the body requires no further justification for Alberti, as it aligns and rests on the founding hierarchical distinction between design and matter and all that has been erected upon that foundation since. There only remains one further distinction to be made between the useful and the delightful. What in a building is “useful and convenient” is to a degree variable and subject to customary alterations. What is convenient to the meaner sort is not so to the nobler citizens. What is considered convenient and customary in one location may not be so in another. A degree of variability and contingency is one characteristic of the “useful and convenient.” What in a building tends to pleasure and delight the mind is, on the other hand, neither arbitrary nor particular. It is neither conditioned by custom nor a question of opinion. What is pleasing and delightful in a building is so universally and to everyone, be it the “skillful” or the “ignorant,” the “stupid” or the “genius.” As to what it is exactly: It is generally allowed that the pleasure and delight which we feel on the view of any building, arise from nothing else but beauty and ornament, since there is hardly any man so melancholy or stupid, so rough or unpolished, but what is very much pleased with what is beautiful and pursues those things which are most adorned, and rejects the unadorned and neglected; and if in anything that he views he perceives any ornament is wanting, he declares that there is something deficient which would make the work more delightful and noble. We should therefore consult beauty as one of the main and principal requisites in anything which we have a mind should please others. (Alberti, Ten Books 112) Only those exceptions to the norm, the so stupid and the so melancholic, can fail to be pleased and delighted by what pleases and delights everyone else:

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beauty and ornament. Regarding the beautiful, Alberti says: “we shall follow the opinion of Socrates, that whatever cannot be altered but for the worse, is really best” (Alberti, Ten Books 68). Therefore, Alberti tells us, “I shall define beauty to be a harmony of all the parts, in whatever subject it appears, fitted together with such proportion and connection, that nothing could be added, diminished or altered, but for the worse” (Alberti, Ten Books 113). Beauty then marks a stage of completion and perfection in design where all the requisite parts have been gathered into a totality that requires nothing more and nothing less. The beautiful has no dependence or attachment to an other or an outside. The beautiful is neither missing a part to require addition nor has it any part of an other to require subtraction. It simply is: a self-referential, non-contingent presence. As we noted earlier, this broad definition would be upheld and repeated time and again in numerous canonical treatises on architecture after Alberti. Much as beauty’s presence pleases and delights Alberti, its absence is no neutral ground. Beauty’s absence arouses, Alberti contends, nothing but “dislike” and “hatred.” What is not beautiful, that is, what requires addition or subtraction, is at once “shocking” and “disgusting,” “abhorring,” and “offensive.” His vehement reaction to the ugly is, Alberti insists, not arbitrary but stems from a “natural instinct” innate to the mind: “It is wonderful, how, by a kind of natural instinct, all of us knowing or ignorant, immediately hit upon what is right or wrong in the contrivance or execution of things” (Alberti, Ten Books 21). “Whence,” Alberti elaborates, “it happens that if anything offers itself to us that is lame or too little, or unnecessary, or ungraceful, we presently find ourselves moved and desirous to have it handsomer” (Alberti, Ten Books 21). Therefore, to offer pleasure as much as to avoid disgust, we should do our best to make edifices beautiful because if beauty “is necessary in anything, it is so particularly in building, which can never be without it, without giving offense both to the skillful and the ignorant” (Alberti, Ten Books 112). The would-be offended ignorant in sight of the ugly is not, we should note, of the same species of ignorant referenced earlier. Concerning the perception of beauty, there are two distinct types of ignorant. One type comprises those who fail—lacking the requisite “natural instinct”—to be pleased and delighted in sight of universal beauty. The other type comprises those who are—their natural instinct intact—capable of being pleased and delighted by what is beautiful and disgusted by what is ugly. However, this latter type cannot enumerate what makes a thing beautiful, and the onlooker pleased and delighted. When confronted with the ugly, this group cannot act on their “desire” and “natural inclination” to suggest the proper course of action for making the ugly beautiful. The ignorance of these ignorant is due to insufficient knowledge. When confronted with the ugly and all its faults, “the reason of those faults perhaps we may not all of us be acquainted with, and yet if we were to be asked, there is none of us but would readily say, that such a thing might be remedied and corrected.” Indeed, Alberti tells us, “everyone cannot propose the remedy, but only such as are well practiced and experienced that way” (Alberti, Ten Books

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21–22). Only the disciplinary experts—those professionals in “rank with the greatest masters in other sciences”—can offer the remedy. The ugly is for Alberti, we should note, a diseased body. It is the beautiful temporally deprived of its health, awaiting a “remedy” that only the expert professional (theoretician) can provide. Conceptualizing the ugly as a disease in need of a remedy is a faithful strategic move that effectively denies the ugly a right to existence. As a “lamed” or “deformed” body beautiful, the ugly has no place or existence of its own. It merely points to a temporal lapse in the health of the body beautiful, pending redemption. The idea of remedy, of redeemability, is here the assurance of control over the non-being of the ugly and its effacement. To redeem the beautiful, Alberti inquires into “that property” which “in its nature makes a thing beautiful”: The most expert artists among the ancients, were of opinion, that an edifice was like an animal, so that in the formation of it we ought to imitate nature. Let us therefore enquire how it happens that in the bodies produced by nature herself some are accounted more, others less beautiful or even deformed. It is manifest, that in those which are esteemed beautiful, the parts or members are not constantly all the same, so as not to differ in any respect: but we find, that even in those parts wherein they vary most, there is something inherent and implanted which though they differ extremely from each other, makes each of them beautiful. (Alberti, Ten Books 194) Since an edifice “is a kind of body consisting like all other bodies of design and of matter,” and as such, there is a direct afnity between man-made and natural bodies, it follows that whatever property makes natural bodies beautiful can and should be deployed to make edifices beautiful. Given the nature of bodies, Alberti posits that the property in question must either be a material property or a property of design. Having observed beautiful bodies in nature, Alberti concludes, as we may well expect, that the property in question has nothing to do with matter but with something “inherent and implanted” which comes from outside of matter and is constant and the same despite diferences in the material properties of bodies in which it is found. To illustrate his discovery, Alberti gives an example. Some, he contends, “admire a woman for being extremely slender and fine shaped.” Others, he argues, prefer a woman who is “plump and fleshy.” Yet a third group desires a “medium between these two” (Alberti, Ten Books 194). But then because, one of these pleases you more than the other, would you therefore affirm the others to be not at all handsome or graceful? By no means; but there may be some hidden cause why one should please you more than the other, into which I will not now pretend to enquire. But the judgement which you make that a thing is beautiful, does not proceed

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from mere opinion, but from a secret argument and discourse [a certain faculty of reason] implanted in the mind itself, which plainly appears to be so from this that no man beholds anything ugly or deformed, without an immediate hatred [dislike] and abhorrence [disgust]. (Alberti, Ten Books 194) Drawing on the opinionated preferences for diferent female body forms as an example, to unveil the universal nature of that desired property called beauty, Alberti poses a question, swiftly answers it, and then pushes aside both matter and opinion in pursuit of universals unperturbed by diferences. The opinion is, he tells us, a question of preference for one form over others. It is being delighted by one form more than others. Opinions vary, and the example used proves exactly that. However, the female body type also proves that, despite all diferences, opinions share one thing in common: taking pleasure. There is, regardless of degree, a common efect. This common efect, Alberti would have us assume, must have a common cause. If diferent bodies can bring forth similar efects, there must be a certain property common to all those diferent bodies to cause the same efect. This common property is, we are told, what beauty is. This common property is beauty because it is only from the beautiful that pleasure could be derived. The proof is in the ugly, that agent of disgust. If a given body is found to be pleasing, even by a single normal person—a person of mental health—that body must be beautiful because “no man beholds anything ugly or deformed” without immediate “disgust.” Alberti only allows two possibilities and two primal sensations. There is either beauty present and there is pleasure, or beauty is absent and the ugly disgusts. No pleasure can be taken from the ugly. It follows that no preferred body can ever be ugly. It can only be beautiful. Since all opinions and preferences have to do with the taking of pleasure and pleasure can only be taken from the beautiful, beauty must anticipate every opinion and persist despite differences in opinion in each body deemed delightful. By virtue of the pleasure taken, opinion must fall within the realm of the beautiful and be the preference for one beautiful body over other beautiful bodies. In other words, beauty must not only be irrespective of opinion but the very condition of every expression of opinion. Pursuant to this line of reasoning, Alberti allows himself to dismiss and set aside opinion; and do so in a gesture that also excludes matter from the search for that property that makes a thing beautiful. The search, however, is not without difficulties. Attempting to set aside differences in opinion to prove beauty a subject of universal appeal, Alberti has to resort to contingency to dismiss others using a reasoning line that appears to go paradoxically in circles. To prove that beauty is a common property implanted and present in those differing bodies that variously give pleasure, Alberti is compelled to resort to the ugly. Every pleasing body is, we are told, necessarily beautiful because it is not ugly. If it were, it would be disgusting. Beauty is present and pleasing simply because ugly is absent and there is no disgust. Each term here leads us to

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the other, and contingency appears as the rule of the play. Here, as elsewhere, Alberti has to appeal to the ugly every time he wants to arrest the beautiful and vice versa. The evidential proof of what is is what it is not! Within this frame of thought, this cannot be! To make the beautiful contingent on the ugly is tantamount to granting autonomy to the ugly. It is to admit the ugly not only a right to exist but to admit its existence essential to the perception of beauty. This jeopardizes the very definition of beauty as a non-contingent, self-same presence, and of ugliness as a contingent disease. The contingency, if allowed, hollows the foundation from under the theoretical edifice. Beauty must be and ugliness but a temporal fall from it. Beauty should have no need for recourse to another to be what it is. The perpetual deferral must be stopped, and to stop it, Alberti appeals to a certain secret faculty. We are told that we are able to judge a thing beautiful, not with recourse to the ugly, but due to a certain faculty of reason, i.e., a certain secret argument and discourse implanted in the mind itself. An implant and not contingency is the condition of beauty’s cognition. The ugly is in no way essential to the perception of beauty, because seeing the beautiful is an innate ability of the mind. This ability must be universal in order for beauty to be declared a non-contingent, self-same presence that is not subject to variation in essence. But there are some who will by no means allow of this and say that men are guided by a variety of opinions in their judgement of beauty and of buildings; and that the forms of structures must vary according to every man’s particular taste and fancy. . . . A common thing with the ignorant, to despise what they do not understand! (Alberti, Ten Books 113) The argument thus far has been based on the idea that “there is hardly any man so melancholy or stupid, so rough or unpolished, but what is very much pleased with what is beautiful.” “Hardly,” of course, does not cover the entire gamut. There are some who cannot see the universal and invariable beauty. Yet, there is no need to ponder their inability, much less the theoretical edifice’s stability, because some are merely exceptions to the norm. They point to a deficiency or a sickness. The inability to see is a common thing with the ignorant because ignorance is the mark of a lame mind, i.e., a mind with no, or else an impaired implant. It is thus that Alberti sets aside the some. The ignorant and the ugly are cast out hand in hand. Opinion is, we are told, a question of taking “more” pleasure in one beautiful body than in others. So far, Alberti has accounted for the pleasure in terms of beauty and a secret faculty of the mind, but the “more” remains to be discussed or, as it turns out, not to be discussed. The “more,” Alberti contends, has “some hidden cause . . . into which I will not now pretend to enquire” (Alberti, Ten Books 194). What is evident though is that opinion, somehow,

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incurs a profit over judgment. Somehow, it entails “more” pleasure than that derived from beauty alone. This “more” must-have “a hidden cause,” but we need not pursue this cause because what is the important and central issue here is the cause of pleasure as it relates to beauty, and we have already discovered that cause. The more or less is a marginal issue not worthy of theoretical pursuit. Nevertheless, one may legitimately ask how is this “more” incurred—if it indeed is incurred? There are two matters at issue here. There is judgment, and there is opinion. Judgment proceeds from a secret discourse in the mind and gives rise to a constant and fixed pleasure derived from a universal beauty implanted in varying bodies. On the other hand, opinion proceeds from some “hidden” cause and entails “more” or a surplus pleasure to what is felt at judging a body beautiful. Since, within the Albertian frame of thought, a body is constituted of design and matter, and design gives a fixed pleasure that is the same for everyone, then the surplus pleasure at issue must be, we may conclude, due to the material characteristics of the body beautiful. This is because, by definition, the pleasure derived from design is constant and invariable. Alberti could, therefore, readily dismiss this surplus pleasure as material and sensual because, after all, matter is only capable of giving sensual pleasure. Why then, we may ask, does he not dismiss this surplus pleasure as sensual pleasure instead of resorting to hidden causes? Alberti cannot dismiss the “more” as sensual pleasure because it is merely more of the same. The more would have to be more of the same pleasure because opinion does not give rise to two different and distinct pleasures, one sensual and the other intellectual. There is only one pleasure or more of the same pleasure, and this pleasure would have to be intellectual for Alberti to deduce judgment from opinion. The “more” cannot be dismissed as sensual without having to say the same of the original. There is, and there has to be, no qualitative difference between the pleasure derived from the implanted design and the extra pleasure that otherwise must be derived from matter. Assuming that there is a difference between sensual and intellectual pleasure, and Alberti has built his entire theoretical edifice on this foundation, it must be concluded that matter can give intellectual pleasure to account for the surplus profit. This is, however, tantamount to giving matter a status equal to design. As we were told in the case of the polished, colored model, matter is incapable of pleasing the mind and capable only of diverting it from its task. Therefore, to account for the “more,” Alberti has to resort to secrets. There must be a hidden cause somewhere that can explain this surplus pleasure to the satisfaction of the Albertian mindset. However, what is hidden here is not so much the cause as it is the need and the desire for the cause to be a secret and thereby allow Alberti to set aside matter to see a pure pleasure derived from the design. Here, as in the case of that implanted faculty, what starts as an attempt to unveil the truth of universal beauty, inevitably runs into secret discourses and hidden causes and ends up being as much a revelation as concealment. Indeed, the cover-up turns out to be an essential condition for revelation. Such perhaps is the inevitable condition of insight: revelation and concealment in the same gesture.

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The surplus pleasure of opinion is not, we should note, alone in preventing unmediated insight onto the beautiful. The ignorant and the ugly are of equal threat. As we have seen, the ugly stands in the way of seeing beauty as a self-referential whole in need of no other to be itself. The mentally defective ignorant obscures, in turn, the vision of an innate ability to judge beauty. They both need to be set aside if insight is to be gained onto the beautiful. To make ugliness and ignorance detachable and detached, Alberti appeals to the notion of disease and, again, secret faculties. Treating ugliness and ignorance as a disease—ugliness as a disease of the body and ignorance as a disease of the mind—Alberti can set both aside as accidental and abnormal occurrences that by virtue of the loss and absence inherent to both cannot merit inquiry. If the object of desire is the beautiful, and if what needs to be understood is the innateness of the ability to judge, then one should not search for them where they are not—with the ugly and the ignorant—but where they are—in healthy bodies and healthy minds. To redeem the beautiful—as the men of skill must—Alberti goes on to inquire what “that property” is that “in its nature makes a thing beautiful?” So far, we have been told that this property is a universal property implanted and the same in all bodies deemed beautiful, be they man-made or natural. Furthermore, this property has to do with the design and not the matter of which the bodies are constituted. We also know that the ability to procure this property presumes knowledge of certain facts and remedies. Being a universal property and having to do with a body of knowledge, Alberti concludes: “this part of building, which relates to beauty and ornament, being the chief of all the rest, must without doubt be directed by some sure rules of art and proportion, which whoever neglects will make himself ridiculous” (Alberti, Art Of Building 113). Alberti goes on to note: The ancients knowing from the nature of things, that the matter was in fact as I have here stated it, and being convinced, that if they neglected this main point they should never produce anything great or commendable, did in their works propose to themselves chiefly the imitation of nature, as the greatest artist at all manner of composition; and for this purpose they labored, as far as the industry of man could reach, to discover the laws upon which she herself acted in the production of her works, in order to transfer them to the business of architecture. (Alberti, Ten Books 195) Alberti uses the term “nature” in both a passive and an active sense. His reference is both to a collection of bodies, be they all beautiful or not, and to an active process of formation: the formation of beautiful bodies. It is in this latter sense that nature ought to be imitated. The architect ought not to imitate natural bodies—that is a task for the painter as the master of illusion. The architect ought to imitate nature as “the greatest artist at all manner of composition.” The proposition is that by imitating the formative process and not the product,

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the artist and not the art object, one can elicit the rules and laws at work in nature’s formation of beautiful bodies if only to transfer and follow them in the formation of beautiful edifices. It is perhaps needless to note that what Alberti identifies as nature’s laws for beauty merely betray a mathematical worldview specific to Renaissance culture. In effect, the enumerated laws serve to transform an abstract mathematical worldview into a tangible lived experience, whereby Renaissance culture’s view of the world and its experience of the world become mirror images of each other.7 However, it is not the cultural instrumentality of the beautiful in the specific that is so much a question, as it is the disguising of culture as nature in the name of the beautiful. Deferring for the moment the questions of what particular, if not peculiar, authority nature possesses and what authority it confers on any cultural law that is persuasively ascribed to it, we should momentarily follow Alberti in his enumeration of the “three things principally in which the whole of what we are looking into consists: the Number, and that which I have called Finishing, and the Collocation” (Alberti, Ten Books 195). Having discovered these three rules or laws through “a thorough examination of the works of nature,” what remains is to enumerate their application in the formation of edifices. To that end, Alberti, drawing on the authority of the ancients by way of establishing and validating the truth value of the discovery, tells us: The first thing they observed, as to Number, was that it was of two sorts, even and uneven, and they made use of both, but in different occasions: for, from the imitation of nature, they never made the ribs of their structures, that is to say, the columns, angles and the like, in uneven numbers; as you shall not find any animal that stands or moves upon an odd number of feet. On the contrary, they made their apertures always in uneven numbers, as nature herself has done in some instances, for though in animals she has placed an ear, an eye and a nostril on each side, yet the great aperture, the mouth, she has set singly in the middle. But among these numbers, whether even or uneven, there are some which seem to be greater favorites with nature than others, and more celebrated among learned men; which architects have borrowed for the composition of the members of their edifices upon account of their being endued with some qualities which make them more valuable than any others. (Alberti, Ten Books 196) Aside from being either even or uneven, each number is believed to possess certain endued qualities that would impart beauty to the whole when used in the proper context. Of the odd numbers, Alberti says of number Three and “all philosophers afrm” that “nature herself consists in a ternary principle,” of Five: “divine in its nature and worthily dedicated to the gods of the arts, and particularly to Mercury”; of Seven: “it is certain, that Almighty God himself, the creator of all things, takes particular delight in the number seven, having placed seven planets in the skies, and having been pleased to ordain with regards to

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man, the glory of his creation, that conception, growth, maturity and the like, should all be reducible to this number seven”; of Nine: “highly celebrated, in which number that great artist, nature, made the spheres of heaven.” Of the even numbers, Alberti says of Four: “dedicated to the deity,” of Six: “the most perfect, consisting of all its own entire parts,” of Eight: “has an extraordinary power in the nature of things.” Having ascribed these mytho-theological qualities to numbers in the name of “philosophy” and “science” and of practice in nature, Alberti goes on to conclude that “upon these accounts the architects have most frequently made use of the foregoing numbers; but in their apertures they seldom have exceeded that of ten for an even, or nine for an odd number, especially in temples” (Alberti, Ten Books 196). Of the second natural law of beauty, Alberti writes, “by the Finishing I understand a certain mutual correspondence of those several lines, by which the proportions are measured, whereof one is the length, the other the breadth, and the other the height” (Alberti, Ten Books 196). Whereas the first law had to do with numbers and their individual qualities, the second law has to do with the interactive relationship of those numbers, i.e., with proportions. To understand the significance of proportions in deference to beauty, we need to recall that for Alberti each body is a whole comprised of parts, each consisting of a series of surfaces that, in turn, consist of lines and angles, and ultimately points. A body viewed as such is a quantifiable entity. The parts of the whole can be measured, for instance, three apertures or four legs. The lines and angles that outline the surfaces of each part can be measured and described as ratios between the length, the breadth, and the height of each. A body could be said to possess X number of parts, while each part’s surface is formed by lines (length, breadth, height) that are in Y proportion to each other (the breadth is two-thirds of the length, etc.). It is this mathematical definition of bodies that renders them the subject of scientific and philosophical inquiries, the likes of which Alberti is conducting. It is also based on this mathematical definition that Alberti equates buildings with animals: stone and brick with flesh and blood. Buildings could be equated to animals inasmuch as they share certain mathematical characteristics in common that supersede their material differences. The number Three, for instance, or the ratio two-thirds retain their attributes regardless of the material characteristics of the bodies in which they are found: regardless of stone or flesh. The mathematical definition of bodies enables Alberti to uphold his most fundamental credence. It allows him to bypass and go beyond matter and materiality to identify universals and assign the genesis of bodies to the mind: the intelligible and proper domain of mathematics, of numbers, and ratios. Bodies are not formed in matter but in the mind by numbers and ratios whose individual and collective attributes determine each body’s attributes: beautiful or ugly. Although bodies can be readily quantified and equated in mathematical terms, beauty is not, it is important to note, a matter of quantity but quality. It has not to do with numbers or ratios per se. Not every number is conducive to the procurement of beauty. Only certain numbers contribute to the beauty

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of the whole, and they do so “upon account of their being endued with some qualities which make them more valuable than any others.” The same holds for ratios and proportions. Only a select number of ratios and proportions are endued with the requisite qualities. To discriminate between the right and the wrong, what is requisite is “sure rules” and “laws.” These are, Alberti tells us, “best gathered from those things in which we find nature herself to be most complete and admirable.” He reasons: “indeed I am everyday more and more convinced of the truth of Pythagoras’ saying, that nature is sure to act consistently, and with a constant analogy in all her operations.” Therefore, “I conclude that the same numbers, by which the agreement of sounds affects our ears with delight, are the very same which please our eyes and our mind. We shall therefore borrow all our rules for the finishing our proportions, from the musicians, who are the greatest masters in this sort of numbers, and from those particular things wherein nature shows herself most excellent and complete” (Alberti, Ten Books 196–97). What affects our ears with delight in music is, Alberti contends, “harmony.” It designates the endued quality of certain ratios, by whose means the different parts of a composition are brought together to such consent and agreement that nothing could be added or taken away without loss. Given the assumed constant analogy in all of nature’s operations, placing the ears and the eyes on a par, Alberti turns to musicians for lessons in harmonic proportions. He tells us: Harmony is an agreement of several tones, delightful to the ears. Of tones, some are deep, some more acute. The deeper tones proceed from a longer string; and the more acute, from a shorter: and from the mutual connection of these tones arise all the variety of harmony. This harmony the ancients gathered from interchangeable concords of tones, by means of certain determinate numbers. (Alberti, Ten Books 197) The mutually connected tones from which all the variety of harmony arises, when looked at in terms of their mathematical properties, are produced by strings whose lengths are in a certain proportion to each other. These “interchangeable concords of the tones” are six in number as follows: 3 to 2 where the longer string is 3 and the shorter 2, that is, the longer string is one and a half times the shorter string; 4 to 3 “where the longer string contains the shorter one and one thirds more”; 2 to 1; 3 to 1; 4 to 1; and 9 to 8. It is then concluded that music as a mathematical phenomenon consists of numbers 1, 2, 3, and 4 from whose mutual connection, with the addition of the ratio 9 to 8, arise all the variety of harmony. Having explicated the laws and rules of harmony in music, the same pleasing and delightful quality can be indubitably procured in other bodies by applying the same harmonic rules. Therefore: Of all these numbers the architects made very convenient use, taking them sometimes two by two, as in planning out their squares and open areas,

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wherein only two proportions were to lie considered, namely, length and breadth; and sometimes taking them three by three, as in public halls, council- chambers, and the like, wherein as the length was to bear a proportion to the breadth, so they made the height in a certain harmonious proportion to them both. (Alberti, Ten Books 197) Alberti recommends that a harmonic ratio such as 3 to 2 be used for smaller platforms where, in this case, the length would be one and a half times the breadth. For “moderate platforms” he recommends the ratio 2 to 1, and for large platforms the ratio 3 to 1 or 4 to 1. Also, where three harmonic numbers are to be deployed, it is recommended that the smallest number be taken for the breadth, the largest for length, and their mean for the height. For instance, the breadth of a moderate platform should be taken as 2, the length would then be 4, and the height 3. In other words, the ratio of length to breadth should be 2 to 1, as suggested earlier, in which case that of length to height would have to be 4 to 3 and height to breadth 3 to 2. Other possible combinations of harmonic ratios for diferent platforms include 3–4–6, 2–4–6, 2–4–8, and so on. Having discussed the natural law of finishing that would have edifices play harmonic tones for the eye, pleasing and delighting the mind, there remains the third and last law: the natural law of collocation. Whereas the first law had to do with the number of parts, the second law with their harmonic proportions, collocation has to do with the “situation of several parts” within the whole. The foremost demand of this law is that every part be situated in its rightful and proper place. The reasoning is that “the very smallest parts or members of the work, if they are set in their right places, add to the beauty of the whole.” On the other hand, “if they are placed in mean or improper situations, though excellent in themselves, they become mean” (Alberti, Ten Books 201). The proper way to situate a part and to relate it to other parts is to place that part together with other parts of the same value, i.e., to put together the “excellent” with the excellent and the “mean” with the mean. There has to be a mutual correspondence between parts that are placed together. This is, as is true of the other rules, gathered from observing nature: So agreeable it is to nature, that the members on the right side should exactly answer to the left: wherefore the very first thing we are to take care of must be, that every part even the most inconsiderable, lie duly to the level and plum-line, and be disposed with an exact correspondence as to the number, form and appearance; so that the right may answer to the left, the high to the low, the similar to the similar, so as to form a correspondent ornament in that body whereof they are parts. (Alberti, Ten Books 201) The law of collocation requires an exact correspondence between parts placed together concerning number, formal rations, and appearance. As we do not

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find a dog who has “one ear like that of an Ass,” in buildings we should not place together parts of difering value but rather parts that mutually correspond and answer each other in every respect. Though there are, we were told, “three things” that make a body beautiful— number, finishing and collocation—and we have discussed all three, nevertheless, “there is still something else besides, which arises from the conjunction and connection of these other parts (Number, Finishing, Collocation), and gives the beauty and grace to the whole: which we will call Congruity, which we may consider as the original of all that is graceful and handsome” (Alberti 1966, 195). Individually, it is neither number, nor finishing, nor collocation that makes a body beautiful. Rather, it is the conjunction and connection of all three in a totality to which, consequently, nothing needs to be added or taken away to please and delight the mind through the senses. “The business and office of congruity is to put together members differing from each other in their nature, in such a manner, that they may conspire to form a beautiful whole.” Unbound to any one sense perception, Alberti adds, “whenever such a composition offers itself to the mind, either by conveyance of the sight, hearing, or any of the other senses, we immediately perceive this congruity: for by nature we desire things perfect, and adhere to them with pleasure when they are offered to us.” Much as we desire things perfect by nature, what we desire has nothing to do with the body or any of its members as such. Rather, it is something that is given to the body and is “found” in it, though not to be confused with it. Alberti insists: “nor does this congruity arise so much from the body in which it is found, or any of its members, as from itself, and from nature, so that its true seat is in the mind and in reason; accordingly it has a very large field to exercise itself and flourish in.” As such, Alberti professes, it “runs through every part and action of man’s life, and every production of nature herself, which are all directed by the law of congruity, nor does nature study anything more than to make all her works absolute and perfect, which they could never be without this congruity, since they would want that consent of parts which is so necessary to perfection.” Alberti then reasons: “we may conclude beauty to be such a consent and agreement of parts of a whole in which it is found, as to Number, Finishing and Collocation, as congruity, that is to say, the principal law of nature requires. This is what architecture chiefly aims at, and by this she obtains her beauty, dignity and value” (Alberti, Ten Books 195). With this summation, Alberti returns and reaffirms the foundational dictum of his theoretical construct and all the hierarchical dichotomies that have ensued from it: The sensible and the intelligible, body and soul, design and matter, architect and craftsman, model and drawing, opinion and judgment, the beautiful and the ugly, etc. The solid foundation firmly supports the theoretical edifice that has been erected upon it. However, the question here is not whether the foundation supports the edifice or not, but whether it rests on solid ground. We have on occasion seen the ground give way under the whole edifice with the necessarily added weight of the polished model, the opinion, the ugly, etc. But are those isolated incidents a few weak spots on an otherwise

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solid ground, or is the whole theoretical edifice built on an abyss? To find an answer, we need first to discover why we “by nature desire things perfect?” Why this desire for beauty that has had Alberti build a monumental theoretical edifice in search of fulfillment, pleasure, and delight? Of beauty, Alberti says: “A quality so noble and divine that the whole force of wit and art has been spent to procure it” (Alberti, Ten Books 113). As a noble and divine quality, beauty transcends all worldly interests: When we lift up our eyes to heaven, and view the wonderful works of god, we admire him more for the beauties which we see, than for the conveniencies which we feel and derive from them. But what occasion is there to insist upon this? When we see that nature consults beauty in a manner to excess in everything that she does, even in painting the flowers of the field. (Alberti, Ten Books 112) This is merely a further afrmation of the nobility of beauty and its infinite superiority over any convenience. Above all, the sight of beauty fills the onlooker with admiration for god, because beauty is synonymous with divinity. Its attributes are the very attributes of divinity: intelligible on the one hand and self-same, non-contingent totality on the other. This is the reason why nature consults, and “the whole force of wit and art has been spent to procure” beauty. What we were told to be a scientific inquiry turns out to have been a theological expedition. This is not to imply that science and theology are distinct, or that purported truth turns out to be fancy, but that science, synonymous for Alberti with philosophy, has as its aim a theological desire to fulfill, that is, a beauty, or a divine quality, to procure. The priest’s duty is as far as in him lies to lead mankind into a happy course of life as near to perfection as possible, this can never be done more effectually than by philosophy. For as there are two things in the nature of man to which this must be owing, virtue and truth; when the former has taught us to calm and govern our passions, and the latter to know the principles and secrets of nature, which will purge the mind from ignorance and the contagion of the body; we may then be qualified to enter into a happy course of life, and to have some resemblance with the divine nature itself. (Alberti, Ten Books 90) Scientists and philosophers, from whose rank architects are not to be excluded, collaborate with priests in a theological mission whose goal is to lead mankind into a happy course of life. This is one as near to perfection as possible. Though the ability to lead such a happy course of life is innate to humans, to qualify for entry, they need to draw on two attributes in their nature: virtue and truth. This is requisite because in-between the desire for a happy course of life and its fulfillment, there stand passion and ignorance as obstacles to overcome. A

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happy course of life entails some resemblance with the purely intelligible divine nature. Passion and body stand in the way of such a resemblance: the passion for interest in taking worldly pleasures and the body for giving them. They both lure away and prevent the mind from sole attention to intelligible matters after the divine image. Since the body cannot be done away with, given that it is the only means to the meeting of the minds and the mind, then virtue needs to be called on, and with its aid, passion be calmed and the mind be made immune to the corruptive influences of matter. Priests set the best example for mankind by their “vow of chastity,” as does Alberti in his attempt to set aside, neutralize, or silence matter or materiality. Having saved the mind from the contagion of the body, mankind needs to make use of truth to learn the principles and secrets of nature so as to purge the mind of ignorance and thus remove the second obstacle in the way of divine resemblance. This latter task is best accomplished with philosophy’s help because it is the philosopher’s task to discover the principles and uncover nature’s secrets. For entry into a happy course of life, the use of “truth” is essential because a happy course of life is one as close to perfection as possible. Perfection as an attribute of beauty and divinity is achieved by knowledge and application of the law of congruity. Therefore, the principles and secrets of nature, that is, the divine law of congruity, must be learned from those who devote their genius to its discovery and be applied to or imitated in “every part and action of man’s life” in pursuit of resemblance to divine nature and the entailed moral and spiritual happiness. It is thus that priests and philosophers lead mankind into a happy course of life. The role of architects in this theological mission is to procure beauty in edifices. Theirs are to apply the principles of nature and the law of congruity to that part of human life and action related to edifices’ construction. Architects, in rank with “the greatest masters in other sciences,” fulfill their religious responsibility, satisfy desire, and afford pleasure by endlessly imitating the divine act of creation, providing beautiful edifices fit for a happy course of life. It is, therefore, within a theological frame or frame-up that beauty takes on the import it has been given. The desire for beauty in edifices is not but a rephrasing of the theological desire for having resemblance to divine nature. What is desired is, in either case, the procurement of a divine quality whose most formal characteristic is non-contingency and full presence. The beautiful is, if we recall, that which cannot be altered, but for the worse. It is present to and capable of presenting itself to a subject’s consciousness as a self-referential, non-contingent totality without denial or delay. What is beautiful is what is present, what simply and purely is. This condition of being as full presence is what words such as harmony, congruity, perfection, etc., designate. What is harmonious, congruous, or perfect refers to nothing but itself. It is true to itself and truth itself as what simply is and is present. Such is the beautiful. Such also is the onto-theological desire. The possibility of fulfillment, however, is a different issue. Beauty, as the intelligible and not the sensible visibility, solely designates a privileged state of design. The sensibly visible cannot be beautiful because it is

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incapable of presenting itself to the mind as a non-contingent, self-referential presence. Philosophers believe, Alberti tells us, that: If the sky, the stars, the seas, the mountains, and all living creatures, together with all other objects, were the gods willing, reduced to half their size, everything that we see would in no respect appear to be diminished from what it is now. Large, small, long, short, high, low, wide, narrow, light, dark, bright, gloomy, and everything of the kind, which philosophers termed accidents, because they may or may not be present in things . . . all these are such as to be known only by comparison. . . . So we call large what is bigger than this small thing, and very large what is bigger than the large, and bright what is lighter than this dark object, and very bright what is brighter than the light. (Alberti, On Painting 53) The attributes of the sensibly visible are contingent on the diference with a deferred other. The identification or comprehension of any sensibly visible attribute always assumes the prior identification or comprehension of an other based on diference with which it can be identified or comprehended as a single term. Every attribute assumes the priority of its diferential other in an endless chain of deferrals. This is to say that every sensibly visible presence perpetually bears the trace of a deferred and absent other—one that has always already come and is always yet to come. This contingency renders pure presence and simple origin or the pure presence of a single term as origin impossible.8 For Alberti, what “may or may not be present in things,” that is, contingency on the difference with a deferred other, is only an “accident.” This is because the original and normal state of being for Alberti is a self-referential, noncontingent presence against which contingency is judged to be an accident or an extraordinary event. What is seen in a thing as sensible visibility may or may not be there. However, what is there, and is capable of presenting itself as a non-contingent presence to the consciousness of a subject despite the instability of the vehicle of transmission, is, for Alberti, the intelligible design. Be this God’s design for the world or the architect’s design for the building. Design and only design can be beautiful because, unlike the sensibly visible, it has no need of an other. Of course, following Alberti’s logic, no duality inclusive of the design-matter and sensible-intelligible dichotomies can escape contingency without a certain intervention. Design, no less than matter, is always already contingent on the difference with a deferred other as its condition of identity and identification. The original appearance of design to the consciousness of a subject before expression in “cruder” terms, much as it is the perceived and perceivable order of things, is an illusion of simple origin and pure presence made possible by the contingency on the deferred other.9 Yet, what requires addition always already cannot, by definition, be beautiful. The beautiful must require no other and no addition to be its perfect self.

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Therefore, in so long as architecture, comprised as it is of design and matter, is contingent on difference and deferral, the desire for beautiful edifices to which nothing can be added or taken away without loss cannot be met. However, fulfilling the desire that Alberti tells us is “a kind of natural instinct” is the very point and purpose of writing ten books on architecture specifically and of architectural theory broadly. The only venue to the beautiful is to overcome the irresolute contingency on the difference with a deferred other by positing an origin or an original term that alone would be capable of sheltering the beautiful. This is, of course, precisely what Alberti attempts to do when he equates edifices to bodies in nature. In equating the two, Alberti appeals to the authority of an established theology that has already overcome contingency by an article of faith and assigned an absolute origin to the world and to nature, namely, God. Alberti posits, we should recall, an affinity between man-made edifices and natural bodies only to conclude that edifices, like natural bodies, consist of design and of matter as well. In the design-matter dichotomy, the truth of design’s absolute priority and independence, that is, its presence to the consciousness of a subject in origin before the other and before the contingent, as well as the truth of the precedence of the subject over the object that is always assumed in positing the priority of design are beyond question because what is stated is the natural order or the divinely ordained order of nature. Alberti’s appeal to the metaphysics of presence broadly and Judeo-Christian theology specifically in the form of an equation between the order of appearance of the world and in the world is as unmistakable as it is unavoidable. Contingency can only be overcome by divine intervention. It is only by terminating the contingency on the difference with a deferred other, be it subject on object or design on matter at a theological origin, that Alberti can assume presence as the norm, indeed as the very definition of being, and relegate difference with the deferred other to the status of an accidental occurrence or a disease that has befallen health. The privileged status of design and of the subject, including the beautiful as a non-contingent presence, can only be divine gifts. If architectural theory has repeatedly turned to nature since the Renaissance, it is because as a distinct, autonomous discipline subject to authoritative theoretical inquiry, architecture can only be a divine gift. The non-contingent, however, has not been and cannot be as such. The assumed ideal merely points to a desire for simple presence and pure origin. The impossibility of fulfillment is made all too evident by the design’s unmitigated dependence on the material model in the endless quest for perfection. The need for this supplementary addition perpetually points to design’s inescapable contingency and annuls any hierarchical distinction between the imitated design and the imitator body on account of contingency. We have already discussed the fracturing effect of the model on this frame of thought. What is, however, of renewed interest for us in the model is the ugly. The model has to be added, if we recall, as a remedy to an ailment of the mind that can lead to ugly designs. The model is, in other words, an indispensable preventive measure against the ability to create the ugly. The model has to be added

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simply because the ugly should not prevail. Yet, we may ask why? Why is there this unceasing desire to prevent or efface the ugly? Alberti’s immediate answer would be because the ugly disgusts! Yet why does the ugly disgust? To what is due this profound aversion to the ugly? To find an answer, we must ask what the ugly is, or what amounts to the same, what it is not. The ugly is not sensible. Matter is as incapable of being ugly as it is incapable of being beautiful. The value of matter is solely contingent on the design that is given to or implanted in it. The ugly is, in other words, like beauty, intelligible. However, it is unintelligible intelligibility. The ugly is, like beauty, mathematical. However, unlike beauty, the ugly is not endowed with divine qualities. It is not based on harmonic proportions, ordained numbers, and/or symmetrical disposition of parts. In short, the ugly is beauty stripped of its divinity. The dichotomous relation of the beautiful and the ugly only points to their mutual contingency, for reasons already discussed regarding the dichotomy between design and matter, and the intelligible and the sensible, or else light and dark, large and small, etc. Alberti affirms this despite his desire for a selfreferential, non-contingent beauty when he notes, “they say that Euryalus was most beautiful, but if compared with Ganymede, who was carried off by the gods, he might appear to be ugly” (Alberti, On Painting 53). Subject and subjected to comparison, the beautiful must be/is differing, deferred ugly in the same manner that light, for instance, is differing, deferred dark or sensible is differing, deferred intelligible. The beautiful without reference to the ugly other can never be identified as a distinct term. The beautiful and the ugly must each perpetually assume the other as the prior term and that as the condition of identifiability and identity of each. Contingent on the ugly, the beautiful is, of course, a contradiction in terms because the beautiful by definition must be devoid of any need for addition or subtraction. We are here glimpsing at the reason why the ugly disgusts. The ugly engages the beautiful in a play of never-ending deferral with no beginning and no end. The solution to this contradiction is the same as before. Once again, Alberti does/can only set aside contingency and identify an original, non-contingent presence with recourse to divine authority. Hence, we are told that beauty is a divine quality. Indeed, beauty can only be a divine quality because it is only by such provenance that the beautiful can be declared a self-referential, non-contingent totality. The precedence of the beautiful over the ugly and its inevitable self-sufficiency are made to appear beyond doubt because what beauty is said to designate is origin itself. It is quite clear to Alberti where and when beauty—this divine quality— makes its appearance. But where, and to what source are we to assign the ugly? Who bears this other? What is its provenance? This is a question of utmost difficulty within the bounds of the Albertian frame of thought, whose paramount concern is the identification of provenance. It is evident to Alberti that the ugly commonly aligns with “ignorance” or “levity and instability of mind.” As such, the ugly may well have humanity as its provenance. The being of this ugly could—a certain onto-theological

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model withstanding—be explained. It could be given a father, a birth, and a history. Yet, there is, Alberti observes, imperfection in nature. “Let us therefore enquire,” Alberti asks, “how it happens that in the bodies produced by nature herself some are accounted more, others less beautiful or even deformed” (Alberti, Ten Books 194). Alberti accounts for the more or less and discounts them as having to do with opinion. The deformed is never subjected to an inquiry. All Alberti tells us about the ugly is that “no man beholds anything ugly or deformed, without an immediate hatred (dislike) and abhorrence (disgust)” (Alberti, Ten Books 194). There is the ugly in nature, i.e., in the product of the “greatest artist in all manner of composition.” How are we to account for this? How are we to explain this unnatural occurrence in nature? Needless to say, nature cannot be accused of not knowing its own laws and principles, nor can it be said to lack what itself gives as a gift to man. Ignorance cannot explain this catastrophic event. Does, then, the ugly point to the levity and instability of the mind that designs and makes nature? As such, is nature akin to a model produced to supplement and aid the mind of the “greatest artist in all manner of composition?” Also, if levity and instability are characteristics of the mind that designs and makes nature, there would be no need to strive for perfection and only perfection in edifices to fulfill the theological imperative of achieving “resemblance with the divine nature itself.” This would be because the desired resemblance is always already granted to humans. However, if it is beauty and only beauty in nature that is natural and alone must be imitated to fulfill a theological imperative, that is because the ugly is not a constituent part of nature. What is clear to Alberti is that even though the ugly is in nature, that is because it has somehow, from somewhere outside nature, insinuated itself in nature. It has forcefully invaded a body to which it does not belong. But from where and how? This question, which is only of relevance within the boundaries of the Albertian frame of thought, cannot be answered within those boundaries and, for that matter, anywhere else. This is precisely why the ugly disgusts. This frame of thought cannot account for the ugly. Forced to consume, it cannot digest the ugly. Unable to internalize or externalize the ugly, this frame of thought can only find itself disgusted by what frustrates all attempts at appropriation or expulsion—much as they amount to the same. Having made every effort possible to keep distinctly separate, without the trace of an attachment, origin from non-origin, beauty from ugly, and so on, this frame of thought cannot account for the ugly. Confronted with the outside that is not out and has never been quite out, for there has not been either a pure outside or a pure inside, this frame of thought can only view this spillage with disgust and be filled with the desire to efface it: “Whence it happens that if anything offers itself to us that is lame or too little, or unnecessary, or ungraceful, we presently find ourselves moved and desirous to have it handsomer” (Alberti, Ten Books 21). The ugly fills the onlooker with a desire to make it beautiful, that is, to efface it. It does so because this frame of thought can only withstand the ugly by effacing it. Confronted with the ugly, forced, and yet unable to internalize or

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externalize it, this frame of thought can only desire redemption amidst disgust. What this frame of thought cannot accept, what it has to exclude adamantly is that which it cannot place, within limits. Hence, it treats the ugly as a disease in need of a remedy because it can then give itself the illusion of mastery over the ugly in thinking it a redeemable entity, that is, ultimately consumable. It is no coincidence that for Alberti, the sign of a “well practiced and experienced” person to be “rank with the greatest masters in other sciences” is measured by the ability to “propose the remedy,” i.e., to redeem the body its original health and to turn the unconsumable ugly into the consumable beauty—disgust into pleasure. This frame of thought gives itself a double assurance by treating the ugly as a disease. On the one hand, it assures itself of a healthy, original, and normal state of being to which the ugly comes as a disease and, on the other hand, of the possibility of redeeming or re-gaining this ideal state. The ideal is deemed redeemable in that the “well practiced and experienced that way” is assumed able to efface the anomaly by offering a remedy. What the “well practiced and experienced that way” offers as the remedy is either the model or ornament, to say nothing as yet of writing ten books on how to procure beauty or cure the ugly. We have already seen how the first remedy, the model, turns out to be a poison at once. We have already seen how what revived perfection deprived us of its ideality at the same time. We are now to discover whether ornament, this other remedy, is, as Alberti wishes it, a pure remedy, or it too is a poison at once? We were told that “the pleasure and delight which we feel on the view of any building arise from nothing else but beauty and ornament.” We have already discovered how and why beauty pleases and delights the onlooker. How and why does ornament contribute to this pleasure and delight? How does ornament fit into this picture, or, as it turns out, around it? Alberti tells us: “we should erect our buildings naked, and let it be quite completed before we begin to dress it with ornament” (Alberti, Ten Books 203). This analogy prefigures, for the most part, the contribution of each subject. Of the body and the dress of architecture, it is primarily the body that is subject to the natural laws of beauty, and as such, it is also the body that is chiefly responsible for “the pleasure and delight which we feel on the view of any building” (Alberti, Ten Books 112).10 Hence, the body must be first erected nude and complete to the point of requiring neither addition nor subtraction. Once the nude body beautiful is complete, it must be dressed. Ornament, in turn, constitutes all that is added to cover the body as a dress. For instance, Alberti tells us that the “outward coat” of the wall is an ornament in that it is not an integral part of “the body of the wall itself,” but a dress that covers it. However, the ornamental outward coat can itself be “adorned with figures and stuc-work, or with paintings, or pictures set in panels, or with mosaic work, or else a mixture of all these together” (Alberti, Ten Books 119). It, too, can be considered a nude body and then dressed. The column is yet another example. The column, Alberti tells us, is “the principal ornament in all architecture . . . for many of them set together embellish porticos, walls and all manner of apertures, and even a single one is handsome, and adorns the meeting of

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several streets” (Alberti, Ten Books 130). Yet, as a body subject to the laws of beauty, it itself can be dressed with different ornaments, for example, different shafts, bases, capitals, and so on. In turn, the building to the body of which the column is added as an ornament may itself serve as an ornament to larger bodies. For instance: “a temple well built and handsomely adorned is the greatest and noblest ornament a city can have” (Alberti, Ten Books 136). In short, “ornaments are in a manner infinite” (Alberti, Ten Books 136), whereby each dress can be considered a nude body in want of a dress in an endless chain of ornamentation. Although “ornaments are in a manner infinite,” not every ornament is proper for all parts of the building or all building types. In general, the type and the quantity of ornaments determine the status of the body to which they are affixed as a dress. Without ornaments, it would be virtually impossible to distinguish the status of one nude body from another: “the meaner” from “the more honorable.” It is manifest that every kind of ornament is not proper for every kind of structure. Thus we are to endeavor to the utmost of our power, to make our sacred works, especially if they are of a public nature, as completely adorned as possible, as being intended for the honor of the Gods; whereas profane structures are designed entirely for men. The meaner therefore ought to yield to the more honorable; but yet they too may be embellished with such ornaments as are suitable to them. (Alberti, Ten Books 162) It is important to note that ornament is not a specific thing. The word does not even denote a specific class of things. Although in the abstract, ornament is defined as a dress, this definition, as Alberti aptly points out, only engenders an infinite chain insofar as each dress consists of a body subject to further dressing. There is, therefore, nothing in architecture that can be specifically designated an ornament. This is in part because the ornament is not so much a thing as it is a process. It is not so much a distinct dress as the dressing of the body beautiful. What ornamentation names is the act of diferentiation—the becoming distinct of the body beautiful in perpetuity. However, as we shall discuss later, this function far exceeds the determination of the body’s status. It is partly in recognition of this excess that Alberti tells us: “ornaments annexed to all sorts of buildings make an essential part of architecture” (Alberti, Ten Books 162). Being an essential part, Alberti devotes a considerable portion of the text, nearly four books, to the discussion of ornament, giving a detailed account of ornaments proper for each building type and part. Leaving aside, for the moment, how something that is by definition annexed or added can be an essential part or a part at all, there are certain rules to be observed and certain precautionary steps to be taken in the application of ornaments. This essential part can potentially be a destructive annexation. The sensible content of ornament—its color, texture, or material—can divert the attention of the

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onlooker and fix it “upon the pleasure and delight of the senses.” Instead of seeing the dressed body, the onlooker may end up only seeing the dress. We have been forewarned of the dangerous possibility of sensible pleasure taking the place of intelligible pleasure concerning the model, where Alberti prohibits the use altogether. In the case of buildings, Alberti recommends the annexation of this essential part only insofar as there is no chance of interference. A good and a permissible ornament, he tells us, is a beautiful one. It is the one that charms not by its sensible content but by the beauty of its design. “I believe,” Alberti notes, “that whoever considers the true nature of ornament in building will be convinced, that it is not expense so much that is requisite, as taste and contrivance” (Alberti, Ten Books 187). He further confesses, “I, for my part, hate everything that favors of luxury or profusion, and am best pleased with those ornaments which arise principally from the ingenuity and beauty of the contrivance” (Alberti, Ten Books 192). Ornament must be beautiful before it can be added as a dress. However, even though each aesthetic object is a potential ornament and though each permissible ornament must be a pleasing and delightful object when judged on its own merits, nevertheless once it is annexed to a body as ornament, it is no longer its beauty that contributes to the pleasure and delight felt in view of that body but its function as an addition to the body. Ornament must be essentially beautiful, yet what makes ornament essential is not its formal beauty but its role in relation to the body to which it is annexed. Of the essential role of ornamentation, Alberti writes: How extraordinary a thing (says the person introduced in Tully) is a handsome youth in Athens! This critic in beauty found that there was something deficient or superfluous, in the persons he disliked, which was not compatible with the perfection of beauty, which I imagine might have been obtained by means of ornament, by painting and concealing anything that was deformed, and trimming and polishing what was handsome; so that the unsightly parts might have given less offense, and the more lovely more delight. If this be granted, we may define ornament to be a kind of an auxiliary brightness and improvement (complement) to beauty. So that then beauty is somewhat lovely which is proper and innate, and diffused over the whole body, and ornament somewhat added or fastened on, rather than proper and innate. (Alberti, Ten Books 113) This critic in beauty dislikes that which is not compatible with the perfection of beauty. The remedy is, it appears, ornament, by whose “means” the pleasing perfection of beauty is attained. Before the advent of beauty, or else in the place of its absence, there is either the deficient—an inner part of the body missing from within—or else the superfluous—a foreign part joined to the body from without. In either case, there is a disseminated totality. There is a body with indeterminate boundaries: an unsightly ugly something which has neither a proper inside nor a determinable outside. To this disseminated totality, ornament

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is annexed as a remedy. The addition makes the incompatible, the deficient, or the superfluous compatible with the perfection of beauty. The task implies either the provision of the missing part of the deficient or the subtraction of the extra part of the superfluous. However, the added ornament is neither the missing part of the deficient nor the extra part of the superfluous. Ornament, by definition, provides no assimilable parts and is never assimilated by the body beautiful. It is and remains foreign to both the compatible and the incompatible. It is always an “added” or “fastened on” other on both sides of an equation that it alone makes possible. Incompatible + ornament = compatible + ornament. Ornament, Alberti tells us, turns dislike and disgust into pleasure and delight by “trimming” and “polishing” the “more lovely” as it paints and hides the “unsightly.” Ornament, in other words, is neither a simple inclusion nor a simple exclusion. If anything, it plays a double role: acting at once as light and shadow, revealing and concealing, including and excluding by the same gesture. Ornament’s insightful light reveals the “innate” and the “proper” as it casts a blinding shadow over what lies beyond the periphery of the proper: the incompatible ugly other. Where, however, is this rim, this periphery, or boundary separating the beautiful from the ugly, the compatible from the incompatible, the perfect from the imperfect, before ornament is “added” or “fastened on?” This question’s ramifications are grave because the parameters at issue are the very parameters that separate architecture from mere building, the beautiful edifice from the deficient construct, and ultimately the text from the subject it is said to contemplate and reveal from a distance. As “auxiliary brightness,” ornament, Alberti would have us assume, adds its light to the light of beauty and “improves” or complements its intensity making beauty shine ever brighter in the foreground amid a concealed and shadowy background. What ornament is said to improve, however, does not precede it. If ornament adds its light to the light of beauty, it adds itself to an undifferentiated, unperceived light before the addition. It is, after all, precisely the absence of this light that mandates addition. Also, it is only after the addition that we can differentiate the undifferentiated, undifferentiable compatible, and proper from the incompatible and the improper in the same perspicuous manner that light is differentiated from shadow. Ornament is not, in other words, so much the “auxiliary brightness” that Alberti wishes it to be, as it is that which in the absence of any clear borders, any predefined parameters, is imposed, not unlike a frame, on a disseminated totality.11 In turn, it marks the advent of differentiation and the emergence of opposition. Ornament constitutes the very periphery, parameter, or boundary that is presumed to preexist its addition as “auxiliary brightness.” Ornament is, as Alberti contends, an essential part of architecture, and it is so not only as an addition to the body deficient or superfluous but also as an addition to the body beautiful. In fact, ornament is so essential that there can be no “art of building,” no beautiful edifices, before ornament is added, on the one hand, to impose and thus expose a boundary and, on the other hand, to fill and thus fulfill the desire for beauty. It is, Alberti tells us, “undeniable that there may be in the mere form or figure of a building, an innate excellence and beauty,

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which strikes and delights the mind, and is immediately perceived where it is, as much as it is missed where it is not” (Alberti, Ten Books 203). This innately beautiful building, however, Alberti concludes, “no man can bear to see naked of ornament.” And no man can bear to see the body beautiful nude because: There is hardly any man so melancholy or stupid, so rough or unpolished, but what is very much pleased with what is beautiful, and pursues those things which are most adorned and rejects the unadorned and neglected; and if any thing he views he perceives any ornament is wanting, he declares that there is something deficient which would make the work more delightful and noble. (Alberti, Ten Books 112) A healthy mind rejects, so Alberti contends, the unadorned and neglected for what is not adorned, the nude body as such, is deficient. The place of ornament, in other words, is marked by a gap or lack in the body to which ornament comes as an addition. The nude body beautiful must be dressed, that is, completed with a dress before it can give pleasure and delight. The deficient and the nude body is nothing other, can only cause dislike and disgust. Therefore, the beautiful is—must be—always already dressed, framed, or adorned before it appears as such and delights the onlooker. However, to allow the beauty of the body to shine forth, the dress must itself be beautiful. To be beautiful, the body of the dress must itself be dressed or ornamented, while the ornament to the ornament must be beautiful before it can be added to complete. There is, in other words, a paradox here. Each beautiful body as such assumes prior ornamentation while each ornament assumes prior beauty. Each leads us back to the other in an endless deferral with no beginning and no end. Where are we then to locate beauty, that non-contingent absolute that requires neither addition nor subtraction? How can we account for a deficiency in perfection—a certain gap or lack, a certain internal indeterminacy, and an indispensable contingency that mandates addition? How are we to privilege the beautiful over the ugly if the contingency and the pernicious deficiency that constitute a most radical difference between the beautiful and the ugly are shared characteristics? In sum, where are the “obscured” parameters that this text had set out to only unravel and reveal? Insofar as ornament points to a need for addition in the body that must require no addition to be itself, insofar as the beautiful must be, is always, completed with something other than itself—neither proper nor inner by definition—in order to be its perfect self, the parameters are nowhere to be found. There is no outside to contingency on an other!

On the Ornamental and the Theoretical While in exile from his city—having been forced out of his place on the inside—Alberti tells us:

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I used to both marvel and to regret that so many excellent and divine arts and sciences, which we know from their works and from historical accounts were possessed in great abundance by the talented men of antiquity, have now disappeared and are almost entirely lost. Painters, sculptors, architects, musicians, geometers, rhetoricians, augurs and suchlike distinguished and remarkable intellects, are very rarely to be found these days, and are of little merit. Consequently I believed what I heard many say that nature, mistress of all things, had grown old and weary, and was no longer producing intellects any more than giants on a vast and wonderful scale such as she did in what one might call her youthful and more glorious days. But after I came back here to this most beautiful of cities from the long exile in which we Albertis have grown old, I . . . realized that the ability to achieve the highest distinction in any meritorious activity lies in our own industry and diligence no less than in the favours of Nature and of times. (Alberti, On Painting 33) Once allowed back to his place of origin, Alberti has a profound realization. He discovers that the achievement of the highest distinction depends not only on a gift of genius from nature but also on industry and diligence. Equipped with this newly acquired knowledge, Alberti sets out to restore order to yet another disorderly body: the ruinous subject of architecture. Assured of his favored nature, he tells us: I thought it the duty of an honest and studious mind, to endeavor to free this science, for which the most learned among the ancients had always a very great esteem, from its present ruin and oppression. (Alberti, Ten Books 112) It is “in this unhappy state of things” that Alberti, in keeping with his new insight, reenacts his story and through chance and observation, use and experience, reason and study, manages to salvage architecture from ruin; and all, so he tells us, in the line of duty. He alleviates “the fatigue of writing, by the thirst and pleasure of gaining information” and at the end of an arduous, often disheartening process restores architecture its lost status among the “excellent and divine arts and sciences,” and thereby assures himself a place in the rank of philosophers and scientist. Thanks to Alberti’s labor, architecture is once again a free scientific subject able to withstand the test of truth. Alberti’s text adds itself, and not unlike an ornament come as remedy frees its subject from ruin. But to what unhappy state does the text add itself? What deficiency or loss in the scientific subject necessitates the addition? The text within whose volume Alberti appends ornamentation as a remedy to the deficient or the superfluous is itself an appendage to “a difficult, knotty and commonly obscured subject.” It too is appended as “a kind of an auxiliary brightness” whose point and purpose are to reveal and redeem the obscured parameters of architecture in a state of “oppression and ruin.” However, what

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this text reveals, if it could be said to reveal anything, is not a sovereign subject outside the text but an ornamented subject within the text. The body beautiful never appears in this text without a dress, which is tantamount to not appearing at all; be this divorced from the text or within it. However, Alberti insists, and rightly so, that the ornamental appendage is nothing but a dress. If it brings an insightful light to bear on the body, this light is only “a kind of an auxiliary brightness.” If ornament contributes to pleasure and delight felt in view of the body, it is by way of a “complement”: of more light and more delight. In turn, what is simply more, what is “auxiliary” and supplemental, is also unnecessary and inessential. What is fastened on can readily be removed without a real loss. Yet, as we have seen, this constitutes only half the story. The ornamental remedy is at once a poison. If ornament adds, it also subtracts. If it completes, it also points to a deficiency in what it completes. The ornament that redeems the beautiful also denies the beautiful its perfection. What Alberti gains by ornamentation, he has already lost to decoration. This is the paradox that is ornamentation. However, the textual appendage is meant to unravel and reveal what requires neither addition nor subtraction. It is meant to bring to light that which in architecture is not contingent on difference with a deferred other. Specifically, It is meant to subject architecture to the laws of a metaphysics that has placed nature before culture, beauty before ugly, design before matter, the intelligible before the sensible, original before copy, presence before absence, self-sufficiency before contingency, and so on. If Alberti undertakes the arduous task of writing on architecture, his point and purpose are not to confound but to separate the beautiful from the ugly, the sufficient from the deficient, the self-referential from the contingent, or else architecture from mere building. To this “end,” ornament is certainly an impediment. It is also indispensable. To reveal the body beautiful, Alberti must dress it; to reveal its perfection, he must remove the dress. The latter only reveals a deficiency. Therefore, if the theoretical text is to live up to its promise of revelation, short of removing the ornamentation, Alberti must render it removable without having to remove it. Hence Alberti’s recourse to the dress as a metaphor for comprehending the role of ornamentation. This metaphor is, in other words, neither arbitrary nor accidental. The perception of theoretical writing as a venture of discovery and not invention, of revelation, and not the textual construction of the parameters of architecture depends on it. The text can only marginalize its role, that is, it can only claim a truth value for what it purports only to be revealing from a distance, if ornament is nothing but a dress or “a kind of an auxiliary brightness.” If this metaphor is compelling and persuasive, that is not because ornament is “a kind of an auxiliary brightness,” rather because from the outset, the beautiful is said to be a natural, non-contingent absolute divorced from the theoretical text and independent of the textual and the ornamental revelations. It is because Alberti has already dressed the subject before subjecting it to ornamentation. Before the ornamental appendage, we should recall, there is the theoretical text itself on the margins of architecture, filling the place of a primal deficiency

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in its subject. This is the want of a pre-determined, natural margin or borderline. The remedy to this deficiency—the initial dress—is the imposition of beauty as the criterion that allows Alberti to separate architecture from mere building. This delimitational dress is further augmented by nature as “the origin of all that is beautiful and perfect.” In turn, the natural dress places the beautiful before all ornamental appendages. As the non-contingent original term, by a natural decree, the beautiful need no longer assume prior ornamentation as the condition of its appearance because it has already appeared in nature, even if obscured and unseen before the textual revelation. Regardless of what it may accomplish, the ornamental appendage can be nothing but an auxiliary brightness by virtue of its assigned place in the timely and resolute order of appearances: beauty before ornamentation, architecture before the theoretical revelation, and nature before cultural invention and construction. Therefore, if ornament is, as Alberti insists, “a kind of an auxiliary brightness,” that is because Alberti’s theory has already assumed the paradoxical role of what it seeks to reduce to a supplemental source of light. The theoretical text has already become the paradox it is meant to resolve. It has already become a remedy and a poison, an addition and a subtraction, at once: not only “a kind of an auxiliary brightness” but also the origin of light and the impossibility of a determinable origin. As an ornamental appendage, the insightful light that the theoretical text is said to shed over its subject is accompanied by a blinding shadow cast over its own operation. By assuming an ambivalent supplemental role in relation to its subject, that is, by reducing its operation to an act of revelation, theory ensures the truth-value of what it purports to only be revealing. What the theoretical text promises at the outset, however, it denies in the end. The sovereign subject as such never appears before, or for that matter, after the external supplemental addition that is theory. What the theoretical text brings to light is an endless chain of ornamentation from beauty to nature to the infinity of the ornamental appendage as a dress. The endless demarcation of borderlines within the theoretical text frames and defines the subject after the fact by supplying what is missing and missed in the subject from the outset—a clarifying frame or borderline. Each appended dress takes the place of a deficiency in an infinite chain with no beginning or end. To reveal, Alberti must resort to ornamentation. The ornament, however, denies what it provides. It makes impossible what it makes possible. At once. If, on the other hand, architecture’s search for an elusive non-contingent beauty that is universal, immutable, original, and true appears to indispensably and irresolutely self-perpetuate into an unremitting chain of theoretical texts, that is partly because architecture’s contingency on the dress, in all its guises, culture, theory, ornament and so on, perpetually instigates and promulgates the desire. The dress perpetually promises the illusive presence of the nude body beautiful, albeit one that, appearances to the contrary notwithstanding, can never be undressed. The reason is also the indispensable and synergetic relationship between Western architectural theory and the metaphysics of presence. Much as this

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theory’s authority to speak conclusively of the truth of architecture is vested in its appeal to the metaphysics of presence in the guise of nature, conversely, theory’s methodical and concerted resistance to contingency upholds and protects that metaphysics indispensably by way of supplementation and/or ornamentation. Much as architectural theory, in the cause of truth, beauty, origin, and so on, cannot shed its dependency on the metaphysics of presence, the metaphysics of presence cannot effectively shed its architectural dress. To both ends, the aversion to the contingent and the ornamental, always voiced from within culture, is a matter of course.

Notes 1. I have used Giacomo Leone’s 1755 translation of De re aedificatoria in consideration of copyrights and because in addition to Alberti’s, it provides a glimpse through an 18thcentury lens. 2. I use the pronoun “he” in this text merely in deference to Alberti’s exclusive and exclusionary view of the architect as a male figure. 3. Of these Alberti says: “The Region with us shall be the whole large open place in which we are to build, and of which the Seat or Platform shall be only a part: but the Platform shall be a determined spot of the Region, circumscribed by walls for use and service. But under the title Platform, we shall likewise include all those spaces of the buildings, which in walking we tread upon with our feet. The Compartition is that which sub-divides the whole platform of the house into smaller platforms, so that the whole edifice thus formed and constituted of these its members, seems to be full of lesser edifices: by Walling we shall understand all that structure, which is carried from the ground to the top to support the weight of the roof, and such also as is raised on the inside of the building, to separate the apartments; Covering we shall call not only that part, which is laid over the heads of those within; which includes all ceilings, halfarched roofs, vaults, and the like. Apertures are all those outlets, which are in any part of the building, for the convenience of egress and regress, or the passage of things necessary for the inmates” (Alberti, Ten Books 2). 4. Laugier will give us a very different interpretation of these elements and their relationship in the next chapter. 5. These three principles are also and more commonly known as commodity, firmness and delight. 6. The difference between painting and model is not unlike the difference between painting and sculpture. As to what Alberti has to say about painting and sculpture: “If it is a help to imitate the works of others, because they have greater stability of appearance than living things, I prefer you to take as your model a mediocre sculpture rather than an excellent painting, for from painted objects we train our hand only to make a likeness, whereas from sculpture we learn to represent both likeness and correct incidence of light. It will probably help also to practice at sculpting rather than painting, for sculpture is easier and surer than painting” (Alberti, On Painting 101). 7. The church of Sant’Andrea discussed earlier is a case in point. 8. The act of differentiation or identification always assumes a prior structure of difference while the structure of difference is itself the product of an act of differentiation. To understand light we need a prior notion of dark and to identify dark as such we need a prior notion of light. Neither light nor dark can in itself be a pure presence or a single totality in origin, as origin, for the need of difference with the other. Identity of light or dark is established, can only be established, through difference and then as presence and absence at once. Light, in presenting itself to the mind, is always already marked by the

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trace of darkness. It is marked by the trace of an other which is not it and not present while making it what it is comprehended to be. Without this trace, without the trace of absence in presence and of presence in absence there can be no identity. 9. For an extended discussion of the concept of trace, difference and deferral, and of the metaphysics of presence see Derrida, Of Grammatology (Derrida, Of Grammatology). 10. What Alberti refers to as the naked body of the building is the totality comprised of six afore-mentioned parts called Region, Platform, Compartition, Walling, Covering and Aperture. It is this naked body that is subject to the natural laws of beauty. 11. For a thorough discussion the role of ornament as a frame see Derrida, The Truth in Painting (Derrida, The Truth in Painting).

Reference List Alberti, Leon Battista. The Architecture of Leon Battista Alberti in Ten Books. Translated by Giacomo Leone, Leoni Edition, Edward Owen, 1755. ———. On the Art of Building in Ten Books. MIT Press, 1988. ———. On Painting and On Sculpture. Translated by Cecil Grayson, Phaidon Press, 1972. Derrida, Jacques. Of Grammatology. Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998. ———. The Truth in Painting. The University of Chicago Press, 1987. Wotton, Henry. The Elements of Architecture. Da Capo Press, 1624.

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Marc-Antoine Laugier or An Essay on Architecture From the True to the Supplemental1

Two insurmountable obstacles stand in the way of the fulfillment of our wishes: the prejudice of the mind and the habit of the hand. Nothing exceeds human strength more than to change the minds and opinions of those who believe they were created to rule over others; and who think that proposing new practices to them is meant to dominate them. The force of reason alone can not prevail over the resistance raised against it by the prejudice of education, the displeasure of being obliged to retrace one’s steps, and the shame of being subjected to new studies when one assumes one has already attained complete knowledge and enlightenment. The consequence of all this in the mind is a sad prejudice to which pride has contributed most; and which resists all reasoning with an arrogant stubbornness that simple ignorance would not have. Therefore, it is foremost a question of overcoming the interests the masters may have in not allowing a new method to gain favor. It is clear that triumph cannot be had without enduring great fights. Instead of letting go of the scheme of a false defense for the love of truth, they will raise obstacle after obstacle; and dispute each step along the way so as to never surrender. It will take much time and reflection to extinguish this first heat of opposition and for reason to regain all its rights. Even more honesty and nobility of heart is needed to rise above a prejudice that is unfortunately so common, though so pernicious and blind. (Laugier, Essai 184)2

Transformations Alberti’s faithful quest for beauty and perfection in architecture through imitation of nature would be repeated, echoed, and amplified in a host of theoretical texts published in Europe for nearly 200 years following the 1452 publication of De re aedificatoria (On the Art of Building). Prominent among these were Andrea Palladio’s Four Books of Architecture, published in 1570, and Henry Wotton’s The Elements of Architecture, published in 1624. Palladio would declare nearly 120 years after Alberti, “I say therefore, that architecture, as well as all other arts, being an imitatrix of nature, can suffer nothing that either alienates or deviates from that which is agreeable to nature” (Palladio 25). Henry Wotton, in turn, would state some 170 years after Alberti, “I had noted, that all art was then in truest perfection when it might be reduced to some natural Principle. DOI: 10.4324/9781003175780-3

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For what are the most judicious Artisans but the Mimiques of Nature” (Wotton 7). Far from being scrutinized or questioned, Alberti’s thesis would serve these and other texts as an authoritative foundation to construe on and to the same end. Critical and strategic change would await the shift from a mathematical worldview in the Renaissance to a mechanical worldview in the Enlightenment. The change would necessitate and entail adjustments to the tactics, though we shall see, not to the overall trajectory or the established objectives of theory. The first signs of change would appear in the second half of the 17th century in France. Over time, it would assume the form of a protracted debate at the newly established Royal Academy of Architecture (1671). That debate reflected the broader dispute between the “Ancients” and the “Moderns” that was already underway at the Royal Academy of Science (1666). At the Royal Academy of Architecture, the protagonists of the architectural debate were effectively represented by François Blondel and Claude Perrault. Blondel’s defense of the ancient was expounded in his “Cours d’architecture” (1675–1683). Perrault’s defense of the Moderns was elaborated in the “Ordonnance for the five kinds of columns after the method of the Ancients” (1683). Their debate hinged on the place and role of mathematics and harmonic proportions in the unwavering quest for absolute beauty and perfection in architecture. Whereas François Blondel upheld much of Alberti’s stance on the role of mathematics and harmonic proportions, Perrault refuted it as a source of “arbitrary” beauty. “One must suppose,” Perrault contended, “two kinds of beauty in architecture and know which beauties are based on convincing reasons and which depend only on prejudice” (Perrault 50). Referring to the former as “positive beauty,” he called “beauties based on convincing reasons those whose presence in works is bound to please everyone, so easily apprehended are their value and quality” (Perrault 50). Believing “common sense is all that is needed to apprehend” it, “positive beauty” for Perrault consisted of “the richness of the materials, the size and magnificence of the building, the precision and cleanness of the execution, and symmetry, which in French signifies the kind of proportion that produces an unmistakable and striking beauty” (Perrault 50). Perfectly distinct from the customary mathematical and harmonic proportions, Perrault tells us, this “other kind of proportion, called symmetry, is very apparent and consists in the relationship the parts have collectively as a result of the balanced correspondence of their size, number, disposition, and order” (Perrault 50). As we might expect, Perrault’s “positive beauty” was not only universal in appeal, it was also—as all universal beauties before it and for the same reasons— based on the imitation of nature: “we must consider that the reasons that ought to carry the greatest weight in regulating architectural beauty should be based either on the imitation of nature . . . or on the resemblance of an edifice to the first buildings that nature taught men to make” (Perrault 51–52). It follows that “neither imitation of nature, nor reason, nor good sense in any way constitutes the basis for the beauty people claim to see in proportion .  .  . indeed, it is

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impossible to find any source other than custom for the pleasure they impart” (Perrault 52). He goes on: The first works of architecture manifested richness of materials; grandeur, opulence, and precision of workmanship; symmetry (which is a balanced and fitting correspondence of parts that maintain the same arrangement and position); good sense in matters where it is called for; and other obvious reasons for beauty. As a result, these works seemed so beautiful and were so admired and revered that people decided they should serve as the criteria for all others. And in as much as they believed it impossible to add to or to change anything in all these positive beauties without diminishing the beauty of the whole, they found it unimaginable that the proportions of these works could be altered without ill effect; whereas, they could, in fact, have been otherwise without injury to the other beauties. (Perrault 53) Perrault concludes: “it is therefore true that in architecture there is positive beauty and beauty that is only arbitrary, even though it appears to be positive due to prejudice, against which one guards oneself with great difculty” (Perrault 53). Several concepts and themes in Perrault’s text, including the emphasis on recourse to “reason” regarding beauty and perfection, the attribution of the arbitrary to “prejudice” and “custom,” and the assumed perfection in the first works of architecture “that nature taught men to make,” were all to play a central role in French theoretical debates on architecture for the next halfcentury. These would culminate in one of the more influential and widely debated theoretical texts of the 18th century: Marc-Antoine Laugier’s An Essay on Architecture. Laugier’s text effectively embodied the changed ethos of the Age of Reason in architecture and the Enlightenment’s modified theoretical tactics. For that reason, it is on this text that we shall focus next.

On Cause and Effect Over three hundred years after Alberti, and 70 years after Perrault, Laugier deemed it imperative to embark on yet another search for a solid foundation of “firm principles” and “fixed laws” based on which the difference between “good” and “bad” in architecture can be readily deciphered, and a secure and true theory be erected. In justification, Laugier notes with remorse that “there are several treatises on architecture which explain measures and proportions with reasonable accuracy, enter into detail of the different Orders and furnish models for all manner of buildings.” Despite the long list of such treatises, inclusive of Alberti’s, and even Vitruvius’ long before Alberti, Laugier decries “there is no work as yet that firmly establishes the principles of architecture, explains its true spirit and proposes rules for guiding talent and defining taste” (Laugier, An Essay 1). In Laugier’s view, what the discipline of architecture has lacked all along is a theoretical text that reveals the inviolable principles of architecture

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erected upon the “solid ground” of truth and of a body of knowledge that can and must guide talent to a “definite objective” and define “proper taste.” The consequence of this crucial lack has been that: Architecture alone has hitherto been abandoned to the caprice of Architects, which have given us precepts of it without discernment. They have determined its rules at hazard upon the bare inspection of ancient buildings. They have copied their defects with the same scruples as their beauties; wanting principles to distinguish their difference, they have imposed on themselves the obligation of confounding them: vile imitators, all that has been authorized by examples has been declared legitimate: limiting all their inquiries by consulting the fact, they have wrongfully concluded the right, and their lessons have only been a fountain of errors. (Laugier, Essay vi) Laugier’s critique here is as much directed at his recent predecessors as it is at Renaissance theoreticians, including Alberti, who specifically noted that “there was not the least remain of any ancient structure, that had any merit in it, but what I went and examined . . . till such time as I had made myself perfect master of every contrivance or invention that had been used in those ancient remains” (Alberti 112).3 Confronting a “chaotic state of architectural rules” and the inevitable confoundment of the beautiful and the ugly by his predecessors—in no small measure due to their misconceived approach to ancient remains—Laugier feels compelled to save architecture once again, like Alberti before him, there from a state of ruin, and here from “complete decadence” and “eccentric opinions.” To this end, he offers his theoretical Essay with the intent to “throw some ray of light” on the subject to reveal or disclose the “fixed and unchangeable laws of architecture,” thereby giving architects “infallible means to reach perfection.” This latter is, for him, the irrefutable and “definite objective” of the art of architecture. Much as he shares this strive for perfection in architecture with his immediate and distant predecessors, he too conceives and offers theory in the cause of perfection as a source of light shed on an otherwise autonomous subject that is indelibly assumed to precede the theoretical supplementation and revelation. Laugier deems the revelatory light of theory imperative because “an artist should be able to explain to himself everything he does, and for this he needs firm principles to determine his judgement and justify his choice so that he can tell whether a thing is good or bad, not simply by instinct but by reasoning and as a man experienced in the way of beauty” (Laugier, An Essay 1). The abdication of instinct in favor of reasoning constitutes a fundamental tactical shift from the old to the new frame of thought. We will follow the ramifications in time. For Laugier, lack of principle or law—which is not but the lack of a dividing frame—inevitably leads to the confoundment of good and bad. This is

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because the ability to discern the difference between good and bad depends on the knowledge of “sure rules” and “firm principles.” It is Laugier’s credence, as was Alberti’s, Palladio’s, and Perrault’s, among others, that there is a “true” or “absolute beauty” which is “inherent in architecture independent of mental habit and human prejudice,” that “good and bad produce two indelible qualities the essence of which neither length of time or prolonged habit can change or destroy” (Laugier, An Essay 22). Though they share indelibility in common, these two qualities are, in their “essence,” as opposed to each other as the universal is to the particular. Laugier’s good, like Perrault’s “positive beauty,” is governed by “fixed” rules. The bad is, as was Perrault’s, the outcome of the application of “arbitrary rules” based on “flights of fancy” and “capricious whim.” The good, similar to Alberti’s, “grips and lifts up the soul into ecstasy” giving it “pleasure mingled with rapture and enthusiasm.” The bad, like Alberti’s, would have the soul “disgusted,” “shocked,” and “repelled.” To “see the difference” between these two “indelible qualities,” that is, to determine whether a thing is good or bad in “essence,” one can neither simply rely on one’s “instinct” nor have recourse to “accepted practice.” In this matter, one can defer “little to public opinion” or “custom.” Insofar as Laugier is concerned, to judge a thing good or bad, one must subject it to a “severe rational test” and, through thought and reason, determine the presence of either of the two qualities in the thing. Unlike Alberti, who assumed the ability to judge and discern the difference between the beautiful and the ugly a natural and instinctive given, Laugier’s contention in the Age of Reason is that to see the difference between the two, one must be “experienced in the way of beauty,” that is, be aware of the fixed and unchanging principles that make a thing beautiful and another ugly. Although “nobody is barred from knowing the rules” that enable one to judge correctly, this knowledge must be acquired, Laugier tells us, by way of a certain penetration and removal of a “veil” that hides them from view. As he had said earlier of his contemporaries, of Vitruvius Laugier says that he only teaches us what was practiced in his time and although his work: Shows a genius capable of penetrating into the true secrets of his art, he does not confine himself to the tearing of the veil that covers them, and avoiding always the abysses’ of theory, he leads us through the roads of practice, which frequently makes us wander from the end. All the moderns except Mr. de Cordemoi, only comment upon Vitruvius, and follow him in all his wanderings with confidence. I say Mr. de Cordemoi excepted: this author more profound than the greatest part of others, hath discovered the truth, which was hid to them. (Laugier, Essay vii–viii) M. de Cordemoy, however, even though on the right track, fails to penetrate far enough to remove the veil entirely. It is left to Laugier to complete the process and lay bare the hidden truth. The blinding veil that must be penetrated and removed in the Age of Reason is a veil the “outer cover” is believed to

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spread over the inner truth. In general, the “outer cover” for Laugier is what is readily perceived. It is a visible “fact.” An efect, a practice, or an example, for instance, are for Laugier an outer cover. In turn, the inner truth is what makes the “fact” what it appears to be. It is, for instance, the cause behind the efect, the theory behind the practice, or the principle behind the example. Unlike the visible “fact,” the inner truth as the source or the origin of fact is not readily perceived. It is in a manner hidden behind what it makes visible, i.e., behind the “fact.” Therefore, to see the truth, one must bypass the outer appearance and penetrate to the beyond. When we speak of the art of building, of the confused heaps of troublesome rubbish, of heaps of shapeless materials, dangerous scaffolds, a frightful game of machines, a multitude of ragged labourers; this is all that presents itself to the imagination of the vulgar, it is the rind, the least agreeable of any art, the ingenious mysteries of which are understood by few, and excite the admiration of all who discern them. Therein are discovered inventions, the boldness of which intimates an extensive and most fruitful genius. Proportions, the use of which declares a severe and systematic precision. Ornaments, the elegance of which discloses a most excellent and delicate thought. Whoever is capable of discerning such a variety of beauties, far from confounding architecture with these lesser arts, will be tempted to place it in the rank of the most profound sciences. (Laugier, Essay 2) Behind an unpleasant outer cover lie the intriguing mysteries of the art of building veiled from those who judge by the cover, the “vulgar.” Error is their lot. Those few who penetrate this cover discover beneath it a profound science, the knowledge of which saves them the error of confounding architecture with the lesser arts and rewards them with a grasp on beauty, true principle, and the truth of principle. The procedure for Laugier is clear: to see the truth of a thing, be that thing good or bad, one must always penetrate its outer appearance to discover either fixed or else arbitrary rules at work beneath. Whereas order marks the ability to correctly judge and keep apart the good from the bad, chaos marks the failure or unwillingness to penetrate the veil. As to how one may penetrate the veil, overcome the cover, discover the cause behind the effect, and become experienced in the way of beauty and of fixed principles, Laugier tells us: In meditating always more upon the various impressions that the different compositions of Architecture made upon me, I was desirous of searching into the cause of their effect. . . . This inquiry at first presented to me nothing but darkness and uncertainties. I was not discouraged, I have fathomed the abyss, until I believed I had discovered the bottom. I have not ceased to interrogate my soul until it had rendered me a satisfactory answer. All at once it has given to my eyes a great light. I have beheld distinct objects,

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where before I could not see anything but mists and clouds: I have seized these objects with ardour, and in making use of their light I have discovered by little and little my doubts to disappear, my difficulties to vanish, and I am at last able to demonstrate to myself, by principles and consequences, the necessity of all the effects; the causes of which I was ignorant. (Laugier, Essay xiii–xiv) As a man of reason, Laugier thinks about efects and wants to discover the cause. Are his “diferent reactions” random, or do they point to fixed causes? He is confronted with an abyss—the abyss of apparent efects and obscure and uncertain causes. Is there a bottom? Laugier is not one to be dissuaded by a bottomless appearance as others may. He sounds the abyss to discover the truth. The answer to his questions and the proof of the validity of his assumptions come from the “soul.” The abyss has a bottom indeed. Appearances are not to be trusted. With recourse to the soul, Laugier penetrates the cover and discovers the cause. The light of truth shines forth from behind the cover of haze and cloud that had hidden it. He can now account for his feelings “through principle and conclusion,” as any man of reason should. His soul has shown him the causes or the principles that made the objects in question good or bad, delightful or unbearable. In the light of truth and the cause that shines through the denuded objects, Laugier can now see his uncertainties gradually disappear and his difculties vanish. It is as such that the true principles of architecture are discovered. The outer cover is penetrated through an inner soul-searching journey. To become experienced in the way of beauty so as to judge correctly, one must become experienced in the way of reason, that is to say, of establishing a dialogue with one’s soul. No one, therefore, “is barred from knowing the rules” insofar as one is willing to search one’s soul for a satisfying answer. Everyone can discover the bottom if only one is willing to, as Laugier suggests, penetrate the “same abyss.” It is Laugier’s contention that the “taste” for “true beauty” is “a taste that is natural to everybody” (Laugier, An Essay 16). Considering this as well as the fact that no one is denied the ability to penetrate the cover, the failure or unwillingness of Laugier’s immediate predecessors and contemporaries, and for that matter, Vitruvius, to penetrate the veil as a prerequisite to the satisfaction of a natural taste is a question that requires a characteristically rational explanation. Laugier contributes this problem to “blind prejudice” and blames it on ignorance and laziness, on the one hand, and on the power of deception of what he refers to as “false jewels,” on the other. The state of chaos that Laugier confronts is marked—for lack of fixed principles—by a confoundment of good and bad. The lack of fixed principle, as Laugier contends, is not to imply an inherent lack or gap in the discipline. Fixed principles are, though in a manner concealed, always there for the discovery. Rather, the problem is a lack of knowledge or ignorance of them. Considering the inhered ability to overcome it, ignorance for Laugier points to laziness or unwillingness to penetrate the

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cover. This laziness or unwillingness is what he holds against not only Vitruvius but, to an even greater extent, his immediate predecessors and contemporaries. Instead of searching for the cause, they have “confined their studies to fact” or to effect. “Always avoiding the depth of theory,” they have preoccupied themselves with its manifest cover: practice. Ignorant of fixed principles, they have based their judgment on “accepted practice.” Whatsoever “example” deemed delightful has been given the status of law and slavishly imitated without a knowledge of its governing principles. However, Laugier insists, “this way of thinking which makes what is right simply dependent on custom seems to me a very easy expedience for ignorant and lazy artists but it obstructs the progress of the arts too much to be generally adopted” (Laugier, An Essay 22). Hence, “if only arbitrary rules are wanted for the arts one can insist on custom, but if the processes of art must go back to fixed principles it is necessary to appeal to reason against custom and to sacrifice to the light of one the force and sway of the other” (Laugier, An Essay 22). Custom is indeed powerful and persuasive. It has the acceptance and pleasure of many in support of its claims. This much Perrault attested to as well. However, infallible custom is not. This absolute other of reason is fallible because its power is the power of appearance and its persuasive appeal that of effect. It cannot be generally adopted because appearances can be deceiving and effects misleading. Where there is no exercise of “reason” to bring the truth to “light,” the flights of fancy of an artist—the bad—though always so in “essence,” can appear otherwise as “false jewels” can appear real to indiscriminating minds. In the absence of “light,” for Laugier custom always points to this absence, the good and the bad are bound to be confounded since their difference remains covered behind the haze and the cloud that is characteristic of appearance. “One day,” Laugier tells us, “somebody said to me: ‘Monsieur, why do you condemn things which please me?’ I answered: ‘For the same reason Monsieur, that you condemn the farces of the charlatans which please many people’” (Laugier, An Essay 20). What is an accepted practice, despite its ability to please, can either be good or bad in that a faulty practice or arbitrary example, not unlike “the farces of the charlatans,” those empty expressions that please the many by a false appearance, can appear faultless and fixed, please those who judge by the cover, and therefore become customary. It is precisely this susceptibility to deceptive appearances that, in questions of judgment, requires one to defer little to “custom” or “accepted practice,” to “instinct” or “public opinion.” One must always defer all to the “light” of reason and, despite the “force and sway” of custom, never fail to condemn the bad, even if, or better yet, especially if it is found pleasing by many. Order, however, is not so easily restored to the state of chaos. Laugier, in his crusade against the power of deception of “false jewels” and mere appearances, must, for the sake of truth, order, and perfection, endure “great fights” against a “prejudice unfortunately so common although so pernicious and blind” (Laugier, An Essay 107). This is a prejudice whose “arrogant obstinacy simple ignorance would not have.” In the state of chaos, there is not a simple but an

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obstinately arrogant ignorance at work. The public and the profession are not only ignorant of the fixed principles—hence, their blindness to difference—but also and most important, ignorant of the deception and the confoundment— hence their prejudice against reason. Insofar as the profession and the public are concerned, their “complete store of enlightened knowledge” has “already been acquired.” If Laugier’s contemporaries have not and are unwilling to penetrate the cover, that is, in part, because they see no reason for it. The “taste” for “true beauty” is assumed already satisfied before Laugier enters the stage with “the torch of truth” to expose the deception and free the servants of appearance and practice. There is pleasure in the state of chaos despite Laugier’s provocative condemnation of it. His disruptive intervention is, therefore, nothing short of a call to battle. Yet, aware of the dangers involved, Laugier must press on because he is assured of the righteousness of his cause. “I feel how perilous it is,” Laugier tells us, “to denounce common practices. Our artists might well hate me for having disturbed them in their present enjoyment of indulging in liberties which I condemn. But I beg them not to sacrifice those principles, on which the true perfection of their art depends, to notions derived from prejudice or indolence” (Laugier, An Essay 35). The stage is thus set. The battle between the blind force of prejudice and the light of reason is unavoidable because what is at stake is the delimitation of true perfection or true beauty, if not truth itself, in the art of building. The battle must be fought and fought on both sides, not for the sake of pleasure in the art of building but because there is pleasure. Laugier is compelled to wage war because the arbitrary, which should disgust and repel the soul, is instead giving pleasure. The others are compelled to fight back because the other is the same or, as Laugier sees it, appears to be the same. The same and the other, the arbitrary and the fixed, the beautiful and the ugly, have the same effect. This cannot be, or rather should not be. Of the two opposing sides, one must be in the wrong, even though they both believe themselves in the right. Hence, the battle must be fought, and the winner be right. The battle must be fought. Yet, it is not to be fought over the desired end, that is, over the true beauty, which is a “natural” desire to both parties. Rather, it is to be fought over the means to attain this end, which, as we shall see later, designates, once again and to both parties, a self-referential, non-contingent totality. What is not in question here for either side is the ideal of beauty and its onto-theological implications. What is in question here is the other side’s ability to exclude the bad from the domain of the good as the mark of order. Whereas Laugier’s adversaries, as had Alberti, dismiss the possibility of deception by assuming the ability to exclude the bad a natural or instinctive given, Laugier acknowledges this dangerous possibility and then, with recourse to “reason,” does his utmost to exclude it and with it the bad for good. The dispute is, in other words, over the reliability of custom or reason, sensation or thought, sight or in-sight, to prevent the chaos of confoundment and maintain order through perpetual separation of the good and the bad.

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Although Laugier’s adversaries are blind to the fracture, it is Laugier’s ardent belief that the old frame of custom and instinct does not hold. Blindness to deception—that fracture in the old frame—has made it possible for the imposturous bad to infiltrate the ranks of good. Control over bad—order—is thus lost to the reign of chaos due to blindness. Hence the reason why at times, Laugier finds himself “disgusted,” “shocked,” or “repelled,” though not by the bad as such, but by the good that is not. The bad as such, which reveals its true nature as such, does not shock this frame of thought. What does shock this frame of thought is the imposturous bad or the false good. It is that which appears to be the same but is not. It is that which should and yet does not arouse disgust in others. The true bad cannot repel because it has already been repelled. The true bad is, in fact, in a manner, reassuring insofar as seeing it for the bad that it is, is indicative of control, of order, and of a clear border. The sensation of disgust and repulsion can only be aroused by that which has transgressed the border, thus occupying a place to which it does not belong, through a false appearance. The synonym of chaos for Laugier is not the other, but the same and other at once. It is what appears to be and is not. Therefore, to restore order, that is, to arouse disgust, there is a need for disclosure or enclosure—they amount to the same. A new frame, the frame of reason, must be introduced to repel the false good and turn the servants of the cover into the masters of the truth. To win the battle against the force and sway of blind prejudice, Laugier must construct a theoretical fortress. This is the fortress of truth, erected on the solid bottom of the abyss of appearance, and lit by the light of reason, that can, on the one hand, give shelter to the ideal of good, beauty, or perfection, and on the other, prevent infiltration and retain the bad, the ugly, or the imperfect on the outside. The question that remains is whether or not the new frame of reason, unlike the old frame of custom and instinct, can achieve full closure.

The Lesson and the Gift It is Laugier’s conviction that: Architecture owes all that is perfect in it to the Greeks, a free nation, to which it was reserved not to be ignorant of anything in the arts and sciences. The Romans, worthy of admiring, and capable of copying the most excellent models that the Greeks helped them to, were desirous thereto to join their own, and did no less than show the whole universe, that when perfection is arrived at, there only remains to imitate or decay. (Laugier, Essay 3–4) Laugier’s view of the history of architecture, or rather, the history of perfection in architecture, is, therefore, markedly diferent from Alberti’s. Whereas the latter credited the Romans with the attainment of perfection, Laugier gives the honor, for reasons that shall become apparent soon, to the Greeks: a “privileged” nation. However, even though our two theorists difer on to whom

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“architecture owes all that is perfect,” there is no marked diference between the two on the general definition of the objective of the art in question. In keeping with the tradition of which Laugier is as much an inheritor and a representative as Alberti, the objective here, once again, is defined as perfection, that is, a state of being in or of architecture that is marked by the absence of need for addition. The strive here is, as before, for a full measure of being, a non-contingent presence, or a self-referential totality that has no need for and no connection or attachment to an other. The perfect is, as before, that which cannot accept addition without loss—the loss of itself as such. Once perfection is reached, Laugier tells us, one must either imitate it, that is, re-produce it or re-present it as it is, or decline. To perfection, addition is subtraction. This is the valuable lesson the Romans taught the world. What is even worse than addition (subtraction) to perfection, and what entails a total loss, is the substitution of an other for the attained perfect. The worst of all follies is to assume there to be more than one way or different ways of attaining the desired end. It is Laugier’s credence that “all art and all sciences have a definite objective, but not every road can be equally good to reach it. There is only one that leads directly to that end and it is this unique road which one must know. In all things there is only one way of doing it well” (Laugier, An Essay 3). All other roads lead only away from the objective. All other ways are only different ways of doing a thing wrong. This is the lesson the successors of the Romans taught the world: The barbarity of succeeding ages having buried the liberal arts under the ruins of that empire, which alone retained its taste and principles, created a new system of Architecture, wherein unskillful proportion, ornaments ridiculously connected and heaped together, presented stones as paper work, unformed, ridiculous, and superfluous. This modern architecture hath been but too long the delight of all Europe. Most of our great churches are unfortunately destined to preserve the traces of it to the remotest posterity. (Laugier, Essay 4) Moreover, they are fated to preserve the remains as “lasting proof of the barbarism which filled a period of more than ten centuries” (Laugier, An Essay 40). The proof, however, is also a lesson. Only a barbarian would venture on a path that difers from the one taken by the “privileged” Greek nation to perfection. Only a barbarian, that is, the prejudiced and the ignorant, can find “delight” in the “new.” “But in the end,” Laugier tells us, “some men of genius, more fortunate, were able to discover in the ancient monuments proof of universal aberration and the means of reversing the process” (Laugier, An Essay 8). The only explanation for the substitution of a “new architecture,” of shapeless masses, and a grotesque extravagance for the perfect is “universal aberration.” It is solely a mental lapse and a deviation from the normal. The frame of reason can have

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and can accept no other explanation. Only a universal deviation or fall could explain the burial of “taste and principle” under the ruins of the empire of reason. Here too, as was for Alberti, the inability to grasp the one and only way to perfection is the sign of a mental defect. Having explained away the “shocking” new as an attribute of “barbarism” and of “universal aberration,” Laugier continues his story—the history of a short recuperation followed by yet another fall. Referencing the architects and theoreticians of the Renaissance, inclusive of Alberti, he notes: By the force of inquiry, examination, and trial, they again revived the study of good rules, and re-established Architecture in all its rights. They abandoned the ridiculous geugaws of the Goths and Arabians, and substituted in their room manly and elegant appearances of the Doric, Ionic and Corinthian. (Laugier, Essay 5) Yet despite the revival of sound rules through thorough investigations and experiments, Laugier laments that “at the very moment when we were approaching perfection, as if barbarism had not lost all its claim on us, we fall back into a low and faulty taste. Everything now seems to threaten us with a complete decadence” (Laugier, An Essay 9). His reference is, of course, to Baroque architecture. It is at this juncture, in a history of perpetual rise and fall, that Laugier finds himself prompted “to offer here in all modesty” his “thoughts” on the art of architecture so as to avert “this danger”—aberration on a universal scale once again—“which comes closer every day” (Laugier, An Essay 9). Yet, these “thoughts” on the “fixed and unchangeable laws of architecture,” though fundamental to the objective’s attainment, do in no way insure it. In addition, success exacts a “gift”: the gift of “genius” or “talent.” There is, Laugier tells us, “necessary for this as for any other art talent which can not be acquired, a measure of inborn genius, and that this talent, this genius, must nevertheless be subject to and governed by laws” (Laugier, An Essay 3). Given that the attainment of the desired objective of the art of architecture is dependent upon, on the one hand, knowledge of “fixed and unchangeable laws,” and on the other, “talent” or “genius,” Laugier in effect delimits the attainment of the objective to a select few by virtue of an endowed gift. This is not a gift—as Alberti had it—that is given more or less to all. Though all are to be considered “privileged” by the gift—as was the Greek nation—it is a selective and absolute gift that neither can be nor need be cultivated or increased. “The last century,” Laugier tells us, “produced masterpieces in architecture worthy of the best ages because at that time nature almost spent itself by lavishing upon us a gift of talent” (Laugier, An Essay 9). The recuperation from the aberration in the century preceding Laugier’s was exclusively due to an exhaustively lavish expenditure on nature’s part. This is the expenditure of a gift of talent without which there could have been and can be no perfection.

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Like Alberti before him, Laugier attributes the provenance and the source of perfection in architecture to “nature.” This time, however, this faithful gesture places the objective of the art of architecture entirely beyond the reach of humanity as such. Humanity must always and solely await nature’s generosity to fulfill its “natural” desire for beauty and perfection. A “perfect” work of art, Laugier tells us, always carries the “imprint” of a “superior mind,” that is, a gifted mind, one selected for the purpose by nature. Without the gift, humans are incapable of fulfilling their “natural” desire for perfection. The ability to fulfill for the benefit of all is only the privilege of a “superior” kind. These are superiors—all socio-political implications withstanding—that are similar to Alberti’s “those beings of a different kind in nature,” though here not by “industry, study and practice,” but by nature’s sole choosing. A perfect work of art must indeed be the work of an entirely different kind because, for Laugier, the perfect has no place and no possibility of reproduction within the realm of human endeavor. What belongs to the realm of human production is, for him, no other than the ugly. “Imperfection,” Laugier tells us, “is the fate of things made by man” (Laugier, An Essay 94). Also, “by supposing that they have committed faults and that in fact they have committed them, I only recognize that they were men” (Laugier, An Essay 36). Fault or imperfection is the imprint of humanity by “fate.” We need no longer ponder the genesis of imperfection. It lies with the humanity of humans. As such, Laugier readily resolves a quandary that beleaguered Alberti to no resolve. Whereas the genesis of the ugly remained a most troubling question for Alberti, who found it in nature, the ugly presents no quandary to Laugier because Laugier’s nature is incapable of imperfection for reasons that we shall discuss later. Given that perfection is the fundamental objective, Laugier’s whole theoretical endeavor may appear futile at its outset since no amount of knowledge and no extensive disclosure of fixed principles can aid humans to attain the objective without a gift of genius. The gift, however, we should recall, is by itself no guarantee of success since even “the greatest men have sometimes gone astray” (Laugier, An Essay 10). The greatest men have because, as Laugier tells us, the gifted genius “must nevertheless be subject to and governed by laws.” An ungoverned gift can lead to “disorder” and chaos “caused by faults.” It is only a subjected gift that can bring forth perfection and order. The gifted must be subject to and restricted by “law” to guarantee a return for the gift to the source as perfection. Therefore, Laugier’s “main purpose” in undertaking this theoretical construct is, as he tells us, “to form the taste of architects,” that is, to subject those gifted few to the laws of perfection and the gift. His self-proclaimed intention is to “say enough about this to give architects firm working rules and infallible means to reach perfection” (Laugier, An Essay 4). This is, in turn, Laugier’s gift.

On the True and the Beautiful Perfection is the destiny of the journey of the genius on, Laugier tells us, a “unique road.” This is the guiding road of fixed principles and unchanging

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laws. As to its source and location, he tells us, “it is the same in architecture as in all other arts, its principles are founded on simple nature and nature’s process clearly indicates its rules” (Laugier, An Essay 11). The faithful gesture is thus brought to completion. It is not only genius that is a “gift” from nature, but the “unique road” as well. By way of evidential proof, Laugier asks us to: “look at man in his primitive state without any aid or guidance other than his natural instincts” (Laugier, An Essay 11). Laugier asks us to look at man in his primitive state because such a man is without any aid or guidance, that is, without either any custom or opinion whose “force and sway” can have him err in judgment, or any model or road that could guide him astray. This man has nothing—nothing that is not given to him by nature. This includes, among others, a “taste for true beauty” and, as we shall soon see, a gift of genius. However, to the list of givens, one must add the need for “a dwelling that protects” him because of “the careless neglect of nature.” Hence, needing a place to rest: Near to a gentle stream he perceives a green turf, the growing verdure of which pleases his eye, its tender down invites him, he approaches, and softly extended upon this enameled carpet, he thinks of nothing but to enjoy in peace the gifts of nature: nothing he wants, he desires nothing; but presently the Sun’s heat which scorches him, obliges him to seek a shade. He perceives a neighbouring wood, which offers to him the coolness of its shades: he runs to hide himself in its thickets and behold him there content. (Laugier, Essay 9–10) As the heat forces this primitive man to seek refuge in a “nearby forest,” soon the rain will have him “creep” into a “nearby cave.” There, surrounded by “darkness and foul air,” this, by now, disillusioned “savage,” tired of momentary gifts and fleeing content, decides to draw on his lasting gift of genius to bring this game of donation and denial to an end. He sets out to satisfy the need for shelter and the taste for perfection once and for all. Hence, architecture is born in nature and of nature, delivered by a primitive man—a natural man. He goes out . . . resolved to supply by his industry the inattentions and neglects of nature. The man is willing to make himself an abode which covers but not buries him. Some branches broken down in the forest are the proper materials for his design. He chooses four of the strongest, which he raises perpendicularly and which he disposes into a square. Above he puts four others across, and upon these he raises some that incline from both sides. This kind of roof is covered with leaves put together, so that neither the sun nor the rain can penetrate therein; and now the man is lodged. Indeed cold and heat will make him sensible of their inconveniences in his house, open on every part; but then he will fill up between the space of the pillars, and will then find himself secure. (Laugier, Essay 10–11)

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Such is the first manifestation of architecture—its moment of birth. Such also is the outcome of sheer ingenuity unhampered by any custom or opinion, model or road, other than the truly natural. In fact, “such,” Laugier tells us: Is the step of simple nature: It is to the imitation of her proceedings, to which art owes its birth. The little rustic cabin that I have just described, is the model upon which all the magnificences of architecture have been imagined, it is in coming near in the execution of the simplicity of this first model, that we avoid all essential defects, that we lay hold on true perfection. Pieces of wood raised perpendicularly, give us the idea of columns. The horizontal pieces that are laid upon them, afford us the idea of entablatures. In fine the inclining pieces which form the roof give us the Idea of the pediment. See then what all the masters of art have confessed. (Laugier, Essay 11–12) This little rustic hut is, Laugier tells us, a “rough sketch which nature ofers us” (Laugier, An Essay 13). Nevertheless, this rough sketch embodies all the fixed and unchanging principles of perfection in architecture. By approaching the “simplicity of this first model,” that is, by re-traveling the “course” and re-expressing the ideas to which this “first model” gives a natural and original expression, we achieve perfection in this imitative art by birth. All that has been perfect in architecture, “all the splendors of architecture ever conceived,” have been imitations or re-productions of this natural “model” of and for perfection. If “architecture owes all that is perfect to the Greeks,” that is due to the proximity of the architectural products of that “privileged nation” to this ideal model. They, as “all masters of art,” recognized the source and imitated the course. Romans and the barbarians deviated from the course by degree. Hence the decline of the one and the “complete decadence” of the other. In short, to imitate the “first model” is to achieve perfection; to imitate any other model warrants nothing but imperfection. For Laugier, as it was for Alberti, imitation is to imply the imitation of the process—“nature’s process”—and not the form. The latter kind of imitation is, in fact, the very cause of the “confoundment” and chaos for which Laugier ofers his Essay as a remedy. Given that perfection in architecture is achieved at the moment of birth, imperfection would necessarily have to be and indeed is for Laugier, an addition that inevitably points to a temporal lapse, a fall, and a deviation. With the disclosed original model in sight, Laugier may now easily identify the boundaries, disclose the additions as such, and separate them from the original body to which they add themselves only to subtract. Hence, he tells of the “model”: Never principle was more fruitful in consequences. It is easy from hence to distinguish the part that enters essentially into the composition of an order of architecture, from those which are introduced only by necessity, or which have not been added thereto but by caprice. It is in the essential parts that all the beauties consist: in the part, added thereto by caprice,

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consist all the defects: this requires explaining. I am endeavouring to throw all the light upon it possible. Do not let us lose sight of our little rustic cabin. I can see nothing therein, but columns, a floor or entablature, a pointed roof whose two extremities each of them forms what we call a pediment. As yet there is no arch, still less of an arcade, no pedestal, no attic, no door, even nor window. I conclude then with saying, in all the order of architecture, there is only the column, the entablature, and the pediment that can essentially enter into this composition. If each of these three parts are found placed in the situation and with the form which is necessary for it, there will be nothing to add; for the work is perfectly done. (Laugier, Essay 12–13) Much as Laugier and Alberti share beauty and perfection in architecture as a common objective, and much as both ascribe nature as the source; nevertheless, there is a marked diference between what each identifies as the cause of beauty and perfection in architecture. The reason is, of course, the shift from the mathematical worldview to the mechanical worldview alluded to earlier. In the age of reason and with a view to cause and efect in all that is visible, Alberti’s mathematically congruous is directly aligned with the disparaged reliance on instinct and custom. In contrast, the true, the original, and the natural cause of beauty for Laugier are the essentials to which “nothing else need be added to make the work perfect.” The essentials as a whole, like the congruous of the age of confoundment, can accept neither addition nor subtraction. Unlike the congruous, the essentials are not mathematical in essence, but in Laugier’s case, structural, or more to the point, the actual and truthful expressions of load and support. They are architectural expressions whose appearance is causally linked to their substance/performance. They naturally and truthfully, that is to say, causally say what they do and do what they say without delay or deferral. Under the banner of the essentials in the age of reason, what is primarily, if not solely, at issue for Laugier is the unmistakable clarity of a causal link between the appearance and the substance of architectural elements. “I should like to convince everybody,” Laugier tells us, “of a truth in which I myself believe absolutely, namely that the parts of an architectural Order are the parts of the building itself. They must therefore be applied in such a way that they not only adorn but actually constitute the building” (Laugier, An Essay 152). The essential parts of an architectural Order—the column, the entablature, and the pediment—if “suitably placed” to perform a structural function and “suitably formed” to causally express that function, that is to say, applied in such a way that “the existence of the building” depended “completely on their union” and “not a single one could be taken away without the whole building collapsing,” then that building shall be perfect (Laugier, An Essay 152). The essentials are, in other words, those that “not only adorn,” that is to say, as we shall see later, serve no function at all, but those that serve a vital structural function in giving form to the building. Consequently, they are those to the

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whole of which addition is a superfluous act and subtraction a detrimental one. Hence, perfection in origin is achieved in the form of a rustic hut embodying all the essentials that are the cause of perfection. For Alberti, a mathematically congruous ideal persisted as the same and united all beautiful bodies as one, regardless of kind or material differences, that is, regardless of architecture or music, stone or flesh. In contrast, Laugier’s law of “essentials” is not equally overarching in its specifics. It does not apply to all things as the same regardless of kind. Although all things beautiful consist of the “essentials,” the essentials are unique to each kind individually. The essentials in architecture are not the same as the essentials in another art. In each case, nevertheless, what determines the essentials is no other authority than nature. Nature’s process of formation is the guiding road and the natural form of a thing, the embodiment of all the essentials. The natural form or “model” is always the simplest by virtue of originality and always the most beautiful by virtue of simplicity. Hence, Laugier tells us: “Let us keep to the simple and natural; it is the only road to beauty” (Laugier, An Essay 19). Although one must keep to “the simple and natural” as “the only road to beauty,” architecture’s road to beauty in nature points only to a “careless neglect.” Laugier’s little rustic hut is meant to fill this lack in an otherwise perfect nature. It is, as Laugier notes, a “rough sketch which nature offers us.” Nevertheless, this rough sketch is a human-made object, and all things humanmade are, Laugier has told us, “imperfect” by “fate.” How, we may ask, can a human-made object by definition come to be viewed and presented as a natural model and as such fill a gap in nature that we have been asked to accept as only a “careless neglect” and not an inherent lack? How, given the assumption that the natural is always perfect and the human-made just as often imperfect, can a human complete nature, be this in the way of supplementing a careless neglect or filling an inherent gap? The answer to these questions is, in a manner, already provided. They require, however, further scrutiny. Humans are capable, if we recall, of attaining perfection insofar as they are afforded two gifts: a gift of genius and a gift of fixed principles. Our primitive man, the builder of the “first model,” was a gifted man—a man of genius. He had, however, no guiding road. How, we may ask, did he come to possess the second essential gift or, without it, succeed in curbing his “imagination” and forestalling his “flights of fancy” to produce the natural? The “genius of a capable man,” Laugier tells us, “is an inexhaustible resource” (Laugier, An Essay 126). It is an inexhaustible resource in that the genius is capable of “invention,” of creating “a thousand things out of nothing,” and of producing “things which are new and unique and always delightful and graceful” (Laugier, An Essay 144). In fact, the “real fame” of gifted men “rests on their inventions. Only by making things which have not yet been made will they give proof of their genius” (Laugier, An Essay 119). Laugier’s primitive man, therefore, must have invented the little rustic hut out of nothing as proof of his ingenuity. Yet by extension should we not accept

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the invention of a “new system of architecture” by the “Goths,” and for that matter, all additions which by definition are new, as proof of genius and as things “new and unique and always delightful and graceful?” As we know, Laugier’s reply is adamantly negative. This is because, for him, there are two distinct types of invention and two distinct kinds of new. A distinction must always be made and maintained between the invention of the imperfect and the perfect. The invention of the imperfect as the synonym of chaos is invention proper. It is the invention of the absolute new added as such to nature and perfection which by definition precede the new. The invention of the perfect, on the other hand, is not so much an invention as it is a discovery. It is the discovery of a hidden, concealed, and nonetheless present road in nature. It is the discovery of what nature possesses the means or the guidelines for and has carelessly neglected to produce. Perchance we shall one day see some happy genius . . . lead us by unknown ways to the discovery of a beauty that has escaped the ancients. We will hope all from the bounties of nature, which very likely has not yet distributed all her gifts. (Laugier, Essay 65) Every beautiful composition is the “discovery” of a genius along “unknown” natural routes. The genius has, in other words, a double role to play. On the one hand, the genius must discover the “unique road” that always comes as a gift from nature, and on the other, travel this unique road to its destiny. The gift of discovery or invention is, we should note, the privilege of the already privileged only. The ordinary person as such is incapable of discovery, though certainly capable of invention. The generosity of nature only afects the “fortunate man of genius” in that the first gift is the condition of the reception of the second gift. However, the ordinary person is not “barred from knowing the rules” insofar as the gifted men of genius have torn away “the veil that covers” them and inscribed the dictations of nature for all ordinary persons to read. Hence, Laugier tells us with due modesty, “awaiting someone more capable than I am to disentangle the chaotic state of architectural rules, so that from then on there is not a single rule that cannot be clearly explained, I shall try and throw some ray of light on it” (Laugier, An Essay 3). In doing so, however, Laugier tells us, “I am not motivated . . . by any desire to say something new, a desire I believe to be at least futile” (Laugier, An Essay 9). The desire of an ordinary person to say something new is futile because the new, which has always already come, can only be uttered by men of genius. Though the men of genius and the ordinary men share in common the ability to read, what sets the two apart is the former’s ability to read what has never been inscribed—the mysteries—and the latter’s ability to read solely what has already been inscribed. The men of genius are, therefore, the analogical prophets of the art of architecture. Inscription is not, however, an analogy here in that, as Laugier notes, “What is art, if not that mode of expression (manniere)

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which is based on clear principles and is carried out with the help of unchanging Precepts” (Laugier, An Essay 3)? The little rustic hut is, therefore, indeed a “rough sketch which nature offers us,” or offers the primitive man as a gift and thereafter to us because not only the ingenuity that receives or discovers and thus inscribes it is a gift from nature, but as well the principles of which it is an inscription. The same applies to all beautiful compositions, which necessarily are variations on the theme of the essentials. Admitting the reductive nature of his essentials, Laugier compares them to the seven tones of the musical scale that for “centuries” have been combined, “always in a different manner,” and we are “still far from having exhausted all possible combinations and notes”: I say the same of the parts which make the essential composition of an order of Architecture. They are in a small number, and one may without adding anything thereto, combine them infinitely. To know how to seize these different combinations, sources of an agreeable variety is the effect of genius. (Laugier, Essay 61) The essential elements of architecture, analogous to the essential elements of music, lend themselves to an infinite series of combinations, each being a “simple and natural,” hence beautiful composition. To find the “secret” and discover each “simple and natural” composition of the essentials, one must be gifted for reasons already discussed. However, this is not to imply that Laugier’s genius is immune to errors. He is not in that the “force and sway” of “custom” or “prejudice” can blind him to natural insight. He can be deceived by “false jewels” and fail to see the hidden truth. Hence, one must always “appeal to reason,” which is another way of saying “always come back to nature,” to decipher the diference between good and bad. The new frame—the frame of reason—has thus been construed. With reference to the little rustic hut as the foundation for the delimitation of the discipline, the task from this point on is to set apart and keep apart the good from the bad, the perfect from the imperfect, the essential from the superfluous, the original from the addition and ultimately the natural from the unnatural. Before we go any further, however, we may pause momentarily and retrace our steps. Laugier begins his theoretical endeavor with the assumption that the “definite objective” of the art of architecture is to satisfy a taste or desire “that is natural to everybody.” This is the taste or desire for “true” and “absolute beauty.” We, in other words, to borrow a quote from Alberti, “by nature desire things perfect.” We do so because the beautiful gives rise to “pleasure mingled with rapture and enthusiasm.” It “grips and lifts up the soul into ecstasy.” The beautiful pleases the soul. It gives “spiritual pleasure.” Laugier notes: “those who want gardens on level ground only look, no doubt, for convenient promenades, but they do not know what visual charm and spiritual pleasure mean” (Laugier, An Essay 140). Contrary to the ignorant, those who do know that the

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definite objective of gardens is to be beautiful and not merely of convenience, those, that is, who place spiritual pleasure above bodily pleasure, always opt for beauty. The as-yet unanswered question is why? Why does beauty affect the soul and give rise to spiritual pleasure? Why the perpetual confluence of the spiritual and the aesthetic? “The sight of a building, perfect as a work of art,” Laugier tells us, “causes a delightful pleasure which is irresistible. It stirs in us noble and moving ideas and that sweet emotion and enchantment which works of art carrying the imprint of a superior mind arouse in us” (Laugier, An Essay 8). The body beautiful does, in other words, two things simultaneously. On the one hand, it carries “the imprint of a superior mind,” and on the other, “stirs in us noble and moving ideas,” causing a delightful or spiritual pleasure that is “irresistible.” The latter act is in consequence of the former. The effect that a body makes on the viewer depends on the source from which the body comes and of which it carries an imprint. In that the beautiful is always natural, be this inherently so or so by gift, the source of every beautiful body is always the same source, the source of all things natural and original: God. Hence the reason why aesthetic pleasure is “spiritual pleasure.” To see the beautiful is to see a divine imprint. The desire for beauty is stated and met here, as it has been before, within a theological frame. This frame or frame-up is neither a given nor a construct that could be avoided so long as the desired objective is a self-referential, non-contingent totality. What is given, Laugier tells us, is a chaotic whole, a confoundment of good and bad, perfect and imperfect, beauty and ugly. However, this given is already framed in that it assumes a past or future distinction, separation, and order lost to the present. It already assumes there to be, though confounded, two distinct and “indelible qualities the essence of which neither length of time nor prolonged habit can change or destroy.” In the absence of the two indelibly distinct qualities, there can be no assertion of confoundment as the mark of chaos, and for that matter, no possibility of a future separation in the name of right or righteous judgment. The possibility of an exclusionary process of delimitation—a framing or a frameup—is the condition of the validity of the assertion. The condition of the possibility of the frameup, that is, of the presence of “two indelible qualities,” the essences of which can neither be changed nor destroyed, is for beauty to be an “absolute” quality “inherent in architecture independent of mental habit or human prejudice.” A beauty that is not absolute is indecipherable from its contingent other—the ugly—absolutely. A beauty that is not “independent of mental habit or human prejudice” is necessarily dependent on it. The implication of such a contingency would deny beauty any radical or absolute difference with the ugly. The contingency, in effect, effaces the indelibility of the two qualities at once. If dependent on an ever-shifting frame of reference, the beautiful and the ugly could not be said to constitute two indelible qualities, but two interchangeable qualities because in the realm of missing absolutes, what is can be what it is not, indissociable and different from itself at once. Confoundment in this realm marks not an aberration but the normal state of affairs. Hence, what the

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beautiful and the ugly in the realm of “mental habit and human prejudice” share is not indelibility of essence but indeterminability of essence. Consequently, what cannot be had in this realm is control over a clear border between good and bad as two determinably distinct qualities. What has no possibility of fulfillment in this realm is the desire for beauty defined as a non-contingent presence or a present perfection because here the beautiful shares in common with the ugly the very characteristic that in the realm of absolutes is assumed peculiar only to the ugly: it is, like the ugly, never simply there. It is never simply present in the object as an inherent quality. Therefore, if the desire for beauty is to be fulfillable, if right or righteous judgment is to be possible, if there are to be two indelible qualities that share in common only the indelibility of their distinctly different essences—one contingent, the other not—then beauty must indeed be an “absolute” quality “inherent in architecture independent of mental habit or human prejudice.” Beauty, however, can only be what it is asked to be and what it is desired to be within the boundaries of a theological frame constructed under the authority of the divine name as the imprinter of good in origin from which then the ugly could be excluded as a superfluous addition. It is only by appeal to a divine origin that beauty can be made independent of “mental habit or human prejudice,” and consequently independent and distinct from the ugly absolutely. Hence, if the desired quality is said to give spiritual pleasure, that is because the beautiful can only find the needed refuge in a theologico-spiritual realm, pending and proceeding a frameup. Thus, Laugier must appeal to nature and origin to re-inaugurate a purported lost distinction between the good and the bad and retrieve the desired object as such. He must appeal to nature because the equation beautiful = natural, with recourse to onto-theological reasoning, enables him to assign beauty as all things natural to an absolute source or origin. It enables him to set apart and keep apart without the trace of an attachment the beautiful from the ugly as the natural is set apart and kept apart from the unnatural, the human-made, or the cultural by the authority of the divine name as origin. Much as the beautiful as such and in every guise necessarily and perforce is always in and of nature, regarding human dwelling, the architecturally beautiful is missing in nature. Though only all too apparent, this gap is, so Laugier tells us, merely the result of a “careless neglect.” What is missing, in other words, does not point to an inherent gap—be it in nature or the theoretical frame thus construed—but a gap that could be sealed from within. Doing so, however, requires two additional frames or frameups. The frames of natural law and genius must be introduced to enable the theorist to fulfill the desire for natural or absolute beauty in architecture. The concepts of principle behind fact and natural law—the law of essentials—behind beauty must be posited to frame a part of the totality—a purportedly chaotic totality given—and set it apart from the rest in the name of nature and of origin. The remains could then be relegated to the status of superfluous addition in the name of humanity, of whim, and of fancy. The concept of natural law is indispensable here because

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it is only with recourse to this law that a difference between good and bad in architecture could be posited. It is only after the introduction of this frame that it becomes possible “to distinguish between parts that are essential to the composition of an architectural Order and those which have been introduced by necessity or have been added by caprice.” Having appropriated a part of the totality of human production as natural, it is then essential to posit the concept of genius to frame and appropriate a part of human productive ability in the name of a divine gift and the remainder as the source of the bad and the imperfect. The concept of genius is essential here because it is the very condition of the possibility of a natural model. The product can only be natural if the productivity is of nature. Each of these concepts, it should be noted, thrives on the other’s authority. The genius can only be recognized as such by the ability to imprint natural law, while the naturalness of the law is recognized as such as an imprint of a genius. Hence, nature lacks nothing because what it lacks it gives to itself as a gift to humans, which is then returned to the source as a body beautiful. Nature in its self-sufficiency can and does cover its neglect and fill its gap from within without having to require addition for perfection. However, we should note that nature can only do so and, in doing so, fulfill the desire for natural beauty in architecture, within the boundaries set by the frames of natural law and genius that are called for and constructed within the boundaries set by a theological frame, a gap in which necessitates supplementary reinforcement. What remains to be seen at this point is whether these successive frameups achieve the intended and desired closure?

On Origination and Substitution The beautiful, Laugier has told us, consists of three essential parts: the column, the entablature, and the pediment. The three, however, must be “suitably placed and suitably formed . . . to make the work perfect” (Laugier, An Essay 14). To understand the full implication of this requirement that in the end would have each part play an indispensable structural role, we must, Laugier tells us, “consider in detail the essential parts of an architectural Order.” The intent of such a detailed consideration is, as a matter of course, twofold. On the one hand, it is to discover or disclose the beautiful as such, and on the other, to reveal the false jewel as such. Thus exposed to the light of truth, we may be saved from the error of confoundment. To “consider in detail the essential parts of an architectural Order,” for what Laugier refers to as the “love of truth” and of “true beauty,” he begins with the column: Ist, A column ought to be exactly perpendicular; because being designed to support all the weight, it is the perfect line that gives it its strength. 2dly, The column ought to be detached, to express more naturally its origin and design. 3dly, The column should be round, as nature forms nothing square.

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4thly, The column should have its diminution from the bottom to the top, as imitating nature, which gives this sort of diminution to all plants. 5thly, A column should bear immediately upon the pavement, as the pillars of the rustic cabin bear immediately upon the ground. All these rules are found justified in our model. We should therefore look on everything as defective, which deviates from thence without a real necessity. (Laugier, Essay 15) If vertical support takes on a form governed by the above-noted laws of nature, then that columnar form would be perfect. Considering the fact, as Laugier sees it, that “nature has not two diferent ways of bringing about an efect,” that the “efect is more or less satisfying according to how strictly one adheres to the unique way that leads to it” (Laugier, An Essay 63), any deviation from this unique way—the column as inscribed in origin—be it in the way of addition to or substitution for this perfectly natural or naturally perfect form, must be condemned as “so many faults.” Hence, it is a “fault”: when instead of detaching the columns, they hold them engaged in the wall. Most certainly the column loses infinitely of its grace, if the least obstacle takes from it, or takes from its circumference, we would live in covered places and not in open halls: Then there is a necessity to fill up the spaces between the columns, and by consequence the columns are engaged. In this case this engagement of the column would not be looked upon as a defect, it will be a license authorized by necessity. But it is always to be remembered, that every license declares an imperfection that we must use them discreetly, and in an impossibility only of doing better. When we are obliged to engage the columns, we should engage them as little as possible, a fourth part at most and still less, so that even in their use they may always retain something of that air of freedom and disengagement, which gives them so much grace. (Laugier, Essay 16–17) The engagement of columns in walls is considered, when necessary, a “license” to which perfection must give way. As such, “license” designates both a gain and a loss: the gain of shelter and the loss of perfection. Though this loss must be tolerated or else “being open on all sides,” the building “is uninhabitable” (Laugier, An Essay 32), the mandated engagement must be kept to a minimum. As to why an engaged column, given its necessity, should be considered an “imperfection,” Laugier asks us to consider to what the free-standing columns owe their perfection. “Free-standing columns which carry an entablature,” Laugier tells us, “never leave one in doubt about the truth of the architectural display they present because one feels that none of these parts could be touched without causing damage and ruin to the building” (Laugier, An Essay 153). Having defined art as a “mode of expression,” for Laugier, free-standing columns “present” and what they present is the truth. The free-standing column

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is a true expression in that it neither veils nor lies about its “origin” and “purpose.” It displays what it does and does what it displays. Hence, there can never be a doubt about the truth of what the free-standing column presents because it gives support as it presents itself as giving support. Laugier’s unremitting valuation of architecture as a “mode of expression,” that is, as true or false, real or “farce,” and consequently beautiful or ugly, perfect or imperfect, points to a marked departure from Alberti’s valuation. Whereas Alberti perpetually looked past the medium of expression to what was expressed, that is, to the congruity or incongruity of the design irrespective of the medium, Laugier’s evaluative criteria is focused not on what is expressed but on how it is expressed. The decisive criteria for him are the presence or absence of a causal link between the medium of expression and what is expressed, that is, between appearance and substance of, for instance, the free-standing columns whose appearance, Laugier believes, never leave one in doubt about the truth of the architectural display they present. Of this, we will have to say more later. To the transparent expression of the free-standing columns, through which the light of truth shines forth beyond the shadow of a doubt, comes the wall as an addition. In both a figural and a literal sense, the wall is added to the columns to fill a gap in them. The figural gap in columns—the need for addition—is not to be regarded as such because insofar as Laugier is concerned, the column is “intended to support the whole load” and not give shelter against the inclemencies of the weather. To be what it is intended to be, the column requires no addition. Therefore, the filling of the gap must be only literal and, at that, an addition to perfection. To perfection, however, addition amounts to subtraction and loss. Hence, the subtraction of “grace” from and the loss to this perfection of “freedom and ease” when engaged. The reason is inscribed in what is lost. Engagement takes away from the column its freedom of expression, that is to say, expression of “origin and purpose” in a “natural way.” Engagement incurs this loss because the added wall is a form of vertical support, as is the column, though the wall is neither original nor natural: “The vaults, the ceilings, and the roof are the load of a building and the walls are their support” (Laugier, An Essay 71). Added as such to the column, the wall “obscures its outline”—the outline of its perfection. The engaged column is a combination of two forms of vertical support, the co-existence of which puts in question the self-sufficiency and indispensability of either. The presence of two forms of vertical support points to a possible lack or gap in the original that calls for addition. It indicates that perhaps the column did not provide the needed support and required supplementary reinforcement, that the purported perfection is perhaps an imperfection in need of addition. Also, given the co-existence of the two forms of support, “one feels” that not “none” but either “could be touched without causing damage and ruin to the building.” Engagement of columns in walls must, therefore, be proscribed because to addition, the column loses either its indispensability or else the “freedom and ease” of needing no other. At best,

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the engaged column is an ambiguous expression without any clear “outlines,” where the difference between the essential and the superfluous is “obscured.” At worst, the engaged column is a clear expression: the expression of the possibility of either subtraction without loss or addition to perfection and at that addition of the unnatural for the completion of the natural. The wall, unlike the column, is neither original nor natural. Thus, “the column must be freestanding so that its origin and purpose are expressed in a natural way.” If, however, the column must necessarily be engaged, “the degree of engagement should be as small as possible . . . so that, even when constrained, they retain some quality of freedom and ease which gives them so much grace.” This is to ensure that there is no mistaking what the true form of support is. The degree of engagement should be as small as possible so that the wall may appear as what it really is: a “superfluous” form or an infill. There may then be no doubt about the column’s ability to meet its intended “purpose” in a “natural way,” that is, without the need for supplementary additions or the possibility of substitution. It is, however, best not to jeopardize the expression and offend others. It is best to efface the wall altogether, since when “the plain wall is nowhere to be seen . . . nothing is superfluous, nothing is bulky, nothing is offensive” (Laugier, An Essay 104). In fact, it is essential to the fulfillment of the desire for perfection to efface the wall altogether because: “it is the wall that causes all superfluous weight, it is the wall again that deprives architecture of all its grace. The less it appears, the more beautiful the building will be; and when it does not appear at all, that building will be perfect” (Laugier, An Essay 38). The wall must be proscribed because nothing should be allowed to “obscure” the clarity of the “outline” of the perfect; nothing should be allowed to place in doubt the “truth” of its presentation, that is, the truth of a causal link between its appearance and substance. Hence, it must also be proscribed as a fault when instead of: making the columns rest immediately upon the pavement, to hoist them upon pedestals. The columns being, if I may say so, the legs of the edifice, it is absurd to give them other legs. The pedestals of which I speak have been invented through want. When they have had columns that were too short, they have taken the method of mounting them on scaffolds to supply their want of elevation. The same inconvenience has made them have recourse to double pedestals, when one only was not sufficient. Nothing can give to architecture a more heavy and ridiculous air than these enormous and angular masses, that they make use of as a surbase to the column. (Laugier, Essay 26–27) The column, by nature’s decree, “must rest directly on the floor as the posts of the rustic hut rest directly on the ground.” Hence, pedestals, these “substructures to columns,” must be proscribed as unnatural additions to natural perfection. They must be proscribed because, as always, addition points to a gap or lack in the original. Pedestals, as Laugier would have them, from inception

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point to an inefciency of height—an imperfection—that calls for addition. However, it is not the need for addition—the imperfection as such—that calls for the efacement of the pedestal. It is the possibility of addition. The need is already explained away as the consequence of a “misfortune” or an abnormal event. What necessitates the condemnation of the addition is the possibility of supplementation, of eradication of the need through unnatural means. The absurdity of this situation is due to the presence of two forms of support and of two “pairs of legs,” the co-existence of which, once again, puts the selfsufciency of either in question. What is intended to provide support should not require support. Once again, the addition should not be allowed to place in question the perfection of the original. Since we already know that “nature has not two diferent ways of bringing about an efect,” that one “pair of legs” should naturally be sufcient, then the pedestal must be proscribed. It must be proscribed, however, not because, as Laugier would have it, the pedestal is a superfluous addition to perfection, but because it is that second “diferent” way of “bringing about an efect.” The pedestal must be condemned because this second unnatural and “angular” way of support can “bring about” the same “efect” as the natural circular one and, if need be, can add itself and complete the natural. The pedestal must be efaced because if the unnatural is permitted to produce the same efect as the natural, then it is the clear “outline” separating the two that is efaced. In sum, the pedestal must be proscribed for the same reason that engagement was proscribed, and the pilaster is proscribed. Hence, it is also a fault when: in the place of round pillars to employ square pilasters. Pilasters are but a bad representation of columns. Their angles declare the narrowness of the art and deviate sensibly from the simplicity of nature. There is in them lively and incommodious stops that obstruct the view. Their surfaces without the roundings give a flat air to the whole order. They are not susceptible of that diminution that makes one of the greatest harmonies of the column. Wherever they are made use of the columns would be used with as much advantage. We ought then to look upon them as a low innovation, which not being founded in nature in any manner could not be adapted but by ignorance, and is not yet allowed of but by custom. The taste of pilasters has prevailed everywhere: alas! where are they not found? Nevertheless to get rid of this taste, one need only reflect upon the grand effect, that the columns always produce, an effect, which is entirely destroyed by pilasters. (Laugier, Essay 19–20) The pilaster is a “distasteful,” “bizarre innovation” that is “in no way founded on nature” and only “adopted out of ignorance” to make, though “never necessary,” a “poor representation of columns.” The pilaster is also: “a very inaccurate representation,” a “frivolous ornament,” an “abuse,” and last but not least, a “disagreeable substitution.” Pilaster must, therefore, be suppressed and

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suppressed “free-standing” or “engaged” because of its distasteful “efect” as either a substitute “representation” or an “ornament.” Given Laugier’s fervent condemnation of the pilaster, we may well assume its distasteful “effect” is consequential beyond its mere appearance. Yet, what danger could the pilaster pose to this most solid theoretical edifice of columns, entablatures, and pediments that would have Laugier so vehemently oppose its existence? To “realize how distasteful” the pilaster is, Laugier asks us to “think of the grand effect which columns always make” and pilasters so “unfailingly” destroy. Laugier’s distaste for pilaster has, therefore, to do with its destruction or, more to the point, the unraveling of the “grand effect which columns always make.” Though “in no way founded on nature,” the pilaster, not unlike the column, is a “representation.” However, the pilaster, unlike the column, is a “poor,” “inaccurate,” and “faulty” representation and at that a representation of the column, that is, a representation of a natural presentation of “origin” and “purpose.” There are, therefore, two different kinds of presentation as there were two different kinds of invention. One is founded on nature—a discovery— the other on the “capricious whim” of the ignorant—an invention. One is accurate, good, and true—natural—the other inaccurate, poor, and faulty—unnatural. The column is a natural presentation because it expresses its “purpose”— vertical support—in a “natural way,” that is, a “round” way. On the other hand, the pilaster is an unnatural representation because it, like the pedestal, is “square” and “nature makes nothing square.” Thus, it may appear that the distinction between a natural and an unnatural representation is based on the form of the representing medium of expression. The column is natural and the pilaster unnatural because the round appearance is natural, and the square appearance is unnatural. Contrary to the assertion that “nature makes nothing square,” however, Laugier, on multiple occasions, presents us with natural things made “square.” To cite one example among many, the posts of the little rustic hut were arranged “in a square.” However, even though the square is to be found in nature, the pilaster is nonetheless unnatural. And it is so because it is square. The reasoning is based on the founding assumption that “nature has not two different ways of bringing about an effect,” that “in all things there is only one way of doing it well.” The “one way” in this instance is the round way. This expression of “purpose”—vertical support—is naturally and originally round. Consequently, the square pilaster is unnatural, though not because the square is unnatural, but because the natural or the original way, the one causal way nature brings about this particular “effect” in origin is by way of a round form. The determination of the accuracy or inaccuracy of a presentation—an “effect”—is based on its proximity to nature’s way. What is also determined on the basis of this proximity is the aesthetic or “spiritual” pleasure of the “effect.” The pilaster with its “sharp and awkward edges” deviates “noticeably from the simplicity of nature,” that is, it deviates from the simplicity of that causal and natural translation of “purpose” into form in origin. As a result, the pilaster is not only inaccurate but dissatisfying or “distasteful” as

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well, because the “effect” at issue “is more or less satisfying according to how strictly one adheres to the unique way that leads to it.” The destroyed “effect” at issue is the “grand effect which columns,” and only columns can “always make,” because it is only the round column that expresses its “purpose” in nature’s “unique way.” This is in the way that one is “never” left “in doubt about the truth of the architectural display” presented. The absence of doubt about the “truth” of the “architectural display” is here the very cause of aesthetic or spiritual pleasure. It is the very cause of the “grand effect.” Hence the reason why the “essential”—the indispensable—is “the cause of beauty.” Also, the beauty of the beautiful, Laugier tells us, “strikes everybody because it is natural, because it is true.” The truth of an “effect” is a condition of beauty. In turn, the condition of truth, that is, the condition of the determination of the truth of presentation or truth as presentation is the presence of a causal relationship or bond between what displays and what is displayed, between the expressing form and the expressed purpose, between what the presentation says and what it does. Such a condition can only be fulfilled in that ideal realm here designated by the name nature. This is an ideal realm where the form of expression is always determined by the expressed “purpose” naturally, or such that the presence of form gives the assurance of the presence of “purpose.” This natural bond between form and “purpose” is precisely what the pilaster destroys. The form of this dissatisfying “effect” is determined not by the expressed “purpose” as dictated by the laws of nature but by the capricious “whim” of the ignorant. The displacement of form and the destruction of the bond, however, Laugier has told us, is the outcome of a “poor,” “inaccurate,” or “faulty” performance. It is the outcome of a failure to be accurate, which is always indicative of ignorance and to which the persons of reason and clear insight are immune. The destruction is, Laugier tells us, a wholly unnatural event that could only take place outside the boundaries of nature because within those boundaries, each presentation is always a positive entity constituted of a purpose that forms its expression in a causal manner. However, it is precisely the possibility of identifying such a clear and simple boundary between the natural and the unnatural, the good and the bad, the true and the false, that as yet remains to be determined. It is, moreover, only through an abuse that the pilaster has taken the place of the column of which it is a very poor representation. The pilaster was only created to avoid the expense of the columns and yet to maintain their general idea, but such a faulty imitation can be no consolation for the absence of such a beautiful original. Everywhere we put pilasters, we need columns; and wherever you cannot put columns, you do not need an architectural Order. (Laugier, Essai 17)4 Though “only through an abuse,” the pilaster can indeed take the “place” of the column. Though “distasteful” and “disagreeable,” this “inaccurate representation”

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can act as a substitute for the “original” in its “absence.” This must indeed be “no consolation” because in the absence of the “essential,” the “whole building” should collapse. What is, however, threatened with collapse as a result of this “substitution” is the theoretical edifice. The pilaster, as Laugier has categorized it, is a “superfluous” addition whose “use” is not authorized by any “need.” However, this “superfluous” addition, regardless of any crisis of taste, can be and has been substituted for the “essential.” To take the place of the natural presentation, this unnatural representation must in some way be the same as what it substitutes. There must be a shared characteristic in the expressive function of these two expressions that enables one to take the place of the other. A similarity between the “essential” and the “superfluous,” the faulty and the perfect, is the very condition of the possibility of “substitution.” The impossibility of such a similarity in “essence,” however, has been the very solid ground upon which the foundations of this theoretical edifice rest. Hence the reason why the pilaster that is at once superfluous and similar to the “essential” presents Laugier nothing but distaste or a crisis of natural taste—the taste for “true beauty.” Laugier’s “inborn aversion” to the pilaster is indeed justified, because pilaster’s abusive power of “substitution,” that is, its similarity to what it should have nothing in common other than the indelibility of “essence,” places in question all the natural privileges of the column, and for that matter, the “true beauty” of all other “natural” presentations. A “true architecture,” Laugier tells us, consists of parts that “not only adorn but actually constitute the building.” Hence: If we engrave this equally reasonable and luminous principle in our minds, we will easily avoid a host of errors arising from a practice that follows the opposite principle. We will no longer regard as true Architecture all these pilasters, all these entablatures plastered over the solid mass of the building, that are there for decoration only; and can be removed with a chisel, without the building losing anything other than an ornament. On the contrary, free-standing columns that carry an entablature will never leave any doubt as to the truth of the architectural display they present; because we feel that we cannot touch any of these parts without damaging and ruining the building. (Laugier, Essai 17–18)5 The engaged pilaster does not constitute a part of “true architecture.” To lose it at a “blow of a chisel,” the building loses nothing, that is to say, nothing but an “ornament,” which, as we shall soon see, is by definition nothing. Yet even though “true ornament” is admissible as nothing, the engaged pilaster cannot be admitted as a part of “true architecture” because even as an “ornament,” the “architectural display” it presents is false. The engaged pilaster is a “false jewel” which neither says what it does—nothing (adorn)—nor does what it says— constitute the building. It must therefore be proscribed.6 Could the same, however, not be said of the engaged column? If the engaged pilaster is a “frivolous ornament” added to the wall, should not the engaged column

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also be regarded as a frivolous addition, a “false jewel?” The answer must necessarily be in the negative for Laugier because what by definition is “essential” can never be “frivolous.” What is by nature true cannot be false. Hence, even though the engaged column is a “fault,” the fault, Laugier tells us, is not of the column but of the wall. The “superfluous” in this instance is the wall. In the case of the engaged pilaster, however, it is not the wall, but the substitute that Laugier tells us is the superfluous addition because what is by definition “superfluous” can never be, by way of avoiding an obvious paradox, “essential.” Laugier’s attempt to resolve one paradox merely leads to another. The wall, in one instance, is “superfluous” and, in another, “essential.” Since within the boundaries of this frame of thought, a thing can either be superfluous or essential, since the good and the bad are “two indelible qualities,” the “essence” of which can neither be changed nor destroyed, which indeed is the wall: superfluous or essential? If we accept Laugier’s stated assertion that the wall is most certainly superfluous, we must then assume the superfluous pilaster an essential part or else accept the possibility of the building being supported by two superfluous additions. An altogether unacceptable proposition. A decision to the contrary leads to no resolution because we must then assume the essential column a superfluous addition to the wall that can be removed “with a blow of a chisel” without the building losing anything but an “ornament.”7 In either case, there is a distasteful similarity between the “essential” and the “superfluous,” the true and the false, the natural and the unnatural. This is a similarity that should not be and yet is unavoidably there due to the very possibility of substitution. This problem is further compounded by what Laugier has to say about the freestanding pilaster. I am astounded that an Architect puts the pilaster in the rank of simple ornaments. This is not a well-thought-out decision. Does he not understand that what is called an ornament is an accidental adornment that can be used or removed without the essence of the architectural Order being affected. The flutes and other embellishments with which the sculptor’s chisel covers the various members are real ornaments because they can be admitted or suppressed without altering the substance of the thing. Is that case with the pilaster? Isn’t it clearly an essential part of the architectural Order, making one whole with the entablature? (Laugier, Essai 16–17)8 The pilaster is not an ornament, that is to say, not a “true ornament” that “can be admitted or suppressed without changing the thing fundamentally.” The pilaster is not a “true ornament” because it afects “the essence of the architectural Order.” The pilaster afects because it is “clearly an essential part of the Order making one whole with the entablature” and can thus not be “taken away without the whole building collapsing.” The “superfluous” pilaster, in other words, partakes of the same “essence” as the essential column. The “superfluous” pilaster must, in fact, be the same as the column and be an

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“essential part of the Order” in order to substitute for the column. Yet which indeed is the pilaster: superfluous or essential, ugly or beautiful, unnatural or natural? Also, “true architecture” consists of parts that “actually constitute the building.” The pilaster as an “essential part of the Order” must, therefore, be a constituent part of “true architecture.” True architecture, however, is also natural architecture, and pilaster is most certainly unnatural. To what realm is thus Laugier to assign the pilaster? These questions are of utmost importance to a frame of thought whose utmost concern is the revelation of the “indelible” diference between good and bad. However, the answer to either question is most “distasteful” because the pilaster, by Laugier’s own description, fits into neither of the two categories while embracing both at once. The pilaster is “superfluous.” It is “superfluous” because it substitutes what need not and should not be substituted. The act of substitution is an “unnecessary” and needless act. However, the possibility of substitution places the pilaster always already in the same position as the column. As a result, the pilaster, be this free-standing or engaged, can neither simply be called “superfluous”— unnatural—because of its similarity to the “essential,” nor simply “essential”— natural—because of its differences with the “essential.” The pilaster is neither the same nor the other, but both at once and yet reducible to none. As such, the pilaster can neither be allowed inside this theoretical edifice nor be dispelled outside it. Its square “shape” necessitates its repulsion to the outside—to the realm of the unnatural. However, its abusive function as a substitute enables it to transgress the constructed boundaries and infiltrate the inside. There, in the realm of the natural, its forced entry can only create distaste or a crisis of natural taste that shocks, disgusts, and repels Laugier. Forced to place it, he can neither allow it to remain because of its “shape” nor force it out and keep it out because of its function. “Shocked” by the inability of the theoretical edifice to prevent infiltration and confoundment, Laugier can only find himself “disgusted” and “repelled,” that is to say, desirous of repelling the pilaster to where it belongs by “shape.” Unable to consume or repel it, Laugier has no choice but to demand its suppression. To withstand its threat, Laugier must do his best to efface it or else stand the absence of a solid bottom upon which the theoretical edifice can rest in the abyss of apparent effects and obscure and uncertain causes. Laugier must suppress the pilaster. He must because to pilaster he loses the possibility of control over representation in the name of truth. At the risk of repetition, the free-standing column is the beautiful to which “nothing else need be added to make the work perfect.” It is a present perfection, a selfreferential, non-contingent totality in need of neither addition nor subtraction. It refers to nothing but itself, that is, to nothing but what is present in it as the condition of presentation of truth as such. The pilaster, on the other hand, this “distasteful,” “inaccurate” representation, this derivative, faulty “imitation,” always refers to what it is not and is not present: the “beautiful original.” This “substitute” is a “false jewel.” It is a representation marked by absence and deferral. It is a representation that always refers to something other than itself, to something that is not there. To this “substitute” must always be added a

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missing absent original as the referent. Hence the difference between the true and the false expression: the simple presence as opposed to the absence of the referent. Such is the foundation of the distinction between all our opposing terms. Such also is a foundation that the abusive pilaster undoes in the abyss of apparent effects and obscure and uncertain causes. The pilaster is, Laugier tells us, a “disagreeable substitute” for a “beautiful original.” However, the pilaster can only be a substitute for the essential, indeed be an “essential part of the Order,” if the original as such has never been before the possibility of substitution; if the original is itself, in a manner, a substitute. To take the place of the original—the building withstanding—there must necessarily be more than one way of “bringing about an effect,” if not aesthetically, certainly functionally. The condition of such a possibility is the absence of any positive or natural relationship between form and purpose. Capricious whim could only substitute the square for the round if there was no natural “expression” as such to begin with, if the “architectural display” at issue had no “inherent shape” (Laugier, An Essay 25). Lost to the absence of an “inherent shape” as the condition of substitution is, however, the possibility of satisfying that natural “taste” for “true beauty.” If the “architectural display” has no “inherent shape,” the sign displaying it can never provide the needed assurance of truth. If the “effect” has no natural cause, the presence of form or shape cannot, simply and naturally, give Laugier assurance of the presence of “purpose,” as the presence of “purpose” does not guarantee him the presence of the “inherent shape” due to the possibility of substitution. The “truth of the architectural display” presented—its simple presence as such—must always remain in doubt because the ability of the sign to display is, must necessarily be, irrespective of the presence or absence of the displayed “purpose.” To be substituted, the natural expression must be able to lie. It must be able to refer to something it is not. The Laugierian natural expression, however, cannot lie. The original cannot refer to something other than itself. This impossibility is for Laugier the very condition of restoration of order to the state of chaos. The possibility of representation in spite of the presence or absence of the expressed “purpose” is, nonetheless, perhaps nowhere more apparent than in Laugier’s own discussion of the pediment. Of this natural expression, Laugier writes: “it represents the gable of the roof and, therefore, can never be anywhere except across the width of a building. Its inherent shape is triangular and its place must always be above the entablature” (Laugier, An Essay 25). To this original representation of “the gable of the roof,” whose “inherent shape” is triangular,” “nothing else need be added to make the work perfect,” because “the truth of the architectural display” is here beyond doubt given the “inherent” relationship between the representing shape and the represented purpose. Therefore, following a by now familiar logic, it would be a “fault,” and “a sin against the rules”: To make pediments which are not triangular. The roof always terminates in a point, more or less sharp; the pediment which is the representation of it ought strictly to imitate this form. Then the arched pediments are against

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nature; therefore with still more reason broken pediments are detestable, since they bespeak a roof covered within. (Laugier, Essay 38–39) Curved, broken, and scrolled pediments must all be considered unnatural representations for the same reasons that make it necessary to consider the pilaster a “fault.” Each of these representations is a possible substitute for the true original. Yet, what are we to make of another possibility which Laugier also condemns as a fault, and that is: To place pediments one above the other, nothing is more absurd than this practice. A pediment below supposes a roof, a pediment above supposes also a roof: behold then two roofs one upon the other. . . . It is much worse still, when the pediment is found under the entablature. To make this use of it, is to put the roof into the house and the floor above the roof. Nevertheless, how many of these examples don’t we find! How many doors, how many windows covered with these ridiculous pediments! (Laugier, Essay 39) Since the pediment “implies a roof ” and there cannot be two roofs “one over the other,” one of these two expressions must be false! Yet, how can the “inherent shape” of a true expression be an actual lie—be it over the roof or under the ceiling?9 How can the “true” be an expression of what it is not and is not present? What is the condition of this possibility? To find an answer, let us consider yet another fault, and that is: To make a pediment upon the length of the building, since the pediment is only the representation of the ridge of the roof, it ought to be placed conformable to the object it represents. Now the ridge of the roof is always taken upon the largeness or breadth, and never from the length of the building. I would have our architects reflect a little upon this reasoning, which is simplicity itself, and it will never happen to them to place in the midst of long frontispieces preposterous impediments which signify nothing. They think of giving more agreement in thus interrupting the uniformity; but let them know that in all arts it is to offend against the rules of it, only to put any thing superfluous. (Laugier, Essay 36–37) A natural expression is essential and true insofar as it “conforms to the thing it represents,” that is, insofar as what it represents is present as such. The same representation is, on the other hand, “superfluous,” in fact a “sham,” when it does not represent “anything,” anything that is present as such. If, however, truth is a question of conformity, unconformity—representation in the absence of “the thing” represented—though certainly “a sin against the rules of taste”—the taste for “true beauty” that is “natural to everybody”—is a choice that is not an

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aberration, a deviation from, or “a sin against” the rule of representation, but the rule of representation itself. The condition of possibility of unconformity, and for that matter of conformity, is the absence of an “inherent shape.” The representation can only lie, or what amounts to the same, can only conform if its representing “shape” is not determined, inherently and naturally, by what it represents. Sham pediments can only be erected if the representative function of the sign has nothing to do with the “purpose” it may or may not serve. The absence of the original as desired is thus the condition of the possibility of the lie, much as it is necessarily the condition of the possibility of substitution of curved, broken, or scrolled pediments for the “beautiful original.” The condition of lie and of substitution, which is the absence of an “inherent shape,” introduces and has always already introduced a certain disagreeable choice and a certain distasteful arbitrariness of decision into the game of representation. In the absence of a natural determination, the shape of the representor in origin must have been one among several possibilities that included not only, for instance, the square or the scrolled, but a variety of others, each of which Laugier would like to exclude in the name of natural law and of “inherent shape” for the “love of truth” and of “true beauty.” It is in vain to claim that diversity, so precious in the Arts, demands that the decoration of the pavilions be varied. It must undoubtedly be varied, if possible, but without departing from the laws of nature. Otherwise, who will prevent an artist who seeks more variation from substituting for the round columns, oval columns, prisms, five-sided, six-sided, or eight-sided pillars? And by what principle will we forbid him these oddities? (Laugier, Essai 18)10 By which principle indeed can a theoretician forbid and delimit, if not the natural principle of “inherent shape?” Yet, the principles of substitution and lie always render this natural principle powerless to forbid such “extravagances.” Hence the desire to prevent, to suppress, and to eface the other(s) which here is indicative of nothing other than the absence of a preventive principle or an “inherent shape.” What is not a given and what is in question here for us is not, it should be noted, the original. At issue here is neither the determination of, for instance, the shape the first form of support may or may not have had—round, square, or any other—nor its possible conformity to the “thing” it represented. Instead, at issue here are the desire for a self-referential, non-contingent original and the impossibility of the desired original as such despite the constructive efforts of the theoretician. If, for instance, we were to assume the round, as Laugier does, the original expression of vertical support, we must also, in the absence of a causal or natural determination, assume the cognition of the round shape as such, and for that matter, the “purpose” as such, acts prior to and independent of the act of signification. The cognition of the representing round or the represented “purpose” is contingent on both a preceding difference and a prior

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differentiation between, for instance, circle and square, load and support, shape and non-shape. For reasons we outlined in the previous chapter regarding Alberti’s reference to what “may or may not be present in things,” each posited original term—be this the representor, the represented, or the representation— is always already contingent on a preceding other as the condition of the conception of each of its conceived properties. The original, the natural, or the true must always refer us back to a prior other, which is not it and is not present as the condition of perception and representation. If contingency and deferral are equally characteristics of the true as they are of the false, then the true is, in a sense, always already false. However, this is neither to imply that a purported truth is false nor that there is no difference between the true and the false, that is, between a sign that says what it does and one that says what it does not do. Rather, it is to imply that the difference between the true and the false, the beautiful and the ugly, the perfect and the imperfect, defined as the difference between a self-referential and a contingent representation, is also an indifference. It is to imply that each is always already in the position of the differing and deferred other. It is to imply that the condition of the truth of representation or truth as representation is also the condition of the impossibility of its determination as a non-contingent, self-referential presence. It is to imply that the desired “true beauty” defined as a self-referential sign cannot be identified, halted, and appropriated anywhere outside the play of differing deferred signs because such an outside designated here by the name nature is itself a construct of this self-unraveling play. This is a play that has no beginning and no end, no origin, and no destiny that is not always already a substitute for what is missing and therefore desired. The desired objective of all the arts, Laugier has told us, lies at the end of a “unique road.” This is the road that leads from the natural to the supernatural and from earth to the heavens. To reach the desired destiny of this “unique road,” on which Laugier is neither the first nor shall he be the last traveler in search of fulfillment, he must, like his predecessors before and his successors to come, overcome a major obstacle: an intractable divide between the desired perfection and its fulfillment. To overcome the divide, what invariably ensues is a series of successive frame-ups, that is, exclusionary processes of delimitation, that are intended to enable the theoretician to posit an origin and an original. These are invariably designated as nature and the natural because, as before, the recourse to nature and the natural is an indispensable recourse to an established theology that posits, as an article of faith, a non-contingent, selfreferential totality as the origin of all. It is only with recourse to this theology and by a divine authority that the play of differing deferred terms can be halted, an original self-referential term be identified, and the contingent other which is always already the same be made to appear as a pure detachable addition to an absolute perfection. It is thus that the divide is bridged or made to appear so—they, in a manner, amount to the same. Hence, if Laugier begins his theoretical journey in an origin situated within the needed confines of the frames of genius and natural law, constructed within the boundaries of a theological

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frame designated by the name reason, that is by way of a theoretical, or rather, an onto-theological necessity. In so long as the desired objective is a perfect presence or a present perfection, neither the identification of an origin or an original nor the construction of the successive frames are choices that could be avoided. The truth of a displayed perfection can only appear beyond doubt by virtue of originality because the original, within the boundaries of this frame of thought, refers to nothing but itself, its thus perfect self. An origin, in turn, can only be posited by an exclusionary process of delimitation, the purpose of which is to exclude as other that which is the same and other at once. This is how order is brought to the state of chaos. Yet, as chaos can only be transmuted into order through replacement and hence effacement, so here the excluded as other must be replaced or effaced because its presence, though always attributed to ignorance as an aberration, points to a transgressed border. This is a border the unveiling of which is the veiling of its inability to hold. The substitute, the addition, or the false representation must not only be identified as such but excluded as “fault” in need of replacement or effacement because their presence is not only “no consolation” for the “absence” of the “beautiful original,” but always a destructive threat to the construct that seeks to exclude them and can only do so by effacing them. Hence, it must also be excluded as a “fault”: when the entablature is not in a right line, without angles nor recesses. The entablature represents the long piece designed to bear the roof. Have we ever reflected, and would it not be superlatively ridiculous to execute this piece with projections and recesses? what necessity! what caprice? (Laugier, Essay 34) Since, in accord with the principles of “truth and nature” embodied in the “rough sketch which nature ofers us,” “in its whole length” the entablature “must not have any corner or projection” (Laugier, An Essay 22), the substitution of an unnatural entablature “broken by angles and projections” for the “beautiful original” must be proscribed as a bizarre act of a capricious mind. To capricious mind must also be attributed yet another “fault,” and that is: Instead of giving the entablature the true form of a floor only supported by the detached columns, to support it by great arches. A practice too common in our churches and elsewhere. These arches are vicious. 1st, Because they make square pillars and imposts necessary, the solidity of which attached to the columns, robs them of that disengaged air in which their principal beauty consists, and gives to all the work a heavy air. 2dly, Because these square pillars fall again into the inconveniency of pilasters. They represent to us square figures, angles and stops, figures which deviate from the natural one . . . 3dly, Because these arcades are here found made use of against nature. The arcades are vaults. Vaults ought always to

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be supported, and can never serve as a support. Now these arcades here only serve to bear the entablature. For if this is not their destination, of what use can they be? 4thly, Because these arcades by their swelling force the columns to bear on the side; which is still more opposite to nature, column not being designed but to bear perpendicularly. It is then certain that the arcades are altogether vicious. (Laugier, Essay 30–32) Arches and the “massive piers and imposts” they require together constitute all that Laugier has and must exclude from his theoretical edifice as “fault.” First, arches are additions to perfection. They provide additional support for the entablature, which “extended en plate-bande over columns does not need arches for support.” Added, however, arches, not unlike the wall, place in question the perfection of the columns, which alone should naturally provide all the support the entablature requires. Added, they point to a possible lack in the original, and as such, place in doubt the truth of the architectural display the columns present Laugier. Also, “arches by their trust force the columns to give lateral support,” and this is “against nature” because, in nature, every representation always conforms to the “thing” it represents. Forced to provide “lateral support,” the column that naturally and inherently expresses “vertical support” and vertical support only is forced to do what it does not express: “lateral support.” The column is rendered a “false” representation in such a position since it no longer expresses all it does. Furthermore, the arch itself is a “false” representation. What the arch represents is the “vault” meant to be carried. What the arch does in this instance is to “carry.” There is, in other words, an unconformity between the representation and the function of the arch or, as Laugier would have it, the vault. What is represented here is not present, and what is present is not represented. Hence, the arch must be condemned as a “fault.” It must be condemned, however, also because it requires “massive piers” with which “we are back to pilasters”— those disagreeable substitutes—that, for reasons already discussed, destroy the “unspoiled grace of exquisitely rounded columns.” Excluded as faults, the list of which goes beyond what we have covered so far, are all those instances where the representation and the “thing” represented do not coincide or, as Laugier would have it, fail to conform as they should causally, naturally, and inherently. The possibility of unconformity or of absence and deferral excluded as a fault in the name of an abnormal event or an aberration is also not a choice that could be avoided. The true can only be taken as the norm, in fact, as the state of the normal and the natural, if the false is abnormal or unnatural. The possibility of unconformity must necessarily be cast off because to account for it as a part is tantamount to having to abandon the search for truth as a self-referential, non-contingent whole. Having come to the end of the consideration of “the essential parts of an architectural Order” which, if “suitably placed” to represent the “truth” and

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“suitably formed” to re-present the “natural,” would “make the work perfect,” and having in its cause condemned and excluded all the mis-placed and the mis-formed, Laugier tells us that this enumerated perfection: The great orders do not properly belong but to great churches, to the palaces of princes, and to public buildings. For the rest we must have recourse to decorations more plain and less costly. We may form very agreeable and even very fine buildings without the help of entablatures and columns. Our architects are not ignorant thereof, and I dare say, that it is in these sort of buildings that for the most part they succeed the best. As the composition of them is freer and less critical, it is also more suited to a middle genius and capacity. (Laugier, Essay 118–19) There can be buildings without the Orders! These are buildings supported by walls that can be “attractive and even beautiful!” How can, we may ask, a building supported by the “superfluous” wall, which “the less it appears, the more beautiful the building will be; and when it does not appear at all, that building will be perfect,” be “attractive” or “even beautiful?” Though we have thus far used the term beauty interchangeably with the perfect and the good, beauty for Laugier, though descriptive of the latter, can also be a question of degree, that is, the degree of truth and the degree of fault. Whereas the perfect and the good designate the state where all is true and the bad and the ugly where all is false, the beautiful can be true in parts and please in accord with those. Hence, a building without the orders can be “attractive” or “even beautiful” if, as Laugier notes, that beauty “depends mainly on three things: accuracy of proportion, elegance of forms, and choice and distribution of ornaments” (Laugier, An Essay 62). Laugier enumerates each criterion in turn. Regarding the accuracy of proportion, Laugier notes: “however free the composition of a facade may be, its proportions are never arbitrary. Of all variations possible for an elevation there is only one which is right for a given length” (Laugier, An Essay 62). What Laugier means by “proportion” here, though still a question of ratio between height, length, and width, is not what Alberti meant by this term. Whereas for Alberti, accurate proportions constituted an absolute universal verity that persists independent of the act of representation and the medium of expression, for Laugier, accurate proportions are, as we may suspect, a question of “truth” in representation. The difference at issue here is how each of our two theoreticians conceives of the perfect. Though the perfect for both is a self-referential whole in need of neither addition nor subtraction, Alberti judged the perfection of a representation in deference to what was represented—the intelligible mathematical verity—whereas Laugier judges the perfection of a representation based not on what is represented, but on the way it is represented—true or false. Hence, while rejecting “the arbitrary opinion of some authors of the past” who used “musical harmonies as rule” (Laugier, An

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Essay 156), Laugier goes on to explain what he means by the term “accurate proportions”: When I say that of all the possible elevations, there is only one good one, I am not claiming that all the buildings which have the same length must have the same height; but that all buildings of the same character must have the same height over a given length. What constitutes the character of a building is the type you choose and the destination you propose. Churches, palaces, private houses, corps-de-logis, pavilions, domes, towers, these are the various and main types. The different destinations lead to more or less insightful ideas, calling for the simple, the elegant, the noble, the august, the majestic, the extraordinary, or the prodigious. . . . As soon as the destination is known and the type chosen, the character of the building is fixed. So I maintain that the proportions are no longer free and that there is necessarily only one legitimate one. My reason is that nature does not have two different ways of producing an effect. The effect is more or less satisfactory, depending on how exactly one adheres to the unique way that leads to it. Thus the height and length ratios of the exterior facades are necessarily invariable. I say the same of the ratios of width, height, and length in the interior of buildings. (Laugier, Essai 106–08)11 The proportions of a building are determined, naturally and inherently, by the intended “character” of the building, which is made up of its “style” and the “destination it is intended for.” Each conceivable “character,” following a by now familiar reason, has its unique proportions, as the “purpose” of each element of the rustic hut had its own “unique” or “inherent shape.” Therefore, “accuracy of proportion,” as the accuracy of all else, is a question of the accuracy of representation or of the degree of adherence to the “unique way.” The proportions of a building are accurate when and if they conform to the natural or inherent proportions of the “character” the building is intended to express. Hence, “any building which has accurate proportions, though it has only this quality and is otherwise of the greatest simplicity, will always be satisfying in its efect” (Laugier, An Essay 64). A building with “accurate proportions” would always be satisfying in “efect” because such a building would always be in at least one respect natural—always a true representation of its “character” naturally. This much said, however, the exact corresponding proportions of each “character” are, Laugier tells us, unfortunately unknown; there has not been sufcient research to that end” (Laugier, An Essay 63–64). Given the state of neglect and “uncertainty” regarding “accurate” proportions, in the 12 years ensuing the publication of the Essay, Laugier would undertake “critical research” into the “science” of accurate proportions in relation to a building’s intended character. He would publish this research under the title Observations sur l’architecture in 1765. However, central as the concept of character had become in the mid-century theoretical discourse on Western

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architecture, Laugier’s causal attribution of the concept to preordained proportions had lost its appeal by the time Observations sur l’architecture was published. Consequently, the text was not to enjoy the popularity that the Essay had. However, the faith in establishing a causal relationship between form and expression would not change in the interim. The focus would merely shift from mathematics to geometry in that cause. We will return to this subject in reference to Étienne-Louis Boullée later. Having addressed the question of character regarding the beauty of buildings without Orders, Laugier turns “in the second place” to the “elegance of forms” and tells us: This article is not to be neglected if we would make works that please. Forms are determined by the plan. The only means of rendering these agreeable, is to avoid the vulgar and trifling, and to act in such a manner that there may always be something new, embellished, and even singular. One may avail ourselves herein with the assistance of all regular geometric figures from the circle to the most extended ellipsis from the triangle to the last polygon. (Laugier, Essay 122–23) Laugier contends that “it is our nature to love novelty and variety” (Laugier, An Essay 65). It is in response to this “inborn taste” that Laugier recommends the use of diferent “regular geometric figures” in “new” and “uncommon” combinations in order to create “novelty and variety” in the plan and consequently in the form of the building. One could also avoid “monotony” in a building by “the diferent heights given to its various parts and from the manner by which the sculptural decor (amortissements) is varied.” The objective here is to vary pleasure because “whoever does not vary our pleasure, will not succeed in pleasing us” (Laugier, An Essay 129). The task of varying pleasure falls more broadly under the heading “decoration” or “ornamentation,” to which we will return shortly. For now, regarding the “choice and distribution of ornaments,” Laugier notes: In plain decorations, it suffices to show the angles through the partition stones from top to bottom, to show the stories by an even plinth and which has very little projection, to give the doors and windows plain cases in the fore parts, to crown all the building by a cornice, the profile of which may be a little composed, and gracefully designed. (Laugier, Essay 125–26) Though the list of ornaments goes on, we “now know that one can design all kinds of buildings in varying degrees of beauty without employing any of the five Orders” (Laugier, An Essay 66).12 Yet, knowing that “varying degrees of beauty” can be had without using any of the five Orders, we also know that these buildings supported by walls can never be absolutely beautiful or perfect.

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If perfection is indeed the “definite objective” of all the arts, why then should one concede to anything short of the objective? Is the concession an economic necessity or a natural demand? To find an answer, we must go by way of a few “observations on the art of building.” One, Laugier tells us, “must build with solidity, for convenience and according to bienséance” (Laugier, An Essay 68). The solidity of a building depends on the choice of material and its efficient use. The convenience of a building depends on the situation, the planning and the internal communications (degagements).13 Last: Decency (bienséance) requires that an edifice should not have more or less magnificence than is agreeable to its destination, that is to say the decoration of the building ought not to be arbitrary; that it should always be relative to the rank and quality of those that inhabit it, and conformable to the object that we have in view. (Laugier, Essay 101) Laugier’s modification to the Vitruvian triad and the substitution of “bienséance” (propriety or decorum) for beauty is both deliberate and telling. Rather than invariably reaching for perfection, a building’s “decoration” must be first and foremost appropriate to its socio-economic utility. To this end, Laugier makes a distinction between “public buildings” and “private houses.” He divides the “Public buildings,” according to rank and the required degree of magnificence, into the sub-categories of churches, royal palaces, town halls, courts of law, hospitals and religious houses. Private houses are ranked accordingly, beginning with the houses of “the first lords and greatest noblemen of the kingdom” and ending with buildings “intended to house the poor.” In each case, Laugier insists that the building “conform to the objective envisaged.” For instance, churches need be perfect and have “a majestic appearance equal to such a grand objective” (Laugier, An Essay 90), while houses of the poor “must retain something of the Poverty” (Laugier, An Essay 98). It is following this principle—the demand for which is a demand for conformity and “truth” in expression—that Laugier tells us: “the Orders really only belong to great churches, royal palaces, and public buildings.” Perfection only belongs to “grand objectives.” Imperfection, naturally and truly, belongs to lesser objectives. The imperfection of buildings without Orders is, in a sense, a form of perfection because “a beautiful building is not one that has any kind of beauty (beaute arbitraire), but one that, considering the circumstances, has all the beauty that is befitting and nothing beyond” (Laugier, An Essay 99).14 When erected in conformity to their “purpose,” though certainly imperfect, buildings without Order would not be disgusting or repelling, but reassuring, because they would have a beauty of their own that is “befitting and nothing beyond.” In these “circumstances,” the imperfect would be a true imperfection insofar as the referent is a socio-political fact.15 Therefore, Laugier need not exclude this imperfection because no dividing borderline has been transgressed

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in these circumstances; be this the border between the true and the false or between the rich and the poor. What this frame of thought needs and does exclude in these “circumstances,” and what disgusts, shocks, and repels it, is not what actually reinforces the border but what transgresses the border. What within the confines of this frame of thought needs to be condemned is not the true imperfection but the false perfection. Hence, “it would be desirable if everybody recognized his own merit so well that one did not see people who, with only opulence to speak for them, equal and even surpass the first lords and greatest noblemen of the kingdom through the exterior and interior magnificence of their houses” (Laugier, An Essay 99). When Laugier insists that “poor people must be housed like poor people— with much cleanliness and comfort, but with no ostentation!” what is at issue for him is not solely a question of economy, or for that matter, solely the utility of architecture in the game of social stratification. What is also at issue for him is what has been at issue from the outset. It is the relentless wish to bridge the divide and establish a causal link between being and appearing. It is the desire to eradicate the ever-looming possibility of slippage between what the architectural representation says—house of the poor—and what it does—house the poor. What Laugier wishes for is precisely what is never a given in the game of representation. An architectural expression, for instance, of nobility or poverty, is not contingent on what that architectural element may or may not do, but always contingent on the difference of its appearance with and deferral to the appearance of its other and all others: nobility to poverty, poverty to nobility. Any appearance of causality in the game of representation is merely the construed appearance of this difference and deferral. This much is made evident by those “who, with only opulence to speak for them,” can effectively display nobility without being it. What this possibility perpetually exposes is that the appearance and the being of a thing are never conditional on one another, nor is their coincidence ever causal. This is precisely the exposure that Laugier tries to suppress by the vehement condemnation of every reminder through the imposition of successive exclusionary limits that inevitably begin and end with god, nature, and origin. Having witnessed the exclusion of all others and the closure of every conceivable door behind on the path to a self-referential, non-contingent, autonomous architectural whole, what remains to be seen in this well-fortified theoretical edifice is the place and the role of ornamentation in, or once again, around the object of desire.

On the Essential and the Inconsequential We come at last to that part of “true architecture” which “one can make use of or cut out without the essence of the architectural Order being affected.” We come at last to the subject of “decoration” or “ornamentation” that neither affects the “essence” of the essentials nor is in any way “essential.” Of course, we may and should ask what is or of what use is this ornament that “can be admitted

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or suppressed without changing the thing fundamentally?” Why admit, in the first place, what is neither essential nor fundamental and can therefore be and by its very nature, one suspects, should be suppressed as all else non-fundamental or non-essential? Also, if admitted, where do ornaments fit, in or once again around that to which they are admitted—the architecture of truth? Ornament, Laugier tells us, is an “accidental adornment.” It names all that is not “essential” in architecture. It is all that is added to the “essentials” and, as such, “accidental” or inessential. Yet even though an inessential addition, an ornament can either be good or bad, true or false. An ornament is, as we may suspect, good and true when it refers to nothing but itself, i.e., when it represents itself as what it is: “an accidental adornment.” The Corinthian capital, for instance, is a good ornament, in that: The vase which forms the bottom of this capital is a solid body that has all the strength necessary to carry the abacus and the architrave. The acanthus leaves and the calcicolous that cover this vase do not hide it entirely from view. It shows as much as is necessary to reassure the imagination, which would be terrified to see an abacus resting on simple leaves or stalks. These delicate leaves carry nothing. The inventor of this capital has wisely made its curvatures very noticeable so that one cannot doubt that they are only used for ornament. (Laugier, Essai 88–89)16 A good ornament “never leaves one in doubt about the truth of the architectural display” it presents, that is, about the truth of its purpose: “an ornament only.” It can, therefore, either be admitted a part of “true architecture,” in that it is true or be suppressed, in that it is superfluous and presents itself as being so. Yet, if admitted, as we have been told, it should be admitted in conformity with the envisaged objective for that to which it is admitted as an addition. If admitted, it must be “befitting and nothing beyond.”17 Good ornaments do not cover, however, the entire realm. There are false ornaments that can never be admitted and are always suppressed. They are all those ornaments that refer to what they are not and are what Laugier would not have them be. They are all those additions that do not reveal their true nature, or better yet, cannot reveal a true nature because naturally, they fit not in either of Laugier’s two categories— the essentials and the accidentals. Of the many we have discussed, pilaster and pedestal are two instances in this latter group of ornaments. Of them, enough has already been said. We thus need only concentrate on “true ornaments” to see whether or not, unlike false ornaments, they fit where Laugier would like them to—in the realm of the superfluous other. True ornaments, if admitted, are admitted, Laugier tells us, to “embellish and vary everything.” Come as addition, “true ornaments” bring “variety” to “true architecture” and its essential parts. This is a “pleasing variety” that makes “the charm of decoration.” The five Orders, for instance, owe the “pleasing variety” among them and the variation they, therefore, make possible,

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to “ornamentation” or “decoration.” Hence, the five Orders are, in a sense, decorative or ornamental. They are, however, ornaments that “not only adorn but actually constitute the building.” As such, their ornamental aspect can be admitted or suppressed without changing their essential structural “essence,” which is the cause of their perfection. Each part of “true architecture,” in other words, from a true column to a true building, can be an ornament to a larger context, insofar as it is ornamented, insofar as ornamentation has made it different from other similar parts. Ornamented, each part can, in turn, itself be regarded as an ornament that brings variety to the whole. Different ornaments, for instance, form different capitals. Each capital is an ornament to the column. The column decorates a part or parts of the building. The parts decorate the building; buildings decorate the street; streets decorate the town, etc. As a general rule, Laugier tells us: Don’t let us be profuse in ornaments, let us put much plain, something negligent, with the elegant and magnificent. . . . Sometimes let us go briskly from one extreme to the other through opposition, the boldness of which strikes the sight and may produce very grand effects. From time to time let us abandon symmetry, to throw ourselves into the low and singular: Let us mix agreeably the soft with the hard, the delicate with the rugged, the noble with the rustick, without deviating from the true and natural. (Laugier, Essay 254–55) Each “true ornament” has a character of its own and a conforming shape that expresses it. This extends from the moldings of the Orders—of which there are two, namely, the “harsh and stif” square and the “soft and graceful” round—to the Orders themselves which, of the main three, Laugier says: “simplicity is the share of the Doric, gentleness distinguishes the Ionic” and “noble grace belongs to the Corinthian.” Variation and contrast, the “love” of which is an “inherent taste,” is formed through the blending of diferent ornaments regarding their difering characters in a “true and natural” manner. In this manner, nothing is false, and nothing deviates from the “envisaged objective” of that to which the ornament is added. This is how “strong efects” are produced. However, we should note that when Laugier asks us to “abandon from time to time symmetry and give in to caprice and eccentricity” that mark asymmetry or “irregularity and disorder,” it is not the caprice or fancy that mark false ornaments that he asks us to surrender to, but a reasoned caprice or eccentricity. The asymmetry or irregularity at issue here is formed by the “multitude of regular parts,” which as a whole make “a certain impression of irregularity and disorder” (Laugier, An Essay 129). The disorder at issue is, in other words, an ordered disorder, a disorder that does not “depart from the true and natural.” Laugier has told us that “whoever does not vary our pleasure, will not succeed in pleasing us.” Since variation is formed through decoration, it would follow that whoever pleases us has always already had recourse to ornamentation. In other words, that which pleases is that which is ornamented. However,

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the cause of pleasure is not the superfluous but the essential, not the ornamental but the structural. What pleases is beauty—excluding as aberration, of course, the ugly which pleases the ignorant and the prejudiced by a false appearance. Though ornaments can be beautiful and “true ornaments” indeed are, as addition, they can either be “admitted” or “suppressed.” Since the “parts that are essential are the cause of beauty,” ornaments cannot be the “cause of beauty” in a building. The “cause” are the essentials that please by needing neither addition nor subtraction. To please, however, the essentials must be ornamented, that is, they must be added to! To be pleasing, the essentials should require no addition!? Once again, we have a paradox at hand that we owe to a gap or lack in origin. In response to an objection raised by his critics, Laugier writes: The only reason people object to the established relationship between our buildings and the rustic hut is that we must be allowed to distance ourselves a little from this crude and shapeless invention. We have indeed moved away from it, by the great taste for decoration which we have substituted for the negligence of such a crude composition, but the essential must remain. This is the rough sketch that nature presents us; art should use its resources only to embellish, smooth and polish the work without touching the substance of the design. (Laugier, Essai 14)18 There is a gap or lack in origin. The embodiment of all that is “good” and “perfect” in architecture, the model of all “the splendors of architecture ever conceived,” needs an addition. The “careless faults” of this “crude composition” need be eradicated by “decoration” put in their place “to embellish, smooth and polish the work without touching the substance.” The fault, Laugier tells us, is a “careless” one, as was the original “neglect.” What, in other words, eradicates it comes from nature or, what amounts to the same, from art’s “resources”—genius and law—which are natural or naturally given. To be admitted and take the place of the “careless faults” of a “shapeless invention,” the needed addition—“true ornaments”—must necessarily be natural because the unnatural can never be admitted in or even on the borderlines constructed by this frame of thought. What is admitted, however, does not fit in. The addition is not assimilated by that to which it is added—“the essential” that “must remain”—the “rough sketch which nature ofers us.” Though true and natural, ornament come as addition is and always remains a “decoration” to the “rough sketch.” It always remains a superfluous addition—an “ornament only.” Though it is added by default to take the place of a fault, the place it takes is not in but around the “rough sketch.” There, “without touching the substance,” not unlike a frame to a frameless “sketch,” it embellishes, smooths, and polishes the work, thus forming a familiar equation that is as paradoxical as it is unavoidable— imperfection + ornament = perfection + ornament. The “essential must remain” and remain “untouched” because only with recourse to it can Laugier decipher the difference between “good” and “bad”

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in architecture. It must remain “untouched” because to touch it, to add to it, or subtract from it, is to forgo its power of exclusion. To remain and retain its authority, the “essential” must accept an addition by default. To remain “untouched,” the needed addition must be a decoration. The resolution to this unavoidable paradox is thus yet another exclusion. Laugier must again exclude as other that which is neither the same nor the other, neither a part nor apart, neither essential nor inessential. What does not fit in or out must be forced out. This is the condition of the possibility of reason’s discourse on “true beauty.” If the “good” is to remain and remain the perfection it is desired to be, the ornamental must be chased beyond the boundaries of the “essential” as inessential. It must be made to appear as a superfluous addition that can either be “admitted” or “suppressed.” Yet, where beyond the “essential” should ornament be chased, that is to ask, beyond which boundary that is not always already the work of ornamentation or decoration? The “essential” can do, Laugier insists, with or without the addition, because what is added is not added to the center. The “thing” fundamentally is unchanged, it is said, by the addition, because what is missing is not missing from the center. What needs to be added needs to be added only to smooth and polish the rim. The fault, in other words, lies on the border. What is missing is missing from the rim. Ornament, therefore, in consequence of the place it takes, is of no consequence. It is only a marginal addition or an addition to the margins that could be dispensed without loss to the center. The inessential, however, is also essential because the fault that calls for addition lies not on the border but rather is the border. What is missing is the rim itself. There is, before ornamentation, only imperfection, a center that is missing and is itself missing. The border beyond which the imperfect can be cast as an absolute other, that is, an other that is not always already the same, is nowhere to be identified before decoration is added to complete it. The condition of delimitation and differentiation is ornamentation. The perfection of the “essential,” by Laugier’s own account, can only please after decoration. Decorated, however, the perfect can no longer exact the needed authority to exclude the “bad” as an imperfect other in need of addition. Ornamented, the perfect is, is always already, in the position of the imperfect, because if ornament adds, it also subtracts. If it completes, it also points to a lack or gap in that to which it is added to complete. What Laugier gains by ornamentation, he has always already lost to decoration. To satisfy the “inborn taste” for “variety,” Laugier must allow ornamentation. To satisfy the “taste for true beauty” that is “natural to everybody,” Laugier must separate and exclude the ornamental from the body beautiful of which ornament is neither a part nor apart. The ornamental, however, can only be cast apart as a “superfluous” other beyond the border of the beautiful—a border enclosing the beautiful as what is “essential.” The border of the beautiful, Laugier has told us at the outset, is missing, that is, as Laugier would have it, is hidden behind “the veil that covers it.” Therefore, to cast apart as other—be this the ornamental or the faulty—Laugier must first unveil, reveal, or disclose the border of the beautiful beyond which the ornamental or the faulty can

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be cast. He must first bring order to a “chaotic state” given, where the indelible difference between the “good” and the “bad” cannot be, or as Laugier would insist, can no longer be deciphered. To accomplish this task, Laugier must add what is “lacking” in the state of chaos. He must add a theoretical text that by way of discovery and not invention, revelation and not construction “firmly establishes the principles of architecture, explains its true spirit and proposes rules for guiding talent and defining taste.” It is thus that difference is brought to “light”—the light of “reason.” The “torch of truth” casts, nonetheless, an ornamented light. To reveal the border of the beautiful beyond which the ornamental can be cast as an addition, Laugier must make yet another ornamental addition. He must add a revelatory text that is always already in the position of that which it excludes as “ornament only.” The added text is itself an ornamental addition because it also takes the place of what is “lacking” and needs to be filled as the condition of delimitation and differentiation. As such, the theoretical text must itself be separated as an “ornament only” for the same reason that ornament needs to be separated from the body beautiful. Therefore, there is a need for yet another ornamental frame-up, yet another addition for separation and exclusion. To satisfy that ontotheological desire for perfection as a self-referential, non-contingent whole, Laugier must, once again, place the needed addition outside the “thing” it is added to by placing the “thing” outside the theoretical text, outside the play of differing deferred terms, of terms always already ornamented. Laugier must assume, as all theoreticians in a manner do, that the architecture the theoretical text sets out to reveal exists, persists, and is independent of the ornamental text within whose bounds the otherwise autonomous architecture is merely brought to light. Hence, Laugier tells us that if the theoretical text is added, it is added only to unveil. As an addition, Laugier tells us, the theoretical text serves only to reveal what is present as such outside it and independent of its textual revelation or “ornamentation.” The theoretical text serves only to disclose the true nature of architecture or a truly natural architecture enclosed as a non-contingent totality “independent of mental habit and human prejudice” outside the text within the boundaries of a self-referential, self-enclosing whole designated by the name nature and designated the “imprint” of a most “superior mind” by the authority of whom the beautiful defines its own border before addition and ornamentation, from the beginning and always. The theoretical text is, therefore, an ornament only, added to unveil, only. This frame of thought could not place it and has never placed it otherwise. What the theoretical text unveils, however, is never an architecture on the outside. If it could, the text would never be called for. Instead, what the theoretical text reveals, albeit only within its bounds, is an insurmountable lack or gap that can only appear filled by a theological frame-up as the condition of the being of the architecture on the outside. What the theoretical text discloses, if it could be said to disclose anything, is an endless frame-up in the volume of a text with no beginning and no end and no architecture as such preceding the textual revelation. What the theoretical text reveals, if it could be said

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to reveal anything, is a desire for perfection. This is the desire for overcoming contingency on any text, ornament, or exclusionary frame. It is the desire to speak with the utmost authority of the self-referential truth of an autonomous architecture that as such has and can have no place for contingency. It is the desire whose fulfillment is, in turn, always deferred by that which fulfills it—a text, an ornament, an exclusionary frame-up. If there is a fundamental similarity between Laugier and Alberti’s positions on ornamentation and theory, that is not accidental. What we have witnessed here is yet another attempt to enclose architecture within the confines of a frame of thought that can only account for the being of this “mode of expression” as a structure of presence that excludes difference and deferral as an aberration. Once again, we have witnessed an appeal to nature and origin for a return from chaos to order and a clear border in the art of building. There is, however, a difference between this and the previous attempt—a difference that is also an indifference. Though both attempts constitute a search for a present perfection or a perfect presence in an art conceived as a “mode of expression,” they differ not on their definition of the desired perfection but on its constitution. They differ on what constitutes a simple presence in the game of representation. Each attempt seeks to account for the being of this mode of representation by reducing it to a form of non-contingent presence or “perfection” in a way that not only sets it apart from the other but excludes the other as the failure of an ignorant mind. However, what sets the two apart also binds them together within the confines of a frame of thought of which each is an inheritor and a representative. Alberti reduces architecture as a mode of expression to the formal presence of a signified mathematical concept above and beyond the play of signs in the intelligible domain. This is a formal presence of which each normal, natural, or perfect representation is a representation of. On the other hand, Laugier reduces this mode of expression to self-presentation, that is, to the formal presence of a series of self-referential signs or rather things, insofar as self-presentation excludes representation as contingent on a referent that is both other and absent. Alberti’s perfect is a mathematical represented, Laugier’s an essential representation. Nevertheless, both seek to set aside representation in an attempt to subject this mode of expression to the test of truth, of what is and is present. One tries to sublimate representation and its contingency as a “cruder term,” the other as a “disagreeable substitute,” one by appeal to instinct, the other by appeal to reason, both with recourse to origin and nature as a divine model of representation. Yet neither fares better than the other in delimiting the desired perfection because each attempt leads only to ornamentation, to that which makes impossible what it makes possible—an ornamentation that always points to what is not given and is thus desired.

The Aftermath The theoretician that followed Laugier in the second half of the 18th and the first decades of the 19th centuries did not question, much less abandon,

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Laugier’s quest for a self-referential, non-contingent architecture that expressed what it did and did what it expressed causally and indivisibly. Instead, Laugier’s theoretical and delimiting difficulties were attributed to his tactics rather than his objective. In place of Laugier’s focus on structural essentialism, the generations that followed embraced different tactics to the same end and, in the end, to no greater success. Prominent among the next generation of theoreticians was Étienne-Louis Boullée who, unlike Laugier, was a trained architect, a member of the Académie Royale d’Architecture, and a professor at École Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées. Over fifty years after Laugier’s Essay, Boullée, in his Architecture, Essai sur l’Art (Architecture, Essay on Art), set out to explicate his own distinct tactics in the cause, no less, of a self-referential architecture. Chiding Vitruvius as Laugier had done before, in his quest to define architecture at the outset of his theoretical inquiry, Boullée asks: “Shall I join Vitruvius in defining it as the art of building? Indeed, no, for there is a flagrant error in this definition. Vitruvius mistakes the effect for the cause. In order to execute, it is first necessary to conceive” (Boullée 83). Boullée levels the same charge against Laugier. In direct reference to his Rustic Hut, Boullée argues: “Our earliest ancestors built their huts only when they had a picture of them in their minds. It is this product of the mind, this process of creation, that constitutes architecture” (Boullée 83). He goes on to conclude that architecture “can consequently be defined as the art of designing and bringing to perfection any building whatsoever” (Boullée 83). Having delimited the genesis of architecture to conception as distinct from execution, Boullée points to a divide that has persisted in the discipline of architecture to the present. He notes: “thus, the art of construction is merely an auxiliary art which, in our opinion, could appropriately be called the scientific side of architecture” (Boullée 83). Unlike many of his predecessors, including Alberti and Palladio, who addressed the art of construction in some detail, Boullée is concerned almost exclusively with architecture as “the art of bringing any building to perfection” (Boullée 115). Consequently, he addresses art and perfection in turn and defines each in a manner that is by now quite familiar. Following in the footsteps of his predecessors and for the very same reasons, he tells us: “what I understand by art is everything that aims at imitating nature.” Yet, in this familiar turn to nature, Boullée boldly claims “that no architect has attempted the task I have undertaken; and that if I succeed, as I dare hope I shall, in proving that architecture, as far as its relations with nature are concerned, has perhaps an even greater advantage than the other art” (Boullée 83). Echoing Laugier almost verbatim, Boullée’s objective in this familiar turn to nature is to “establish principles that would be all the more certain for having their source in nature” (Boullée 82). These are “principles from which no deviation is possible” (Boullée 87). And no deviation is possible because “what constitutes beauty, in the strict sense of the word,” are “qualities that are so striking and so clear that no one can refuse to accept the evidence and not be moved by them” (Boullée 112). Per course, here as well, the beautiful is indisputable and universal, much as it is natural.

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Using the words beauty and perfection interchangeably and assuming that “everything in nature is striving towards the goal of perfection” (Boullée 90), Boullée’s proposed imitation of nature in the cause of perfection is not a call for the imitation of natural forms, much as it had not been for Alberti and Laugier before. For Boullée, as it was for his predecessors, the objective is to model the process of creation in architecture on nature’s. He is ardent in the belief that nature’s creation process inevitably and perpetually leads to self-referential expressions. “In all its different images,” Boullée tells us, “nature retains the individual character of things in such a way that nothing is in contradiction, neither impressions, nor forms, nor colours; and all things in all respects have a perfect relationship, perfect analogy and harmony” (Boullée 90). For Boullée, the appearance and the essence of all things in nature are in “a perfect relationship.” There is no “contradiction,” much less a division in nature between what a thing is and what it appears as.19 It is this “perfect analogy and harmony” that Boullée wishes to implement in architecture as “the art of bringing any building to perfection.” Hence Boullée asks “what does this perfection consist of?” He answers “a building can be considered perfect when its decoration corresponds to the kind of building to which it is applied and when its layout corresponds to its function” (Boullée 115). Boullée’s wish to bridge the gap between what a building expresses and what it does is the same as what Laugier wished and explicated under the heading “bienséance.” What the two also share in common is what each considers a prerequisite to achieving perfection in architecture, i.e., “genius” as a “gift of Nature.” This is “a divine gift” that the “Divine Being, the creator of Nature,” has selectively bestowed on the genius as “a quality that is part of His own essential being” (Boullée 84). Boullée’s theological turn to divinity, nature, and genius has the same essential reasoning and follows the same theoretical trajectory as did Laugier’s and Alberti’s before him. On this front, nothing has essentially changed. The possibility of a self-referential, non-contingent expression is contingent on this recourse. Picking up where Laugier had left the concept of “character,” Boullée takes up the cause and advances it with a distinct nuance. He insists that the “impression” buildings “make on us should arouse in us sensations that correspond to the function of the building in question” (Boullée 82). In the cause of establishing a direct link between the form and the function of the building, Boullée explains: “to give a building character is to make judicial use of every means of producing no other sensations than those related to the subject” (Boullée 89). Where Boullée parts ways with Laugier is over the question of proportions. Whereas Laugier approached the concept of character as a function of fixed “ratios between width, height and length” for each parted impression, Boullée dismisses the idea and insists that “the beauty of art cannot be demonstrated like a mathematical truth; although this beauty is derived from nature, to sense it and apply it fruitfully certain qualities are necessary and nature is not very generous with them” (Boullée 83). Having all but abandoned mathematical proportions, Boullée instead seeks the expression of character through the use of primary or “regular volumes”

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because of “their properties” and “the power they have on our senses.” In a unique recasting of the concept of proportion, Boullée goes on to note: Once I had observed that the shape of a regular volume is determined by regularity, symmetry and variety, then I understood that proportion is the combination of these properties. By the proportion of a volume, I mean the effect produced by its regularity, its symmetry and its variety. Regularity gives it a beautiful shape, symmetry gives it order and proportion, variety gives it planes that diversify as we look at them. Thus the combination and the respective concord which are the result of all these properties, give rise to volumetric harmony. (Boullée 86) Assuming that “no creation of the fine arts should exactly resemble another; and that every subject should be dealt with in an appropriate manner” (Boullée 112), Boullée sets to specify the appropriate impression for each building type and how the regularity, symmetry, and variety of primary volumes could be deployed to impart it. A funerary monument, for instance, Boullée tells us, should impart “a melancholy impression” and to perpetuate “the memory of those to whom it is dedicated,” be “designed to withstand the ravages of time.” To these ends, the “regular volume” of the Egyptian Pyramids “are truly characteristic in that they conjure up the melancholy image of arid mountains and immutability” (Boullée 105). To this, Boullée adds the “illusion of buried architecture” made ever “more melancholy” by “a flat surface, bare and unadorned, made of a light-absorbent material, absolutely stripped of detail, its decoration consisting of a play of shadows, outlined by still deeper shadows” (Boullée 106). This, Boullée tells us, is “an appropriate character to funerary monuments.” Boullée’s approach to a self-referential architecture would appear too imprecise to some among the next generation of French theoreticians. Prominent among the latter was Jean-Nicolas-Louis Durand, who had studied under Boullée, became Professor of Architecture at the École Polytechnique, and authored the influential Précis des Leçons d’Architecture (Précis of the Lectures on Architecture). For his part, in the cause of a self-referential architecture, he would seek to add firmness to commodity in search of delight. Once again, the objective would remain, and the tactic would shift in the persistent hope of arriving at a non-contingent architecture, once and for all. Durand would begin his theoretical reflections with a refutation of the Laugerian Rustic Hut, along with any relevance for mathematico-musical proportions in architecture. For his part, he too would look back to and conjecture an origin for architecture, only to conclusively conclude that regarding architecture, “in all ages and in all places, all of men’s thoughts and actions have sprung from two principles alone.” These are: “(1) to derive from their buildings the greatest possible advantage, consequently making them as fit as possible for their purpose; and (2) to build them in the way that would in early times be the

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least laborious and later—when money had become the price of labor—the least costly” (Durand 84). He thus concludes that “fitness and economy are the means that architecture must naturally employ, and are the sources from which it must derive its principles” (Durand 84). To be fit, a building “must be solid, salubrious, and commodious.” Here Durand combines his predecessors’ Commodity and Firmness into a single principle—fitness—and thereby substitutes the principle of “economy” for Alberti’s beauty and Laugier’s “bienséance.” In effect, however, the principle of “economy” plays much the same delimiting role. Durand argues that “the more symmetrical, regular, and simple a building is, the less costly it becomes” and “since economy demands the utmost simplicity in all necessary things, it absolutely forbids all that is unnecessary.” The economy principle thus paves the way for Durand to exclude and forbid a lengthy list of options, in a manner that is remarkably similar to the way Laugier used the principle of essentials to exclude and forbid all else, or Alberti used select proportions to do the same. Durand argues, for instance, that since of all forms, “the circle, the square, and the slightly elongated parallelogram” are “the most symmetrical, most regular, and simplest forms” and “enclose a given area with a smaller perimeter than other forms,” they are “the forms most suited to economy” and therefore should be singularly deployed to the exclusion of all others. Given Durand’s contraction of architectural principles from the traditional commodity, firmness, and delight to fitness and economy, it may seem to some, he notes, that he is discounting the delight or pleasure principle in architecture. On the contrary, he clarifies: “far from denying that architecture can give pleasure, we maintain that it cannot but give pleasure, where it is treated in accordance with its true principles” (Durand 85). Regarding the fitness principle, he asks: “has not nature associated pleasure with the satisfaction of our needs, and are not our keenest pleasures the satisfactions of our most pressing needs?” (Durand 85). Regarding the economy principle, he sees “no incompatibility, and no mere compatibility, between beauty and economy: for economy is one of the principal causes of beauty” (Durand 86). The relationship between beauty and economy is causal because it is precisely through the exclusionary economy principle that Durand seeks to arrive at the familiar non-contingent state of an architecture that requires neither addition nor subtraction to be its perfect self: when a building has all that it needs, and nothing but what it must have; and when everything necessary is disposed in the most economical— which is to say, the simplest—manner, then that building has the kind and degree of beauty appropriate to it; and that to seek to add anything but the ornaments of painting and sculpture is to weaken and sometimes to obliterate its style, its character, and, in a word, all the beauties that are desired for it. (Durand 134)

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Durand’s concept of appropriate beauty has a direct afnity with Laugier’s concept of “bienséance” or propriety. Also, addressing both Laugier and Boullée’s concept of character concerning beauty, Durand notes: Certainly, the grandeur, magnificence, variety, effect, and character that are observed in buildings are all beauties, all causes of the pleasure that we derive from looking at them. But where is the need to run after such things, if a building is disposed in a manner fitted to its intended use? Will it not differ sensibly from another building intended for some other use? Will it not naturally possess a character—and, what is more, a character of its own? If all of the parts of the building, being intended for different uses, are disposed as they should be, will they not inevitably differ? Will not the building afford variety? And if the same building is disposed in the most economical, that is to say, the simplest manner, will it not appear as grand and as magnificent as it is possible to be? Undoubtedly, it will, because the eye will embrace the greatest number of its parts at one glance. Again, where is the need to chase after all those partial beauties? (Durand 85) Durand’s attempt to subsume his predecessors’ tactics under the delimiting banner of fitness and economy would, in the end, no more succeed in arriving at a self-referential, non-contingent architecture than his predecessor had and for the same reasons we have explored in detail in Laugier’s Essay. The strategy of delimitation and exclusion in each case merely exposes both the impossibility of the desired objective and the inevitability of repetition by the next in time to conceive the problem as being not endemic but subject to resolution pending tactical modification. A case in point is Pugin’s embrace of the same objectives as Laugier’s, Boullée’s, and Durand’s and even much of their tactical argumentation, though now advanced in defense and the cause of Gothic architecture rather than the Classical. Restating the familiar credo of the age of reason, Pugin notes, “the great test of Architectural beauty is the fitness of the design to the purpose for which it is intended” (Pugin, Contrasts 1). By the fitness of the design, Pugin means “that the style of a building should so correspond with its use that the spectator may at once perceive the purpose for which it was erected” (Pugin, Contrasts 1). The appearance of the building must be, in other words, causally linked to the building’s purpose to the point of transparency. To arrive at this unremittingly self-referential architecture, Pugin almost verbatim restates Laugier’s stance when he lists “the two great rules of design.” These are: lst, that there should be no features about a building which are not necessary for convenience, construction, or propriety; 2nd, that all ornament should consist of enrichment of the essential construction of the building. The neglect of these two rules is the cause of all the bad architecture of the present time. Architectural features are continually tacked on

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buildings with which they have no connection, merely for the sake of what is termed effect; and ornaments are actually constructed, instead of forming the decoration of construction, to which in good taste they should be always subservient. In pure architecture the smallest detail should have a meaning or serve a purpose; and even the construction itself should vary with the material employed, and the designs should be adapted to the material in which they are executed. (Pugin, Principles 1) In this last, Pugin adds material determinism to Laugier’s structural essentialism if only to turn Laugier’s argumentations against him in a new corrective quest for the beautiful. Regarding “the two great rules of design,” Pugin notes: “Strange as it may appear at first sight, it is in pointed architecture alone that these great principles have been carried out” (Pugin, Principles 1). Furthermore, Pugin argues: “the architects of the middle ages were the first who turned the natural properties of the various materials to their full account, and made their mechanism a vehicle for their art” (Pugin, Principles 1). Pugin subsequently offers a protracted critique of Greek architecture in specific, and the “classic architecture” in general, in a line of argumentation whose logic is remarkably similar to Laugier’s, though now offered in defense of Gothic or “pointed architecture” and not Greek. Referencing Vitruvius’ description of the origins of Greek architecture, Pugin notes that Greek architecture was a “wooden” architecture at inception and at that the most “barbarous mode of building that can be imagined” (Pugin, Principles 2). When Greeks transformed their wooden cabins into stone structures, Pugin argues, “the properties of this material did not suggest to them some different and improved mode of construction” (Pugin, Principles 3) as it did to “the architects of the middle ages.” For Pugin, the Greek-derived “classic architecture” remains a wooden architecture in stone—impervious to the unique properties of the material. Consequently, it is “a monstrous absurdity” to uphold this architecture as “the standard of architectural excellence, and the types from which our present buildings are to be formed” (Pugin, Principles 3). And this is because there is a discrepancy between what “classic architecture” is (wooden) and what it appears as (stone). In sharp contrast, Gothic or “Pointed architecture,” Pugin argues, “does not conceal her construction, but beautifies it; classic architecture seeks to conceal instead of decorating it, and therefore has resorted to the use of engaged columns as breaks for strength and effect;—nothing can be worse.” Much as Laugier proscribed engaged columns to safeguard the clarity and transparency of the column’s structural role, Pugin, for the same tactical reason, condemns the practice, though now in defense of the masonry wall and its structural clarity! The purpose of the column, Pugin notes, is to bear superincumbent weight “without the obstruction of a solid wall,” but the moment there is a wall, “the necessity and propriety of columns cease, and engaged columns always produce the effect of having once been detached, and the intermediate spaces blocked up afterwards.”

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In contrast to the engaged column and its confused structural expression, “a buttress in pointed architecture at once shows its purpose, and diminishes naturally as it rises and has less to resist” (Pugin, Principles 3). Naturally expressive of its role and purpose as reinforcement to masonry wall construction, the purposefully diminishing form of the buttress, following “the great principle of decorating utility,” can also be made to assume an additional decorative role. For instance, the buttress “by means of water tables, can be made to project such a distance as to produce a fine effect of light and shade” (Pugin, Principles 3). Pugin goes on to condemn and proscribe, as Laugier had done before him and for the same reasons, every form and practice that does not meet his “great test of Architectural beauty,” as “monstrous and ridiculous,” a “mere modern deception,” a “monstrous absurdity,” and of course “disgusting” and “exceedingly ugly.” These include practically every aspect of “classic architecture” espoused by Laugier, Boullée, Durand, and others. And these, each for saying one thing and doing another. In contrast, following the dictum that “all really beautiful forms in architecture are based on the soundest principles of utility” (Pugin 1841, 11), and the belief that “the severity of Christian architecture requires a reasonable purpose for the introduction of the smallest detail” (Pugin, Principles 18), Pugin goes on to provide a purpose for every aspect of “pointed architecture” from the largest part to the minutest detail. One example should suffice to demonstrate his approach. The pinnacles and spiral terminations in “pointed architecture,” Pugin argues, though to most may appear “as mere ornamental excrescences,” in fact are “answering a double intention, both mystical and natural.” Their “mystical intention is, like other vertical lines and terminations of Christian architecture, to represent an emblem of the Resurrection; their natural intention is that of an upper weathering, to throw off rain” (Pugin, Principles 9). With a finial and crockets, each becomes “a perfect pinnacle,” insofar as the finial and crockets constitute “decoration of construction,” rather than “constructed decoration.” Furthermore: “the square piers of which these floriated tops form the terminations are all erected to answer a useful purpose; when they rise from the tops of wall buttresses, they serve as piers to strengthen the parapet, which would be exceedingly weak without some such support” (Pugin, Principles 10). The remainder of Pugin’s defense of “pointed architecture” is equally labored. What Pugin’s theoretical writings effectively demonstrate is that the theoretical objectives, strategies, and argumentations are not contingent on or necessarily related to what the theoretician opts to promote formally or stylistically. Evidentially, the logic of the argumentation is independent of what is argued or in the least readily subject to adaption. To that point, soon after Pugin published The True Principles, a very different argument and defense would be advanced in the cause of Gothic architecture by John Ruskin, whose theoretical stance would become the pervading stance in much of the second half of the 19th century, as Laugier’s had been in the second half of the 18th century. Ruskin’s approach would be reminiscent of Alberti’s, though offered in defense of a very different formal approach. This we will explore in detail next.

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Notes 1. In consideration of copyrights, I have used the 1755 English translation of Laugier’s An Essay on Architecture for all block quotes in this chapter. I have used Wolfgang and Anni Herrmann’s 1977 English translation for short in-text references. Whereas the Herrmanns’ is a translation of the 1755 second expanded edition of the Essay, the English translation of 1755 is of the first French edition of the Essay published in 1753. English translations of quotes from the second French edition of the Essay are mine in a style that approximates the 1755 English translation. 2. Author’s translation of: “Deux obstacles plus insurmontables s’opposent à l’accomplissement de nos souhaits, la prévention de l’esprit, l’habitude de la main. Rien n’est plus audessus des forces humaines que de faire changer d’idée & d’opinion à des hommes qui se croyant faits pour régenter les autres; & qui supposent, que leur proposer des pratiques nouvelles, c’est vouloir les régenter. L’empire de la raison toute seule ne saurait l’emporter d’emblée fur les résistances que lui opposent le préjugé d’éducation, le déplaisir d’être obligé de revenir sur ses pas, la honte même d’être assujetti à de nouvelles études quand on croyait avoir fait sa provision complète de lumières & de savoir. De tout cela il résulte dans l’esprit une prévention chagrine dont l’amour-propre fait tous les frais; & qui oppose à tous les raisonnement une indocilité orgueilleuse que n’aurait point la simple ignorance. Il est donc question d’abord de triompher de l’intérêt que peuvent avoir les Maîtres à ne point souffrir qu’une méthode nouvelle prenne faveur. On sent assez que ce triomphe ne peut s’obtenir sans essuyer de grands combats. Au lieu de sacrifier à l’amour de la vérité le projet d’une vaine défense, on fera naître difficultés sur difficulté; on disputera le terrein pas à pas, pour ne jamais se rendre. Il faut bien du temps & des réflexions pour éteindre ce premier feu de rivalité, & pour que la raison reprenne tous ses droits. Il faut encore plus de droiture & de noblesse dans les sentiment pour s’élever au-dessus d’un préjugé malheureusement si commun, quoique si pernicieux & si aveugle.La seule raison qu’on objecte contre le rapport établi entre nos édifices & la cabane rustique, c’est qu’il doit nous être permis de nous éloigner un peu de ces grossières & informes inventions. Vraiment nous nous en éloignons beaucoup, par le grand goût de décoration que nous avons substitué aux négligences d’une composition si brute; mais i’essentiel doit rester. C’est là l’esquisse que la nature nous présente; l’art ne doit employer ses ressources qu’à embellir, limer, polir l’ouvrage, sans toucher au fond du dessein” (Laugier, Essai 184). 3. Alberti continues: “Thus I was continually searching, considering, measuring and making draughts of every thing I could hear of, till such time as I had made myself perfect master of every contrivance or Invention that had been used in those ancient remains; and thus I alleviated the fatigue of writing, by the thirst and pleasure of gaining Information.” 4. Author’s translation of: “Ce n’est au reste que par abus que le pilastre est substitué à la colonne qu’il représente très-infidelement. Le pilastre n’a été imaginé que pour éviter la dépense des colonnes, & en coserver cependant l’idée; mais une imitation si défectueuse ne sauroit consoler de l’absence d’un si bel original. Par tout ou l’on met despilastres il faut des colonnes; & par tout où l’on ne peut mettre de colonnes, il ne faut point d’Ordre d’Architecture.” (Laugier, Essai 17) 5. Author’s translation of: “Si l’on grave bien avant dans son esprit ce principe également raisonable & lumineux, on reviendra aisément d’une foule d’erreurs puisées dans une pratique qui s’obstine à suivre le principe contraire. On ne regardera plus comme une Architecture vraie tous ces pilajlres, tous ces entablemens plaqués contre des massifs, qui y sont si bien pour la seule decoration, qu’on peut détruire toute l’Architecture à coups de ciseau, sans que l’édifice perde autre chose au’un ornement. Au contraire, des colonnes isolées qui portent leur entablement en plate-bande, ne laisseront jamais de doute sur la vérité du spectacle d’Architecture qu’elles présentent; parce qu’on sent bien qu’on ne powroit toucher a aucune de ces parties, sans endommager & ruiner l’édifice.” (Laugier, Essai 17–18)

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6. In sharp contrast to Laugier’s stance on pilasters, Perrault, some 70 years earlier and as a theoretician of the Baroque age with a markedly different theoretical strategy, refers to the pilaster simply as a “square column” and notes: There are several kinds of square columns, and the differences between them arise from the way they are applied to walls, which is also a differentiating factor for columns themselves. Some columns are isolated and completely detached from the wall, others are attached by only a corner and have two faces free, and others are sunk into the wall by one half or only one third of their thickness, with only the front face left entirely free. Similarly, there are also isolated pilasters, pilasters with three, or only two, faces outside the wall, and pilasters where only one face is entirely free. (Perrault 151) 7. Since “nature has not two different ways of bringing about an effect,” if the wall is “essential,” that is, “natural,” then the column must be “superfluous” or unnatural. If not, then we are back to the first proposition. 8. Author’s translation of: “J’admire qu’un Architecte mette lé pilastre au rang des simples ornemens. Cette décision est bien peu réfléchie. Ignore-t-il que ce qu’on nomme un ornement, est une parure accidentelle dont on peut faire usage, & que l’on peut retrancher, sans que l’essentiel de l’Ordre d’Architecture en souffre. Les canelures & less autres richesses dont le ciseau du sculpteur charge les membres divers, sont de vrais ornemens, parce qu’on peut les admettre ou les supprimer sans altérer le fonds de la chose. Le pilastre est-il dans le cas? N’est pas évidemment partie essentielle de l’Ordre d’Architecture, faisant un tout avec l’entablement?” (Laugier, Essai 16–17). 9. To this “absurd” example may be added the example of yet another “glaring blunder,” which, as Laugier tells us, “ranks among the degradations of the human spirit”: I have often groaned at the madness of some architects for the attached columns, but I should never have thought that it could enter into the mind of man to engage columns one in another; there is not a more monstrous and insupportable defect. (Laugier 18) How can a true representation be false or be true and as such add itself to complete another true representation that owes the truth of its expression to the absence of need for an addition? How indeed could a “thinking person”—a man of reason—degrade “the human spirit” by thus denying him control over representation in the name of truth? Such a “glaring blunder” can only be the work of an ignorant mind. Reason can accept no other explanation 10. Author’s translation of: “En vain on prétend que la diversité, si précieuse dans les Arts, demande qu’on varie la décoration des pavillons en avant-corps; il faut sans doute la varier s’il se peut: mais sans s’écarter des loix de la nature. Autrement qui empêchera que pour varier davantage, un Artiste ne substitute aux Colonnes rondes des Colonnes ovales, des prismes, des piliers à cinq, à six, à huit faces? Et quel principe aura-t-on pour lui interdire ces bizarreries?” (Laugier, Essai 18) 11. Author’s translation of: “Quand je dis au reste, que de tous les dégrés d’élévation possibles, il n’y en a qu’un de bon, je ne prétends pas que tous les bâtimens qui ont la même longueur doivent avoir la même hauteur; mais que tous les bâtiment d’un meme caractere doivent avoir la même élévation sur une longueur donnée. Ce qui constitue le caractere d’un bâtiment, c’est le genre que l’on choisit, & la destination que l’on se propose. Eglises, Palais, Maisons particulieres, Corps-de-lo-gis, Pavillons, Dômes, Tours, voilà les divers & principaux genres. Les différentes destinations produisent des idées plus ou moins relevées, demandent du simple, de J’élégant, du noble, de l’auguste, du majestueux, de l’extraordinaire, du prodigieux. Quand l’Architecte a bien saisi le vrai de la destination, sur le sentiment qui en résulte dans son ame, il doit choisir le genre. . . Dès que la destination est connue & le goût choisi, le caractère du bâtiment est fixé.

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12. 13.

14.

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Alors je soutiens que les proportions ne sont plus libres, & que nécessairement il n’y en a qu’une de légitime. Ma raison est que pour opérer un effet, la nature n’a pas deux voyes différentes. L’effet est: plus ou moins satisfaisant, sélon qu’on s’attache avec plus ou moins d’exactitude à l’unique voye qui y mène. Ainsi les rapports de hauteur & de longueur sur les façades extérieures, sont nécessairement invariables. J’en dis de même des rapports de largeur, hauteur & longueur dans l’intérieur des bâtiment” (Laugier 106–08). The Doric, the Ionic, the Corinthian, the Tuscan, and the Composite. The “situation” has to do with the selection of a site with respect to climatic factors and the degree of closure and access. Planning has to do with the arrangement of entrances, courtyards, and gardens. Internal communication has to with the arrangement of the internal parts of a building. “It were to be wished that every one would do himself, that justice that one might never see people who have only wealth, to equal, even to surpass in magnificence the inside and outside of their houses, the first lords and the greatest of the kingdom” (Laugier, Essay 192–93). The wall, this substitute for the “beautiful original,” would always be an imperfection, though as such a “license sanctioned by necessity” which “must be used cautiously and when it is impossible to find a better way.” The necessity in this instance is, however, not only climatic but socio-political as well. The wall must be used here because it is impossible to find a better way of expressing the “purpose” of the building truthfully. The employment of the Order in these “circumstances” would result in a false representation, for there would then be no difference between two very different purposes, no difference between the house of the first lords and the house of the poor. Author’s translation of: “Le vase qui fait le fond de ce chapiteau, est un corps solide qui a toute la force nécessaire pour porter le tailloir & l’architrave. Les feuilles d’acanthe & les caulicoles qui couvrent ce vase, ne le dérobent point entierement à la vue. Il paroît autant qu’il est nécessaire pour rallumer l’imagination, qui seroit effrayée de voir un tailloir porter sur de simples feuilles ou tigettes. Ces feuilles délicates ne portent rien. L’inventeur de ce chapiteau en a fagement rendu les courbures très-fenfibles, afin qu’on ne put pas douter qu’elles n’y font que pour l’ornement” (Laugier, Essai 88–89) Every true ornament is not proper for every building. The type and the amount of ornamentation must vary according to the variable “purposes” different buildings are intended to serve. For instance: There is nevertheless one thing to observe, that is that all sorts of ornaments do not agree with the decorations of our churches. There should be nothing in them profane, nothing ridiculous, nor immodest. There have been architects that have had judgement little enough to ornament the frise of a church with all the instruments proper for a pagan sacrifice or monstrous figures contrived by imagination and caprice. It is offending openly against all the rules of decency. There should be nothing in a church but what is simple, masculine, grave and serious; nothing that can divert one’s piety: nothing but what contributes to nourish, and to inflame its ardour. Nudities above all in painting and sculpture ought to be absolutely banished hence. (Laugier, Essay 174–75)

18. Author’s translation of: “La seule raison qu’on objecte contre le rapport établi entre nos édifices & la cabane rustique, c’est qu’il doit nous être permis de nous éloigner un peu de ces grossières & informes inventions. Vraiment nous nous en éloignons beau- coup, par le grand goût de décoration que nous avons substitué aux négligences d’une composition si brute; mais i’essentiel doit rester. C’est là l’esquisse que la nature nous présente; l’art ne doit employer ses ressources qu’à embellir, limer, polir l’ouvrage, sans toucher au fond du dessein” (Laugier, Essai 14)

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19. Over a century later, Louis Sullivan would reiterate much the same sentiment when he noted: Yet to the steadfast eye of one standing upon the shore of things, looking chiefly and most lovingly upon that side on which the sun shines and that we feel joyously to be life, the heart is ever gladdened by the beauty, the exquisite spontaneity, with which life seeks and takes on its forms in an accord perfectly responsive to its needs. It seems ever as though the life and the form were absolutely one and inseparable, so adequate is the sense of fulfillment. (Sullivan 208) He then goes on to conclude: It is the pervading law of all things organic, and inorganic, of all things physical and metaphysical, of all things human and all things superhuman, of all true manifestations of the head, of the heart, of the soul, that the life is recognizable in its expression, that form ever follows function. This is the law. (Sullivan 208)

Reference List Alberti, Leon Battista. The Architecture of Leon Battista Alberti in Ten Books. Translated by Giacomo Leone, Leoni Edition, Edward Owen, 1755. Boullée, Etienne-Louis. Architecture, Essay on Art. Edited by Helen Rosenau and Visionary Architecture Ed Helen Rosenau, Harmony Books, 1976. Durand, Jacques-Nicolas-Louis. Précis des Leçons d’Architecture. Getty Research Institute, 2000. Laugier, Marc-Antoine. Essai Sur L’Architecture. Chez Duchesne, 1755. ———. Essay on Architecture. T. Osborne and Shipton, 1755. ———. An Essay on Architecture. Translated by Wolfgang Hermman and Annie Hermman, Hennesey & Ingalls Inc, 1977. Palladio, Andrea. The Four Books of Architecture. Edited by Adolf K. Placzek, Dover Publications, Inc, 1965. Perrault, Claude. Ordonnance for the Five Kinds of Columns after the Method of the Ancients. Translated by Indra Kagis McEwen, 1st edition, Oxford University Press, 1996. Pugin, A. Welby. Contrasts, or a Parallel between the Noble Edifices of the Middle Ages and Corresponding Buildings of the Present Day, Shewing the Present Decay of Taste. 1836. ———. The True Principles of Pointed or Christian Architecture, 1841. Sullivan, Louis H. Kindergarten Chats and Other Writings. Dover Publications, Inc, 1979. Wotton, Henry. The Elements of Architecture. Da Capo Press, 1624.

4

John Ruskin or The Seven Lamps of Architecture From Incorporation to Dissolution

There is a marked likeness between the virtues of man and the enlightenment of the globe he inhabits—the same diminishing gradation in vigor up to the limits of their domains, the same essential separation from their contraries—the same twilight at the meeting of the two: a something wider belt than the line where the world rolls into night, that strange twilight of virtues; that dusky debatable land, wherein zeal becomes impatience, and temperance becomes severity, and justice becomes cruelty, and faith superstition, and each and all vanish into gloom. Nevertheless, with the greater number of them, though their dimness increases gradually, we may mark the moment of their sunset; and, happily, may turn the shadow back by the way by which it had gone down. (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 34)

On Laws and Lights For what is at this point a familiar reason, “in the midst of opposition and uncertainty” of “architectural systems” (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 6), Ruskin, in the introduction to yet another theoretical text on the art of architecture that has no less an end and no different an approach to reaching it than its predecessors, and for that matter its successors, tells us: I have long felt convinced of the necessity, in order to its progress, of some determined effort to extricate from the confused mass of partial traditions and dogmata with which it has become encumbered during imperfect or restricted practice, those large principles of right which are applicable to every stage and style of it. (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 10) The necessity to extricate the “large principles of right” from a confused mass of partial traditions and dogmata is due to a certain “liability” in the art of architecture of which Ruskin writes: Uniting the technical and imaginative elements as essentially as humanity does soul and body, it [architecture] shows the same infirmly balanced DOI: 10.4324/9781003175780-4

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liability to the prevalence of the lower part over the higher, to the interference of the constructive, with the purity and simplicity of the reflective, element. This tendency, like every other form of materialism, is increasing with the advance of the age. (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 10) Given this state of afairs and the prevalence of the lower over the higher, of the interference of the constructive with the purity and simplicity of the reflective, the technical with the imaginative, “the most rational, if not the only mode of averting the danger of an utter dissolution of all that is systematic and consistent in our practice, or of ancient authority in our judgment” is, Ruskin tells us, “to determine, as guides of every efort, some constant, general, and irrefragable laws of right” (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 11): some laws of right which we may apply to the architecture of all the world and of all time; and by help of which, and judgment according to which, we may easily pronounce whether a building is good or noble, as, by applying a plumbline, whether it be perpendicular. (Ruskin, Stones 48–49) The story is, therefore, indeed a familiar one. Once again, there is a perceived state of confusion and of prevalence and interference. Hence, there is a need for a clarifying frame or a frame-up. There is a need for a certain exclusionary process of delimitation that would allow “free play” of “natural instincts” by removing and excluding “from those instincts the artificial restraints which prevent their action,” thus enabling them to “distinguish the noble from the ignoble” and make “an unafected and unbiased choice between right and wrong” (Ruskin, Stones 50–51). Once again, there is an imperative for “light” shed on the border between right and wrong obscured by the “advance of the age” due to “imperfect or restricted practice.” There is a need, that is, of “some laws of right” which, once extricated and “truly stated,” are “not only safeguards against every form of error, but source of every measure of success” (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 11). Hence, Ruskin tells us of these illuminating laws: “I do not think I claim too much for them in calling them the lamps of architecture” (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 11). To “ascertain the true nature” of these “lamps” and “the nobility of their fire” as well as the “innumerable hindrances by which their light has been too often distorted or overpowered” are the ends Ruskin seeks for the sake of order and of a clearly seen border between “right” and “wrong,” “noble” and “ignoble,” . . . Seven lamps are, therefore, to supplant the “torch” of a prior generation. It remains to be seen, however, whether Ruskin’s Seven Lamps can shed a brighter light than Laugier’s torch on a border the assumption of whose presence as a given precedes the text come as addition to reveal, expose, or bring to “light.” Yet, perhaps not whether it can, but how, that is to ask, on what

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secure foundation? By what “irrefragable laws of right” is Ruskin to overcome “innumerable hindrances” and “artificial restraints?” How is he to end all interference and confusion and restore the “purity and simplicity” of a system that seeks to unite opposing terms in a hierarchical structure that has “humanity” as an analogical model? Indeed how, if not always already by way of an analogy and “more?” But, more than this, exactly as we reduce to greater simplicity and surety any one group of these practical laws, we shall find them passing the mere condition of connection or analogy, and becoming the actual expression of some ultimate nerve or fiber of the mighty laws which govern the moral world. (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 12)

On the Gift With/Out Return Art, “generally, as such,” Ruskin tells us: “with all its technicalities, difficulties, and particular ends, is nothing but a noble and expressive language, invaluable as the vehicle of thought, but by itself nothing” (Ruskin, Modern Painters I 87). Once again and from the outset as the foundation, we have a fundamental division within art between nothing and everything that is of value. Art is nothing without that which it serves as a vehicle. It is nothing without that which is the origin of value in art: thought. Given this hierarchic division, “in all our speculations on art”—Ruskin goes on to set the ground rule—“language is thus to be distinguished, and held subordinate to, that which it conveys” (Ruskin, Modern Painters I 91). This is the procedure to be followed, and it follows that: the art is greatest, which conveys to the mind of the spectator, by any means whatsoever, the greatest number of the greatest ideas, and I call an idea great in proportion as it is received by a higher faculty of the mind, and as it more fully occupies, and in occupying, exercises and exalts, the faculty by which it is received. (Ruskin, Modern Painters I 92) To be sure, this definition of art and the test of its greatness, as well as the assumed possibility of a hierarchic distinction on which it is founded between “language” and “thought,” or as otherwise formulated, between the “technical” or the “constructive” and the “reflective” or the “imaginative,” fall well within the boundaries of the traditional interpretation of art as expression. In particular, it is reminiscent—perhaps ironically given Ruskin’s utter contempt for the Renaissance art—of Alberti’s hierarchic separation of that which in art is of the mind and that which is of matter, of that which is intelligible and that which is sensible. The similarity is not accidental since Ruskin is, as we shall see, yet another inheritor and representative of the metaphysico-theological tradition under study. Despite numerous diferences between the two authors, this

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similarity shall become even more pronounced if we consider Ruskin’s definition of architecture as not only a branch of the arts but the “first of arts.” Architecture is, he tells us, “the art which so disposes and adorns the edifices raised by man for whatsoever uses, that the sight of them contributes to his mental health, power and pleasure” (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 27). “It is very necessary, in the outset of all inquiry,” Ruskin goes on to note emphatically, “to distinguish carefully between architecture and building” (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 27). To build, literally to confirm, is by common understanding to put together and adjust the several pieces of any edifice or receptacle of a considerable size; . . . but building does not become architecture merely by the stability of what it erects; and it is no more architecture which raises a church, or which fits it to receive and contain with comfort a required number of persons occupied in certain religious offices than it is architecture which makes a carriage commodious or a ship swift. Let us, therefore, at once confine the name to that art which, taking up and admitting, as condition of its working, the necessities and common uses of the building, impresses on its form certain characters venerable or beautiful, but otherwise unnecessary. (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 27) Architecture, therefore, is that art which, as all arts, or rather, as the very condition of being ranked an art, contributes to the mental health, power, and pleasure of humans. In the “outset of all inquiry” into this subject, however, in keeping with the condition set for all “speculations on art,” it is “very necessary,” so Ruskin tells us, to distinguish between what in this art is “invaluable” and what is, in and by itself, “nothing”; between the “higher”—the reflective—to be venerated and the lower—the constructive—to be held “subordinate” for the risk of “interference” or “prevalence.” Building as such which is not architecture and does not become it “merely by the stability of what it erects” or its fitness “to receive and contain with comfort a required number of people” must be set apart and kept apart “in the outset.” The name architecture, designating here the subject proper of theoretical inquiry, must be “confined”—as within a frame—and confined so as to be defined, to that “art” which has “building” as the “condition of its working” and as the condition of elevation to art “impresses on its form certain characters”—reflective to be sure—“venerable or beautiful, but otherwise unnecessary,” and that in reference to the “body.” Venerable or beautiful, reflective or imaginative, such is architecture properly named. Such also is the confinement, formulated or assumed, of the proper subject of inquiry not only by Ruskin or Alberti mentioned earlier, but by every other author in this tradition and by every other inquiry authored by this tradition. The distinction, pronounced by a necessity, has been lost to none, including Durand, whose addition of “fitness” to “economy” was in the cause of beauty and pleasure. To become a subject of inquiry, the mere building as such

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is and has always been required in this tradition to take on an addition, that is, a certain character “venerable or beautiful.” The setting forth of this condition is, in fact, the thread that binds these inquiries as a tradition. This is a tradition for which building only gains the merit of inquiry after an impressed addition and yet after it no longer as building “merely,” but distinctly as architecture. There is, however, a notable difference in this indifference. Whereas Alberti, for instance, confined the name architecture not only to that which addresses pleasure but also, though distinct and inferior, to necessity and convenience as well, Ruskin separates the latter two concerns as technical or constructive under the heading “building,” thus confining the name to that which addresses pleasure only. In the making of this age-old distinction, in other words, Ruskin introduces a line that turns the art of building into art and building. However, this much said, Ruskin informs us: It may not be always easy to draw the line so sharply and simply, because there are few buildings which have not some pretense or color of being architectural; neither can there be any architecture which is not based on building, nor any good architecture which is not based on good building; but it is perfectly easy and very necessary to keep the ideas distinct, and to understand fully that Architecture concerns itself only with those characters of an edifice which are above and beyond its common use. I say common; because a building raised to the honor of God, or in memory of men, has surely a use to which its architectural adornment fits it; but not a use which limits, by any inevitable necessities, its plan or details. (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 29) The line separating architecture and building, the drawing of which turns confusion into order, we have been told, must be drawn as the condition of “all inquiry” into the subject. Yet, there is an absence of ease. The line cannot be sharply and simply drawn. The frame does not easily hold. However, theory can and must, so the assertion goes, recoup this missing ease. Hence, in the realm of ideas, Ruskin tells us, it is not only perfectly easy but again very necessary to draw the foundational line and to understand fully that it is architecture alone that concerns itself with the above and beyond of common use, that is, with the “unnecessary” or “useless” in “the well understood and usual sense, as meaning, inapplicable to the service of the Body” (Ruskin, Stones 451). It is not architecture but building that concerns itself with use or service to the body. Architecture is above and beyond such concerns. Its advent is marked only by the advent of the useless. However, this is not to imply that architecture as such is “superfluous.” Rather, it is of use to and serves “only” the mind as the expression of the imaginative or the reflective, the idea or thought. Nevertheless, to be expressive, architecture must admit building as “condition of its working.” This “ignoble” condition places architecture in a “level below” some of the other arts. The “common consent of men proves and accepts,” Ruskin tells us, “the proposition that whatever part of any pursuit ministers to the bodily comforts, and admits

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of material uses, is ignoble, and whatever part is addressed to the mind only, is noble” (Ruskin, Modern Painters II 33).1 Furthermore, he adds in a footnote: But essential utility . . ., as in architecture, invariably degrades, because the theoretic part of the art is comparatively lost sight of; and thus architecture takes a level below that of sculpture or painting, even when the powers of mind developed in it are of same high order. (Ruskin, Modern Painters II 35) Whereas in sculpture or painting, the “vehicle of thought” is nothing, in architecture, it is ignoble and degrading in that it ministers to bodily comforts and as such causes comparative blindness to that which in this art addresses “the mind only.” Hence evermore the necessity to “distinguish carefully between architecture and building,” the “noble” and the “ignoble,” “in the outset of all inquiry.” The former alone is worthy of theoretical pursuit. It is, therefore, with architecture as such and properly so-called and not building, with the “invaluable” and not that which in and by itself is “nothing,” that we need to concern ourselves from this point on. Having thus defined or confined the subject proper of inquiry, it remains, Ruskin tells us, “to determine what kinds of ideas can be received” from architecture and “which of these are the greatest” (Ruskin, Modern Painters I 93). The latter is, we are told, seven in number, namely: The ideas of sacrifice, truth, power, beauty, life, memory, and obedience. Along with “the irrefragable laws of right” that govern their expression or expression in general, these ideas constitute the seven lamps of architecture under whose noble fire “every form of error” may be avoided and “every measure of success” achieved. We’ll begin, as Ruskin does, with the first lamp, the “lamp of sacrifice.” Dividing “architecture proper” into five categories—devotional, memorial, civil, military and domestic—Ruskin writes: Of the principles which I would endeavor to develop, while all must be, as I have said, applicable to every stage and style of art, some, and especially those which are exciting rather than directing, have necessarily fuller reference to one kind of building than another; and among these I would place first that spirit which, having influence in all, has nevertheless such special reference to devotional and memorial architecture—the spirit which offers for such work precious things simply because they are precious; not as being necessary to the building, but as an offering, surrendering, and sacrifice of what is to ourselves desirable. (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 29) This “idea” or spirit of giving whose impress on buildings marks an architectural quality, as applied to every stage and style of the art, mandates us to, on the one hand, “in everything do our best,” and on the other, “consider increase of

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apparent labor as an increase of beauty in building” (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 43). Applied to devotional buildings, to which it has fuller reference than others, this spirit, “most unreasoning and enthusiastic, and perhaps best negatively defined as the opposite of the prevalent feeling of modern times, which desires to produce the largest result at the least cost,” would also have us choose the more costly material and the more elaborate ornamentation “in order that it might in the same compass present more cost and more thought” (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 43). As “unreasoning” and “enthusiastic” as this principle or lamp maybe, the first reason for its application, aside from the wish to turn buildings into “architecture,” is “to exercise self-denial for the sake of self-discipline merely, a wish acted upon in the abandonment of things loved or desired, there being no direct call or purpose to be answered by so doing” (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 31). The second reason is “to honor or please someone else by the costliness of the sacrifice” (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 31), and costliness for there being no sacrifice in what is of no value to one. The first “practice” is “most frequently” and “properly” private; the second, “commonly and most advantageously” public (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 31). In either case, however, the purpose is to give, that is, to sacrifice. What is given—the gift as such—is, in turn, nothing but an expression of this intention. It is nothing but a “vehicle of thought” that has no use and no value other than the one “it receives from the spirit of its presentation” (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 42). The gift is nothing but an unnecessary or, more aptly, useless presentation of an intention that added to buildings elevates them to “architecture.” Wishes to the contrary, however, the line separating building from architecture, which the gift or the spirit of giving is thus to inaugurate, cannot be, as before, easily drawn. Nor can it be maintained if so drawn; be this in practice or theory—if such a distinction can be made, “sharply and simply.” The sign of giving, given, exceeds—has always already exceeded—its authorized role as a “useless” expression of an idea in the realm of a strange commerce commenced by the giving and yet not to be seen and deprecated if seen. While, however, I would especially deprecate the imputation of any other acceptableness or usefulness to the gift itself than that which it receives from the spirit of its presentation, it may be well observed, that there is a lower advantage which never fails to accompany a dutiful observance of any right abstract principle. While the first fruits of his possessions were required from the Israelite as a testimony of fidelity, the payment of those first fruits was nevertheless rewarded, and that connectedly and specifically, by the increase of those possessions. Wealth, and length of days, and peace, were the promised and experienced rewards of his offering, though they were not to be the object of it. . . . And it will be thus always: God never forgets any work or labor of love; and whatever it may be which the first and best proportions or powers have been presented to him, he will multiply and increase sevenfold. (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 42)

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What, therefore, may have appeared a wasteful scattering as gift against the laws of a certain economy—defined in fact as its negative—is indeed always guaranteed a return to the source and at that multiplied and increased sevenfold! The return for the gift, however, Ruskin tells us, is not the object of it. If imputed as such, it must be deprecated as such because the gift as an expression of thought can have no acceptableness or usefulness other than what is authorized it by this frame of thought as “art.” If this expression of giving seemingly exceeds its authorized role, if the gift returns multiplied and increased sevenfold from what, strictly viewed, may appear as a profitable commerce, that is, so Ruskin tells us, only a lower advantage of—if not a payment for—a dutiful observance of any right abstract principle and not the exchange value of giving or exchanged for the value of giving. In the passage of building to architecture, there is, therefore, a giving or a sacrifice and a promised return. There is an expression of “thought” and a sevenfold reward. However, any imputation of exchange between what is given and what is received in this passage is to be deprecated. The possibility of “any other acceptableness or usefulness”—here commercial—to expression—here of the spirit of giving—is to be set aside and set aside “specially” to ensure control over art as expression. This is control over the separation by a line—drawn and thus maintained through deprecation—between expression and usefulness, thought and its vehicle, architecture and building. The only value authorized art as an expression is in the thought it serves to express and “nothing,” Ruskin tells us, “but thought can pay for thought” (Ruskin, Modern Painters I 91). Art, in other words, can only be paid for in thought because the thought given as art is equal in value only to itself. Any other form of payment can only be accepted, can only be acceptable to this frame of thought, as a “lower advantage” to “a dutiful observance” of a “right abstract principle.” This is because thought as the source of value in art expresses nothing—no value other than itself—that could be exchanged for anything “but thought.” As a self-referential entity, expressing nothing but or beyond itself, thought marks or is marked by this frame of thought the end of expression and the impossibility of exchange. This privileged status cannot be tampered with. Nothing but thought could pay for though because if thought could be exchanged for something other, if the gift of thought could be exchanged for a “sevenfold” reward, the assumed necessity “in the outset” to “carefully” distinguish thought from the vehicle of its expression, architecture from building, the one as all, the other as “nothing,” the one as useless, the other as useful, is rendered at best a desire. If thought could be exchanged for something other, if thought expressed an exchange value, that is, if it was the “vehicle” of expression to an exchange value, then thought would always already be in the position of that with which it is assumed to have nothing in common, be that “nothing”—the “vehicle” of expression— or the useful—building. Exchangeable, thought could no longer be assumed identical to itself, but to something other and thus to its absolute other. Each would be an expression of a value which, as the condition of exchange, neither can appropriate.2

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Also, if thought could be paid for or exchanged with something other than itself, that is, if art whose only authorized value is thought could, as a result of this exchangeability, “have any other acceptableness or usefulness,” commercial or otherwise, then building under the lamp of sacrifice impressed with the spirit of giving is not elevated to architecture but perpetuated instead. The wished-for architecture is rendered indistinct from the useful building because the sign of giving exchangeable and exchanged for a “sevenfold” reward is as useful as the building to which it attaches itself to elevate. Indeed, nothing but thought can pay for thought if, that is, thought is to retain its privileged status as a self-referential entity. This is a privileged status which, for reasons we shall discuss later, this frame of thought must maintain at all cost. The possibility of payment for thought or the art which serves it as a vehicle in anything but kind, the possibility of any other “acceptableness or usefulness” to art “other than what it receives from the spirit of its presentation” has no place within the boundaries of this frame of thought. If the possibility is imputed as such, it must certainly be deprecated as such. This is a precondition to the necessity announced at the outset, of having to set apart and keep apart those hierarchically opposed terms whose confusion is synonymous with chaos and whose separation with order. Hence the deprecation—deemed necessary only in view of a dangerous possibility—without which theory cannot recoup the absence of ease in drawing the desired line, “sharply and simply.” This is because the principle that is to inaugurate difference and to separate building from building as architecture, or the “higher” as useless from the “lower” as useful, places them always already in the same position instead. If not for deprecation, the principle of giving or the lamp of sacrifice would bind where it is to separate. The gift, Ruskin tells us time and again, is “an offering” which is “neither to be exhibited nor rewarded, which is neither to win praise or purchase salvation” (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 41). If, however, this sign brings in return all that it is not to bring as return, if salvation and a sevenfold reward “never” fail to accompany it as a “lower advantage,” this is not to be imputed, Ruskin would have to insist, to its objective. Aside from turning buildings into “architecture,” the objective is, on the one hand, “to exercise self-denial,” and on the other, “to honor or please some one else by the costliness of the sacrifice” (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 31). Leaving aside, for the moment, Ruskin’s attempt here to grant thought a privileged status through delimitation of art as useless and unexchangeable, the question to be asked, as Ruskin asks it, is whether “some one,” in particular the “Deity” in the case of “devotional” architecture to which the principle of sacrifice has particular reference, may “be indeed honored by the presentation to him of any material objects of value” (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 31). Answering in the affirmative, Ruskin tells us that the Deity not only accepts but demands for himself “such Honors.” As for the reason: There is but one reason, and that an eternal one; that as the covenant that he made with men was accompanied with some external sign of its

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continuance, and of his remembrance of it, so the acceptance of that covenant might be marked and signified by use, in some external sign of their love and obedience, and surrender of themselves and theirs to his will; and that their gratitude to him, and continual remembrance of him, might have at once their expression and their enduring testimony in the presentation to him, not only of the firstlings of the herd and fold, not only of fruits of the earth and the tithe of time, but of all treasures of wisdom and beauty; of the thought that invents, and the hand that labors; of wealth of wood and weight of stone; of the strength of iron, and of the light of gold. (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 36) The Deity’s demand for the gift, echoed by Ruskin as a lamp or principle for the becoming architecture of buildings, is not but a demand for an external sign of love, obedience, and surrender marking the acceptance of a covenant. The required sacrifice of all treasures of wisdom and beauty, of the thought that invents, the hand that labors, and the wealth of materials used, is, in turn, not but a demand for the expression and enduring testimony of gratitude and continual remembrance. Such is what this “external sign” as a gift is intended or demanded to be a sign of. There is, however, in this “external sign”—if not in externalization as sign—a “deep and awful danger” (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 34). Indeed a “mortal danger” against which “provision was not made” by withdrawal “from the worship of the divine being” the demand for the gift as an “external sign” (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 34). “This one way,” Ruskin tells us, “God refused, demanding for himself such honors, and accepting for himself such local dwelling, as had been paid and dedicated to idol gods by heathen worshipers” (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 35). The demand for an “external sign” withstanding, conceived in the gift as danger—“imminent, perpetual and of the most awful kind”—is the ability of this “external sign” of an internal and intended thought to exceed, once again, the boundaries of its authorized role and, contrary to what it is intended or rather desired to do or to give, “delight the sense, shape the imagination or limit the idea of Deity to place” (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 35). Against this “mortal” danger—mortal that is to the metaphysical life of the sign, if not to the ability of this metaphysics to delimit and control the sign as the “useless” expression of a living or present intention, here the intention to give, to express “gratitude” and not “delight the sense, shape the imagination, or limit the idea of Deity to place”—alas, no provision has been made. However, it is, and it has been from the outset, the end sought in this text to overcome the mortal effects of the likes of this “deep” and “awful” danger. This is the danger of “the prevalence of the lower part over the higher” or the “interference of the constructive, with the purity and simplicity of the reflective,” of language with thought, the “ignoble” with the “noble.” Hence, by way of averting the danger of any other “acceptableness or usefulness” to the gift than the one it “receives from the spirit of its presentation,” in a manner which, as we shall see, differs

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not from Alberti’s attempt, Ruskin, declaring a certain independence from the material side of the gift—the source of danger—tells us first that: The church has no need of any visible splendors; her power is independent of them, her purity in some degree opposed to them. The Simplicity of a pastoral sanctuary is lovelier than the majesty of an urban temple; and it may be more than questioned whether, to the people, such majesty has ever been the source of any effective piety; but to the builders it has been, and must ever be. (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 39) The gift, we are assured once again, is useless. The visible splendor it brings the church is not needed. The power of the church is independent of it and its purity, to some degree, opposed to it. Yet, as needless and opposed as any visible splendor may be, the gift and all the majesty it brings the church cannot be dispensed with because of what it has been and must ever be: an “external sign” the giving of which marks an increase of efective piety in part of those who give it. Though needless and opposed, on the one hand, the gift, necessary and demanded, on the other, must be given as an “external sign.” However, what must be given is beneficial and lethal at once, a source of increase of efective piety to the builders and a source of “deep and awful danger” to the people. It is beneficial as an “external sign,” and mortal as “visible splendor” that can “delight the sense, shape the imagination, or limit the idea of Deity to place.” Furthermore, though “it may be more than questioned whether, to the people, such majesty has ever been the source of any increase of efective piety”: There is, at any rate, a chance of this, though we must always fearfully and widely shun the thought that the magnificence of the temple can materially add to the efficiency of the worship or to the power of the ministry. Whatever we do, or whatever we offer, let it not interfere with the simplicity of the one, or abate, as if replacing, the zeal of the other. (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 41) There is a chance—a dangerous chance—of the gift yielding an addition— materially—to the efciency of the worship or the power of the ministry. There is a chance of the gift being a source of increased efective piety to the people. There is a chance that the material form of this external sign which, in and by itself, is or rather ought to be “nothing”—having “no acceptableness or usefulness” other than what “it receives from the spirit of its presentation”—may be something. It may be an end in and by itself, delighting, shaping, or limiting in one instance, adding, interfering, or replacing in another. However, so Ruskin tells us, we must always fearfully and widely shun the thought that the sign can be or do anything other than what it is authorized to be or do. Such is the way to avert the danger. Whereas before we were asked to deprecate the possibility of “any other acceptableness or usefulness to the gift itself than that which

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it receives from the spirit of its presentation,” here we are asked to shun the thought of it from our mind to retain, once again, this external sign within the boundaries of its authorized role—a useless transparent expression—and therefore avert a “mortal” danger to the theoretical edifice constructed. Although at issue as danger—“mortal,” “imminent,” “perpetual” and “of the most awful kind”—is here, as before, a certain unacceptable “acceptableness or usefulness” to the gift, and though at stake is still the possibility of a sharp and simple distinction, the threat is in this case of a different order. Whereas before what Ruskin could not accept or rather the acceptance he had to deprecate was payment for thought in anything but thought, entailing a certain undesirable, if not dangerous, equity in value as in use between the useless “higher” and the useful “lower,” what he has to “fearfully and widely” shun here is the conceived “danger” of the “lower” and the “ignoble” equaling the “higher” and the “noble” in both use and effect. Whereas before it was “any other acceptableness or usefulness” to thought, it is now “any other acceptableness or usefulness” to the “vehicle” of thought—“nothing”—that mandates deprecation. What Ruskin has to set aside this time is the chance of “nothing” producing an effect or yielding an addition that is by right reserved only for its absolute other: thought. It is the chance of “nothing” producing an effect for which no thought was given as cause, and this in spite of the thought it is given to serve as a “vehicle” only—silent, obedient, and useless. This chance must be deprecated and deprecated as “mortal” because if “nothing” could be something without thought, if it could have an effect as only thought should, then its difference from thought could not be easily told. Hence as before, the deprecation without which theory cannot recoup the absence of ease in drawing the desired line sharply and simply. The light of the first lamp has been cast. However, despite Ruskin’s desire, what is exposed is not a simple hierarchic order and a clear border lost in confusion to interference or prevalence. Rather, it is the impossibility of the desired order and the absence of a clear borderline separating the higher from the lower, the noble from the ignoble, thought from language, the reflective from the constructive, the useless from the useful, or architecture from building, less the setting aside and banishment from thought of that which renders the possibility of distinction an impossibility at once. Exposed also in this light is Ruskin’s desire to privilege thought over “language” as a self-referential entity at all cost. What remains for us to pursue is the desire outlined which has compelled Ruskin to bring to the subject at hand the light of seven lamps.

On Truth and Deception Since architecture is conditioned on the impress on buildings of “certain characters venerable or beautiful, but otherwise unnecessary” and “nothing,” Ruskin contends, “can be beautiful which is not true” (Ruskin, Modern Painters I 108), the light of another lamp is mandated to illuminate that “single principle” in the “consulting or forgetting” of which “lies half the

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dignity or decline of every art and act of man.” This is the one principle— the principle of truth—to the “authority” of which “over all that is great in architecture” not a “chapter” but a “full volume” may be devoted (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 57). Hence the second of the seven lamps—the Lamp of Truth—though presented to cast light not so much on the true as such as on what it is not: the deceptive false. As a certain definition would have it, the true speaks for itself and of itself in truth. It requires no exposure. What does require exposure to the light of truth is, above all, the false. There are, however, certain exceptions. Not all forms of falsehood need be brought under the light of the lamp of truth. Of the different forms of falsehood, Ruskin writes: We are too much in the habit of looking at falsehood in its darkest associations, and through the color of its worst purposes. That indignation which we profess to feel at deceit absolute, is indeed only at deceit malicious. . . . It is not calumny nor treachery that does the largest sum of mischief in the world; they are continually crushed, and are only felt in being conquered. (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 55) What is habitually understood as falsehood requires no exposure to the light of the lamp presented because seen as what they truly are, hence continually crushed and only felt in being conquered, they are incapable of any great mischief. However, those capable, those darker forms of deceit that thus need be brought to light and conquered are, on the contrary, those not habitually seen as what they truly are. They are “those which have mingled, unregarded and unchastised, with the current of our life” (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 56). The call for light is incited here, as it was for Laugier, by an unchastised transgression of the borderline that separates the true from the false. It is incited by those “darker forms of deceit” that have ventured out, unregarded and unchastised, from the domain of the false where they may be “continually crushed” and “only felt in being conquered,” to mingle in the domain of the true with what they are not and yet from which they appear no different. What has ensued can only be viewed by this frame of thought as a “confused mass” less the light of the lamp of truth is brought to bear, to expose, chastise, and depose from within the ranks of the true, the deceptive false or the true that is not to the domain where—or so this frame of thought would have it—it can be crushed and conquered as it really is: the absolute other of truth. Hence, the Lamp of Truth is brought to cast an insightful light on the subject of architecture, though, we should note, for reasons neither unique to this particular context nor entirely unfamiliar. Laugier, if we recall, presented a similar set of arguments in defense of the need for the “torch of truth.” There is, however, an important difference in this indifference. Although the torch of truth, not unlike the lamp at hand, was introduced to expose the false and to master or conquer and depose what was the same and other as the absolute other and though both authors agree that “nothing can be beautiful which is

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not true,” in the passage of torch to lamp the reversal of the formula has become an aesthetic absurdity. Ruskin asserts: To assert that the beautiful is the true, appears, at first, like asserting that propositions are matter, and matter propositions. But giving the best and the most rational interpretation we can, and supposing the holders of this strange position to mean only that things are beautiful which appear what they indeed are, and ugly which appear what they are not, we find them instantly contradicted by each and every conclusion of experience. A stone looks as truly a stone as a rose looks a rose, and yet it is not so beautiful; a cloud may look more like a castle than a cloud, and be the more beautiful on that account. The mirage of the desert is fairer than its sands; the false image of the under heaven fairer than the sea. I am at a loss to know how any so untenable a position could ever have been advanced; but it may, perhaps, have arisen from some confusion of the beauty of art with the beauty of nature, and from an illogical expansion of the very certain truth, that nothing is beautiful in art, which, professing to be an imitation, or a statement, is not as such in some sort true. (Ruskin, Modern Painters II 67) The frame of thought, represented in part in Laugier’s text and criticized here for its illogical expansion of a very certain truth, would not and, for reasons we have discussed in the previous chapter, could not accept a source of true aesthetic pleasure the imitative or the representative as a substitute for the real—the “beautiful original.”3 In contrast, the Ruskinian frame of thought, not unlike the one we encountered in the “Ten Books on Architecture,” would not only allow the substitution but also consider the imitative representation superior to certain forms of the real as a source of aesthetic pleasure. This is, of course, if and only if the representation is “in some sort” a true statement or imitation. Whether or not this change constitutes a fundamental shift in direction is a question the answer to which we must defer for the present. However, by all indications, the dispute with the preceding theory, not unlike that theory’s dispute with its predecessors, is neither over the seemingly indivisible connection between beauty and truth nor over the possibility of identifying a clear borderline separating the true from the false or the beautiful from the ugly. Rather, the dispute is over the actual place or placing of the borderline. It is over what is to be included within or excluded beyond the dividing line as same or other, pure and simple. Before inquiring into “those darker forms of deceit,” to expose and depose them from within the ranks of the true, Ruskin tells us, “it is very necessary in the outset to mark clearly wherein consists the essence of fallacy as distinguished from fancy” (Laugier, 1977, pp. 12–13) (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 58). This is necessary: For it might at first be thought that the whole kingdom of imagination was one of deception also. Not so: the action of the imagination is a voluntary

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summoning of the conceptions of things absent or impossible; and the pleasure and nobility of the imagination partly consists in its knowledge and contemplation of them as such, that is, in the knowledge of their actual absence or impossibility at the moment of their presence or reality. When the imagination deceives it becomes madness. It is a noble faculty so long as it confesses its own ideality; when it ceases to confess this, it is insanity. All the difference lies in the fact of the confession, in there being no deception. It is necessary to our ranks as spiritual creatures, that we should be able to invent and to behold what is not; and to our rank as moral creatures that we should know and confess at the same time that it is not. (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 58) Once more, a distinction is deemed very necessary at the outset. This time it is a distinction between fancy and fallacy deemed very necessary in the likelihood of mistaken identity due to a similarity in essence. Fallacy or deception and fancy or imagination, as both are opposed to reality and presence, share what is characteristic of all belonging to the realm of representation, namely, absence or impossibility. There is, however, so Ruskin tells us, an important diference here that needs to be marked clearly. This is a diference that lies in the fact of a confession. It is the confession to actual absence or impossibility at the moment of apparent presence or reality. This confession fancy makes. Fallacy does not. The former presents itself as it is in truth as truth. The latter not. Hence the difference that is not only between fancy and fallacy but as well between truth and deception and, at that, in a manner, between truth and truth, that is, between truth as Ruskin defines it and truth as Laugier confines it. The latter, if we recall, excluded all but the self-referential representation—those present or real—from the domain of the true as false. Ruskin, on the other hand, in what amounts to a re-definition of the line separating truth and falsehood, includes in the realm of the true the representation of things absent or impossible in so long as they confess their ideality, that is, in so long as there is in their apparent presence that pleasure and nobility associated with the knowledge—if not conquest—and contemplation—if not control—of representation as absent or impossible. What in the light of the “torch of truth” could only arouse “disgust,” in the light of the lamp of truth, on the condition of confession, appears pleasing and noble. However, although within the confines of this re-defined border, truth is no longer delimited to the presence of the “thing” represented, but to an act of confession, nonetheless, representation in the realm of the true remains opposed to reality as absence is to presence. It remains still “very necessary” to separate reality or presence from representation or absence. This time, however, the line is drawn within the confines of a different realm between two distinct orders of beauty: the “beauty of nature” and the “beauty of art,” the beauty of reality and the beauty of representation for the confusion of which the preceding frame of thought stands to blame. Unchanged is also the necessity to exclude the “false” as the absolute other of the true, and still from within the ranks of the true as that which pretends

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to be what it is not. This time, however, not only because it is disgusting, not only because “falsehood is in itself revolting and degrading” (Ruskin, Modern Painters I 137), but also because it is maddening. It is because the deceptive false, “unregarded and unchastised,” renders the possibility of any rigorous distinction between “sanity” and “insanity” at best a desire. Able to deceive the sane, the deceptive false places sanity in the position of insanity. Or, as this frame of thought would have it, it “degrades” sanity to that level. This is because having been deceived, if not always already, the inability to distinguish presence from absence or reality from representation could not be said to be a characteristic unique to insanity and as such a secure foundation for distinction between the two, but a characteristic common to both sides of the opposition—to sanity as insanity. To falsehood is lost the ability to master yet another difference as a hierarchic opposition. Hence the desire to expose and depose, which is also a desire to obviate revulsion and madness. To further clarify the difference between fallacy and fancy, Ruskin tells us that the art of painting “might be thought and has been thought” to be “nothing else than an endeavor to deceive,” whereas it is not but “a statement of certain facts, in the clearest possible way” (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 58). Instead, the “violations of truth” that “degrade” and “dishonor” this art are “for the most part confined to the treatment of their subjects” (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 58). The “lie” in this art “can consist only in an assertion of its existence (which is never for an instant made, implied, or believed) or else in false statements of forms and colors (which are, indeed, made and believed to our great loss, continually)” (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 58). In contrast, “another and a less subtle, more contemptible, violation of truth is possible” in architecture (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 59). This is “a direct falsity of assertion respecting the nature of material, or the quality of labor” (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 59). These “architectural deceits,” Ruskin writes, “are broadly to be considered under three heads”: 1st. The suggestion of a mode of structure or support, other than the true one; as in pendents of late Gothic roofs. 2nd. The painting of surfaces to represent some other material other than that which they actually consist (as in marbling of wood), or the deceptive representation of sculptured ornaments upon them. 3rd. The use of cast or machine-made ornaments of any kind. (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 60) Concerning the first “violation,” the “determined and purposed suggestion of a mode of support other than the true one,” Ruskin, attending to the necessity of distinguishing right from wrong “in the outset,” contends: The architect is not bound to exhibit structure; nor are we to complain of him for concealing it, any more than we should regret that the outer surfaces of the human frame conceal much of its anatomy; nevertheless; that

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building will generally be the noblest, which to an intelligent eye discovers the great secrets of its structure, as an animal form does, although from a careless observer they may be concealed. (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 61) It is no “deceit” and no “violation” to conceal the building’s structure from the careless observer. This practice is, as all practices of right, sanctioned by that “old and saintly art”: nature (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 78). It accords with the law of truth governing the representation of structure in nature and, therefore, architecture. Its mandate is “leaving only to be perceived so much of the support as is indeed adequate to the weight supposed” (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 63). Only “the moment that the conditions of weight are comprehended, both truth and feeling require that the conditions of support should also be comprehended” (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 63). Otherwise, truth, which is, in this case, more than anything else, a question of adequacy between what is supposed or comprehended and what is represented, is best served by concealment. Since weight is a “circumstance of which the spectator generally has no idea and the provisions for it, consequently, circumstances whose necessity or adaptation he could not understand” (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 63), it is “no deceit,” but a practice in truth or truth in practice, “when the weight to be borne is necessarily unknown, to conceal also the means of bearing it” (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 63). Hence the truth in concealment though best not from the “intelligent” but the “careless.” Also to be included in the realm of truth as “no dishonesty, but on the contrary a legitimate appeal to the imagination” is “when the mind is informed beyond the possibility of mistake as to the true nature of things, the affecting it with a contrary impression” (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 62). Thus, for instance: So long as we see the stones and joints, and are not deceived as to the points of support in any piece of architecture, we may rather praise than regret the dexterous artifices which compel us to feel as if there were fiber in its shafts and life in its branches. (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 62) The supposition of the presence of the “absent” or the “impossible” induced by what confesses its “true nature” beyond the chance of mistake is precisely that: an act of “fancy” that is truly distinct from falsehood. This “legitimate appeal to the imagination” may be praised and certainly not chastised “any more than” the “happiness” had “in contemplating clouds” as “having massive, luminous, warm, and mountain-like surfaces” knowing it all the while “to be a damp fog, or a drift of snow flakes” (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 62). This much of what is “no deceit” and what this frame of thought need not deprecate because of its similitude to that “old and saintly art.” What, on the other hand, this frame of thought ought to deprecate as “deceit” because of its consequences, Ruskin writes:

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Nothing can be worse, either as judged by the taste or the conscience, than affectedly inadequate supports—suspensions in air, and other such tricks and vanities. With the deceptive concealment of structure are to be classed, though still more blameable, deceptive assumptions of it—the introduction of members which should have, or profess to have, a duty, and have none. (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 63–64) When the present appears absent, or still more blameable the absent present, that is when there is no confession to “ideality” or “reality” in “truth,” we have an instance of “deceit”: “revolting,” “degrading” and maddening for being neither a “real presence” nor appearing as an idealized absence. This is for appearing and not being or being and not appearing, present or absent, real or ideal, pure and simple. Such is the false. Such also is the ground for condemnation as false of all that frustrates the desire for conformity of appearance to being. This is all in which the desired conformity is marked by a gap or lack that disallows this frame of thought their assimilation within or without the constructed boundaries and are, therefore, “revolting.”4 Given this foundation—leaving aside for the moment the question of its ability to hold—it would follow, still within the realm of structural deceit, that the use of iron for support also constitutes a deceit. In the Abstract, Ruskin tells us: There appears no reason why iron should not be used as well as wood and the time is probably near when a new system of architectural laws will be developed, adapted entirely to metallic construction. But I believe that the tendency of all present sympathy and association is to limit the idea of architecture to non-metallic work; and that not without reason. (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 66) The reason as Ruskin describes it is that “every idea respecting size, proportion, decoration, or construction, on which we are at present in habit of acting or judging, depends on presupposition” of “materials accessible in quantity, and on the surface of the earth; that is to say, clay, wood, or stone” (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 66–67). Therefore, we are told, “true architecture does not admit iron as constructive material” (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 67). Yet it is evident that metals may, and sometimes must, enter into the construction to a certain extent, as nails in wooden architecture, and therefore as legitimately rivets and solderings in stone; neither can we well deny to the Gothic architect the power of supporting statues, pinnacles, or traceries by iron bars; and if we grant this I do not see how we can help allowing Brunelleschi his iron chain around the dome of Florence, or the builders of Salisbury their elaborate iron binding of the central tower. If, however,

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we would not fall into the old sophistry of the grains of corn and the heap, we must find a rule which may enable us to stop somewhere. (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 67–68) To stop somewhere or where the line separating true use from deceptive use can be drawn, Ruskin must find or found a rule. To mark the limit or delimit, he must construct a barrier or a frame. This barrier, frame, or “rule,” he tells us, “is, I think, that metals may be used as cement but not as support” (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 68). Iron may be used “in place of ” cement because it would “establish the same or a greater strength and adherence, without in any wise inducing departure from the types and system of architecture before established” (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 68). This substitution is, in other words, of no grave consequence. But the moment that the iron in the least degree takes the place of the stone, and acts by its resistance to crushing, and bears superincumbent weight, or if it acts by its own weight as a counterpoise, and so supersedes the use of pinnacles or buttresses in resisting a lateral thrust, or if, in the form of a rod or girder, it is used to do what wooden beams would have done as well, that instant the building ceases, so far as such application of metal extend, to be true architecture. (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 68) The moment iron takes the place of stone or wood, the moment it acts as a substitute for these materials, the building ceases to be true architecture because at that moment iron takes the place of what it is not—stone or wood—and that not “confessedly” so, but deceptively so. The use of iron in place of stone or wood constitutes a deception because insinuated in place of these materials, iron acts—in accord with “architectural laws” proper to them and not itself—as these materials do, and as such, it appears to be identical to what stone and wood are, even though it is neither—at least not in appearance. Used as a substitute for stone or wood, iron “comes in a ‘questionable shape’” (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 66). This shape is questionable because, unlike the shape of truth that is unquestionable, this shape does not simply confess to be what it is—iron—but to be also what it is not, to be the same and other at once, the same in function and other in “shape.” Hence the question and the deception at the moment of substitution. This is the moment truth disappears, and in its place, a gap appears in between being and appearing, that is, in between what iron is—diferent—and what it appears or confesses to being—the same. Until the time “when a new system of architectural laws” have been “developed, adapted entirely to metallic construction,” till the time when iron can be used as what it is—“confessedly” and truly—not in stone or wood construction in “place of ” what it is not, but in metallic construction “entirely,” Ruskin must “limit the idea of architecture to non-metallic work” for the sake of truth and

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of conformity between being and appearing, that is, between what a thing is and what it appears or confesses to being. This also applies to the use of iron as “cement” because “although the employment of metal within this limit cannot be considered as destroying the very being and nature of architecture” (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 69), this practice marks “the utmost limit of lawfulness” and it is better “sometimes to forego a grace or to confess a weakness, than attain the one, or conceal the other, by means verging upon dishonesty” (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 69). It is, therefore, best to forgo the use of iron as a substitute altogether for reasons that are remarkably, though not accidentally, similar to those set forth by Laugier in his Essay on Architecture. Both authors must condemn the substitute as falsehood because the condition of the possibility of substitution is an undesirable gap between being and appearing in reality as in representation. This is an undesirable gap within the parameters of the preceding theory as it is of the present theory. Although unlike Laugier, Ruskin does not condemn all substitutes, and although he accepts and at times glorifies, for instance, the representation of the real in “place of ” its absence—art, in a sense, being just such an acceptance—he must, nonetheless, condemn the use of iron in “place of ” stone or wood because he can neither idealize this substitute as an “apparent presence”—as he does certain representations—nor can he accept it as a “real presence” in place of either stone or wood. Ruskin must condemn the use of this substitute because iron, acting in place of stone or wood as they do, neither gives the appearance of what is “absent or impossible,” as acceptable substitutes “confessedly” do, nor does it simply appear as what it is, as stone or wood do. Ruskin must condemn this substitute as falsehood because to accept it as true and, at that, also as a “real presence,” he must also accept an undesirable gap in “place of ” a positive link between the being and the appearing of “real presence.” As the condition of the possibility of substitution, he must accept what iron and, for that matter, stone or wood confess to be or do is not determined by what they are or do. However, such an acceptance is precisely what Ruskin would like to overcome by excluding iron as the shape of deceit in so long as it acts as a substitute for what it is not. Of the desire to overcome the gap exposed to substitution, we shall have to say more later. We should only note in passing that the use of iron in “place of ” stone or wood, as Ruskin sees it, is not unlike the use of pilaster in place of the column, as Laugier saw it. The critical reasoning and the theoretical necessity are the same. Deceit, revolting, degrading, and maddening is also, Ruskin tells us, a “corruption which we have to guard against” in structure as in surface and operation (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 66). Truth is, we may suspect, what deceit corrupts. Yet, why does deceit corrupt and, perhaps more importantly, how? To find an answer, we must follow Ruskin in his description of surface deceit which: May be generally defined as the inducing the supposition of some form or material which does not actually exist, as commonly in the painting of wood to represent marble, or in the painting of ornaments in deceptive

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relief, & c. But we must be careful to observe that the evil of them consists always in definitely attempted deception, and that it is a matter of some nicety to mark where deception begins or ends. (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 72) Painting, “confessedly such,” constitutes no deceit. Though it conceals the ground it covers, it remains nonetheless within the parameters of “law”—the law of parameters—because “it shows itself for what it is, and asserts nothing of what is beneath it” (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 77–78). However, Ruskin asks: “it being lawful to paint, is it lawful to paint everything?” He answers: “so long as the painting is confessed—yes; but if even in the slightest degree, the sense of it be lost, and the thing painted be supposed real—no” (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 74). Ruskin goes on to provide an instance of proper use, of painting “confessedly such”: In the Campo Santo at Pisa, each fresco is surrounded with a border composed of flat colored patterns of great elegance—no part of it in attempted relief. The certainty of flat surface being thus secured, the figures, though the size of life, do not deceive. (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 74) The “point where deception begins or ends” is thus marked and secured. What prevents the loss of sense or the “sense of it” as such, that is, what makes painting in particular and imitation or idealization in general “lawful” is a “confession” that is secured, in fact as we shall see, can only be secured, with a border. In this instance, this is a border composed of flat-colored patterns. A frame or a framing is what stands between truth and deception, that is, between the possibility and the impossibility of distinguishing presence from absence, “reality” from “ideality,” and, at that, sanity from insanity, sense from non-sense. It is only through a framing that the “apparent” becomes distinct from the real. In its absence, the two mingle as one “unregarded and unchastised” and “each and all vanish into gloom.” Cases in point, cases of those unframed, borderless “imitations” that are “utterly base and inadmissible” for the loss of “sense” they incur, are “the painting of wood to represent marble” or “the painting of ornament in deceptive relief ” (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 72). What is the condition of the possibility of “inducing the supposition of some form or material which does not actually exist?” How can the “sense” against the loss of which we are to guard at the border be lost, or for that matter, gained? Is the “sense of it” a given that can then be lost, or is it a construct of the securing frame, marking a loss always already? What renders representation or re-presentation a possibility, and what makes “fancy” or idealization in one instance and art as a “noble” language for the expression of ideas such as “truth” in another possible, is “any fact of nature” (Ruskin, Modern Painters I 104). This is any fact of “outline” or “chiaroscuro,” together understood as any fact of “form,” any fact of “color,” material and the

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like that constitute as a whole the “real presence” of a thing in nature and individually or collectively are reproducible, imitable or repeatable and in “truth,” Ruskin tells us: May be stated by any signs or symbols which have a definite signification in the minds of those to whom they are addressed, although such signs be themselves no image nor likeness of anything. Whatever can excite in the mind the conception of certain facts, can give ideas of truth, though it be in no degree the imitation or resemblance of those facts. (Ruskin, Modern Painters I 104) So long as there is a definite connection between the representer and the represented “facts” in the mind of those to whom the representation is addressed, one may endlessly “substitute” one “vehicle” of expression for another and still “convey uncorrupted truth.” This is even when only “inducing the efect of ” the “fact” or “facts” represented, because these “facts” are, in a manner, independent of the “vehicle” of representation or re-presentation. Form as one such repeatable “fact,” Ruskin tells us: Is form, bona fide and actual, whether in marble or in flesh—not an imitation or resemblance of form, but real form. The chalk outline of the bough of a tree on paper, is not an imitation; it looks like chalk and paper—not like wood, and that which it suggests to the mind is not properly said to be like the form of a bough, it is the form of a bough. (Ruskin, Modern Painters I 101) Form in particular and “facts” in general are, therefore, bona fide, actual and real whether in marble or flesh, whether in what constitutes an “apparent presence” or what constitutes a “real presence.” This indiference, however, should not lead—Ruskin would insist—to any “confusion of the beauty of art with the beauty of nature” in what may amount to a reversal of the Laugierian frame of thought. Although “facts” are “facts” whether presented in “reality” or represented as “ideality,” reality, despite this actuality, remains opposed to ideality as “things” present to “things absent or impossible.” To avoid the risk of any confusion, it remains still and always “very necessary” to make a sharp and clear distinction between two orders of being or “presence”: between “real presence” and “apparent presence.” Although, for instance, the chalk outline of the bough of a tree on paper is the form of a bough, nevertheless, the form of a bough is the form of a bough. It belongs in “reality” to that bough naturally. Although this form may be divorced from what gives it as “fact” or its “fact” originally, and from that to which it belongs and refers naturally, and though it can be represented as the “actual” and “real” form of a bough, represented, this form is no longer the form of what is or is “present,” but the form of what is “absent or impossible.” Although “facts” may be divorced from what they refer to and what presents them in “reality,” to be represented as ideality, they must

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depend on a “definite” connection to their substitute representer in the “mind” of those to whom the representation is addressed. This is a “definite” connection that in “reality” is not called for because in “reality,” things “appear what they indeed are,” and in ideality, what they indeed are not. This then is the “point” where either “reality” as self-presentation or ideality as re-presentation “begins or ends” within the realm of the “true” in confession to “presence” or “absence.” Deceit is as yet nowhere to be seen. This is because “it is not until after a certain number of ideas of truth have been collected together,” not until “certain number” of the “facts” of a thing—the number “we are usually cognizant of in its real presence”—have been brought together in a re-presentation of it, “that we arrive at an idea of imitation” or “deception” (Ruskin, Modern Painters I 105). Though, Ruskin contends: It might at first sight appear, that an idea of imitation, inasmuch as several ideas of truth were united in it, was nobler than a simple idea of truth. And if it were necessary that the ideas of truth should be perfect, or should be subjects of contemplation as such, it would be also. But . . . (Ruskin, Modern Painters I 105) Ruskin continues later on: The moment ideas of truth are grouped together, so as to give rise to an idea of imitation, they change their very nature—lose their essence as ideas of truth—and are corrupted and degraded, so as to share in the treachery of what they have produced. Hence, finally, ideas of truth are the foundation, and ideas of imitation the destruction, of all art. (Ruskin, Modern Painters I 108) Thus, truth is corrupted, and deception as representation, repetition, or reproduction is borne without the parameters of truth. We must now add destruction as a consequence of deceit to a list that already includes revulsion, degradation, madness, and corruption. The reason for condemnation remains, nonetheless, the same in each instance. Deceit is all of the preceding because it constitutes too much of a good thing—too many facts or too many truths. As strange as this reasoning may seem, it rests, to be sure, on a “foundation.” This is a “foundation” whose ability to hold we must now subject to question. Representation as repetition of “facts”—one and the same in origin and in each re-presentation—is pleasing, noble, and true so long as the number of “facts” re-presented is less than the number “we are usually cognizant of ” in the “real presence” of the thing represented. It is pleasing, noble, and true so long as the line separating “real presence” from “apparent presence” appears distinct. This is so long as Ruskin is able to set the two apart, the one as “reality,” the other as “ideality,” and both as the mark of sanity. When the number of facts re-presented equal the number of facts “we are usually cognizant of ” in the “real presence” of the thing represented, at that moment, we are told, the

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re-presented facts “change their very nature,” “lose their essence,” and become “corrupted and degraded” in a treacherous production or re-production whose appearance marks the disappearance of the desired line. Hence the condemnation of deceit though not simply because of what it is—too much or too many—but also because of what it does to that which it represents: “real presence.” Of this destructive “effect,” Ruskin, discussing the “utterly base and inadmissible” practice of “painting of surfaces to represent some other material,” writes: I have made it a rule in the present work not to blame specifically; but I may, perhaps, be permitted, while I express my sincere admiration of the very noble entrance and general architecture of the British Museum, to express also my regret that the noble granite foundation of the staircase should be mocked at its landing by an imitation, the more blameable because tolerably successful. The only effect of it is to cast suspicion upon the true stones below, and upon every bit of granite afterwards encountered. (P. 51) The more successful, that is, truth-full or fact-full an imitation, the more blameable it is because it casts suspicion on the “real presence” of the imitated. Such is the destructive or deconstructive “efect”—revolting, corrupting, degrading, and maddening. To a “successful” imitation, Ruskin loses sense or the “sense of it,” though not of the “apparent,” but of the “real.” What he loses to a successful mock is “real presence,” that is, the ability to determine it, to mark it, limit it or delimit it as distinct from “apparent presence.” What Ruskin loses to this efect is that “presence” in the “real” that is assumed “absent or impossible” in the “apparent” and, as such, a most secure foundation for distinction and separation. What he loses is the presence of stone as the condition of signification, representation, or expression of “real presence.” What he loses is the desired dependence in “real presence” of appearance on being. If the “real” stone could become suspect in the company of its mock, and if its stone appearance could be taken for an imitation in such company, then this appearance must necessarily have nothing to do with the “real presence” of stone or else suspicion would not be possible. What this “effect” indicates, and what in effect is the very condition of its possibility and at that of the possibility of repetition, imitation, or re-presentation, is the independence of representation from the presence or absence of the signified referent in reality as in ideality. What it indicates is that “real presence” itself constitutes a representation, that “real presence” is always already in the position of “apparent presence,” that only as such can it be suspected, corrupted or degraded, that the “sense of ” its “real presence” was never given, always already lost to the representation of what is as what appears. That “real presence” constitutes a representation is perhaps best described by Ruskin in the discussion of that one “deliberate treachery” that was the “cause of the fall of Gothic architecture throughout Europe”: the “substitution of the

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line for the mass, as the element of decoration,” in the “system of intersectional moldings” (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 87). After a healthful growth, at the close of a “period of pause” when “the space and the dividing stone-work were equally considered,” Ruskin tells us, “the first sign of serious change” that eventually “annihilated both the beauty and dignity of the Gothic types” (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 93): Was like a low breeze, passing through the emaciated tracery, making it tremble. It began to undulate like the threads of a cobweb lifted by the wind. It lost its essence as a structure of stone. Reduced to the slenderness of threads, it began to be considered as possessing also their flexibility . . . and in a little time, the bars of tracery were caused to appear to the eye as if they had been woven together like a net. This was a change which sacrificed a great principle of truth; it sacrificed the expression of the qualities of the material; and, however delightful its results in their first developments, it was ultimately ruinous. (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 92) The sacrifice of a great principle of truth—the expression of the qualities of the material—was thus the cause of the fall of Gothic architecture. Substituting line for mass, the Gothic builders of the period of serious change sacrificed the expression, that is, representation or re-presentation of the “first attributes” of their material. They sacrificed the expression of its “facts,” that is, the “facts” we are “usually cognizant of in its real presence” (Ruskin, Modern Painters I 105). Consequently, the system of intersectional moldings as a structure of stone lost its essence—if not its “sense”—because “the whole fragility, elasticity, and weight of the material” were thus “to the eye, if not in terms, denied” (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 92). So fell the great dynasty of medieval architecture. . . . And this, observe, all because it had sacrificed a single truth. From that one surrender of its integrity, from that one endeavor to assume the semblance of what it was not, arouse the multitudinous forms of disease and decrepitude, which rotted away the pillars of its supremacy. (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 98) It is, therefore, not only the addition of “facts” to “apparent presence,” but their subtraction as well from “real presence” that incurs a loss of “sense” or of “essence,” giving rise to multitudinous forms of disease and decrepitude. A material such as stone only appears as what it is, only appears in truth as a “real presence,” if the “expression,” representation or re-presentation of its “first attributes,” “facts” or “qualities”—its “fragility,” “elasticity,” “weight,” and others—are not “denied” or “sacrificed,” if they are indeed allowed “expression.” If “denied” this “expression,” we are told, stone loses its “essence,” and if given a substitute “expression” in place of the one “denied,” stone even assumes

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the semblance of what it is not. This, however, could only occur on one condition. A material such as stone could only be “denied” its proper “expression”— the “expression” of its “essence”—and it could only “assume” the “expression” of an other, if indeed it had no proper, inherent, or “true” expression that was not always already a representation of certain imitable, repeatable “facts” or “attributes” whose representation or “expression” the “real presence” of stone did not govern, arrest, or guarantee. This material could only be “denied” expression or made to “assume” one if there was no positive link between what it was and what it expressed or appeared as, to begin with. If, that is, there was no positive link between “its real presence” and what “we are usually cognizant of in its real presence.” The condition of the possibility of denial and substitution, including the possibility of “apparent presence” defined as imitation or representation, is the impossibility of “real presence” defined by Ruskin as things “which appear what they indeed are” (Ruskin, Modern Painters II 66). If things could “appear what they indeed are,” if what they “are” could indeed appear as such, they could never be imitated, repeated, or made to “assume the semblance of ” what they are not. To appear and re-appear in imitation, the imitated original must necessarily have an imitable appearance that appears as such irrespective of what it indeed is. This is irrespective of what is assumed present in the “real” and absent in the “apparent.” To appear and re-appear, the imitated original must itself be a representation, if, of course, by representation, we are to understand appearance despite or in spite of what is. Yet, if there is no original that is not always already a representation and that as the condition of the possibility of re-presentation—“real” or “apparent,” “true” or “false”—then there is no beginning to be identified as “real presence” and no end to mark the limits of opposing domains. There is no “point” where reality or ideality, truth or deception, “begins or ends.” Representation covers the entire realm, placing “real” and “apparent presence” always already in the same position. From there, the deceit that marks for this frame of thought the destructive separation of “real presence” from what “we are usually cognizant of ” as “real presence,” no longer, if ever, designates a form of “disease,” “decrepitude,” “corruption,” or “degradation” that has not always already befallen truth as the condition of the possibility of its appearance and the impossibility of its determination as a thing which “shows itself for what it is” (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 77–78). The “destruction of all art” thus appears at its very “foundation” and upon it, the fall of the great dynasty of medieval architecture could no longer, if at all, be ascribed to the sacrifice of what was never had or could hope to be appropriated. This is because the desired truth assumed sacrificed is nowhere to be found that is not always already marked by representation—not in origin and not in any re-presentation. Although the desired reality here appears to be marked by the very qualities that are assumed peculiar only to the “apparent”—true and false—this is not to imply that there is no difference between, for instance, real stone and what is a representation of stone or rather the “attributes” of stone. Rather, this difference does not constitute a hierarchy in representation. It marks neither

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a “point” identifiable as such where reality begins and ideality ceases, nor a “point” where truth begins and deception ceases. It is to imply only that this difference is also indifference, that each, real or “apparent,” true or false, is a form of representation and as such incapable of assuming or being assigned a different position in a hierarchic structure constructed on the bases of the presence or absence of a positive or causal relationship between the representer and the represented and as such also on confession to what is or is absent. The “true” representation of the “real” is no more guided or determined by what is and as such capable of no different a confession to what is than the deceiving or the true representation of the “apparent” alike. It is to imply only that to graft this difference, as desired, onto a hierarchic structure, Ruskin must necessarily resort to a frame or a frame-up, be this “a border composed of flat colored patterns,” as he describes it, or a frame of confession, of less “facts” and no deception. It may seem at this point that what Ruskin desires and what deceptive representations deny him is no more than a clear hold on the line separating reality from ideality in the art of architecture as in all else. Though this much Ruskin does indeed desire, there is nevertheless more. What he also wishes for and what true representations deny him as well, he states as follows: I sometimes wish that truth should so far literally prevail as that all should be gold that glittered, or rather that nothing should glitter that was not gold. Nevertheless, nature herself does not dispense with such semblance. (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 78) What Ruskin sometimes wishes is for the truth to prevail over all that appear what they are not literally—over the false and true representation of the real alike. What he at times wishes is not simply for things to show themselves for what they are, “real” or “apparent”—this he assumes given, except for the false—but for a literal link or relationship—also assumed given, though in “reality” only—between what is and what appears, between glitter and gold, always. What Ruskin sometimes wishes for is, therefore, no less than the impossibility of representation. This is the impossibility of a gap in between being and appearing that marks for him, despite what he sometimes wishes, the beginning and the end of two opposed domains: the domain of the “real” and the “apparent.” The impossibility Ruskin wishes for, however, is a natural possibility. It is a possibility that “nature herself ” does not dispense with and consequently a possibility that Ruskin, as his predecessors before and successors to come, must come to terms with despite what he and the others wish for—be this named the real, the true, the present, or the original. This undesirable or at its best less desirable possibility of art and language or art as language, Ruskin, as the others, must, for fear of a destructive or deconstructive “effect,” delimit as a negation, complication, or corruption of the desired presence. This time, however, within the confines of a delimiting frame constructed to keep representation

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from mingling “unregarded and unchastised” with the desired truth—literal or real—for fear of a revolting, degrading, corrupting, or maddening “effect.” This is the “effect” that renders the possibility of truth assumed given and wished to “prevail” over all an impossibility at once. Ruskin’s attempt to frame this possibility, neutralize its “effect,” and appropriate it, differs from Alberti’s and Laugier’s, discussed before, in two separate ways. Ruskin is in general agreement with Alberti over the undesirability of this possibility—he wishing its demise “sometimes,” Alberti regarding it a “cruder term” always. Both Ruskin and Alberti, unlike Laugier, assign this possibility a place and role in the art of architecture. Nevertheless, Ruskin and Alberti differ on a question that the undesirable possibility of representation inevitably and at that problematically poses any frame of thought that conceives it and must conceive it undesirable for precisely the question it raises. Ruskin and Alberti differ on the question of origin. They differ on what representations are re-presentations of or on what escapes representation as a non-contingent presence in origin. Whereas Alberti conceived of all sensible as representation and of representation as the re-presentation of an intelligible presence above and beyond the realm of the sensible, Ruskin, in turn, conceives of the same as either real or “apparent,” of reality as presence and ideality as the apparent re-presentation of the real. On the conceived necessity of distinction between reality and re-presentation, Ruskin, though in disagreement with Alberti, is in agreement with Laugier. However, Ruskin and Laugier differ in the manner each tries to come to terms with the undesirable possibility of representation. Laugier sought to overcome this possibility and counter its destructive effect, on the one hand, by realizing or naturalizing the art of architecture, and on the other, by marking and suppressing the possibility of representation in the name of substitution and of “false jewels.” In contrast, Ruskin seeks to delimit this possibility by idealizing it and assigning it a separate and distinct domain whose boundaries he, like Laugier, can only mark and control through suppression. This time through the suppression of the “revolting” appearance of deceit. Though Ruskin and Laugier both agree on what is and is not desirable, Laugier attempted to approximate the desired within the confines of the frame of reason, whereas Ruskin is here only “to determine what is lawful, not what is desirable” (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 78). Yet, the “lawful” does not differ, in effect, from the reasonable because it too is a delimitating frame. In this instance, it is a frame that excludes, deprecates, and chastises the unlawful as the absolute other of the “lawful,” thus allowing the theoretician who constructs it to conceive in order as order, once again, of origin, presence, and truth before imitation, absence, and deception as negation, complication, or corruption within the established boundaries of an inherited metaphysico-theological frame of thought. Its particular re-modifications here we will address in greater detail later. For now, we should only note that to produce the desired effect and bring order back to the state of confusion, in league with the others, Ruskin must also suppress what cannot be forced to either side of the frame constructed. This is to either side of the line he so wishes to bring to light. He must deprecate as

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unlawful those re-presentations of reality that are “revolting” precisely because they can neither be idealized nor realized because they are neither the one nor the other, neither the same nor reducible to an other, but the same and other at once, apparent as ideal, appearing as real. Ruskin must deprecate these deceptive representations in the name of law—the law of health and normality—as “disease and decrepitude” because only as such can he provide himself the “pleasure and nobility” associated with the “knowledge and contemplation” of things that show themselves for what they are, healthy and normal, that is, real or “apparent,” present or absent, pure and simple. He must deprecate deception because: Exactly as a woman of feeling would not wear false jewels, so a builder of honor disdains false ornaments. The using of them is just as downright and inexcusable a lie. You use that which pretends to a worth which it has not; which pretends to cost, and to be, what it did not, and is not; it is an imposition, a vulgarity, an impertinence, and a sin. (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 83) Ruskin must deprecate deception because it constitutes a sin against the architectural laws of non-contingent truth and presence. These are those “practical laws” which, “passing the mere condition of connection or analogy,” are the “actual expression of some ultimate nerve or fiber of the mighty laws which govern the moral world.” The sin committed is against the “practical,” and the “moral” or the “practical” as the “moral”—the diference, characteristically, cannot be easily told. This is a sin also that is in reference not only to structural and surface deceit but as well, in this particular instance, to “operative deceit.” Of this third form of “imposition,” “vulgarity,” and “impertinence,” of the “substitution of cast or machine work for that of hand,” Ruskin writes: Ornament, as I have often before observed, has two distinct sources of agreeableness: one, that of the abstract beauty of its form, which for the present, we will supposed to be the same whether they come from the hand or the machine; the other the sense of human labor and care spent upon it. (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 81) To judge “how great this latter influence” is, Ruskin asks us to consider that “there is not a cluster of weeds growing in any cranny of ruin which has not a beauty in all respect nearly equal, and, in some, immeasurably superior, to that of the most elaborate sculpture of its stones” (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 82). Yet we take an interest in the carved work and “all our interest in this carved work,” Ruskin professes: Our sense of its richness, though it is tenfold less rich than the knots of grass beside it; of its delicacy, though it is a thousandfold less delicate; of its

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admirableness, though a millionfold less admirable; results from our consciousness of its being the work of poor, clumsy, toilsome man. (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 82) The “true delightfulness” of the carved work, Ruskin asserts, “depends on our discovery in it the record of thoughts, and intents, and trials, and heart-breakings—of recoveries and joyfulness of success” (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 82). This is “the worth of the thing, just as the worth of anything else we call precious” (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 82). The “worth” of art is not, we are told once again, in the forms it re-produces, but in the “thoughts” and “intents” it records. These are the “thoughts” and “intents” whose “record” or recording turns the re-production of form into an original production. In this original production of “record” lies the “true delightfulness” of ornament, much as its “worth.” Else art is “worthless” in that any original is “tenfold” more “rich,” a “thousandfold” more “delicate,” and a “millionfold” more admirable than any reproduction as such. Thus, re-production is assimilated within the confines of this frame of thought as a source of “true” delight. Re-presentation is found, and it can only be found agreeable and delightful by this frame of thought, if it attests, in truth, not only to the absence and impossibility of what it re-produces, but also, as the condition of its assimilation as a source of “true delightfulness,” to the presence of “human labor.” This is the labor that is “presumed or understood” to have produced it and produced it as an original re-production. In “the absence of the human labor,” re-production is not only “worthless” but also an “imposition, a vulgarity, an impertinence, and a sin.” Such are the products of machines. As apertures of re-production of re-production marked in all respect by absence or impossibility, machines re-produce “the record of thoughts and intents” where no “thoughts and intents” were present to produce the record as a product. Their only “effect” is, as we may well suspect, to “cast shame and suspicion over every part of the building” to which machine products are affixed as a substitute for the work of “hand” (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 85). Ruskin could not condemn and proscribe cast or machine works with any greater vehemence because they too deny him a clear hold on truth and presence, that is, on things which appear what they indeed are. If the appearance of “human labor” as the “record of thoughts and intents” is allowed to be reproduced in the absence of thoughts and intents, then Ruskin would not only be denied the “true delightfulness” that marks for him more than anything else the fulfillment of a wish for presence or reality, but also the possibility of mastering representation as the absolute other of presentation and deception as a disease of representation. What is also denied is the possibility of appropriating and assimilating representation as an original presentation in the name of “human labor” within the confines of this inherited frame of thought. Since the presence of “human labor” is vital not only to truthfulness but also to “true delightfulness,” Ruskin engages this latter as a separate and distinct law that he brings to light under the Lamp of Life. We shall, therefore, address this

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latter subject in that light. For the present, the light of the lamp of truth has been cast and, as before, cast to expose a simple hierarchic order and a clear border—this time between truth and deception, reality and ideality, presence and absence. However, exposed is, once again, neither a hierarchic order nor a clear border, but a desire for both. This is a desire that can only be fulfilled in this light by the deprecation of deception in all its guises, each of which renders the possibility of fulfillment an impossibility at once.

On Life and Death, by Analogy Having clarified and classified the appearance of things architectural into the categories real or apparent, true or false, Ruskin turns to the “production” of these appearances under the Lamp of Life. His intent is to cast light on the borderline separating two distinct and opposed modes of “production” in architecture. These are two modes of “production,” the distinction in between which is as that between life and death, or else a living and a dead architecture. At the risk of a diversion, it may appear somewhat peculiar to reflect on the “life” of architecture, which is the collective referent to a body of inanimate objects! Nevertheless, from Alberti’s assertion that an edifice is “like an animal, so that in the formation of it we ought to imitate nature” (Alberti 194), to Frank Lloyd Wright’s search for a “living” or “organic” architecture (Wright 133), the conviction that edifices are somehow living, animate objects, is as prevalent in the history of theoretical discourse on Western architecture as the assumption that the purpose of the theoretical inquiry is to enumerate the ways and means of bringing life (back) to architecture. The question of life enters the discourse on architecture primarily by analogy. Edifices are not said to be living beings, but only “like” them, that is, only essentially the same. Yet, even though it is by way of analogy that life enters the discourse, the analogy is neither simply one among others nor altogether innocent or accidental. The supposition of life, by analogy or otherwise, presumes the presence of an intrinsic animating force and an extrinsic animated form whose relationship as such is never neutral. The concept of life in/of architecture inevitably assumes a vital inner force or an intrinsic meaning, taking on or giving itself an extrinsic form. The life (im)posed, even by analogy, averts any potential relational ambiguity between the intrinsic and the extrinsic aspects of architecture. A living architecture forms itself from within as opposed to being de-formed from without; or as Frank Lloyd Wright put it, it is one that “Develops from within outward in harmony with the conditions of its being as distinguished from one that is applied from without” (Wright 122). Wright’s recourse to the life analogy was a reaction to, “Living on the past, irreverently mutilating it in attempting to modify it—creating nothing . . . taking the soul out of the thing in the process and trying to be content with the carcass, or shell or husk—or whatever it may be, that we have” (Wright 132). Wright’s reaction was, in other words, to the mimicry of external forms that

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were once in-formed by the “spirit” of an “age” or “civilization” that is no longer extant. Viollet-le-Duc had expressed a similar sentiment some forty years earlier when he wrote, “Our public buildings appear to be bodies destitute of a soul, the relics of a lost civilization, a language incomprehensible even to those who use it” (Viollet-le Duc 446). Of course, what various theoreticians propagate as a living architecture dramatically changes from one formulation to the next as a reflection of an ever-changing cultural context. Yet, the propagated mode of architectural production is critically legitimized in each formulation with recourse to the life analogy. This is to say that where we find the concept of life in the theoretical discourse of architecture, it is linked to the critical determination of the proper relationship between the internal and the external aspects of the subject. This includes the relationship between inner intentions and outer expressions, intrinsic meanings, and extrinsic forms, as well as questions pertaining to originality and imitation. The life analogy makes its critical debut each time the relationship in question becomes a problematic issue due to outside threats, constraints, or influences. A prominent case in point is Ruskin’s elevation of the concept of life to a separate and distinct law in the mid-19th century. A certain external threat then gave the question of life a new critical dimension. The external threat then was the emerging mechanical mode of (re)production. Its threat was to the adequacy of the life analogy that had gone fundamentally unchallenged up to that time.5 At issue was new machinery, particularly cast-iron machinery, mass-producing building components that had hitherto been individually produced by hand using basic tools. This included structural components— posts, lintels, trusses, girders, etc.—and a gamut of architectural details from classic columns to Gothic tracery. The mechanical mode of (re)production, specifically the mass (re)production of aesthetic forms apart from the immediate, animating intentions of an individual artist/creator, problematized, if not disallowed, the type of idealization that the ‘work of hand’ had readily lent itself to before the advent of mechanization.6 Ruskin attributes his reason for offering the “Lamp of Life” to the immediacy of a need—impertinent before the 19th century—for a clear, qualitative distinction between two very different modes of production in architecture: the one relying on hand, the other on machines; the former producing authentic, individual forms or building components, the latter generic, spurious forms.7 He argues that even though we may suppose “the abstract beauty” of “forms” to be “the same whether they come from the hand or the machine,” the use of machines in the production of architectural forms is impermissible because, along with the abstract beauty of form, there is another and equally important source of “true delightfulness” in all works of art (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 81). He argues that: Things in other respects alike, as in their substance, or uses, or outward forms, are noble or ignoble in proportion to the fullnesses of life which

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either they themselves enjoy, or of whose actions they bear the evidence, as sea sands are made beautiful by their bearing the seal of the motion of the waters. And this is especially true of all objects which bear upon them the impress of the highest order of creative life, that is to say, of the mind of man: they become noble or ignoble in proportion to the amount of the energy of that mind which has visibly been employed upon them. But most peculiarly and imperatively does the rule hold with respect to creations of Architecture, which being properly capable of no other life than this . . . depend, for their dignity and pleasurableness in the utmost degree, upon the vivid expression of the intellectual life which has been concerned in their production. (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 190) Works of architecture are imperatively noble or ignoble, pleasing or not, in proportion to the amount of the energy of that mind that has visibly been employed upon them, that is, in proportion to the amount of the energy of that creative or intellectual life of which they bear a visible impress or seal as sea sands bear the “seal” of the motion of the waters. The “true delightfulness” of a work of art, Ruskin asserts, “Depends on our discovery in it the record of thoughts, and intents, and trials, and heart-breakings—of recoveries and joyfulness of success.” This is “the worth of the thing, just as the worth of anything else we call precious” (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 82). It may thus be evident why Ruskin considers the formal products of machines “worthless.” It is the presence of “human labor” in one and the “absence” of it in the other that makes “a piece of terra cotta, or of plaster of Paris, which has been wrought by human hand . . . worth all the stones in Carrara, cut by machinery” (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 84). There is, however, more at stake here than the question of worth. The “substitution of cast or machine work for that of hand,” Ruskin tells us, is “an imposition, a vulgarity, an impertinence, and a sin” (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 83). There is “no hope of the progress of the arts of any nation which indulges in these vulgar and cheap substitutes” (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 86). If Ruskin deems the condemnation and deprecation of “cast or machine works” imperative to the progress of the arts, it is not simply because they are “worthless” but also because “cast or machine works” fracture the “seal” that “bears” the “evidence” or “impress” of the “highest order of creative life.” They break the chain of cause and effect that is presumed to typify the work of hand. Lost to the reproductive capability of the machine and its formal products is the causal link between the “thoughts and intents” that Ruskin presumes to animate, in-form, and direct the human hand to leave a visible, external “record” of their immediate presence in the mind. This link is not present in cast or machine works, even though the external form—the visible “record of thoughts, and intents, and trials, and heart-breakings”—is. This is the impertinence and the sin of machine products against the “mighty law” of life. Their only “effect” is, Ruskin tells us, “to cast a shame and suspicion over every part of the building” to which they are affixed as a substitute for the work of “hand” (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 85).8

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Ruskin’s vehement rejection of machines notwithstanding, using approximately the same line of reasoning, the use of machines can just as readily be defended as it is condemned. A case in point is Frank Lloyd Wright’s position on the use of machines a half-century after Ruskin. Wright tells us: John Ruskin and William Morris turned away from the machine and all it represented in modern art and craft. They saw the deadly threat it was to all they loved as such—and eventually turned again to fight it, to the death—their death. . . . They did, however, remind us of what we were losing by using the machine or, as they might have said, letting the machine use us. The Machine Ruskin and Morris believed to be the enemy of all life. It was and is still, but only because the artist has shirked it as a tool while he damned it; until now he has been damned by it. (Wright 135) The machine for Wright is, in hindsight, “the architect’s tool—whether he likes it or not.” It is “an engine of emancipation or enslavement,” the agent of “life” or “death,” a “savior” or a “monster,” “according to the human direction and control given it, for it is unable to control itself ” (Wright 131). The machine, Wright argues, is similar, if not superior in function, to our “hands and arms and legs and feet” (Wright 131). As with hands and arms, its worth depends on “the mind that drives it or puts it to work and stops it” (Wright 131). Therefore, “how foolish,” he argues, “to take a prevalent abuse of any thing for the thing itself ” (Wright 136). The “deadly threat” to the life of architecture is not, as Wright envisions it, the machine, but the lack of “creative-imagination,” or in Ruskin’s terms of “thought and intents,” in those who have put it to use or rather abuse. The unwarranted, if not foolish, deprecation of the machine by the “imaginative artist” has left the machine to the abuse of those whose: “Technique” may therefore be said to consist in reproduction, imitation, ubiquity. A form of prostitution other ages were saved from, partly because it was foolish to imitate by hand the work of another hand. The hand was not content. The machine is quite content. So are the millions who now have as their human understanding, things that were once the very physiognomy of the hearts and minds—say the souls of those whose love of life they reflected. (Wright 132) Diferent as Wright’s and Ruskin’s positions on the use of machines in architectural production are, it is important to keep in mind that they are both motivated by the same goal in their specific exclusionary prescriptions and driven by the same vision in their particular delimitation of the modes of production in architecture. In their unique ways, they are both looking for the signs of life

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and the impress of mind on an architecture whose external forms are the “very physiognomy” of the internal thoughts and intents of the creator. Imitation and reproduction are, for both, “An imposition, a vulgarity, an impertinence, and a sin.” Whereas Ruskin, cognizant of the “deadly threat” of machines, took no chance with them, the gamble is not a matter of choice for Wright. The machine is here to stay, and we may rest assured that there is little chance of losing our gamble with machines because “to the extent that creative-imagination takes concrete form in the human fabrications,” regardless of the mediation of the hand or the machine, “it makes the fabrication live as a reflection of that life any true man loves as such—spirit materialized” (Wright 145). The difference between Wright’s and Ruskin’s visions of the imagination’s role in machine production is not as great as Wright would have it appear. After his vehement condemnation of “cast or machine works” and what might have appeared as a clear distinction between two different modes of “production” in architecture, the one by hand “bearing the impress” of “mind” and as such the sign of “life,” the other by machine bearing only the appearance of “life” as a sign of “death,” Ruskin gives an interesting twist to the argument Wright was to advance in defense of the use of machines. Ruskin informs us that the deprecation of the machine does not by itself guarantee “life” in human production, because “It is, indeed, possible, and even usual, for men to sink into machines themselves, so that even hand-work has all the characters of mechanism” (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 84). The line separating what we were told to be two distinct modes of “production” in architecture is not, therefore, as sharp and clear as one might have hoped. The “deadly threat” to the life of architecture that otherwise may have been readily delimited and dismissed as peculiar to a new and foreign mode of production is, it turns out, an endemic threat. The work of hand does not always and necessarily bear the “impress” of “mind.” It is possible to find the very mind-less reproduction characteristic of machines in the works of hand. It is possible for men—Wright may well have agreed—to sink into machines, to break the “seal” of “life,” and to re-produce the “impress” without the engraving “seal.” However, Ruskin assures us that this perilous possibility is a form of “disease and decrepitude,” that is, a form of infection and extrinsic imposition that he can diagnose and cure with recourse to the “immutable law” of life. In an attempt to identify the cause and diagnose the “disease” at issue, in an argument reminiscent of Wright’s contempt for the abuse of machines, Ruskin tells us that “when we begin to be concerned with the energies of man” that are “visibly” employed in the “production of things”: We find ourselves instantly dealing with a double creature. Most part of his being seems to have a fictitious counterpart, which it is at his peril if he do not cast off and deny. Thus he has a true and a false (otherwise called a living and a dead, or a feigned or unfeigned) faith. He has a true and a false hope, a true and a false charity, and, finally, a true and a false life. His true life is like that of lower organic beings, the independent force by which

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he molds and governs external things; it is a force of assimilation. . . . His false life is, indeed, but one of the conditions of death or stupor, even when it cannot be said to animate, and is not always easily known from the true. It is that life of custom and accident in which many of us pass much of our time in the world; that life in which we do what we have not purposed, and speak what we do not mean, and assent to what we do not understand; that life which is overlaid by the weight of things external to it, and is molded by them, instead of assimilating them. (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 191–92) “Man” is, therefore, a double creature. He can lead two distinct and mutually exclusive lives: one assimilating, unfeigned, true, and living, the other, at his peril, assimilated, feigned, false, and dead. The latter to the former is “what an arborescence is to a tree” (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 192), what the real is to the fictitious, the original to its imitation. The distinction between these two lives and their respective modes of production presupposes a true and a false relationship between the inside and the outside, the internal and the external, mind and matter, the “seal” and the “impress.” In the “true” life, the inside assimilates the outside; it afects it and remains unafected by it. Here the mind of man “molds and governs.” Therefore, all “things external” bear the “impress” of the internal, the “seal” of the highest order of creative life, the mind of man. Here signification proceeds from the inside. Hence, what is said is what is meant, and what is done is what is intended done. This is the state of the normal, of life “living” and “true.” Characteristic of production in this life is what Wright was to call—in the abstract—an architecture that “develops from within outward in harmony with the conditions of its being as distinguished from one that is applied from without. . . . Spirit materialized.” In contrast, in the false life, that life of death marked by accident and custom, all is feigned. The internal in this life is molded by things external to it. Signification here proceeds despite any intention, whereby what is said or done is neither what is meant said nor intended done. This fictitious life is, Ruskin would have us assume, not but a feigned image of the true, bearing all the “impress” without the engraving “seal,” all the effect without the cause. It is perhaps needless to point out that for Ruskin, the only “healthy and vital” mode of production in architecture is the one that “molds and governs” things external to it as opposed to being “molded by them.” His critical quest is to restore architecture to this state of health and vitality. Yet, there is an impediment. There is a form of “disease and decrepitude”—that other mode of production—that is not peculiar to the machine but characteristic of all mechanistic production regardless of whether they are implemented by the human hand or the irredeemable machine. The task of diagnoses and cure is not, Ruskin informs us, without its difficulties. Whereas the works of machines are, for the most part, “always distinguishable, at a glance” (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 86), the difference between the formal products of the two mutually exclusive modes of human production “is not always”—if ever—“easily

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known.” The formal product of the “fictitious” production has the same external appearance as the real or the “true.” The disease does not readily manifest itself on the surface. Nevertheless, Ruskin insists that it is imperative to make a clear distinction between the two modes of production based on the supposition of an undivided “seal,” in the “true” production, borne by “external things” of internal forces, by matter of “mind,” appearance of being, signification of intention. To facilitate this admittedly difficult distinction, that is, to shed light on the undivided “seal” found in origin before imitation and before the divide that is assumed characteristic only of the work of machines or of men sunk into machines, Ruskin offers us the Lamp of Life. If the difference between the two modes of production in question “is not always”—if ever—“easily known,” it is not for want of illumination. No amount of light, as we shall see later, is likely to ease the distinction, in part because the condition of the possibility of the “false” production is, in a manner, the impossibility of the “true” conceived as one engraving a “seal” or leaving an “impress” on the outside. The formal product of the true production can only be imitated if its external appearance is imitable. This is to say that it can only be “feigned” if its external appearance was not molded or governed by an internal force; if this appearance never bore the undivided “impress” or “seal” of that internal force. The condition of the possibility of signification, true or false, is the absence of a causal relationship between intention and signification, the “impress” and the engraving “seal.” Else, signification would necessarily and always depend on the presence of an assimilating intention and “impress” on an engraving “seal.” Humans would then never be able to “speak” what they “do not mean” or “do” what they “have not purposed.”9 The impossibility of a “true” life marked by productions impressed and sealed from the inside should not imply that humans cannot, for instance, “speak” what they “mean” or “do” what they intend, but that meanings or intentions do not intervene, assimilate, mold, or govern signification. Their presence or absence neither simply commences and halts signification, nor does it constitute a critical difference between a true and a false production. The only implication is that a gap persists in between the internal and the external, intention and signification, the “seal” and the “impress,” as the condition of possibility of the original and its “feigned” imitation. This is a gap in signification or representation between “the vivid expression of the intellectual life which has been concerned” in its “production” and the “intellectual life” concerned. This gap is precisely what Ruskin here wishes to seal by appeal to a “seal.” The professed “seal” in “living” production is not, however, so much a “seal” borne as a seal bridging a gap and fulfilling a wish: a gap between intention and production and a wish for its absence or closure. The gap in production that once exposed in re-production resists its closure as an attribute of life in architecture is the “deadly threat” of mechanistic production to which both Ruskin and Wright repeatedly allude. If Ruskin sees this gap as a deadly threat, if he deems the “false” production to be at man’s “peril,” if he urges him not only to separate it from the “true,” but to “cast off ”

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and “deny” it as well, it is not so much because it is a perilous threat to ‘man’ as it is a threat to the adequacy of the life analogy, and the authority of Ruskin’s exclusionary critical model. What is at stake in the question of living production for both Ruskin and Wright is the power of exclusion that is imperative to the delimitation of architectural practice. What prompts both to condemn and deprecate mechanistic production is the authority to delimit architectural practice not in the name of ulterior—cultural, social, or political—motives, but of truth, not arbitrarily, but according to “immutable laws.” What Ruskin and Wright propagate as a living architecture—Venetian or High Victorian Gothic by Ruskin and Organic-Modern by Wright—could not be more different formally and to a large extent conceptually. Each is a reflection of the cultural and historical context within which it was formed. However, both Ruskin and Wright place the weight of their authority to proscribe other modes of design, and for that matter, each other’s, on the life analogy. Both justify their preferred mode of design as the only acceptable mode, not on ideological grounds, but because its external forms are professed to be assimilated, molded, and governed internally as opposed to externally. Each is “spirit materialized,” which is “not a matter of seeming but of being” (Wright 149), that is, not contingent, but self-referential. Each author’s critical distinction is based on the assumption of authoritative control over the external form and its potential for signification. At issue for both Ruskin and Wright and other authors who resort to the life analogy is not a mode of design that allows one to say what one means or do what one has purposed. It is difficult to envision a mode of design that does not. What is critically at issue for each is an architecture whose potential for signification can be delimited in the name of what is meant and what has been purposed. At issue in each instance is the ability to tie signification not to context but to intent and purpose. An architecture that is imbued with the signs of life is not subject to interpretation or changes in signification. It says what it was meant to say, and it is what it was purposed to be. It is not a “carcass, or shell or husk.” It bears its meaning within as a seal. This is its exclusionary privilege vis-à-vis the others. However, it is this privilege that is threatened in the age of mechanical reproduction. There is, therefore, a great deal at stake in maintaining the viability of the life analogy. The difficulty that confronts any author who wishes to maintain the viability of the life analogy in the age of mechanical reproduction is, on the one hand, identifying what the signs of life are in a living architecture, and on the other hand, making the external manifestation of this life immune to the threat of reproduction.10 What indeed are the signs of life in the age of mechanical reproduction? How does the seal borne by external forms of internal intents manifest itself in any age? What justifies the preference for one mode of design over others, short of its ulterior motives? It is these admittedly difficult questions to which Ruskin tries to provide answers under the Lamp of Life. Whereas those before him could readily evoke

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the life analogy in critical defense of their preferred mode of design, without necessarily having to enumerate its signs, Ruskin is not afforded the luxury in the age of mechanical reproduction. He is obliged to enumerate the signs of life while trying to account for imitation and mechanistic reproduction in ways that others before him were not and did not. Wright was, of course, to face a similar problem in due time. To be imitated, repeated, or re-produced, the original must itself be marked by the very characteristics that are assumed peculiar only to imitation, repetition, or re-production. The original, once produced, must already be in the position of the re-produced. On this point, however, we may seem in agreement with Ruskin, who tells us that, “I suppose there is no conceivable form or grouping of forms but in some part of the universe an example of it may not be found” (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 142). Every human “production” is an imitation or a re-production because there is no conceivable form or grouping of forms of which an example may not be found in some part of the universe. Furthermore, every example bears, Ruskin tells us, “a certain seal, or impress of divine work and character, upon whatever God has wrought in all the world,” as “the necessary consequence of the perfection of God’s working” (Ruskin, Modern Painters I 143). Human “production” begins with re-production—be it dead or alive, true or false, “noble” or “ignoble.” Although this supposition renders the work of humans derivative, though it attributes imitation to them, nevertheless, it is founded on the supposition of an original production of which their work is an imitation. It is founded on the supposition of an original production that bears the undivided “seal” of the “mind” of its creator, that is, the “expression of divine mind,” the “signature of God,” or the “inevitable stamp of his image on what he creates” (Ruskin, Modern Painters I 143). In origin, therefore, as a certain theological/creationist model of production would have it, there is “life” and “production,” that is, a “true” life and a sealed, signed, and stamped “production.” Re-production follows as a form of “disease and decrepitude.” Therefore, the latter, regardless of its “feigned” appearance, cannot place in question the “seal” of the living production or the possibility of a causal relationship between intention and production in origin. The authoritative voice of the theological model evoked speaks against it. However, the supposition of a seal in origin appears to render the imitative work of humans “worthless,” if not perilous. It appears to render this work the re-production of a sealed “production,” which by definition bears the very mark of “death and stupor” that Ruskin here wishes to “cast off and deny.” However, Ruskin tells us that, “It is no sign of deadness in the present art that it borrows or imitates, but only if it borrows without paying interest, or if it imitates without choice” (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 195). Ruskin thus re-assimilates imitation within the confines of his theoretical construct as a source of “true delightfulness.” He renders the diseased “imitation,” as he puts it, “healthy and vital,” pending the payment of an “interest” or the expression of a “choice,” that is, the signs of life that we shall turn to shortly. In defense of the life analogy, what began as a simple distinction between the work of hand and that of the machine, had to be converted into a distinction

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between mechanistic and living production because of difficulties contingent upon the former distinction. The latter has its own difficulties. Imitation, it turns out, is not unique to mechanistic reproduction. It covers the entire field of human production. At every turn, the deadly threat that Ruskin has tried to set aside and to keep outside the realm of architectural production turns out to have already come from within. Thus far, the deadly threat has refused to be externalized in the name of the machine or mechanistic production. Now, in a final defense, that is, in defense of healthy and vital imitation as submitted to the questions of “choice” and “interest,” Ruskin offers the same argument that we earlier saw Wright advance in defense of machines. Despite the similarity of the arguments, imitation is a point of contention between Wright and Ruskin. Whereas in his search for the signs of life, Ruskin took no chance with the machine, Wright took no chance with formal imitation. Whereas for Ruskin, every formal production is a form of re-production, Wright assumes man’s “creative-imagination” to be the “divine in him” that “differentiates him from a mere reasoning animal into a God himself.” A “creative being,” Wright argued, “is a God” that produces forms anew as a testimony to his creative imagination at work (Wright 145). Ruskin, on the other hand, tells us that: Man’s use and function (and let him who will not grant me this follow me no further, for this I purpose always to assume) is to be the witness of the glory of God, and to advance that glory by his reasonable obedience and resultant happiness. (Ruskin, Modern Painters II 28–29) For Wright, the novelty of form constitutes the sign of life; for Ruskin, the evidence is in “reasonable obedience” and the interest paid. However, both try to overcome the “deadly threat” of reproduction with recourse to an established theological model of creation that readily lends its authority to the “seal” that is presumed to bind production to intention in origin. The diference is that for Ruskin, vital human production is an imitation of divine production; for Wright, it is a reenactment of it. Nevertheless, the critical model is the same, and its inevitable recourse to theology speaks not solely of the critic’s religious disposition but also of a strategic necessity. Without recourse to a theological model of production (creation), neither Ruskin nor Wright can posit a clear distinction between living and dead production predicated upon a seal between intention and production in origin. Whereas for Wright, all formal imitations constitute dead production, for Ruskin, imitation, covering the entire field of human “production” or reproduction, is a sign of “deadness” if and only if it does not or cannot give more than what it receives; if and only if no interest is or can be paid in return. The latter is, we should note, the only type of imitation that Ruskin considers “an imposition, a vulgarity, an impertinence, and a sin.” When and if there is a choice to pay more and interest is indeed given in return with what has been borrowed, when the imitator is more than the imitated, then imitation is both “healthy”

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and “vital,” “living” and “noble.” The more at issue here, the “interest” that renders imitation that is “dead” by definition “living” and “vital,” is that “impress” of “mind,” that “seal” of “the highest order of creative life” on whose presence, we have been told, depends the “life,” the “worth” and the “true delightfulness” of the imitative work of men. So long as men produce their re-productions, so long as they mold, impress, and seal their imitations in “interest,” their work shall bear “no sign of deadness.” This is the supposition. The problem, however, is how to decipher the difference that Ruskin has told us “is not always easily known,” that is, the difference between “vital” and “dead” imitation conceived as two mutually exclusive modes of production in architecture. What are the signs of life as distinguished from the signs of death? What to venerate as a vital imitation and what to condemn as a diseased imitation? In short, as Ruskin asks it: “How is imitation to be rendered healthy and vital?” He answers: Unhappily, while it is easy to enumerate the signs of life, it is impossible to define or communicate life; and while every intelligent writer on Art has insisted on the difference between the copying found in an advancing or recedent period, none have been able to communicate, in the slightest degree, the force of vitality to the copyist over whom they might have influence. Yet it is at least interesting, if not profitable, to note that two very distinguishing characters of vital imitation are, its Frankness and its Audacity. (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 196) We may well sympathize with Ruskin and with every other intelligent writer on art on the impossibility of defining or communicating life and the inability to communicate the diference between “dead” and “vital” imitation. The subject, unhappily, is not easily framed. It does not readily lend authority to a qualitative, judgmental distinction between what is advanced and what is “recedent.” The dividing line is indeed difcult to identify. Frankness and audacity, however, so Ruskin tells us, are two very distinguishing characters of the latter form of imitation. Frankness, as a sign of “vital” imitation, is that absence in imitation of “any effort to conceal the degree of the sources of its borrowing” (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 196). Audacity is the “unhesitating and sweeping sacrifice of precedent when precedent becomes inconvenient” (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 196). Neither, however, Ruskin realizes, can give us a sure hold on the line separating living and dead imitation. Both could be imitated, and one may never know whether the presence of either is a sign of “vital imitation” or the product of a dead reproduction. Hence: Nobler and surer signs of vitality must be sought—signs independent alike of the decorative or original character of the style, and constant in every style that is determinedly progressive. Of these, one of the most important I believe to be a certain neglect or contempt of refinement in execution, or, at all events, a visible

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subordination of execution to conception, commonly involuntary, but not unfrequently intentional. (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 196) The most important sign of “life,” of “vital” or “healthy” imitation is, therefore, a visible subordination of execution to conception. It is the “struggle toward something unattained, which causes all minor points of handling to be neglected” (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 199). It is the “contempt of exact symmetry and measurement which in dead architecture are the most painful necessities” (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 199). It is those “variations” that are not “mere blunders nor carelessnesses, but the result of a fixed scorn, if not dislike, of accuracy in measurements; and . . . a determined resolution to work out an efective symmetry by variations as subtle as those of Nature” (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 210). These are the “nobler and surer” signs of “vital imitation.” When we confront them, we may rest assured that the architecture says what is meant and is what it was purposed to be. There is, however, a paradox in this enumeration. If a “nobler and surer” sign of “life” is indeed a “visible subordination of execution to conception,” a “contempt of exact symmetry and measurement” or “variations as subtle as those of Nature,” if, in fact, “life” has a “sign” or “signs” that can be marked, enumerated, stated in a text and given the status of a law that can then be intentionally applied—has been applied—to architectural “production” with uniform result or signification, would not the “sign” or the “signs” of “life,” marked and then re-produced, at once bear the very mark of “death” they are meant to efface?11 Would not the application of the law of “life” as such necessarily amount to and indeed require dead imitation, so long as a living production, to be recognized as such, must display a “visible subordination of execution to conception,” a “contempt of exact symmetry and measurement” and “variations as subtle as those of Nature?” Is it not in fact only through dead imitation or machine-like re-production of the “signs” of “life” that the imitation or re-production of a thing or anything is rendered “healthy” and “vital?” This is in so long as the recognition of life is dependent on the presence of specific signs. In sum, has Ruskin, within the confines of his theoretical construct, any choice but to rely on “death” to ensure the desired “life” in “production?” Once one is caught in between the desire for “life” and the stated impossibility of defining or communicating “life,” of separating “life” from “death,” “vitality” from “stupor,” without resort to a number of imitable, imitated “signs,” the paradox is indeed only unavoidable. The “signs” of “life,” enumerated, become the “signs” of “death” that were cast off and denied. Also, enumerated, these “signs” at once point to a certain gap or lack, a certain missing “seal” in “life” that mandates the supplementary reinforcement of those “signs” without which the difference between “life” and “death” cannot be “easily” marked. If “vital” imitation did indeed bear the “impress” of the “mind” of its producer as “sea sands” bear “the seal of the motion of the waters,” if “living” imitation was not already in the position of “dead” imitation, this enumeration,

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if not impossible, would at best be superfluous. Once enumerated, however, the “signs” of “life” in the same gesture efface the very dividing line they produce or re-produce—the latter two amount, in a manner, to the same. The desire for “life” that is not but a desire for an undivided “seal,” and a desire for assimilation or integration of imitation within the confines of this frame of thought, bears within it the seeds of its dissatisfaction here under the Lamp of Life. As a matter of course, we should note that Wright and the other proponents of Modernism were to fair no better than Ruskin. Their condemnation of formal imitation and their emphasis on the novelty and originality of form as the sign of life could not succeed in overcoming the deadly threat of imitation any more than Ruskin’s condemnation of machines and his emphasis on “a visible subordination of execution to conception” as a “nobler and surer” sign of vitality. Wright’s bitter article of 1914 is a vivid testimony. After every effort to ground his forms in intention and more specifically in function, Wright finds himself left witnessing in “dread” the originality that he took for a sign of life, traded on and sold as “mere form” by “disciples, neophytes, and brokers.” This “piracy, lunacy, plunder, imitation, adulation,” Wright tells us, “endanger the cause, weaken the efficiency of genuine work, for the time being at least; lower the standard of artistic integrity permanently; demoralize all values artistically; until utter prostitution results” (Wright 123). As a final defense he asks us to “let his forms alone,” less they be rubbed of their authority as the bearers of the signs of life (Wright 129). The contention thus far has not been that Ruskin or Wright want certainties that the terms of their arguments prevent them from having. The problem is not one of argumentation. Ruskin or Wright did not somehow fail to achieve what they wanted. It is not that a stouter critic may somehow overcome the obstacles they faced in trying to enumerate the signs of life. It has also not been the contention that Wright is as much a Romantic as Ruskin. If nothing else, it is the rational outlook of the one and the Romantic outlook of the other that makes the similarity of their struggle noteworthy. At issue are the difficulties contingent upon the search for the signs of life that are not unique to either Ruskin or Wright. This difficulty does not stem from the terms of the arguments presented; rather, it speaks of an inherent conflict between the critical model used and what the critic hopes to accomplish. At issue is not the role of intention and purpose in formation and production but the attempt to establish a causal link between them with recourse to the life analogy. At issue here is the use of the life analogy as a critical and ultimately ideological tool for delimitation of practice to a specific mode of design. The direct or the indirect use of the life analogy is related to a desire for control over signification. It is related to the wish for a causal link between intention and formation, or meaning and form. This link is the condition of control over signification. The attempt to bring signification to closure requires the exclusion of every threat, that is, every other mode of production or every other mode of design but the one that through exclusion gives the illusion of control. The use of the life analogy as a critical exclusionary tool does not, in the end, produce the desired effect. This inherited critical methodology subverts

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the very end it is deployed to achieve—be the deployer Ruskin, Wright, or any other critic. In the end, the closure is not achieved, and the seal does not hold because the desire that motivates it bears within it the seeds of its own dissatisfaction. The threat, past or present, does not disappear because it does not come from without but always from within.

On Power and Awe Whereas both Alberti and Laugier classified all edifices pleasurable or pleasing as “beautiful” or “perfect,” bordered by ornamentation as a supplemental source of pleasure, Ruskin, in what may appear as a divergence from the traditional path, tells us that: In thus reverting to the memories of those works of architecture by which we have been most pleasurably impressed, it will generally happen that they fall into two broad classes: the one characterized by an exceeding preciousness and delicacy, to which we recur with a sense of affectionate admiration; and the other by a severe, and in many cases, mysterious, majesty, which we remember with an undiminished sense of awe, like that felt at the presence and operation of some great Spiritual Power. (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 100) Unlike his predecessors’ all-encompassing concept of beauty, Ruskin divides those works of architecture by which we have been most pleasurably impressed into two general and broad classes that are, he tells us, “more or less harmonized by intermediate examples” (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 100). Depending on the particular formal characteristics and the associated pleasurable impression of any given work, that is, depending on whether a work gives rise to a sense of afectionate admiration or an undiminishing sense of awe, it is to fall, within the Ruskinian frame of thought, into one of two classes: either in one broadly defined as “beautiful” or one roughly definable as “sublime.” Although Ruskin does not directly address Edmund Burke’s “A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful,” in the Seven Lamps, he engages Burke’s thesis directly in the “Modern Painters,” primarily to clarify where he difers. Here too, regarding architecture specifically, he articulates a diferent thesis without addressing Burke directly: The difference between these two orders of building is not merely that which there is in nature between things beautiful and sublime. It is, also, the difference between what is derivative and original in man’s work; for whatever is in architecture fair or beautiful is imitated from natural forms; and what is not so derived, but depends for its dignity upon arrangement and government received from human mind, becomes the expression of the power that mind, and receives a sublimity high in proportion to the power expressed. All buildings, therefore, shows man either as gathering

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or governing: and the secrets of his success are his knowing what to gather, and how to rule. These are the two great intellectual Lamps of Architecture; the one consisting in a just and humble veneration for the works of God upon the earth, and the other in an understanding of the dominion over those works which has been vested in man. (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 101–02) It may seem that Ruskin’s divergence from his predecessors is no more than an added divide within the boundaries of an established frame of thought. Of the two orders or classes into which Ruskin divides the pleasurable “works of architecture”—whose diference is not merely the diference between the beautiful and the sublime, but also the diference between the derivative and the original—the first, the fair, the beautiful, or the derivative is all too familiar. Following a well-established tradition, Ruskin, in line with Alberti and Laugier, presents the beautiful as being imitative of nature, much as he purports beauty to be divine in origin. Hence, as before, the pleasurable impressions of buildings fair or beautiful are due to their being expressive of a just and humble veneration for “the works of God upon the earth.” All too familiar also are Ruskin’s secrets of success. These are the secrets that he shares with both Alberti and Laugier, namely: knowing what to gather and how to rule. Yet, in this similarity also lies the diference between these authors. All three agree that the secrets of success rest not only on knowing what to gather but also on how to rule. Alberti and Laugier both regarded this ability as a “gift” of nature and Ruskin as a vested dominion in man. However, whereas Alberti and Laugier only considered the gift essential to the edification of beauty as one of two necessary secrets and not an independent source of pleasure, Ruskin conceives of this vested dominion or rule as a distinct source of pleasurable impressions, productive of sublimity in proportion to the power or dominion expressed. This is a distinct source of pleasurable impressions “like that felt at the presence and operation of some great Spiritual Power” and as such the subject of a separate and distinct Lamp of architecture: the Lamp of Power. Before we begin our discussion of this “great intellectual lamp” and the class of buildings covered in its light—the “sublime” or the “original”—returning to the discussion of the other class—the “beautiful” or the “derivative”—under the “Lamp of Beauty,” we should note a “fact” regarding “sublimity” or the “sublime” as opposed to “beauty” or the “beautiful.” Although the difference between the two classes into which the pleasurable works of architecture are divided is not “merely” that which there is in “nature” between things “beautiful and sublime,” implying, nevertheless, a difference “in nature” between the “beautiful” and the “sublime,” and although the “difference” in question is “also” the difference between “what is derivative and original,” nonetheless: The fact is that sublimity is not a specific term—not a term descriptive of the effect of a particular class of ideas. Anything which elevates the mind is sublime, and elevation of mind is produced by the contemplation of

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greatness of any kind; but chiefly, of course, by the greatness of the noblest things. Sublimity is, therefore, only another word for the effect of greatness upon the feelings. Greatness of matter, space, power, virtue, or beauty, are thus all sublime; and there is perhaps no desirable quality of a work of art, which in its perfection is not, in some way or degree sublime. (Ruskin, Modern Painters I 128) Here, Ruskin specifies the diference between Burke’s thesis and his. Sublimity for Ruskin is not a specific term. It is not but another word for the efect of greatness upon the feelings. This is the greatness of any kind, of beauty as of power or “dominion.” However, Ruskin often uses this term as another word for the efect of the “severe” or the mysteriously majestic as opposed to the delicate or the precious. This is because the beautiful “is not so often felt to be sublime,” though he adds, “he who has not felt that . . . beauty is a source of the sublime, is yet ignorant of the meaning of the ideal in art” (Ruskin, Modern Painters I 129). Hence, the “sublime” is and “is not distinct from what is beautiful” at once (Ruskin, Modern Painters I 129). However, this may not be so much a contradiction in terms as a double usage of the term as “another word.” The sublime is not “distinct” from what is “beautiful” insofar as “sublimity” is used as “another word” for the “efect of greatness” or greatness of efect, be this of “awe” or of “admiration.” It is “distinct,” on the other hand, insofar as “sublimity” is used as “another word” for the “efect” of the “severe” or the mysteriously majestic by way of marking the diference between it and the “beautiful.” It is in this latter sense as the “efect” of the mysteriously majestic that we shall, as Ruskin often does, use the term “sublime” for the remainder of our discussion. In introducing the “Lamp of Power” and in its light the separation of the “original” and the “derivative,” the man-made and the natural as two distinct sources of “pleasure,” Ruskin may appear to be doing what his two predecessors steadfastly refused to do, that is, consider the unnatural or the non-derivative a source of “pleasure” in art. This is a source in the least equal in status to what is natural and as such divine in origin. Yet, the ability of the “mind” to arrange and govern, that is, its “power” to create the “original” as such, is a “power” or “dominion” that “has been vested in man.” It is a “power” or “dominion” that has its source outside humanity. This is the source well predictable in advance. Although the “original” is the outcome of “arrangement and government received from human mind,” nevertheless, it is always and necessarily “derived” in nature in that “there is no conceivable form or grouping of forms but in some part of the universe an example of it may not be found” (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 142). What is subjected to the “power” of the “mind,” regardless of its assumed intrinsic qualities, is always natural in origin. We shall soon see that what results from this subjection—the “original” as such—is never less so. If it was, it could not have been considered a source of “pleasure” in art within the confines of that frame of thought of which Ruskin is as much an inheritor and a representative as his two predecessors.

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As distinct and different as the “beautiful” and “sublime,” or the “derivative” and the “original” are in “form” as in “effect,” neither alone is the mark of a “very great work of art” (Ruskin, Modern Painters II 223). Though emphasis may be placed on either severity or delicacy, it is the exercise of both “imitation” and “imagination” that renders a work or any work “very great.” The “ideal” is, in other words, not only derivative but as well “original.” Those “sources of pleasure” or “beauty” that “exist in the external creation,” Ruskin tells us, “must to a certain extent exist” in “any faithful copy” of them as well (Ruskin, Modern Painters II 223). These sources of beauty, however, are not presented by any very great work of art in a form of pure transcript. They invariably receive the reflection of the mind under whose shadow they have passed, and are modified or colored by its image. (Ruskin, Modern Painters II 223) Hence, even though it is possible for any faithful copy to present or re-present in the form of pure transcript the beauty that exists “in external creation,” in any very great work of art such a presentation has been invariably modified or colored by the “power” of that mind under whose shadow it has passed. What is, we may ask, this “modification” or “Work of Imagination,” this exercise of “power,” of a “vested” dominion over “the works of God upon the earth” that is the mark of “any very great work of art?” It is, Ruskin tells us, the power of “combination” and “composition.” It is the “power” of the mind to select and combine “out of an infinite mass of things that cannot be tried together” a group of forms “that are fit for each other” into a “composition” that as a result of this fitness is “harmonious” and as such pleasing to the mind. What is characteristic of “any very great work of art,” and what marks the “presence and operation” of a great imaginative mind, is no random “combination” of forms but a “harmonious” composition of “fit” parts. To secure this ideal and achieve “harmony” in “composition,” Ruskin tells us: The artist must induce in each of its component parts (suppose two only, for simplicity’s sake,) such imperfection as that the other shall put it right. If one of them be perfect by itself, the other will be an excrescence. Both must be faulty when separate, and each corrected by the presence of the other. If he can accomplish this, the result will be beautiful, it will be a whole, an organized body with dependent members;—he is an inventor. If not, let his separate features be as beautiful, as apposite, or as resemblant as they may, they form no whole. They are two members glued together. He is only a carpenter and joiner. (Ruskin, Modern Painters II 233–34) The beautiful can be perfect or imperfect as a “composition” and nevertheless be pleasing in either case for what it is—the work of “God upon the earth.”12 Whether compositionally perfect or imperfect, the beautiful can be “derived”

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and made a part to a man-made “composition.” The compositionally perfect beauty, however, would render all other parts excrescences. If, on the other hand, the compositionally imperfect is “derived” and rendered a perfection through combination with other “fit” imperfections, we have an invention which is the work not of a “carpenter,” joiner, or copyist which as such is marked either by imperfection or a “derived” perfection, but of an inventor who is capable of turning imperfection into an “original” perfection. Such then is the familiar mark of an inventor. It is the dividing frame that separates, has separated, the artist or the originator from the carpenter, the joiner, or the transcriber who is “nothing more than a copyist” (Ruskin, Modern Painters II 231). Also familiar in this passage is the very “ideal” to whose abstract definition nothing in time has been added or taken away. It is, once again, that “harmonious” composition or as Alberti following “the opinion of Socrates” formulated it, that “harmony of all parts” in “design” or composition, “fitted together” such that “nothing could be added, diminished or altered, but for the worse” (Alberti). The “ideal” has been and remains “perfection,” that is, a “governed and perfect whole” marked by the “presence” of all its constituent parts. This is an absolute, self-referential “presence” which as such is and can only be the invention of an “inventor,” that is, the work of a “chastising, animating and disposing mind” and at that the expression of a “sublime,” “awful,” and “inexplicable” power. This is the “power” to render “imperfection” a “perfection.” What remains to complete the framing is the identification of the source of this “vested” dominion. Thus, Ruskin asks: Now, what is that prophetic action of mind, which, out of an infinite mass of things that cannot be tried together, seizes, at the same instant, two that are fit for each other, together right; yet each disagreeable alone? (Ruskin, Modern Painters II 234) The answer is, in a manner, all too familiar, if not altogether unavoidable: “This faculty is indeed something that looks as if man were made after the image of God. It is inconceivable, admirable, altogether divine” (Ruskin, Modern Painters II 236). The faithful gesture is thus completed. The source is and can only be within the confines of this inherited frame of thought altogether divine in origin. The desired non-contingent, self-referential whole that is the mark of “any very great work of art” is and can only be the product and expression of a “divine” power “vested” in man. This is the “prophetic” product of an “imaginative artist” who, not unlike Laugier’s genius, “has no laws,” who: Defies all restraint, and cuts down all hedges. There is nothing within the limits of natural possibility that he dares not do, or that he allows the necessity of doing. The laws of nature he knows, these are to him no restraint. They are his own nature. All other laws or limits he sets at utter defiance, his journey is over an untrodden and pathless plain. (Ruskin, Modern Painters II 239)

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Having defied all restraints and all other laws but those that are his own nature, and having journeyed over an untrodden and pathless ground guided by no laws but the laws of nature that lead to “prophetic,” “harmonious” compositions, the work of this “imaginative artist” inevitably “looks always, as if it had been gathered straight from nature” (Ruskin, Modern Painters II 247). What separates and what only can separate the “derivative” and the “original” as a source of pleasure is, therefore, nothing. One is, and the other always “looks,” in truth, “as if it had been gathered straight from nature.” Both are, in a manner, natural in that each is governed by the “laws of nature.” Each is an expression of a dominant, dominating “power.” Hence the acceptance of the man-made “original” as a source of pleasure “like that felt at the presence and operation of some great Spiritual Power” within the confines of this inherited frame of thought. This much said of “composition and invention,” and short of proceeding to an explanation of the “laws of nature” that govern the “harmonious” compositions of “any very great work of art,” Ruskin informs us that “of composition and invention much has been written, it seems to me vainly, for men cannot be taught to compose or to invent; of these, the highest elements of Power in architecture, I do not, therefore, speak” (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 134). Of this “prophetic action of the mind,” this “awful, inexplicable power” to “compose” and “invent,” Ruskin thus chooses not to speak! The “laws of nature” that govern composition and invention, the “imaginative” artist “knows.” They are “his own nature.” Hence, of “the highest elements of Power in architecture” nothing further need or could be said. The act is altogether “prophetic” and “inexplicable,” “divine” and “awful.” What matters is to situate this power within a metaphysico-theological frame. Having done so, the subject by definition defies further inquiry. Although beyond the mere tracing of its outline under the “Lamp of Power,” Ruskin abandons “all inquiry into the more abstract fields of invention,” he goes on to state that: Besides this expression of living authority and power, there is, however, a sympathy in the forms of noble buildings, with what is most sublime in natural things; and it is the governing Power directed by this sympathy, whose operation I shall . . . endeavor to trace. (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 102) Thus far, the question has been the “highest” expression of “power” in architecture—the “arrangement and government” that render the work of man “harmonious” and as such natural or naturally “original.” However, the “harmony” at issue is in address to the relationship of its “parts” and not the “forms of noble building.” The question of “form,” severe or delicate, does not at any point enter the discussion of harmony, because “any very great work of art” can either be harmoniously severe or harmoniously delicate and nevertheless, on account of its “harmony,” be “sublime” in “efect.”13 Yet, regarding sublimity, there is also the question of “forms” and of a diference in impression between forms that are severe or mysteriously majestic and forms that are

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precious or delicate. The former, in sympathy or rather because of sympathy with what is most sublime in natural things, is also an exponent of “power” in architecture, though certainly not its “highest” expression. Given the fact, as Ruskin sees it, that any discussion of originality as the “highest” expression of “power” can only be in vain and the fact that “in this primal art of man, there is room for the marking of his relations with the mightiest, as well as the fairest, works of God” (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 102), it is the discussion of this relation and “sympathy” in architectural forms “with what is most sublime in natural things” that Ruskin chooses to pursue under the Lamp of Power. This is a relation or sympathy that renders the “sublime” in architectural form first and foremost divine in origin and as such and only as such a source of pleasure in art for Ruskin. To be “severe” or mysteriously majestic in form and as such “sublime” or awe-full in effect, buildings must have, in sympathy with what is sublime in nature, “considerable size, exhibited by simple terminal lines” with “projection towards the top,” “breadth of flat surface,” “square compartment of that surface,” “varied and visible masonry” and “vigorous depth of shadow,” “exhibited especially by pierced traceries” (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 187). Such is the way “in this primal art of man” of marking “his relations with the mightiest . . . works of God.” Hence, whether original in composition or sympathetic in form, sublime or majestic buildings always point to a common source. One is the “prophetic” work of an “imaginative” mind “after the image of God” looking “always as if it had been gathered straight from nature,” the other in “sympathy” with “what is most sublime in natural things” or rather with “what God made majestic” (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 120). This theological framing Ruskin certainly shares with his predecessors and, for that matter, his successors to come. The only difference here is that “the presence and operation of some great Spiritual Power” as such is conceived as the distinct expression of a separate class of pleasurable “works of architecture” that differ from those expressive of certain “divine attributes” and as such “beautiful” or admirable. This latter class we shall discuss under the light of the “Lamp of Beauty,” along with the reasons for this seemingly inevitable formulation—this metaphysico-theological framing of the pleasurable “works of architecture” as natural and divine in origin be they originally sublime, sympathetically sublime, or beautiful.

On Pleasure and Disgust We thus come to the second of the “two great intellectual Lamps of Architecture”—the “Lamp of Beauty”—under whose “noble fire” Ruskin wishes “to trace that happier element” of “architecture’s excellence, consisting in a noble rendering of images of Beauty, derived chiefly from the external appearances of organic nature” (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 138). Since all inquiries into this subject are necessarily “founded,” Ruskin asserts, on “what is meant by the term Beauty,” he begins with this definition:

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Any material object which can give us pleasure in the simple contemplation of its outward qualities without any direct and definite exertion of the intellect, I call in some way, or in some degree beautiful. Why we receive pleasure from some forms and colors, and not from others, is no more to be asked or answered than why we like sugar and dislike wormwood. The utmost subtlety of investigation will only lead us to ultimate instincts and principles of human nature, for which no farther reason can be given than the simple will of the Deity that we should be so created. (Ruskin, Modern Painters I 109) Beauty is, therefore, a question of certain outward qualities, of certain forms and colors, the simple contemplation of which gives us pleasure. The “feeling of mankind on this subject” is, by “the simple will of the Deity,” “universal and instinctive” (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 139). Anyone “in a healthy and cultivated state of mind”—any “man of taste”—can and should derive pleasure from what is beautiful (Ruskin, Modern Painters I 109). Hence, “he who receives little pleasure from these sources, wants taste” and “he who receives pleasure from any other sources, has false or bad taste” (Ruskin, Modern Painters I 110). Thus, Ruskin excludes any exceptions to his universal rule. The absence of “pleasure” in the presence of “beauty” is and by a certain definition can only be indicative of “disease,” marking an “accident”—want of “taste.” In turn, the absence of “beauty” in the presence of “pleasure” can only be indicative of “error” marking a false or bad “education”—a “false or bad taste.” These gestures of exclusion and the deprecation of the exception as “disease” and “accident,” “error” and bad “education” are by now only too familiar. Both Alberti and Laugier presented a similar set of reasons—disease and accident in one instance, error and education in the other—in defense of the universal appeal of beauty that is, in those instances as here, in peril of exceptions. These invariable gestures of exclusion invariably aim to maintain the possibility of cure and/ or correction, that is, the possibility of the ultimate subjugation of exceptions. These exclusionary gestures are vital, here as before, to the stability of the construct on which any inquiry into the universal subject of beauty is to be “founded.” A “beauty” that is not universal in appeal, a beauty to whose universal appeal exceptions do not ultimately submit, is a beauty—a construct—without a foundation or in the least no “divine” foundation. It is a beauty that is neither self-referential nor non-contingent, which is to say no beauty at all by definition. Although the reason why “we receive pleasure from some forms and colors, and not from others, is no more to be asked or answered” in terms other than “the simple will of the deity that we should be so created,” and though: If a person receiving even the noblest ideas of simple beauty be asked why he likes the object exciting them, he will not be able to give any distinct

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reason, nor to trace in his mind any formed thought, to which he can appeal as a source of pleasure. (Ruskin, Modern Painters I 111) Nevertheless, since the “outward qualities” in question, as well as their associated pleasure, are “constant” and “universal” throughout the “successive ages of the world,” or so Ruskin argues, “it must be possible to reason them out, as well as to feel them out” and as such possible to discover the “cause” of their “ultimate and true delightfulness” (Ruskin, Modern Painters II 62). Considering their timeless universality, Ruskin reasons that the “impressions of beauty” are “neither sensual nor intellectual, but moral” (Ruskin, Modern Painters II 42). They are “moral” because as a “gift of God,” “these common and general sources of pleasure are, I believe, a certain seal, or impress of divine work and character, upon whatever God has wrought in all the world” (Ruskin, Modern Painters II 59). The “beautiful qualities” of those “forms” and “colors” whose “simple contemplation” in whatever object they appear, “in a stone, flower, beast, or in man” (Ruskin, Modern Painters II 64), universally and instinctively give “moral” pleasure to those “in a healthy and cultivated state of mind,” because they bear the “signature of God” (Ruskin, Modern Painters II 75). Therefore, “men have no right to think some things beautiful and no right to remain apathetic with regard to others” (Ruskin, Modern Painters II 52) in that beauty is “the necessary consequence of the perfection of God’s working, and the inevitable stamp of his image on what he creates” (Ruskin, Modern Painters II 143) and Ruskin has already told us that “Man’s use and function” is none other than being the “witness of the glory of God, and to advance that glory by his reasonable obedience and resultant happiness” (Ruskin, Modern Painters II 28). Despising “all that is not of God, unless reminding it of God” (Ruskin, Modern Painters II 50), “Man’s use and function” is to pursue beauty and “endeavor to arrest it or recreate it” through the “noble rendering of images of beauty, derived chiefly from the external appearance of organic nature” in art as in architecture. But whatever doubt there may be respecting the exact amount of modification of created things admitted with reference to us, there can be none respecting the dignity of that faculty by which we receive the mysterious evidence of their divine origin. The fact of our deriving constant pleasure from whatever is a type or semblance of Divine attributes, and from nothing but that which is so, is the most glorious of all that can be demonstrated of human nature; it not only sets a great gulf of specific separation between us and the lower animals, but it seems a promise of a communion ultimately deep, close, and conscious, with the Being whose darkened manifestations we here feebly and unthinkingly delight in. (Ruskin, Modern Painters II 144) Though witnessing beauty and re-rendering its “images” in whatever they produce constitute “man’s use and function,” beauty itself, as a “gift of God”

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whether witnessed or imitated, is not and as a “gift,” for reasons discussed under the “Lamp of Sacrifice,” cannot be of any “use and function” in the “wellunderstood and usual sense,” that is, of “service” to the “body.” In beauty lies only pleasure and a promise. Whereas expressions of “power”—natural, original or sympathetic—gave this frame of thought the assurance of the “presence and operation of some great Spiritual Power” and a certain identity in “image,” if not the power of identity with the “image,” in their turn, expressions of beauty, that always evidence their divine origin and “among the noblest” that “can be presented to the human mind” (Ruskin, Modern Painters I 111) bear this frame of thought the promise of an ultimate communion with their source. This is an ultimate communion with “the Being” that is the condition of possibility of a non-contingent, self-referential original. Hence the import of beauty and the necessity of its re-rendition in whatever “man” makes and that through the imitation of the “external appearance of organic nature.” Without this re-rendition, architecture cannot be construed a non-contingent, self-referential, and autonomous entity, and as such, subject to theoretical inquiry within the confines of this frame of thought. This is the promise of beauty. This much noted of beauty, it is, Ruskin tells us, “no more to be asked or answered” why, within the boundaries of this frame of thought, “whatever is in architecture fair or beautiful is imitated from natural forms.” We may only note of “external nature” in passing that “she has a body and a soul like man; but her soul is the Deity” and her body the bearer of the “seal” or the “impress” of that soul (Ruskin, Modern Painters I 148). Though no imitation of this “body,” as the “external appearance” of internal “attributes,” would ever be “of God,” any “true” imitation of it would, nevertheless, always be beautiful in being reminiscent “of God.” Given the fact, as Ruskin sees it, that “all most lovely forms and thoughts are directly taken from natural objects,” it would follow, naturally, that “forms which are not taken from natural objects must be ugly” (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 141). There is, however, a peculiar difficulty in using this proof; it requires the writer to assume, very impertinently, that nothing is natural but what he has seen or supposes to exist. I would not do this; for I suppose there is no conceivable form or grouping of forms but in some part of the universe an example of it may be found. (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 142) There indeed is a peculiar difculty in this proof. Given that the beautiful is always natural, the “ugly” or “in the literal sense of the word, monstrous” (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 143) must be unnatural by definition. It was exactly this definition that allowed Laugier to sidestep the difculties Alberti encountered in trying to account for the provenance of the ugly. Nevertheless, for strategic

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reasons that we will address later, Ruskin aligns his definition with Alberti’s by assuming that there is no conceivable form or grouping of forms, but in some part of the universe, an example of it may be found. God is the origin of all—the beautiful and the ugly! The unnatural is also natural, which is to say unnaturally natural or naturally unnatural. Given this definition of the “monstrous,” it would follow that though all beautiful forms are natural, “forms are not beautiful because they are copied from nature”: Nature sometimes, though very rarely, violates her own principles; it is her principle to make everything beautiful, but now and then, for an instant, she permits what, compared with the rest of her works, might be called ugly . . . but the artist who should seek after these exclusively . . . though he might be able to point to something in nature as the original of every one of his uglinesses, would yet be, in the strict sense of the word, false,— false to nature, and disobedient of her laws. (Ruskin, Modern Painters I 155) To remain true to nature and obedient to her laws, it is, therefore, necessary to diferentiate between two natural and yet opposed forms, between the naturally natural to be imitated and those rare violations that constitute a natural monstrosity or an unnatural nature. As to what marks a diference between these two opposed natural forms, Ruskin tells us: I think I am justified in considering those forms to be most natural which are most frequent; or rather, that on the shapes which in the every-day world are familiar to the eyes of men, God has stamped those characters of beauty which He has made it man’s nature to love; while in certain exceptional forms He has shown that the adoption of the others was not a matter of necessity, but part of the adjusted harmony of creation. I believe that thus we may reason from Frequency to Beauty and vice versa; that knowing a thing to be frequent, we may assume it to be beautiful; and assume that which is most frequent to be most beautiful: I mean, of course, visibly frequent; for the forms of things which are hidden in caverns of the earth, or in the anatomy of animal frames, are evidently not intended by their Maker to bear the habitual gaze of man. (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 142) It is, therefore, visible frequency, and by this, Ruskin asks us to understand not “mere multitude” but “that limited and isolated frequency which is characteristic of all perfection” (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 143) that marks a diference between the beautifully natural and the naturally “monstrous.”14 Yet, we may wonder why it is at all necessary to mark this diference and to reason from frequency to beauty whose perception as such, we have been told, is “universal and instinctive?” Why “knowing a thing to be frequent in nature, we may assume it to be beautiful, and assume that which is most frequent to be most beautiful,” if

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the appreciation of the beautiful is indeed “universal and instinctive?” Why we may also add, the diference in question, considering that the “seal or impress of divine work and character” is to be found “upon whatever God has wrought in all the world” and that it is precisely the absence or as Ruskin would have it the comparative absence of such a “seal” or “impress” that renders the “ugly” a natural monstrosity in violation of nature’s “own principles?” This is a violation that is not “a matter of necessity, but part of the adjusted harmony of creation.” Concerning the first question, Ruskin tells us that on the “primary principles of our nature,” which is the “instinctive” appreciation of the beautiful as such, “education and accident operate to an unlimited extent.” These principles “may be cultivated or checked, directed or diverted, gifted by right guidance with the most acute and faultless sense, or subjected by neglect to every phase of error and disease” (Ruskin, Modern Painters I 109). Hence the need to “reason from frequency to Beauty” and that as a safeguard against every phase of error and disease to which the primary principles of our nature are susceptible: the error and disease of appreciation of the ugly as beautiful. Concerning the reason why “Nature sometimes, though very rarely violates her own principles,” which in turn explains why we may “assume that which is most frequent to be most beautiful” and vice versa, Ruskin tells us that although it would be “inconsistent” with God’s “infinite perfection to work imperfectly in any place or in any matter” (Ruskin, Modern Painters II 144): Nevertheless, I think that the admission of different degrees of this glory and image of himself upon creation, has the look of something meant especially for us; for although in pursuance of the appointed system of government by universal laws, these same degrees exist where we cannot witness them, yet the existence of degrees at all seems unlikely in Divine work, and I cannot see reason for it unless that palpable one of increasing in us the understanding of the sacred character by showing us the results of their comparative absence. For I know not that if all things had been equally beautiful, we could have received the idea of beauty at all, or if we had, certainly it had become a matter of indifference to us, and of little thought. (Ruskin, Modern Painters II 144) The “ugly,” this unnaturally natural monstrosity has thus the look of something meant specially for us. This is the look of a purposeful divine violation that as such is subject to reason within the boundaries of this frame of thought. The ugly is and bears the look of something meant specially for us, or so it is reasoned because it is “necessary for the perception of ” the beautiful (Ruskin, Modern Painters II 59). To see the sacred characters stamped on the beautiful, we need to be shown the results of their comparative, compared absence. Else there is the improbability, if not impossibility of the perception of their presence, if not presence as such altogether. Yet, if the possibility of the perception of the beautiful is indeed conditioned on the perception of its comparative

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absence—the ugly—if beauty could only appear as such—a presence—with recourse to its negation—an absence—then all things beautiful in nature never “appear as what they indeed are” but as what they indeed are not, that is, beauty as what is not ugly, presence as what is not absence and by extension each characteristic of beauty is contingent on its presumed other. Truth is contingent on deception, life is contingent on death, the original is contingent on imitation, and so on. Each presumed self-referential term here would always have to assume the priority of its negation as the contingent condition of its perception and vice versa—ad infinitum. Yet, the appearance of things “as what they indeed are” has been and remains a determined actuality within the confines of this frame of thought. It is the very foundation for differentiation, distinction, and separation between truth and deception, which, in a manner, amounts to the identification of the place of beauty that is on the side of truth always. The determination of this frame of thought has been and remains, and that as the condition of the appearance of things “as what they indeed are,” the originality and absolute independence of presence, beauty, truth, and life, from absence, monstrosity, deception, and death. This is perhaps nowhere made more apparent than in the discussion of Purity as a divine attribute and as such a characteristic of beauty. Ruskin, criticizing the common interpretation of purity “as a type of sinlessness,” tells us (Ruskin, Modern Painters II 131): But, in the first place, if it be indeed in the signs of Divine and not of human attributes that beauty consists, I see not how the idea of sin can be formed with respect to the Deity, for it is an idea of a relation borne by us to Him, and not in any way to be attached to his abstract nature. And if the idea of sin is incapable of being formed with respect to Him, so also is its negative, for we cannot form an idea of negation, where we cannot form an idea of presence. (Ruskin, Modern Painters II 132) On the formation of an idea of presence thus depends the formation of an idea of negation, on the prior formation of an idea of sin that of sinlessness, on the prior idea of presence that of absence, on beauty that of ugly, on truth that of deception, on life that of death. This has been and remains the determination and the resolution of this frame of thought to the problem of formation and of perception. Sinlessness is not and cannot be a divine attribute and as such characteristic of beauty because in origin, there can be no negation, only presence as the prior condition of formation of negation, which in turn goes to explain why the ugly marks not a divine quality but a divine violation. Yet, in what amounts to a reversed dependence and not by necessity a contradiction, in account for the being of the ugly in nature, we were told that it is on the formation of an idea of negation—the ugly—that the formation of an idea of presence—the beautiful—is contingent. Indeed, to the being of the ugly in nature, no other reason could be ascribed than the fact of “it being

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necessary for the perception of ” the beautiful. Therefore, it is on negation and not presence or rather, by both accounts, on negation and presence, which is also to say neither presence nor its negation conceived, conceivable as an origin or an original term that formation and/or perception depends. Each idea, presence or its negation, by an ascribed necessity in Ruskin’s discourse, must assume the formation of its opposite as the condition of its own formation in what amounts to an endless play of differing deferred ideas with no beginning and no end. This is an endless deferral whereby each original idea formed is, has always already become a non-original idea preceded by a presence or what is no longer, if ever, absolutely different, its negation. As each original idea becomes at once a non-original idea and that as the condition of formation and perception as Ruskin describes it, so beauty becomes, in a manner, always already ugly, presence becomes absence, truth becomes deception, life becomes death, and we are led back—had we ever left—to that “dusky debatable land, wherein zeal becomes impatience, and temperance becomes severity, and justice becomes cruelty, and faith superstition, and each and all vanish into gloom” (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 54). This is that dusky debatable land wherein each positive and original term takes on, has always already taken on, the characteristics of its absolute other as a mark of gloom. Also, this is that dusky debatable land to whose gloom and shadow Ruskin has brought the light of seven lamps in search of order and of clearly seem borders. The attempt has been and here remains to mark the “limits” of each “domain” and “happily . . . turn the shadow back by the way by which it had gone done.” At this point, however, the attempt may seem to lead only to a perpetuation of the problem and not its desired resolution. Nevertheless, given the desired end, the ugly here could no more be allowed to interfere with or cast a shadow on the limits of the domain of the beautiful than language was allowed to do with thought, falsehood with truth, death with life, or bad imitation with good. Therefore, as before, there is the need for a certain exclusionary process of delimitation, a certain framing or frame-up without whose supplementary reinforcement Ruskin cannot mark the desired limits. This is a certain metaphysico-theological frame, or frame-up assumed as a matter of course throughout this discourse, not unlike those before it and those yet to follow, by way of fulfilling a desire that is common to all. Hence, Ruskin is no exception in assuming the beautiful to be the external expression of certain divine qualities that always evidence “their divine origin,” for only as such could beauty be made to appear as a present perfection. It is only by virtue of the divine seal that the beautiful is said to bear, that is, only within the confines of the theological frame thus constructed, that the limits of the domain of the beautiful could be brought to light and the trace of absence be erased from its original presence. Although the limits of the domain of the beautiful are marked, have been marked from the outset, with recourse to a seal that renders the original presence and the independence of the beautiful undebatable, the limits marked

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must yet be sealed. The violation of these limits, the being of the ugly in nature described as a violence “necessary to the perception of ” the beautiful, must yet be accounted for without transgression of the established borders. Hence, Ruskin tells us that the “outward qualities” that mark beauty in whatever object they appear are “the necessary consequence of the perfection of God’s working, and the inevitable stamp of his image on what he creates” (Ruskin, Modern Painters II 143): Only it being necessary for the perception of them, that their contraries should also be set before us, these divine qualities, though inseparable from all divine works, are yet suffered to exist in such varieties of degree, that their most limited manifestation, shall, in opposition to their most abundant, act as a foil or contrary, just as we conceive of cold as contrary to heat, though the most extreme cold we can produce or conceive is not inconsistent with an unknown amount of heat in the body. (Ruskin, Modern Painters II 59) Hence, Ruskin seals the limits of the domain of the beautiful and at that the limits of the domain of the ugly—its monstrous other—all in one gesture. The ugly is, we are told, inseparable from all divine work. It is inseparable from the beautiful, with no domain of its own, no place outside from where its being in nature could point to a disgusting transgression of the border because the ugly is nothing but a limited manifestation of the beautiful. It is nothing, in the final account, but a willful withdrawal by degree—“meant specially for us”—of a “seal” that excludes and includes or rather excludes so as to include the ugly within the boundaries of this frame of thought without diference and deferral, transgression and disgust. The divine “seal” stamped on the ugly, the “seal” whose ever most limited manifestation seals the ugly within the limits of the domain of the beautiful, at the same time excludes the possibility of the ugly being a violation or transgression of the limits of that domain from the outside. It excludes the possibility by denying the ugly any proper domain of its own and any possibility of being, without pointing to an absolute origin or a simple presence in origin. The ugly does not exist. This is, in the least, nowhere outside the limits of the domain of the beautiful in any amount known. There is, in fact, no outside to this domain because nothing falls without it. There is no form for which an example may not be found in some part of the universe, or so Ruskin has told us. There is no form that does not originally point to a divine intention. There is, and there can be within the boundaries of this frame of thought, no ugly as such, only beauty in amounts unknown as the condition of the possibility of beauty in amounts known or desired. Else, the violation that is said to constitute the being of the ugly or, as Ruskin would have it, beauty in amounts unknown, would only point to a transgression of the border of the beautiful from without. As such, it would place the viability of those borders, if not the possibility of limits and with it the possibility of presence, origin, and beauty as desired, in question. Its provenance

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would beg an inexplicable explanation. Sealed within, on the other hand, the ugly could only point to a willful withdrawal from the center by degree. This is the beautiful center defined and framed by reason of “frequency” as a natural nature. Placed within as an unnatural nature, the ugly is reconstituted a mere “part of the adjusted harmony of creation,” that though “necessary” to perception, is in no manner a “matter of necessity.” Also, even though by definition the beautiful must necessarily depend on the ugly for its perception, what it must depend on is, as a matter of fact, if not a matter of necessity within the confines of this frame of thought, no other than itself, no other than a purposefully limited or withheld manifestation of itself, its self-referential, noncontingent self. Having reconstituted and assimilated the other within its limits, this frame of thought can proceed to dream, or what is not absolutely different, realize the dream of difference and deferral as the look of something “meant” especially for us—the peculiar look or mark of humanity as such. Whereas Alberti deprecated the contingency on the other or any relationship of difference and deferral to an other, as an attribute of matter or materiality—a secondary, cruder, fallen exteriority—Ruskin, having sealed the ugly within the limits of the domain of the beautiful and the beautiful, not unlike his predecessor, within a theological frame as an attribute of nature—hence, origin and presence before any negation—can dream the subjugation of the ugly as the look of something meant for humanity and the mark of its fall from grace. Nevertheless, this fall could be overcome through the ultimate “communion” with God, and the ultimate return to origin and a non-contingent, self-referential presence that is promised by and is the promise of the beautiful. Hence, the desire for its representation through imitation of the beautiful nature and the beautiful nature alone in architecture. In this all too familiar discourse on the beautiful or as it invariably leads to the ugly, the only notable difference between Ruskin and his predecessors is that in them the ugly could only arouse disgust and a desire to efface it or what amounts to the same, have it “handsomer,” whereas to Ruskin, within limits, the ugly appears handsomer without delay or deferral. Yet, even though in the ugly, Ruskin has discovered pleasure in amounts unknown—the pleasure of subjugation of the ugly within limits well known—to him, the ugly or at least a particular type of it does not altogether cease to be disgusting. This monstrosity does not, on the whole, submit to Ruskin’s pleasure easily. The frame introduced provides only a partial closure. A type defies assimilation—within or without, inside or outside of the line that is said to separate the beautiful from the ugly as the naturally frequent from the naturally exceptional. This is a type thus disgusting that places in question the very possibility of the “seal” by whose authority Ruskin has sought to seal the ugly within the boundaries of the domain of the beautiful as a source not of disgust but of pleasure in amounts unknown. This is a type that though all too familiar, is as yet to be identified, deprecated, and effaced within the confines of the present discourse as those before it. It is a type that invariably, it seems, brings forth the question

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of ornamentation or ornamental delimitation. Ruskin begins at the border of the beautiful. We shall get there by way of a prolonged detour.

On the Borderline At the outset of the book Pioneers of Modern Design, Nikolaus Pevsner summed up “the basic doctrine of nineteenth-century architectural theory” in what has since become a well-known quote from Ruskin’s “Lectures on Architecture and Painting.” “Ornamentation,” Pevsner quotes Ruskin saying, “is the principal part of architecture” (Pevsner 19). Next, Pevsner goes on to show the comic and, to the proponents of the Modern Movement, the tragic consequence of applying this “surprising” principle to architectural practice at the end of the last century. This “surprising” statement has since become an emblem for all that the proponents of the Modern Movement believed to be wrong with architectural design around the turn of the century and much of what they hoped to re-form in it. To most theoreticians, architects, and historians of the 20th century, the absurdity and the comedy in pronouncing ornamentation the principal part of architecture remained self-evident until Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown’s daring dictum in the concluding sentence to their book Learning from Las Vegas. “It is now time,” Venturi and Scott Brown contended, “to reevaluate the once-horrifying statement of John Ruskin that architecture is the decoration of construction” (Venturi et al. 163). To this once-horrifying statement, the authors immediately append Pugin’s “warning” that “it is all right to decorate construction but never construct decoration.” The permissive and celebratory sentiment toward ornament that was first (re)publicized by Venturi and Scott Brown was soon amplified by a sizable number of authors and architects, to some of whom the renewed sentiment was the clear indicator of the dawn of a new age in architectural design.15 “Ornament,” it was contended, “anathema to Modernist design—is back in style.” Although “long banished as aesthetically retarded, morally reprehensible, or simply the affliction of people who don’t know better, ornament is suddenly reappearing in some of the most challenging new architecture, interior design, furniture, crafts and even the fine arts.” Ornamentation, it appeared then, “is a radical act, quite the opposite of the conservative act that it has been for most of this century” (Jensen and Conway 1). Despite a changed sentiment toward ornament in the last five decades, Ruskin’s “surprising” statement remains a source of discomfort, if not embarrassment, to many scholars of Ruskin’s aesthetic theories. Some scholars stay clear of Ruskin’s blustering pronouncements on ornamentation by focusing on his substantial work on painting and sculpture, particularly the five volumes of Modern Painters (1843–1860), where the question of ornamentation does not figure prominent. A case in point is George P. Landow’s eminent study: The Aesthetic and Critical Theories of John Ruskin.16 Other scholars, not innocent of a Modernist predisposition, chastise Ruskin for his “preoccupation with detail, . . .

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which constituted his entire emphasis in architecture” and for being “so preoccupied with architectural surfaces” that he did not “concern himself with the overall plan of a building,” and did not “conceive of buildings as enclosing and molding spaces; apparently, he did not even see structures as occupying space, vertically or horizontally” (Garrigan 49, 62).17 Even John Unrau, who, among a handful of Ruskin scholars, does not dismiss his architectural theories on account of his blustery statements on ornamentation, and is sharply critical of those who do, finds Ruskin’s proclamations to be at best problematic. He chastises Ruskin as well, though on account of making it “all too easy for subsequent writers to dismiss his architectural thought without making the strenuous effort necessary to obtain a full and balanced reading of his work on the subject” (Unrau 13). “Certainly,” Unrau contends, “it was silly of ” Ruskin “to sum up his wide-ranging and subtle analysis of architectural ornament with a dogmatic catch-cry that has effectively repelled generations of readers from making a serious attempt to find out if there was any substance behind the bluster” (Unrau 65). From a “provocative statement” as “Ornamentation is the principal part of architecture,” Unrau contends, “It is perhaps no wonder that potential readers of Ruskin should conclude that there is no point in pursuing, through all those fat red volumes, the views of a man who could say such apparently nonsensical things” (Unrau 13). The sentence—“Ornamentation is the principal part of architecture”—has been made to assume the burden of more responsibility and blame than any one sentence could readily be made to assume. Emblematically, if not directly, it is held accountable for the state of architectural practice at the end of the last century from one end of the spectrum, to the present state of Ruskinian scholarship, on the other end of the spectrum. Self-evident as the problem with this sentence may be, it is important to pursue in some detail that which is purportedly silly, preposterous, nonsensical, absurd, or generally wrong with this proclamation. Exactly, what in this sentence has propelled it to a position of such prominent infamy? The words themselves—ornamentation, principal part, and architecture— are clearly not out of place or improper in the context of theoretical discourse on architecture, as we have already seen. Though the words are not out of place in the wider context, the problem with the sentence is, at the risk of stating the obvious, a problem of place or placement. The problem has to do with the exact placement of ornament with respect to architecture: interior or anterior, central or peripheral. The nonsense in Ruskin’s sentence is in its “surprising” equation of the ornamental with the principal part of architecture. The silliness and absurdity of it reside in confounding the peripheral with the central, the subsidiary with the cardinal, the supplemental with the pivotal. The ornament in this sentence is placed out of place. The place of ornament—if it has one—is not a principal place in architecture. This much is evident to both the proponents and the opponents of Ruskin alike, as evidenced by their reaction to Ruskin’s displacement. Neither treats this sentence, however, as a simple error in judgment. What fails in this sentence is not the faculty of judgment but

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the place of architecture as distinct from the place of ornament. The problem, without as yet reading too much into it, is the realization of a certain contingency on place and placement. The nonsense in Ruskin’s sentence was self-evident to the proponents of Modernism from a vantage point that is perhaps best exaggerated by Adolf Loos’ well-known equation of ornamentation to “crime” (Conrads 19). In fact, the Modern Movement’s unique identity was constituted by opposing ornamentation and placing it firmly outside of architecture, that is, by carefully distinguishing and separating the essential from the inconsequential, the principal from the peripheral, or architecture from the ornamental. Modern “architecture,” as Le Corbusier put it, “is everything—but is not the ‘decorative arts’” (Le Corbusier 91). The otherwise all-encompassing Modern architecture occupies a place that is made distinct by virtue of being located against and outside ornamentation and the decorative arts. The proponents of the renewed permissive sentiment toward ornamentation have done no less than their Modernist counterparts in defining their own distinct identity. They, too, define the identity of their new architecture by defining its place in relation to ornamentation. In this instance, the place is one that is inclusive of ornamentation, though not an ornamentation that is free to roam around or assume a central position, but one properly placed, administered, and controlled. Should we recall Venturi and Scott Brown’s warning, it is once again, “all right to decorate construction, but never construct decoration.” Brent Brolin expresses much the same sentiment in his Flight of Fancy: The Banishment and Return of Ornament when he tells us that “As ornament returns”: The most obvious pitfall . . . is that designers will lapse into doing “ornament for ornament’s sake.” That would leave us only slightly better off than when they indulged in “ornament for no ornament’s sake.” The promise of postmodernism would then fade, to become just another alleged “style of the times,” to be followed, at some later date, by the next in line. (Brolin 282) As the gates were opened once again to allow ornament back in architecture, it appeared necessary to subject the passage to condition, and careful supervision—lest, of course, architecture fails the test of time. Ornament cannot be allowed, Ruskin’s assertion notwithstanding, to assume a principal position. To give ornament a principal position, that is, to construct decoration or ornament for ornament’s sake, is tantamount to creating an architecture that is tied to “the times” and fading away in time, as opposed to one transcending time. Between the enduring and the ephemeral architecture lies the determination of the place of ornament within architecture. So long as ornament serves something other than itself, so long as ornament is not the end but the means to an end, the architecture that grants it passage endures. Otherwise, the architecture that allows ornament in for its own sake inevitably fades away, forsaking its place to the next in line.

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Given the purported consequence of misplacing ornament, in one instance inside architecture as opposed to outside it, in the other, in a principal, as opposed to a subordinate position with respect to architecture, the reason for the strong reaction to Ruskin’s pronouncement may become more evident. In this context, perhaps all that can be said, and all that has been said in Ruskin’s defense is that he really did not mean it. John Unrau, trying to point out “the serious intentions behind” Ruskin’s “verbal shock tactics,” informs us that Ruskin’s “ideas have often been grossly misinterpreted, mainly because it has seldom been noticed that Ruskin usually implies a much wider definition of ‘ornament’ than the modern reader . . . tends to expect” (Unrau 65–66). According to Ruskin, Unrau contends, “depending upon the distance of the viewer from the building, almost any major subdivision of structure might be considered ornamental” (Unrau 676). Ruskin would, we are told, “regard as ornamental all elements of the building which, at the specific distance from which one is viewing it, are treated in such a way that they contribute to its aesthetic articulation” (Unrau 676). Furthermore, Ruskin, we are told, forcefully affirmed “the necessity of considering detail as subordinate to the visual whole” and “certain that ornament lacking subordination to total design will inevitably lead to aesthetic disaster” (Unrau 676). In other words, verbal shock tactics aside, even Ruskin, the consummate “ornamentalist” by some accounts, did not fail to observe the necessity of marking the place of ornament clearly and decidedly in a subordinate position. Leaving aside for the moment the question of an actual or assumed disagreement between Ruskin and numerous other writers on architectural ornamentation over the place of ornament in architecture, there appears to be a clear agreement between Ruskin and the majority of his peers since the Renaissance, on the devastating consequence of losing control over ornamentation. What it is that we must not lose control over, however, no one has as yet identified with equal force and clarity as the direness of the consequence itself. Although there is no architectural element or group of elements that can be labeled an ornament, or for that matter not, although it is virtually impossible to point to any architectural feature, in and of itself, as an ornamental feature, or not; nevertheless, virtually every author addressing the subject of ornamentation appears to assume that there is such a thing as ornament and that it is an addition or an appendage to the body of the edifice. The consensus among the authors that address the subject is that ornament is something extra and detachable. It is, as Ruskin put it within limits that we shall have to discuss later, all that “may be taken away from the building, and not hurt it” (Ruskin, Stones 452). This is surprisingly similar to Laugier’s definition of ornament as all that “one can make use of or cut out without the essence of the architectural Order being affected,” that is, all “that can be admitted or suppressed without changing the thing fundamentally” (Laugier 152). Alberti, in turn, as discussed before, defined ornament “to be a kind of an auxiliary brightness and improvement [complement] to beauty,” that is, “somewhat added or fastened on, rather than proper and innate” (Alberti 113). It was, in turn, precisely as something

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added or fastened on that the proponents of Modern architecture deprecated ornamentation; and in their turn, the Post-Modern opponents allowed it to return as all that is added to “decorate construction,” that is, “as something other than structural, other than functional; as something applied” ( Jensen and Conway 7). Given the prevalent definition of ornamentation as addition, extra, other, auxiliary, it follows, as Ruskin purportedly assumed, that every architectural element could be an ornamental element depending on its place and the circumstances of its placement.18 Every architectural element can become an ornamental element so long as it is attached to an edifice, and yet it appears detachable from it, that is, so long as from its allotted place it appears as though it can be displaced. However, the ornamental element, it is important to note, is not simply an external or a displaced element. It is not detached. If it is simply external or detached, the element in question is not or is no longer ornamental. To be ornamental, an element must be attached, though detachable. It must add to the body but not submerge in it. It must be both an addition and additional. It must be at once a part and apart. It must be in place and yet out of place. My intent here is not to speak in riddles. The difficulty in articulating what ornament is, that is, locating its place and identifying its boundaries, is to an extent involuntary because ornament, in a sense, has no decidable place. This is because ornament is not so much an element, as it is a certain placement of any element with respect to another element—each of which appears as what it is in reference to the other. The measure of ornament is never itself. The ornamental is always measured against another body as an appendage and a subordinate element. Ornament does not have an identity or a place of its own because it is fundamentally a creature of placement. It does not designate so much a thing as a specific relationship between two things. If, on the other hand, the place of ornament has been of considerable concern, if we find virtually every major movement in architecture since the Renaissance define its unique identity by assuming a distinct posture on ornamentation—internal or external, principal or peripheral—if losing control over ornamentation is repeatedly purported to have dire consequences, this is in part because it is by defining and identifying the ornamental, by separating the additive from the essential that the principal and the peripheral are made to appear as such. To lose control of the ornamental is in a manner tantamount to losing sight of the essential. This is another reason why Ruskin’s proclamation has appeared so problematic. At face value, it appears to confound two things whose identity depends on their distinction: the architecture and the ornamentation. Ornament cannot be principal because the ornamental is judged against the principal. There is yet another dimension to the problem. Ruskin’s elevation of ornamentation to a principal part of architecture creates a crisis of identity for the latter. Architecture is, according to a pervasive Western tradition, what transcends building. For instance, we may recall Le Corbusier’s dictum, “when a thing responds to a need, it is not beautiful .  .  . Architecture has another

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meaning and other ends to pursue than showing construction and responding to needs” (Le Corbusier 102–03). From Le Corbusier’s text, we may trace our steps through virtually every major, influential treatise on architecture back to Virtruvius’ triad “commodity, Firmness, and Delight,” or forward to Venturi and Scott Brown’s reiteration of it, to find in each instance the same emphasis on the beautiful as the condition of the elevation of building to architecture. Without “delight,” there is building, but not architecture. Architecture is synonymous with aesthetics and beauty. As discussed earlier, the proposed ways and means of rendering a building beautiful have been as diverse and varied over time as the cultural and paradigm shifts they reflect. Nevertheless, contentious and heated as the debates often have been, the disagreements have centered on how to make buildings beautiful, not whether or exactly why one must. In addition, not only has the objective been beyond theoretical scrutiny or doubt, its definition, as pointed out earlier, has been, in principle, a constant as well. The beautiful is nothing if contingent on addition or subtraction. It is precisely in reference to this pervasive understanding of the beautiful that the question of ornamentation has assumed a critical dimension in the theoretical discourse on architecture. It is also precisely in reference to this definition that Ruskin’s equation of ornamentation to a principal part of architecture has been viewed as absurdly comic and/or sadly tragic. If the “aim,” as Le Corbusier put it, that constitutes and separates architecture from the mere building is the non-contingent beautiful, that is, what can accept neither addition nor subtraction, the question of the place and role of ornamentation, which is neither simply attached nor simply detached, presents considerable difficulty. If allowed as an addition, it inevitably challenges the self-sufficiency of the beautiful and, as such, architecture itself. If disjoined and separated, ornament nevertheless raises questions about its presence and contribution, as discussed in Alberti’s and Laugier’s case. The path of marginalization and/or exclusion of ornamentation, followed by the theoreticians of the enlightenment before Ruskin and the theoreticians of the Modern Movement after him, presents its own distinct dilemmas and contradictions. Condemning and excluding ornament from architecture, Modern architects were, Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown point out in their scathing critique of the Modern Movement, only “denying in theory what they were doing in practice” (Venturi et al. 114). Trying to set aside ornamentation, they merely substituted one set of ornaments for another. Placing ornament in a marginal position as all “that can be admitted or suppressed without changing the thing fundamentally” (Laugier 152) or as “somewhat added or fastened on, rather than proper and innate” (Alberti 113) is neither a fundamentally different position nor does it fare better. Earlier, we discussed the problems and paradoxes of ornamentation’s marginalization and exclusion. In contrast, and mindful of his predecessors’ difficulties, Ruskin proposes to pursue a different path: the path of inclusion and, in effect, domestication of ornamentation. Whether the path of inclusion has

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any greater chance of curtailing ornamentation is a question that must await a critical examination. The intent would not be to argue for or against ornament. I am not certain one is afforded this choice, even though one may readily and customarily exercise it. Rather, of primary interest are the reasons for the preoccupation with ornamentation. The question is why ornament, which is not even a thing, but a role that can be assumed by virtually anything, has managed to stir so much passion and controversy in the theoretical discourse on architecture. Why has placing ornament, placing and positioning oneself with respect to it, been of central concern within this discourse?

The Assimilation The fact is, Ruskin boldly notes, by way of clarifying his position on orna mentation: I never met with the architect yet who did not think ornament meant a thing to be bought in a shop and pinned on, or left off, at architectural toilets, as the fancy seized them, thinking little more than many women do of the other kind of ornament—the only true kind,—St. Peter’s kind,—“Not that outward adorning, but the inner—of the heart.” I do not mean that architects cannot conceive this better ornament, but they do not understand that it is the only ornament; that all architectural ornament is this, and nothing but this; that a noble building never has any extraneous or superfluous ornaments; that all its parts are necessary to its loveliness, and that no single atom of them could be removed without harm to its life, . . . And I use the words ornament and beauty interchangeably, in order that architects may understand this: I assume that their building is to be a perfect creature capable of nothing less than it has, and needing nothing more. It may, indeed, receive additional decoration afterwards, exactly as a woman may gracefully put a bracelet on her arms, or set a flower in her hair: but that additional decoration is not the architecture. It is of curtains, pictures, statues, things that may be taken away from the building, and not hurt it. What has the architect to do with these? He has only to do with what is part of the building itself, that is to say, its own inherent beauty. (Ruskin, Stones 452) Once more, Ruskin assumes, as did his predecessors before, that architecture’s objective is a perfect creature that requires nothing less than it has and can accept nothing more without loss, that is, without ceasing to be autonomous and singular. However, this time, in deviation from the path followed by many before, the desired perfection is said to be the accumulative result of ornamentation. In what amounts to reappropriation and assimilation of ornament—not unlike the ugly before it—within the limits of the domain of the beautiful, beauty and ornament here are said to be interchangeable words. In this discourse, in other words, the addition of ornament no longer yields the traditional result: beauty + ornament, but an untraditional one indeed: beauty alone. Yet, despite

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its internalization as another word for beauty, ornament or rather a particular kind of it here remains extraneous as before. Not all ornaments are productive of beauty or interchangeable with it as a word. Refuting the traditional distinction between beauty and ornament as a misunderstanding of the limits of the architecture’s terrain, that is, of what falls inside or outside it, Ruskin effectively re-positions or re-draws these limits to incorporate ornament as an interchangeable word for beauty. He re-proposes the distinction between things that fall inside or outside architecture as one appropriately made between two kinds of ornament: the inner or the only true kind that is conducive to beauty and the outward or untrue kind that is extraneous and dispensable. With the inner kind, the one that is now said to be a part of the architecture, architects have to do. With the outward kind, the kind that is not the architecture, they are to have nothing to do. It is of curtains, pictures, statues, things that may be taken away from the building and not hurt it—things that fall outside and are, as such, unrelated and unnecessary to inner loveliness. However, as we shall see later, curtains, paintings, statues, and similar ornaments are not inherently outward or necessarily apart from architecture. Within limits that remain to be defined, placed, or drawn, each could be an inner ornament and, as such productive of beauty. The place of each within or without as ornament inner or outward depends on a line the drawing of which is as “necessary” at the “outset” of this inquiry into the ways and means of attaining perfection as it was at the outset of all previous inquiries. This is the line marking, as always, the separation of the inner from the outer, the inside from the outside of the subject at hand—here, ornament, beauty, architecture. Hence, here as well, at the outset, we need first and foremost, so Ruskin tells us, “to determine a matter of very essential importance, namely, what is or is not ornament” which is also to determine what is or is not beauty, what is or is not ugly, and therefore what is or is not architecture or more aptly what fits within or without its limits. With ornament or ornamentation, once again, comes the question of place or placing and as such, as always, of lines, limits, or borders between the inside and the outside of beauty and architecture. This is a question to which answer, despite the appropriation of ornament within, shall prove no mere matter of ease in this as in previous discourses. To determine what is ornament before and as the condition of the determination of its place inside or outside of architecture, first—the irony of the assertion withstanding—Ruskin asks us to consider what is not ornament or interchangeably, what is not beauty. This is because afterward, “what ornament is, will without difficulty be determined by the application of the same test” (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 154). First, therefore, of what is not ornament, or those “ugly things, the expense of which ought in truth to be set down in the architect’s contract, as ‘For Monstrification’” (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 154). Of these, Ruskin asserts, the “Greek fret,” if not all “degraded classic and Renaissance” ornaments (Ruskin, Stones 253) is “exactly a case in point.” It so happens that in crystals of bismuth formed by the unagitated cooling of the melted metal, there occurs a natural resemblance of it almost perfect.

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But crystals of bismuth not only are of unusual occurrence in every-day life, but their form is, as far as I know, unique among minerals; and not only unique, but only attainable by an artificial process, the metal itself never being found pure. . . . On this ground, then, I allege that ornament to be ugly; or, in the literal sense of the word, monstrous; different from anything which it is the nature of man to admire. (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 143) The ground for determination of what is not ornament is the same as that for determination of what is ugly. It is the rare occurrence of its form in nature, on the one hand, and the artificiality of the production of its form, its unnatural or human production, on the other. The authority of this assertion is derived from that divine ordinance which has made it the nature of man not to admire rare forms or forms produced unnaturally, but only take recourse to them for determination of what is ornament or beauty, by an ordained necessity. Of rarity of form as a mark of monstrosity, we have been warned before. However, the artificial or human production of form marks the breaking of new ground to determine the same. Although, in a fashion, humans are said to have been fashioned after the image of God and as such, within these limits or because of them, capable of invention or composition of beautiful forms, nevertheless, forms produced by them artificially or, for that matter, in imitation of natural forms of frequent occurrence, constitute forms proper only to what is not ornament. This is because whatever ornament bears the form of things made by man amounts, in Ruskin’s opinion, to nothing but “a miserable self-complacency, a contentment in our own wretched doings, when we might have been looking at God’s doings” (Ruskin, Stones 264). Hence, the Greek fret as well as any other ornament whose form is in imitation of works of man, including “architecture,” “shipping,” “instruments of agriculture and the arts,” “armor,” and the like (Ruskin, Stones 256), do not and within the boundaries of this frame of thought cannot constitute what is ornament. This is because each points to a form or a composition that is human in its origin or original formation, and nothing, within the boundaries of this frame of thought, can be beautiful or inwardly ornamental that is not or does not point to a divine origin—be this in form or in production. The very pleasure of beauty—hence of what is ornament—was said, at the outset, to be owing to the “evidence” it gives of its “Divine origin” and nothing else. Hence, this solid ground for determination of what is not ornament. Having determined what it is not, determining what ornament is was said to follow the “application of the same test.” And so it does: For observe, the function of ornament is to make you happy. Now in what are you rightly happy? Not in thinking of what you have done yourself; not in your own pride, not your own birth; not in your own being, or your

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own will, but in looking at God; watching what He has done, what He is; and obeying His law and yielding yourself to His will. You are to be made happy by ornaments; therefore, they must be the expression of all this. Not copies of your own handiwork; not boastings of your own grandeur; not heraldries; not king’s arms, nor any creature’s arms, but God’s arm, seen in His work. Not manifestations of your own delight in your own laws, or your own liberties, or your own inventions; but in divine laws, constant, daily, common laws;—not composite laws, nor Doric laws, nor laws of the five orders, but of the Ten Commandments. (Ruskin, Stones 264–65) Therefore, Ruskin goes on to conclude, “the proper material of ornament will be whatever God has created; and its proper treatment, that which seems in accordance with or symbolic of His laws.” Such then is the diference between what is and what is not ornament. Once again, the determination of what is as opposed to its negation mandates a divine intervention. Without this intervention, the desired “limits” shall remain obscure in a land that is “dusky and debatable.” However, having turned the “shadow” back and exposed the dividing “limits” between “contraries,” it is evident to Ruskin that all that is imitative of divine creation—all natural and frequent forms, are ornamental in nature. Each is endowed with a certain degree of nobleness in accord with the nobility of the imitated creation. Hence, “imitated flowers are nobler than imitated stones, imitated animals, than flowers; imitated human form of all animal forms the noblest” (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 154). Ruskin’s fusion of aesthetics and theology is, here as elsewhere, both overt and forceful. Ruskin scholars broadly contribute this fusion to his deepseated religious convictions.19 Ruskin is, of course, quite candid on the subject. However, it is important to recall that the fusion of aesthetics and theology in architecture has a long history. It begins well before and continues well after Ruskin. Theoretical speculations of Pugin, Boulleé, Laugier, Wotton, Palladio, and Alberti from one end of the spectrum to Sullivan, Wright, and Le Corbusier on the other, are just a few examples. There is, in other words, more to this story than the strong religious convictions of any one individual. Theoretical and aesthetic speculations on architecture are, historically, if not perforce, both prescriptive and proscriptive. They impose distinct boundaries. They seek to delimit the practice of architecture, in each instance, to the one mode or style particularly arranged to embody and promote the worldview of the culture voicing the theory through the author and/or the architect. This delimitation is accomplished, and perhaps it can only be accomplished, in the name of beauty and truth, rather than ulterior—cultural, social, or political— motives. It is presented to be not arbitrary but following “immutable laws.” The power of exclusion that is imperative to the delimitation of practice mandates this transformation of culture into nature and the variable into the invariable.

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In other words, as we previously discussed, universalizing the particular with recourse to theology and thereby disguising culture as nature is not a choice that can be readily avoided, given the intended purpose of the enterprise. For instance, what Ruskin propagates as an aesthetic architecture—Venetian or High Victorian Gothic—indubitably reflects the cultural and historical context within which it was formed. However, placing the weight of his authority to prescribe this and proscribe other modes of design on a divine ordinance has a strategic utility in excess of his particular religious convictions. He prescribes curvilinear forms not because they had, as they did, a particular meaning to a particular culture at a distinct point in time, but because they bear the seal, or impress of a divine character, truly, naturally, exclusively, and eternally. The beautiful has no overt place in the vagaries of the cultural terrain for another important reason. In language, which Ruskin proposes art and architecture to be, there is no positive term, no original event, and no autonomous element, as Saussure pointed out long ago (Saussure). Difference with a deferred other constitutes the identity, or what is not absolutely different, the non-identity of every element. In language, nothing simply is what it is, immutable and present. A “perfect creature capable of nothing less than it has, and needing nothing more,” that is, a creature that is self-referential and autonomous has no place in language. This immutable creature may only emerge and find shelter on a theological terrain—the terrain of simple presences, clear origins, and explicit hierarchies. So long as one conceives and defines the objective of architecture as a perfect creature capable of nothing less than it has and needing nothing more, one has little choice but to resort to and place architecture within a theological frame. Placing and securing beauty’s place within this frame is not, however, without considerable difficulties. Returning to the question of what is ornament, Ruskin concludes from his observations that “all perfectly beautiful forms,” all forms inwardly ornamental, “must be composed of curves; since there is hardly any common natural form in which it is possible to discover a straight line” (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 145). All perfectly beautiful forms, whether natural or directly imitated from nature, are composed of curves because, Ruskin asserts, unlike straight lines, “every curve divides itself infinitely by its change of direction,” displaying as such the “seal” or “impress” of that “divine character” or “attribute” it is ordained to bear as the source of the pleasure it is said to give, and that is: “infinity.” Architecture, however, “essential to its purpose in many instances and to the expression of power in others” (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 145), must necessarily take recourse to straight lines. To avoid falling without the limits marked, Ruskin, in such instances, “compelled to do violence to her finished work” recommends us to “break through the sculptured, and colored surfaces of her crags” (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 145) and examine the process of “crystallization” in nature where “admitted for the sake of sublimity or contrast” (Ruskin, Modern Painters II 88), straight lines as such are to be discovered. Of these, Ruskin recommends imitating the most common crystalline forms that are naturally formed to assure the frequency of the form, on the one hand,

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and its divine production, on the other; all thus within limits set for what is ornament or ornamental. At this point, all may appear well secured within: the beautiful pleasing and the ugly in clear contrast reassuring of what is and what is not ornament, and what is and what is not naturally frequent. It may appear that we can now move on to mark the difference between “inner” ornamentation as it is opposed to “extraneous or superfluous” decoration and the inwardly ornamental as opposed to the outwardly decorative. Yet despite Ruskin’s constructive efforts or perhaps due to the very necessity of such efforts, there remains a disgusting type, noted earlier, that is neither simply beautiful nor simply ugly, neither the bearer of a “seal” in any amount known or of one simply in any amount unknown. There remain certain “false forms of decoration which are most dangerous in our modern architecture as being legal and accepted.” These are certain dangerous forms of which Ruskin feels compelled to write “rather for the barren satisfaction of bearing witness against them, than with hope of inducing any serious convictions to their prejudice” (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 154). Of these hopelessly dangerous false forms of decoration that are not understood for what they indeed are, the Greek fret is one instance already noted, and of other instances, Ruskin writes: If any one part of heraldic decoration be worse than another, it is the motto; since, of all things unlike nature, the forms of letters are, perhaps, the most so. Even graphic tellurium and felspar look, at their clearest, anything but legible. All letters are, therefore, to be considered as frightful things, and to be endured only upon occasion; that is to say, in places where the sense of the inscription is of more importance than external ornament. Inscriptions in churches, in rooms, and on pictures, are often desirable, but they are not to be considered as architectural or pictorial ornaments: they are on the contrary, obstinate offenses to the eye, not to be suffered except when their intellectual office introduces them. Place them, therefore, where they will be read, and there only; and let them be plainly written, and not turned upside down, nor wrong end first. It is an ill sacrifice to beauty to make that illegible whose only merit is in its sense. (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 147) Even graphic tellurium and felspar fail to provide Ruskin sufcient ground for the motto’s inclusion as an ornament. However, it is not on the sole ground of being most unlike anything in nature that Ruskin feels compelled to bear witness against the motto as a false form of decoration that is “most dangerous” in “modern architecture.” If simply external to frequent nature, the motto would only be reassuring. Negations within the confines of this frame of thought are always indicative of clear borders and secured limits. So long as the motto remains or rather can be retained in place as a frightful obstinate ofense to the eye, Ruskin, for the sake of its sense, can sufer its presence with a certain pleasure in amounts unknown. It is only when the motto ceases to be frightful and

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an obstinate ofense to the eye, that is, when with a “dash” or a “tail,” turned upside down or wrong end first, the motto is stripped of its sense, which is its only merit, and given an ornamental role in spite of being unlike any form frequent in nature, that Ruskin declares it a false form of decoration. It is then that he vehemently warns of the danger posed by this and all other false forms of decoration to the limits, at the limits, here between the beautiful and the ugly. When the motto is given to assume the decorative role that by a divine ordinance is delimited to its other—the beautiful or the naturally frequent—it passes, most dangerously, beyond the limits of its place not simply to a presumed, presumable side beyond, but to that “dusky debatable land” from where Ruskin has sought it and its other refuge in the light of the lamp of beauty. This is that dusky debatable land wherein the frightful becomes ornamental, the ugly beautiful, and “each and all vanish into gloom” for want of a line or a limit. To obviate the danger of this passage, which is the passage of limits always already, Ruskin recommends the proper placement of the motto where it can be read as what it indeed is, thus within limits. Yet where exactly is this place, and what in turn secures its limits? The question is raised by what has been thought a possible place: the scroll. Ruskin begins with an examination of its form. Inscriptions appear sometimes to be introduced for the sake of the scroll on which they are written; and in late and modern painted glass, as well as in architecture, these scrolls are flourished and turned hither and thither as if they were ornamental. (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 148) The scroll whose form apparently calls for inscription, not unlike the form of letters, turned hither and thither, has also appeared in architecture as if it was ornamental. Yet, the question to be asked, as Ruskin asks it, is whether the scroll is indeed an ornamental form proper or, turned hither and thither, it too is a dangerous violation of the inner limits of the domain of the beautiful by a “false” appearance? The answer lies, and could only lie in that all too faithful “test”: Is there anything like ribbands in nature? It might be thought that grass and sea-weed afforded apologetic types. They do not. There is a wide difference between their structure and that of a ribband. They have a skeleton, an anatomy, a central rib, or fiber, or framework of some kind or another, which has a beginning and an end, a root and head, and whose make and strength effects every direction of their motion, and every line of their form. The loosest weed that drifts and waves under the heaving of the sea, or hangs heavily on the brown and slippery shore, has a marked strength, structure, elasticity, gradation of substance; its extremities are more finely fibered than its center, its center than its root; every fork of its ramification is measured and proportioned; every wave of its languid lines is love. It has

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its allotted size, and place, and function; it is a specific creature. What is there like this in a ribband? (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 148–49) The answer is, as we may suspect, nothing. However, unlike the motto, the problem with the scroll is not exactly unnatural form or naturally infrequent form. Like the form of all “true” ornaments, the form of the ribband or scroll is composed of curves. If anywhere, it is perhaps in this similarity and not in the form as such that the problem here lies. Grass and seaweed, as they might be thought, could indeed provide apologetic formal types, and remote as any formal resemblance maybe in the end, there is nothing inherently wrong with this type of apology provided as a ground for inclusion. For instance, Ruskin tells us that by way of ornamentation, “the line or curve of the edge of a leaf may be accurately given to the edge of a stone, without rendering the stone in the least like a leaf, or suggestive of a leaf ” (Ruskin, Stones 267), or it might be added, that of grass or sea-weed to the edge of the scroll. Yet, in this instance, the practice does not apply, and the ribband, despite its natural form, for want of a framework of some kind or another, falls on neither side of any established limit. It does not because the ribband, unlike either grass or seaweed, unlike any and all “true” ornaments, despite its curvilinear form, so Ruskin tells us, has neither a beginning nor an end that could as such efect every direction of its motion and every line of its form from within. The scroll has neither a center nor, with respect to it, any extremities as such that could thus allot it a place within the boundaries of this frame of thought as a specific creature. The Ribband: Has no structure: it is a succession of cut threads all alike; it has no skeleton, no make, no form, no size, no will of its own. You cut it and crush it into what you will. It has no strength, no languor. It cannot fall into a single graceful form. It cannot wave, in the true sense but only flutter: it cannot bend, in the true sense, but only turn and be wrinkled. It is a vile thing; it spoils all that is near its wretched film of an existence. Never use it. Let the flowers come loose if they cannot keep together without being tied; leave the sentence unwritten if you cannot write it on a tablet or book, or plain roll of paper. I know what authority there is against me. I remember the scrolls of Perugino’s angels, and the ribbands of Raphael’s arabesques, and of Ghiberti’s glorious bronze flowers: no matter; they are every one of them vices and uglinesses. Raphael usually felt this, and used an honest and rational tablet, as in the Madonna di Fuligno. I do not say there is any type of such tablets in nature, but all the difference lies in the fact that the tablet is not considered as an ornament, and the ribband, or flying scroll, is. The tablet, as in Albert Durer’s Adam and Eve, is introduced for the sake of the writing, understood and allowed as an ugly but necessary interruption. The scroll is extended as an ornamental form, which it is not, nor ever can be. (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 149)

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The ribband has no form—nothing that is properly its own. It is a formless form, a form without a form, an unprecedented “body” without a “soul” formed not from within as all bodies in nature bearing the external “seal” or “impress” of their inner “soul” or even bodies imitative of nature and as such “suggestive” of the same, but from without always in the absence of an internal will, framework, structure or skeleton. The scroll has no make or maker but is forever in the making. It has no will of its own but can be willed into any form and yet no single graceful form. It can be anything, but as such is forever nothing. It must never be used because it spoils all that is near its wretched film of an existence. This is all that is within limits, that is, all possessing a beginning and an end, a clear center, and well-defined extremities. This is that “most dangerous” problem posed by the scroll. Though it is said to be an ugly thing or nothing, the scroll is simply neither. If it was, it would not be either a vile, a vice, or a most dangerous form. If it is felt to be so, that is because in the ribband, as in all other false forms of decoration, lies a diference. Unlike other uglinesses that are allowed appearance as such most reassuringly, the scroll does not and is not. An ornamental form, on the other hand, it also is not, nor ever can be. If it could, for reasons discussed under the lamp of truth, it would always be the form of beauty or ornament impressed and sealed from within that is not, nor ever can be. If a false thing or anything could appear ornamental, bearing neither the “seal” nor the “impress” of an inner will in any amount known, the very “seal” or “impress” that is said to be the condition of presence of beauty and pleasure, as well as the mark of its difference, then the true appearance of ornament or beauty could never be subjected and sealed within limits as the appearance of a “seal” or an “impress,” that is, as the appearance of what is and is thus real or ideal. This gap, if allowed, cannot be bridged and sealed. This one difference, if permitted, cannot be reduced to and mastered as opposition on the sides of a limit or any limit. This is the one “wide difference” that disallows the assimilation of the scroll as an ornament within. Chased beyond the limits of the domain of the beautiful as a false form of decoration, however, the scroll, not unlike that other form of false decoration—ornamental inscription—does not simply pass to a presumed, presumable side beyond. Between it and the ugly, there also remains a difference that disallows its assimilation within this latter domain as well. Separated from both the beautiful and the ugly, and in separating itself from both the beautiful and the ugly, the scroll remains, nevertheless, inseparable from both at once. Chased from either domain, it leads Ruskin not beyond the limit of either domain, beyond the line separating the two as “contraries,” but to the limit itself, that is to say, to the absence of its clarity in that “dusky debatable land” where a difference at once separates and binds, produces and destroys the “contraries” as such in a form that is “no form” in a place that is no “allotted . . . place.” The scroll, this vile thing, spoils all that is near its wretched film of an existence. It spoils because it neither simply attaches nor simply detaches itself from all that is near its wretched film of an existence. Lacking the “seal” of the one and the appearance of the other, the scroll detaches itself from both the

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beautiful and the ugly and at that from each as the other. To each, the scroll bears the very “necessary” difference that is said to constitute the identity and the condition of identifiability of the beautiful or the ugly, and each as the opposite of the other. However, bearing the appearance of one and the “seal” of the other in amounts unknown, the scroll remains at once attached to both the beautiful and the ugly and to each as the same. As such, it at once denies the conception of the very identity its difference brings to all that is near its thus wretched film of an existence. This is the identity of opposites or “contraries” on two sides of a line, a limit, or any limit. What this or, for that matter, any false form of decoration spoils is the very line or limit it produces in a place or rather no place marked by the absence of a clear limit or any limit that is not introduced and effaced in the same gesture. Wherever the scroll appears, it spoils. There is, and there can be no place, no “allotted . . . place,” within the confines of this frame of thought, where the scroll ceases to raise the very questions it has raised for this frame of thought— the questions of “beginning” and “end,” “center” and “extremities,” and lines and limits—without leaving the possibility of any authoritative answer as yet another and at that the one all-consuming desire. Having no place to allot the scroll, Ruskin must thus disallow its use, even at the cost of a certain challenge to established authority. This is because in this wretched film of an existence lies at stake the authority of this discourse and in danger of spoilage the very limits it has thus far ever so carefully constructed or brought to “light.” For want of a place or any possibility of placement, as such always within limits, Ruskin must proscribe the scroll as a false form of decoration. He must leave of its kind only that which he can place, limit or delimit, that is to say, only that which he can frame or dream of framing, e.g., inscription inscribed within an honest and rational tablet, a “book” or a “plain roll of paper.” The rational and honest tablet, book, or paper that here secures the possibility of inclusion of inscription, understood and allowed as an ugly but necessary interruption, or a simple negation without the difference it might otherwise have with a “dash” or a “tail,” plays a familiar role. It acts in that very manner in which under the “Lamp of Truth,” a “border composed of flat colored patterns” was said to secure the inclusion of representation—understood as such and thus allowed—within the constructed limits of this frame of thought. So long as the inscription is placed and secured within limits where it might be understood as what it indeed is—a negation of beauty and nothing else—so long, that is, as it is placed on a ground which Ruskin can easily detach from the background, as the unnatural from the natural, it can remain. Else, it too for want of a limit or any limit must be effaced for the sake of order and of clearly seen borders. Yet another case in point is drapery which, once again, within limits, can also be allowed an ornamental role: But it will be said that all this want of organization and form might be affirmed of drapery also, and that this latter is a noble subject of sculpture.

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By no means. . . . Drapery, as such, is always ignoble; it becomes a subject of interest only by the colors it bears, and the impressions which it receives from some foreign form or force. Thus treated, drapery is indeed noble; but it is as an exponent of other and higher things. . . . But drapery trusted to its own merits, and given for its own sake . . . is always base. (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 151) The drapery’s very want of organization and form or rather of organized form, that is, of forms sealed and impressed by a higher thing in amounts known or unknown, was afrmed of the scroll and the ribband, mandating their deprecation. The drapery, however, is not subject to the same, though only insofar as it is made to bear the form of some higher force, as all things in nature, beautiful or ugly, are made to bear the “impress” or “seal” of a higher “soul” in amounts known or unknown.20 In particular, as an exponent of “motion” or “gravitation”—drapery “being literally the only means we have of fully representing this mysterious natural force” (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 151)—drapery could be allowed an ornamental role, though only within these limits as an exponent of other and higher things. On the other hand, if trusted to its own merits and given for its own sake, for the sake of its form, which is “no form,” the drapery shall remain base and impermissible as the scroll. The line that is said to separate drapery from drapery as a true ornament from a vile and false ornament bearing a “difference,” the very line also separating all natural forms, beautiful or ugly, from the scroll, as well as ornamentation from the ornamental inscription, is a line that in separating truth from deception, also separates the forms that have “form” from the forms that have “no form.” The latter difference is in a manner the difference at issue in the separation of “vital” imitation from “dead” imitation, of “man-made” ornamentation from those made by machines, as well as the sacrificial form given as an expression of gratitude from the sacrificial form appearing as form bearing no expression. In each of these and other instances of the same, a certain absence or loss of an animating thought, will, or intention in form or formation marks the ground for condemnation. This is a certain absence or loss formulated and conceived in each instance as a danger that mandates not only identification and separation but also deprecation and eradication of its source. This is owing to the dangerous effect of formless forms or forms with “no form” on the possibility of forms sealed and impressed by the thought, will, or intention proceeding from within, center, beginning, or origin. This is the dangerous effect of forms for which this frame of thought that can only conceive of form, be they beautiful or ugly, as formed, that is, as the “impress” or “seal” of inner thought, will, or intention in amounts known and unknown, or as otherwise formulated of no form for which an example may not be found in some part of the universe, has no name and no allotted, allottable place. These are forms unformed, deformed, never formed, forever forming. Such is the form or no form of danger and disgust within the boundaries of this frame of thought.

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What this frame of thought cannot accept within or without its constructed limits, that is, the forms it cannot realize or idealize as beautiful or ugly are forms that resist formation or a formative origin. It is forms that defy formation mastered in the name of inner thought, original will, or singular intentions. It is forms that for want of a name or a place, any conceivable name or place, this frame of thought has no choice but to treat as negation and refer to as ugly with one only difference that necessitates their deprecation and effacement.21 This is a difference that does not allow their realization or idealization as the form either of a seal or its withholding in reserve. The condition of possibility of form/formed is the effacement of forms with no name or place within the bounds of this frame of thought. He might, Ruskin tells us, “proceed, but the task is a weary one”: I think I have named those false forms of decoration which are most dangerous in our modern architecture as being legal and accepted. The barbarisms of individual fancy are as countless as they are contemptible; they neither admit attack nor are worth it; but these above named are countenanced, some by the practice of antiquity, all by high authority: they have depressed the proudest, and contaminated the purest schools. (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 154) Having named the nameless or the formless a false form of decoration—the dangerous form or “no form” of contamination—and placed it or displaced it to its allotted place which is no place, and having as such also named, or what amounts to the same, placed what is not ornament in a place where it appears as what it indeed is—a frightful, obstinate ofense to the eye—what remains, Ruskin tells us, is to determine the “place of ornament,” the place where all that is gathered or imitated from frequent nature are to be placed in architecture to bring it beauty and the onlooker pleasure. Where is this place where ornaments may appear as what they indeed are—the sealed impression of divine attributes, pure and simple—and where are we, in turn, to find its limits? Bearing in mind that in architecture, each ornament constitutes a re-writing of “the written or sealed impression” of a naturally frequent form that need first be “sought out” through “deliberate examination” and “direct intellectual exertion” (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 155), that each ornament is “an expression of a beautiful thought”—the thoughts or divine attributes impressed and sealed on natural forms of frequent occurrence, for example, infinity in the case of curvilinear forms—Ruskin asks us to: Consider for an instant what would be the effect of continually repeating an expression of a beautiful thought to any other of the senses at times when the mind could not address that sense to the understanding of it. Suppose that in time of serious occupation, of stern business, a companion

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should repeat in our ears continually some favorite passage of poetry, over and over again all day long. (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 155–56) The efect “at the end of the day,” Ruskin tells us, is that “the entire meaning of the passage would be dead to us,” leaving behind only a sickening and wearisome form or rather “no form” because here form is to be disallowed the name without meaning or thought. Repetition incurs a loss. This is not only of meaning, but also of form, and “it is the same with every other form of definite thought”: Apply this to expressions of thought received by the eye. Remember that the eye is at your mercy more than the ear. “The eye it cannot choose but see.” . . . Now if you present lovely forms to it when it cannot call the mind to help it in its work, and among objects of vulgar use and unhappy position, you will neither please the eye nor elevate the vulgar object. But you will fill and weary the eye with the beautiful form, and you will infect that form itself with the vulgarity of the thing to which you have violently attached it. It will never be of much use to you any more; you have killed or defiled it; its freshness and purity are gone. (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 156) Thus, the place of ornament has everything to do with its life or worth conceived and defined as the presence of “meaning” or “definite thought” in form. As the worth of inscription was said to depend on its place—worthless or “meaningless” on a scroll or in the company of a dash or a tail and of worth within a “tablet,” a “book,” or a “plain roll of paper,” that is, within a frame or a frame-up—so the worth of ornament depends on its place. Placed in the company of vulgar objects—conceived as a violent gesture—or in places of “active and occupied life,” where no aid could be received from the mind, ornament loses its freshness, purity, “sharpness,” and “clearness.” It is infected, defiled, killed, and destroyed forever. Hence then a general law, of singular importance in the present day, a law of simple common sense,—not to decorate things belonging to purposes of active and occupied life. Wherever you can rest, there decorate; where rest is forbidden, so is beauty. (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 156–57) The determination of what is or what is not the place of ornament follows, not accidentally, the application of the same test determining what is or is not true ornament: the presence versus the absence of “meaning” or “definite thought,” meaningful form versus “meaningless” form, or form versus “no form.” Where meaning can be perceived, that is the place for ornament. Where ornament’s meaning is killed or defiled, where ornament becomes, by

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definition, what it is not—meaningless and as such lifeless and valueless—that is not. Contrary to common practice, for instance, ornaments that “adorn temples and beautify kings’ palaces” have no place on “a tradesman’s sign nor shelf nor counter in all the streets of all our cities” (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 157). There—all socio-political implications and all socio-political lines and limits at stake withstanding—Ruskin tells us, “absolutely valueless—utterly without the power of giving pleasure, they only satiate the eye, and vulgarize their own forms” (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 157). Hence, that “general law” of “singular importance” that is to end vulgarity and violence, on the one hand, and the absolute loss of value and aesthetic pleasure, on the other. This is not only because misplacement here constitutes a negation but also because the misplaced cannot be contained within that place as a simple negation. True ornaments, misplaced, not only satiate the eye, lose their meaning, purity, life, and value, but in so doing, they also, as a matter of “singular importance,” vulgarize their own forms. Of the ornaments “violently attached,” for instance, to the signs, shelves or counters of tradesmen, Ruskin writes, “many of these are in themselves thoroughly good copies of fine things, which things themselves we shall never, in consequence, enjoy any more” (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 157). The consequence of misplacement is not a simple inability to read a “beautiful thought” at a given time or place. Rather, it is the impossibility of reading, if not always already, at least thereafter at any time or in any place. Once violently attached anywhere but its place, ornament can never be enjoyed anymore or in any place. Misplaced, ornament is forever displaced—dispossessed of its meaning in every place. Placed outside its place, that is, outside the limits protective, if not productive, of its meaning, what ornament loses is not only its place inside but the very possibility of being placed inside (limits). This passage is the passage of limits, leaving a violated, vulgarized, valueless form or “no form” inside and outside. It is a death or an absence that is not—can no longer be conceived—the opposite of life or presence still in place but the impossibility of both in every place. What is the condition of this possibility or impossibility? How can the good copy destroy the original? How can a form whose power to please was said from the outset to be due to the “written or sealed impression” it bears of divine attributes be denied that power inside or outside its place? In sum, why the very question of place? To appear or be read as what it indeed is—a meaning-full or a formed form— ornament, Ruskin tells us, must be placed—retained—in its place. The condition of this possibility is the impossibility of the form ornament is desired to be—the written or sealed impression of a beautiful thought—in its place or any place. The meaning of ornament, that is, its reading as form(ed), could only be said to depend on its place—formed in one, de-formed in another—if this form did not precede its place or its reading in place as the form of a seal or an impress, if there was no place where ornament appeared formed or, for that matter, where it did not appear informed by its place or placement. The good copy, misplaced,

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could only deprive the original of its value if that value was not intrinsic but construed in place. That ornament must forgo the possibility of bearing the form of a seal in every place in order to appear or be read as the form of a seal in its place is precisely what the misplaced ornament points to. If Ruskin finds it impossible to enjoy ornament, once it is misplaced, any more or in any place, if he can no longer read it as the written or sealed impression of a beautiful thought in any place, that is precisely because the misplaced, the very possibility of misplacement, which is also the very possibility of placement—the possibility of dependence of meaning on place or placement—displaces the relationship between meaning and form, conceived and read as a seal or an impress, always already. Misplaced, ornament fractures its own seal, exposing a gap in its place between form and meaning, which Ruskin confessedly can never re-seal. It points to its reading, if not reading in general, as a matter of place or placement and to the latter as a form, always already, of misplacement, if, of course, misplacement here is to imply a reading that is conditioned by its place or placement—a reading that marks a violence and vulgarity that must always have befallen placement already as the condition of possibility of reading form as (de)form(ed). So long as form could be misplaced, so long as the reading of form is dependent on its place, every place is the missing/missed place of the desired seal. Therefore, where the misplaced or rather the possibility of (mis)placement leads Ruskin is, in a manner, his point of departure, and what it leaves him is what he had to start with: a displaced form or a form with “no form.” This is no form for which the metaphysics of presence has or could have an allotted place. This is no form which in order to be read, to give itself to a particular reading, be this as a true or a false form, a living or a dead form, a pure or a violated form, need not have been placed—as within a frame—and this is only in the absence of a place or any place for reading that does not always point to a placement already. Therefore, to read the ornamental form as the written or sealed impression of a beautiful thought, which is a reading, we should note, already placed within a theological frame as the condition of its possibility, Ruskin must again place and then insist on the placement of the ornamental form in its place— the place of rest—for fear of the misplaced. This place, however, provides no relief. It provides neither simply a background nor a protective shield against which or within which the ornamental form can give its form to reading as the form of a seal, pure and simple. What this place provides, it denies by the same gesture. If it marks the place where ornament appears sealed, it also marks the place of its disappearance as sealed. It gives to the ornamental form what the form lacks without its protective limits, and it gives precisely because the form lacks. It adds and fills only to expose a gap. It intervenes and does only to construe from outside the seal that is desired to have come from inside and the seal that then appears to have come from inside. As such, ornament in its place—the place of rest—has, in a manner, no place. It is neither in place nor out of place. It is neither protected nor exposed, but both in one and the same place. It is at once placed, misplaced, and displaced.

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Where then to place ornament? Where indeed is ornament’s place? Where is the place in the place of rest where the desired seal falls in place or, for that matter, out of place? Where to locate ornament its desired place indeterminable— here or there—in its place—the place of rest? The answer—the very possibility of providing an answer—as we may expect, requires still further placement and/or displacement. It requires further separation, distinction, and opposition on two sides of a line called to place in what amounts to a perpetual placement in search of the ever missing/missed place. This time at the limits of the domain of architecture, on two sides of the line that was said to separate what falls inside architecture as “inner” and “true” ornamentation from what falls outside it as “outward” or “superfluous” decoration. Ruskin tells us: If to produce a good or beautiful ornament, it were only necessary to produce a perfect piece of sculpture, and if a well cut group of flowers or animals were indeed an ornament wherever it might be placed, the work of architect would be comparatively easy. Sculpture and architecture would become separate arts; and the architect would order so many pieces of such subject and size as he needed. . . . But this is not so. No perfect piece either of painting or sculpture is an architectural ornament at all, except in that vague sense in which any beautiful thing is said to ornament the place it is in. Thus we may say that pictures ornament a room; but we should not thank an architect who told us that his design, to be complete, required a Titian to be put in one corner of it, and a Velasquez in the other; and it is just as unreasonable to call perfect sculpture, niched in, or encrusted on a building, a portion of the ornament of that building, as it would be to hang pictures by the way of ornament on the outside of it. (Ruskin, Stones 284) Therefore, no beautiful thing is an ornament in anything but a vague sense, if in its place, the place of rest, it is wherever it might be placed. A good or a beautiful ornament, which is, appears, and is read as such in its place, is one and only one that in the place of rest has or could be assigned a specific place. However, to this place, the place of ornament in its place, there is first a condition to admission. No perfect ornament can be allowed in as an architectural ornament. Perfection places ornament outside the domain of architecture as decoration “outward” or “superfluous.” As to what may allow ornament in, Ruskin tells us: The especial condition of true ornament is, that it be beautiful in its place, and nowhere else, and that it aid the effect of every portion of the building over which it has influence; that it does not, by its richness, make other parts bald, or, by its delicacy, make other parts coarse. Every one of its qualities has reference to its place and use: and it is fitted for its service by what would be faults and deficiencies if it had no especial duty. Ornament, the servant, is often formal, where sculpture, the master, would

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have been free; the servant is often silent where the master would have been eloquent . . . How far this subordination is in different situations to be expressed, or how far it may be surrendered, and ornament, the servant, be permitted to have independent will; and by what means the subordination is best to be expressed when it is required, are by far the most difficult question I have ever tried to work out respecting any branch of art. (Ruskin, Stones 284–85) The place of ornament in its place, which is the only place where it might appear beautiful, is a place marked by deficiency and fault, and there the condition of ornament’s admission is imperfection. The objective here, the very point of ornamentation or ornamental addition to architecture, we should recall, is to create “a perfect creature capable of nothing less than it has, and needing nothing more” (Ruskin, Stones 452). Where ornament that is inner and true fits in its place is at that borderline between the capacity for nothing less and the need for nothing more—the line bordering the perfect. Where ornament fits is where it adds to complete as a part to a self-enclosing, selfperfecting chain of imperfect parts. Admitting ornament on the condition of imperfection, Ruskin makes a virtue of a vice. He denies himself perfection in part only to gain it in the whole. He denies ornament a place, any place where it might be beautiful, only to place it in the only place where it might be beautiful. Whereas the perfect ornament is tied to no specific place, which is to say that it could always be misplaced and as such displaced, to the imperfect ornament, every place is a missed place, unless it is in the only place from where it cannot be misplaced. This is the only place that excludes the possibility of misplacement in being the only place where the imperfect appears as a good or beautiful form or what amounts to the same, where it does not appear as what it is outside that place—bad and ugly. This then is the place of ornament inner and true in its place. A “most difcult question,” however, remains. Where to locate the parameters of this place or rather within what parameters to place this place: the place of deficiency and fault fitted with imperfection in the place of rest? What to define as deficiency or fault and what to admit in as imperfection? Where to draw the line between the master and the servant, the perfect and the imperfect, the “inner” ornamentation, and the “superfluous” decoration? Though these are indeed difcult questions, the difculty does not dissuade Ruskin in any way. He begins with an inquiry “into the characters which fitted” ornament “peculiarly for architectural appliance, and into the principles of choice and of arrangement which best regulate the imitation of natural forms in which it consists” (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 162). Though the “full answering of these questions,” Ruskin tells us, “would be a treatise on the art of design”—not to mention the difculty contingent on the task—Ruskin chooses to address two characteristics that are essentially architectural: “Proportion and Abstraction” (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 162).

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To the “perfection of all things,” Ruskin tells us, “the appearance of some species of unity is in the most determined sense of the word essential” and this for no reason other than the fact that in united forms lies sealed a divine attribute: unity (Ruskin, Modern Painters II 94). Of the many “species of unity,” Ruskin tells us, the “unity of things separately imperfect into a perfect whole,” that is, the “unity of membership” or “essential unity” is “the great unity of which other unities are but parts and means” (Ruskin, Modern Painters II 95). And it is to this unity that proportion, defined as “the connection of unequal quantities with each other,” points the way (Ruskin, Modern Painters II 126). Unity, Ruskin tells us, “cannot exist between things similar to each other” because “two or more equal and like things cannot be members one of another, nor can they form one, or a whole thing” (Ruskin, Modern Painters II 95). Although two equal things could have symmetry defined as “the opposition of equal quantities to each other,” and though symmetry bears the seal of “divine justice,” in symmetry there is no unity, only “equality.” For unity, three members are requisite, and at that, three unequal members united by the proportions they bear to one another. Therefore, proportion may be summed up as a question of connection between “three terms at least” and of those at least one member unequal to the others (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 168). The general rule is to “have one large thing and several small things, or one principal thing and several inferior things, and bind them well together” (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 164). As to how these unequal things are to be proportioned or bound well together for the sake of “essential unity,” that is, a perfect whole capable of nothing less and needing nothing more, Ruskin tells us: It is just as rational an attempt to teach a young architect how to proportion truly and well by calculating for him the proportions of fine works, as it would be to teach him to compose melodies by calculating the mathematical relations of the notes in Beethoven’s Adelaïde or Mozart’s Requiem. The man who has eye and intellect will invent beautiful proportions, and cannot help it; but he can no more tell us how to do it than Wordsworth could tell us how to write a sonnet, or than Scott could have told us how to plan a romance. (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 163) Proportion, we should note, is a question of invention and composition and as such of that “vested,” “awful, inexplicable power,” noted earlier, that defies explanation. To a vested few—the “men” who have eye and intellect—the laws of proportion and composition are known; to others, they shall remain inexplicable beyond the general rules noted. Hence, in the cause of unity and perfection, if not the desire for a place or the only place where ornament may be good or beautiful within architecture, each inner and true architectural ornament must be fitted to its place in a proportional relationship to the forms

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bordering and defining its place. However, the secret of constituting such a place is known only to a vested few. To others, it is a very difcult question: where to locate and how to fit ornament in the only place where it is good or beautiful, if not by divine intervention as a vested power to secretly constitute and fit ornament in its place? Although proportion is meant to tie ornament to its place as a part to a perfect whole, without abstraction, that second characteristic of architectural ornaments, the fit, remains incomplete. Architecture, Ruskin tells us, “delights in abstraction and fears to complete her forms” (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 162). These are the forms architecture borrows or imitates from natural forms of frequent occurrence. Architecture fears completion, however, not because completion or full realization of the imitated form is always “wrong,” or that perfect sculpture may not “be made a part of the severest architecture,” but because “this perfection” is “dangerous” (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 174). It is so in the highest degree; for the moment the architect allows himself to dwell on the imitated portions, there is a chance of his losing sight of the duty of ornament, of its business as a part of the composition, and sacrificing its points of shade and effect to the delight of delicate carving. And then he is lost. His architecture has become a mere framework for the setting of delicate sculpture, which had better be all taken down and put into cabinets. (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 174) Although a perfect ornament—perfect insofar as the realization of the imitated form is concerned—may be related proportionally to other ornaments around it as a part to a perfect whole, nevertheless, its individual perfection can detach it from its place. The perfect form may step out of its place or appear to step into it as a work of art into a frame. This is the danger, to the highest degree. In the presence of the perfectly imitated form, one may readily lose sight of architecture as a work of art and let it become a mere frame. Against this danger, proportion cannot guard, and abstraction is, for the sake of ornament’s fit in its place, here, by definition, at the line separating architecture as a work of art from architecture as a mere frame. The question is first to be clearly determined whether the architecture is a frame for the sculpture, or the sculpture an ornament of the architecture. If the latter, then the first office of that sculpture is not to represent the things it imitates, but to gather out of them those arrangement of form which shall be pleasing to the eye in their intended places. So soon as agreeable lines and points of shade have been added to the mouldings which were meagre, or to the lights which were unrelieved, the architectural work of the imitation is accomplished; and how far it shall be wrought towards completeness or not, will depend upon its place, and upon other various circumstances. (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 170–71)

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Before ornamentation or ornamental addition, there must be a clear determination of what architecture is or what it ought to be: a work of art or a mere frame, the master or the servant. This is a determination, we should note, which at once presupposes and seeks to maintain a clear distinction between the work of art and the mere frame, as the master to the servant. Where are we to find or locate this distinction, and once there, what are we to mark as the work of art and what to leave out as a mere frame? If anywhere, it is, as Ruskin points the way, to the place of ornament in its place that we must turn in search of an answer, and there we must make the determination. The place we must turn to, however, could we have ever left it, is the place of danger, in “the highest degree.” It is a place that is neither clear nor distinct. It is a place where, before ornamentation or ornamental insertion, there is no opposition, no line, and no distinction. What is neither a master nor a servant emerges here as one or the other only after ornamentation, depending on the ornamentation. This latter is itself neither a master nor a servant, neither free nor enslaved before insertion. It can just as well free or enslave the building as a work of art or a mere frame because it confounds in itself the very distinction and opposition it is meant to affect. Unruly, dangerous, and indeterminate as this addition may be, the authority of Ruskin’s entire discourse on architecture, on what is or is not, what falls within or outside architecture as a work of art depends on the authority over this imitated form, that is, the ability to reduce it to a servant inside or a master outside, clearly and simply. Hence: Lose your authority over it, let it command you, or lead you, or dictate to you in any wise, and it is an offence, an incumbrance, and a dishonor. And it is always ready to do this; wild to get the bit in its teeth, and rush forth on its own device. Measure, therefore, your strength; and as long as there is no chance of mutiny, add soldier to soldier, battalion to battalion; but be assured that all are heartily in the cause, and that there is not one of whose position you are ignorant, or whose service you could spare. (Ruskin, Stones 308–09) Soldier to soldier and battalion to battalion, we must add in the cause of architecture, beauty, and perfection, to make certain there is no chance of mutiny— no chance of the servant becoming the master and architecture a mere frame. We must be certain of our strength and control over the ornamental insertion in order not to let it lead us to that “dusky debatable land” which this dangerous insertion is always ready to take us. This is the place where the work of art and the mere frame become one and the same and “each and all vanish into gloom” for want of a clear line or limit. How are we to exclude the chance of mutiny from within the parameters that define architecture as a work of art? How are we to guard against the ever-present possibility of losing authority, command, or lead over the imitated form that is always ready to rush forth on its own devices from its place

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within architecture as a servant? This is the chance or danger of mutiny that architecture always faces from within its parameters, to the authority and clarity of those parameters, and not from outside where the imitated form may be allowed the position of the master—as in a cabinet or a frame—so long as the work of art and the frame appear clearly distinct and easily detachable. The possibility of commanding and leading ornament to its place—the place of servitude—the possibility, that is, of reducing ornament to a servant within architecture lies somewhere between complete abstraction and full realization of the imitated form. However, neither the two extremes nor the various degrees of realization in-between, by themselves, present or exclude the chance of mutiny. The line separating ornamentation “inner” and “true” from decoration “outward” and “superfluous” resides not between complete abstraction and full realization, but between the presence and the absence of a clear expression of servitude or subordination of which a fully realized form is not capable, while anything less, depending “upon its place, and upon other various circumstances” is. The question, in other words, insofar as the line between what is and what is not architecture, between what falls inside it as ornament inner and true and what falls outside it as ornament outward and superfluous, is a question not of abstraction or full realization per se, but of the place and the circumstances within which the imitated form may express its subordination simply and clearly. A question of: How far this subordination is in different situations to be expressed, or how far it may be surrendered, and ornament, the servant, be permitted to have independent will; and by what means the subordination is best to be expressed when it is required. (Ruskin, Stones 285) A question, Ruskin tells us, that is “by far the most difcult question I have ever tried to work out respecting any branch of art.” This is a most difcult question, we should note, only in so long as the desired answer is a precise line, a distinct place, and a clear expression of subordination from a form that does not easily submit itself to the determination of its being and place as what is or is not, inside or outside of architecture and this is despite Ruskin’s best constructive eforts. What has been and remains clear to Ruskin is that for buildings to become architecture, there is a need for ornamentation or ornamental addition of forms expressive of divine attributes impressed and sealed on natural forms of frequent occurrence, as such only in the place of rest, and there only in a specific place as a part in proportion to a perfect whole, and in that specific place only in a clearly subordinate position. The only thing that is not clear or is the most difcult question in this successive placement of limits within limits around the ornamental form is the ways and means of determining the place, the circumstances, or the limits within which the ornamental form, which is synonymous with architecture, maybe confined and controlled. These are the limits that may limit the movement of the ornamental form, giving it no

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chance or possibility of crossing beyond and as such to that dusky debatable land from which Ruskin has sought architecture refuge through ornamentation or ornamental addition for the clarity of distinction between architecture as a work of art and the mere frame. These are the limits of architecture itself—the limits indistinct before ornamentation and limits over which command and control remain the most difcult questions after ornamentation. Therefore, having made every effort to determine the place of ornament and the circumstances surrounding its addition to architecture, Ruskin finds himself in the end, as many of his predecessors did before him, at the border of architecture and there or rather somewhere between the inside and the outside of the work of art, between the work and the mere frame, confronted not with the clear line or limit which he, as his predecessors before, had assumed to find there, but instead with a most difficult question. This is, at the risk of repetition, the question of the place of ornament inside or outside architecture as a work of art, pending the distinction and to that end the location of the missing borderline, the condition of the possibility of which is itself ornamentation. The question of the place of ornament found not on the sides, but at the border, as the border, irreducible there to a line, irremovable there to the sides, in a dusky debatable land from where ornament at once is the condition of the possibility of departure and the impossibility of exit. There is in this predicament, however, a notable difference between Ruskin and his predecessors. Whereas the theoreticians of the Renaissance and the Enlightenment made every effort to place and keep ornament outside the place of beauty and perfection as a mere frame, only to find it intrude on the border from its assigned place out, Ruskin, having made every effort to find ornament a specific place inside the place of beauty and perfection in architecture, finds it very difficult to keep ornament from protruding on the border from its assigned place inside. In either case, however, the difficulty encountered in achieving the desired effect is not so much one inherent to ornamentation, conceived and placed differently in each instance, as it is a difficulty encountered in every search for a place with defined or definable limits within which beauty may appear as an autonomous, self-referential, non-contingent entity in need of neither addition nor subtraction. The difficulty, in other words, is not ornamentation, rather one named by ornamentation. The problem is the everelusive architecture itself. It is that “perfect creature capable of nothing less than it has and needing nothing more” which only appears placed within successive frames, each of which is put in place to overcome the perpetual dependence of the beautiful on place and placement.

Notes 1. Though this may or may not be the “common consent of men,” Ruskin on this point is certainly in consent with Alberti, who, as we have seen, has referred to the admittance of material in address to the mind as a “cruder term.” 2. For thought to be self-referential, it must necessarily have no exchange value or be exchangeable. It must have no equivalency to an other.

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3. The dispute between Ruskin and his immediate predecessors is in many ways similar to the dispute between our contemporary critics and their immediate predecessors discussed in the introduction. The dispute in both cases is over whether truth is inclusive of representational expressions or not. 4. Ruskin’s evaluative criterion is similar, if not identical, to the criterion applied by the authors of Learning from Las Vegas (Venturi et al. 134–39) to the evaluation of Modern architecture, e.g., Mies van der Rohe’s use of ornamental I-beams that, as Ruskin would have put it, “Profess to have a duty and have none.” The decisive criterion for both authors separated by more than a century is to be and not “look it,” or conversely to “look” and not be it, that is, a discrepancy between substance and image. 5. For a comprehensive discussion of the effect of mechanical reproduction on the work of art, see (Benjamin 217–51). 6. Ruskin’s polemics against the use of machinery in architectural production can readily be attributed to and analyzed as a reaction to the immediate social and political context of his life and times; see (Garrigan), (Kirchhoff), (Landow, The Aesthetic and Critical Theories of John Ruskin), (Landow, Ruskin), (Sawyer), (Unrau), (Wihl). Ruskin himself is quite candid on this account. However, his recourse to the life analogy in defense of the prohibition is an inherited critical strategy that is in turn passed on to the succeeding generations, including our own. The latter exceeds, in other words, the bounds of the immediate social and political context of Ruskin’s life and times. 7. This is not to imply that machines had no role in architectural production before the 19th century, but that their profusion and prevalent use in the 19th century took on a critical dimension. 8. Ruskin’s rejection of machines has been attributed by numerous Ruskin scholars to a reaction against the social ills of industrialization, loss of morality in an industrial civilization, and/or a general aesthetic preference for things made by hand in medieval fashion. The following excerpts are a few cases in point: Ruskin’s abiding concern for the happiness of the workman caused him to place severe restrictions as well on the respective roles of men and machines in architecture. Great buildings are those which declare in every line the freedom and devotion of the individual worker who labored on them. . . . The worker, to be happy and productive, must thus be allowed maximum creative latitude as well as variety in his labor; machine work cannot be substituted for the inspired expression of the whole man. Worse still, the acceptance of machine work, besides deadening the spirit of the individual workman, also desensitizes the visual perception of everyone who looks on it, which in turn breeds tolerance of all manner of architectural evil. (Garrigan 148) First, there is the idea of Ruskin the sentimental neo-medievalist, who wished, vainly, for the industrialized working man to obtain the same dignity and independence of design that the medieval artisan had. This is the Ruskin who seems to idealize the architect in the root sense of the word: the first, or master, builder. . . . Ruskin therefore dismissed the Crystal Palace because it was the result of machine labor. (Wihl 169) Ruskin, who wrote Modern Painters II as a fervent evangelical, drew heavily upon his religious heritage in it for argument, authority, and rhetoric, just as he did in The Seven Lamps of Architecture. (Wihl 48) Also see (Garrigan 137–210); (Kirchhoff 41–60); (Landow, The Aesthetic and Critical Theories of John Ruskin 81–84, 135–37, 147–50, 162–63, 243–65); (Landow, Ruskin 10, 40, 48); (Sawyer 84–85); (Unrau 50); (Wihl 168–82).

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9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14.

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For summarized statements, indicating the pervasiveness of the above interpretations, please see: (Curtis 22, 87); (Trachtenberg and Hyman 439–40); (Pierson 278, 359); (Wodehouse and Moffett 390–91). Although I do not disagree with the common attribution of Ruskin’s use of the life analogy to the problems of industrialization or Ruskin’s religious disposition and views on the matter—he is quite candid on both accounts—nevertheless, I do not believe these to be the sole concerns and issues. My contention is that Ruskin’s rejection of machines is also a reaction against threats to age-old critical suppositions. For a comprehensive discussion of this issue see Jacques Derrida’s article: “Signature Event Context” (Derrida 307–30). This is regardless of whether, in the end, the machine is totally rejected or conditionally accepted. The intention to re-produce “life” does not exempt the re-production of “life” from the realm of dead imitation because it is simply an intention to re-produce an original. This intention is assumed present in all dead imitations. There is not only perfection but also imperfection in the “works of God upon the earth.” For this, Ruskin accounts elsewhere, and we shall return to and discuss the subject under the lamp of beauty. The frame of harmony marks only the dividing line that separates, on the one hand, the “inventor” from the “joiner” and, on the other, the “original” from the “derivative,” both of which, despite their differences, always betray a common source. Of the difference between “mere multitude” and “limited and isolated frequency,” Ruskin writes: A rose is a common flower, but yet there are not so many roses on the tree as there are leaves. In this respect Nature is sparing of her highest, and lavish of her less, beauty; but I call the flower as frequent as the leaf, because, each in its allotted quantity, where the one is, there will ordinarily be the other. (Ruskin, Seven Lamps 143)

15. 16. 17. 18.

See (Jensen and Conway). Also (Casteras); (Emerson); (Helsinger); (Hewison); (Sawyer). See also (Bell); (Evans); (Frankl); (Clark). A “statue in a museum,” Brolin tells us, “is not an ornament; but place it in a plaza, and it ‘ornaments’ the space” (Brolin 229). 19. Also see (Kirchhoff 41–60); (Landow, The Aesthetic and Critical Theories of John Ruskin 81–41, 135–7, 147–50, 162–3, 243–65); (Garrigan 137–210); (Landow, Ruskin 10, 40, 48); (Sawyer 84–85); (Unrau 50); (Wihl 168–82). 20. This “soul,” we should note, is also foreign and independent of its material manifestation in origin as the origin. 21. This does not apply to the forms of letters that are not used ornamentally because they are idealized as the unnatural expressions of intended thoughts which though expressive without either a “seal” or an “impress,” are nevertheless expressive of inner thought or a foreign force and as such allowed, allowable within as ugly necessities.

Reference List Alberti, Leon Battista. The Architecture of Leon Battista Alberti in Ten Books. Translated by Giacomo Leone, Leoni Edition, Edward Owen, 1755. Bell, Quentin. Ruskin. George Braziller, 1978. Benjamin, Walter. “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.” Illuminations, Schocken Books, 1978, pp. 217–51.

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Brolin, Brent C. Flight of Fancy: The Banishment and Return of Ornament. St. Martin’s Press, 1985. Casteras, Susan P. John Ruskin and the Victorian Eye. Harry N. Abrams, 1993. Clark, Kenneth. Ruskin Today. Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1964. Conrads, Ulrich. Programs and Manifestoes on 20th-Century Architecture. The MIT Press, 1980. Curtis, William J. R. Modern Architecture since 1900. 3rd edition, Phaidon Press, 1996. Derrida, Jacques. Margins of Philosophy. The University of Chicago Press, 1982. Emerson, Sheila. Ruskin: The Genesis of Invention. Cambridge University Press, 1993. Evans, Joan. John Ruskin. Oxford University Press, 1954. Frankl, Paul. The Gothic: Literary Sources and Interpretations through Eight Centuries. Princeton University Press, 1960. Garrigan, Kristine Ottesen. Ruskin on Architecture: His Thought and Influence. University of Wisconsin Press, 1973. Helsinger, Elizabeth K. Ruskin and the Art of the Beholder. Harvard University Press, 1982. Hewison, Robert. John Ruskin: The Argument of the Eye. Princeton University Press, 1976. Jensen, Robert, and Patricia Conway. Ornamentalism. Clarkson N. Potter, 1982. Kirchhoff, Frederick. John Ruskin. Twayne Publishers, 1984. Landow, George P. The Aesthetic and Critical Theories of John Ruskin. Princeton University Press, 1971. ———. Ruskin. Oxford University Press, 1985. Laugier, Marc-Antoine. An Essay on Architecture. Translated by Wolfgang Hermman and Annie Hermman. Hennesey & Ingalls Inc, 1977. Le Corbusier. Towards a New Architecture (1923). Getty Publications, 2008. Pevsner, Nikolaus. Pioneers of Modern Design. Penguin Books, 1986. Pierson, William H. American Buildings and Their Architects: Technology and the Picturesque: The Corporate and the Early Gothic Styles. 1st edition, vol. 2, Doubleday, 1970. Ruskin, John. Modern Painters I. Edited by E.T. Cook and Alexander Wedderburn, 1903rd edition, vol. 1, George Allen, 1843. ———. Modern Painters II. Edited by E.T. Cook and Alexander Wedderburn, 1903rd edition, vol. 2, George Allen, 1846. ———. The Seven Lamps of Architecture. Edited by E.T. Cook and Alexander Wedderburn, 1903rd ediiton, George Allen, 1849. ———. Stones of Venice. Edited by E.T. Cook and Alexander Wedderburn, 1903rd edition, vol. 1, George Allen, 1851. Saussure, Ferdinand de. Course in General Linguistics. Translated by Roy Harris, Reprint edition, Bloomsbury Academic, 2013. Sawyer, Paul L. Ruskin’s Poetic Argument, the Design of the Major Works. Cornell University Press, 1985. Trachtenberg, Marvin, and Isabelle Hyman. Architecture: From Prehistory to Post Modernism. 2nd edition, Pearson College Div, 2002. Unrau, John. Looking at Architecture with Ruskin. University of Toronto Press, 1975. Venturi, Robert, et al. Learning from Las Vegas. MIT Press, 1977. Viollet-le Duc, Eugène-Emmanuel. Lectures on Architecture. Dover Publications, Inc, 1987. Wihl, Gary. Ruskin and the Rhetoric of Infallibility. Yale University Press, 1985. Wodehouse, Lawrence, and Marian Moffett. A History of Western Architecture. 1st edition, McGraw-Hill, 1989. Wright, Frank Lloyd. In the Cause of Architecture. Architectural Record Books, 1975.

5

The In/Terminable Return

The Theory’s Predicament Although we may extend our discussion past the Seven Lamps, inclusive of the lamps of memory and obedience, to a host of other theoretical enumerations, past and present, enough may have been said to enumerate the strategic continuities and the enduring methodological strictures of this discursive tradition. This includes the difficulties and obstacles this discursive tradition characteristically encounters in upholding and safeguarding its construed borderlines. These difficulties are, in a manner, effectively traced and witnessed by all that have been obstinately marginalized or excluded, chastised, and deprecated from within the confines of this frame of thought in its various and divergent discursive formulations. Throughout, the intent has not been to point out inconsistencies or contradictions in the various theoretical formulations examined. On the contrary, the intention has been to point out how thorough and systematic are the argumentations of the theoreticians we have examined, and why the problems and the difficulties they encountered are endemic to the theoretical enterprise and not merely a reflection of personal failings or inconsistencies, much less any deeply felt set of individual beliefs or religious convictions. The problems and difficulties characteristically encountered in this discursive tradition stem, in part, from two suppositions that invariably appear to precede the theoretical undertaking. The first supposition may well be endemic to theorizing on architecture, if not theorizing in general. It is the supposition that the subject of theory—architecture—precedes and exists as a totality autonomous of all theoretical reflections. It is that theory’s task is to decisively reveal and conclusively enumerate the truth of its subject. In this vein, the Western architectural theory has not been cumulative or evolutionary. Rather, each formulation has been inaugural and revolutionary in intent. As such, each theoretical formulation has borne within it a death wish. Each theory has, in effect, set out to end all theorizing by exposing the truth of its subject, that is, what it simply, indubitably, and timelessly is—autonomous, self-referential, and non-contingent. Were any one theory to succeed in achieving its objective, no further theorizing would be requisite, much less imperative. Yet, even though, DOI: 10.4324/9781003175780-5

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in theory, architecture is presumed to precede theory from a certain vantage point, there is no architecture before theoretical addition, supplementation, and/or ornamentation. In a sense, there is no outside to theory. Despite an implicit wish to self-termination, theory merely engenders more theorizing, and at that each time in response to a purported crisis of aesthetic confusion and confoundment blamed on a preceding theory to which the current is to be the resolution, once and for all. Architectural theory’s inaugural and interminable aspects, wishes to the contrary notwithstanding, have much to do with its role as the primary medium of cultural appropriation, delimitation, and regimentation of architecture in all its various guises.1 What is at stake in appropriating, delimiting, and controlling architecture is a culture’s power and authority to fabricate a world that persuasively bears witness to assumptions about it. Focused as theory is, perforce, on the place and the placing of parameters around architecture, theory’s power to delimit, much as its authority to exclude, is vested in aesthetics. In turn, the exclusionary power and authority of the beautiful, in whose name Western culture has variously shaped and controlled Western architecture for much of its history, is founded on a metaphysics that presumes the ideals that it sums up in the word beauty—real presence, truth, authenticity, origin, autonomy, and so on—as a given, a ground, a foundation, before their negation and complication in the figure of the other. This metaphysics—the metaphysics of presence—is the second supposition of architectural theory above referenced.2 It is the enduring and characteristically Western metaphysics that each of the theoreticians we have discussed has ardently assumed as a foundational given. It is the metaphysics that led Alberti to purport contingency on an other to be an “accident” and the self-referential presence the norm, much as he assumed the ugly to be a disease and beauty the original state of health, or matter the subservient and design the prior superior term. In these hierarchical dualities, along with all the others introduced, one term inevitably designates an original presence and the second a negation, complication, duplication, and contradiction of the first. This is the same metaphysics behind Laugier’s declaration of the “bad” as the supplemental appearance of an absent presence—“a false jewel”—and the “indelible” good as the true, the simple, the original, and the real presence. It is also the metaphysics behind Ruskin’s declaration, among others, that “we cannot form an idea of negation, where we cannot form an idea of presence,” that whereas negation is contingent on presence, the always prior self-referential presence has no need of negation. The impact of the metaphysics of presence spans the history of Western theoretical discourse on architecture—from Vitruvius to Venturi and beyond. It has bound the diverse theoretical formulations of this discourse into an enduring tradition with a singular objective: the autonomous, self-referential, noncontingent presence to which nothing can be added and from which nothing can be removed: the beautiful. This metaphysics has not only set the overarching objective of the theoretical discourse on architecture in the West, it has also set the parameters of the arguments, shaped the terms of the disputes, and

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defined the strategies of self-validation for this discourse. It has served as an enduring framework that allows changing ideologies and diverse worldviews over time to assume the authoritative and seemingly inevitable guise of truth through delimitation and exclusion of every other, as an endangering other. This framework has been in perpetual and interchangeable concord with a theology that by divine decree places nature before culture, beauty before ugly, design before matter, the intelligible before the sensible, original before copy, presence before absence, and so on. This is a theology that authoritatively gives metaphysics the guise of physics and culture the guise of nature. Within the framework of this metaphysics, the alignment of aesthetics and theology is not simply one choice among others. This alignment is irrespective of the religious predispositions of any individual theoretician. The naturalization of aesthetics in architecture with recourse to theology is indispensable so long as the objective remains, perforce, an autonomous, self-referential, noncontingent presence. The desired autonomy can only be posited as an actuality within a theological frameup designated by the word nature. Pervasive as the metaphysics of presence has been, it is, nevertheless, as we have witnessed, susceptible to perpetual undoing in the figure of the contingent or the “apparent.” Hence the reason why throughout the history of this discourse, “apparent presence,” as invariably measured against “real presence,” has been an undesirable or, at best, a less desirable possibility. It has been one that Ruskin writing, in effect, on behalf of the entire tradition, wished was impossible, all the while cognizant of the fact that “nature herself does not dispense with” the irreconcilable divide between appearance and being and consequently a possibility that Alberti, Laugier, Ruskin, much as their predecessors and successors are compelled to come to terms with in spite of what they and the others wish for, be this named the real, the true, the present, the authentic or the original—they amount, in a manner, to the same. Since the impossibility of the “apparent” can only be wished for, numerous theoreticians, in perpetual succession, have made every effort to distinguish, separate, and disown the irreconcilable divide between appearance and being as a negation, complication, or imitation of “real presence,” in the name of a potential corruptive or destructive “effect.” The one invariably attributed to a transgression of the line that is said to separate reality from ideality. This line’s perpetual elucidation points to a ceaseless task within the confines of a discourse on design that, for all its intents and purposes, is a discourse fearful of signs. Although as the bearer of a destructive “effect,” it is with “apparent presence” that the theoreticians of this discursive tradition appear to perpetually take issue, what is at stake in this discourse, is not “apparent presence” but “real presence.” It is the desired transparency of appearance to being, or what amounts to the same, the desired mastery of appearance in the name of being that spurs this theoretical discourse. If representation as “apparent presence” is made to bear the full critical force of the discourse, that is because in every appearance of the “apparent,” the desire to transcend the gap in between being and appearing or image and substance is denied the possibility of its fulfillment.

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However, the denied transparency is invariably imputed to an inherited loss in representation, the pronouncement of which as a crisis appears to constitute the point of departure for every theoretical speculation on representation as the contingent figure of the apparent. This is a crisis that numerous theoreticians, one after the other, seek to surmount in the name of truth and of things that “appear what they indeed are.” If, however, there is a critical loss in the architectural expressions of any one generation—as viewed by the next—it is not the loss of truth in representation, but the loss to representation of things that “appear what they indeed are,” that is, the loss to representation of a positive, causal link between appearance and being, always already. Nevertheless, inherent to the idea of a critical loss is the supposition of its prior absence and the possibility, if not the urgency, of its re-appropriation. Hence, the attempt of numerous theoreticians in this discursive tradition to recoup a loss whose ceaseless attribution to representation allows each to assume the appearance of what things indeed are as an original mode of expression against which representation is judged and thereby redeemed or condemned, cured or disowned—in theory. Alternatively, the history of this discursive tradition may be summed up as the history of an unceasing search for the place and the limits within which architecture may be successfully appropriated as an autonomous, self-referential presence. This is an unceasing search for the place and the limits, variably placed in time, though invariably within a theological framework, where, by deprecation and exclusion, the contingent apparent may cease to affect and infect the self-referential real. Alberti located and placed this place within the domain of the intelligible, Laugier within parameters exclusive of all but selfreferential presentations, and Ruskin within parameters provisionally inclusive of representation on the condition of a true confession to self-referential ideality. In time, Wright, Le Corbusier, and other proponents of Modernism would relocate the parameters of the desired place within limits exclusive of the contingent representation as had Laugier before and that as a cure to the crisis of Ruskinian misalignment. Venturi and the other proponents of Post-Modernism would relocate the parameters of the desired place to the same confessional limits Ruskin had located before and that as a cure to the crisis of Modernist misalignment. In their turn, the proponents of the Post-Critical have sought the cure to the crisis of their predecessor’s misalignment within limits exclusive of the contingent representation, as had the proponents of Modernism. And this in the hope of overcoming the crisis that is representation, once and for all. The disputes between the various authors of this tradition over the location of the limits and their alternating placements may indeed have been of greater contribution to the continuity of this tradition, insofar as these disputes have remained over the placement of the limits, and not a dispute over the desired place itself. The only, and at that, the all-consuming problem in these (mis)adventures is that the autonomy, singularity, and originality on which the exclusionary power and authority of the beautiful depend never appear unappended, un-supplemented, unframed in any place. There is no outside to

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contingency that is not always already contingent on ornamentation or theoretical supplementation. As we have seen, there is no place where the beautiful does not appear without ornamentation, that is, without the introduction and construction of a borderline that separates and delimits the beautiful.3 What might accept “neither addition, nor subtraction without loss” must accept an addition that is neither internal nor external to it. This is the problem and the paradox that neither inclusion nor exclusion of the ornamental can overcome. This is, however, a problem and a paradox only insofar as one wishes to sustain the power and the authority to exclude and delimit in the name of the beautiful, that is, the power and the authority to control architecture. Hence, the preoccupation with the place and placing of ornamentation, with its marginalization or domestication, if only to sustain the pervasive and persuasive illusion of an outside to contingency. This is an outside to contingency that is perpetually contingent on theoretical supplementation—be the theoretical supplement a text or, for that matter, any architectural construct that fabricates and imposes limits between the self-referential and the representational, the original and the copy, the authentic and the replica, the real and the imaginary, and so on. If architecture’s search for an elusive non-contingent beauty that is universal, immutable, original, and true, appears to indispensably and irresolutely selfperpetuate into an unremitting chain of theoretical texts, that is partly because architecture’s contingency on the dress, in all its guises—culture, theory, ornament and so on—perpetually instigates and promulgates the desire. The dress perpetually promises the elusive presence of the nude body beautiful, albeit one that, appearances to the contrary notwithstanding, can never be undressed. The reason is also the indispensable and synergetic relationship between architectural theory and the metaphysics of presence. Much as theory’s authority to speak conclusively of the truth of architecture is vested in its appeal to the metaphysics of presence in the guise of nature; conversely, theory’s methodical and concerted resistance to contingency upholds and protects that metaphysics indispensably by way of supplementation and/or ornamentation. Much as architectural theory, in the cause of truth, beauty, origin, and so on, cannot shed its dependency on the metaphysics of presence, the metaphysics of presence cannot effectively shed its architectural dress. At this point in our journey, we may not assume, as a matter of choice, either the continuation of the search for the desired place and, therefore, beauty absolute and perfect or the abandoning of it in favor of a beauty that is arbitrary wherever it might be placed. If anything, the history of this entire search for an outside to contingency should indicate that the very question of beauty, the very questioning of its essence as such, is always motivated and placed though never in place. It is that the question of beauty can only be posed within the parameters of an inherited metaphysico-theological frame of thought. Any step beyond these parameters to a determined outside could only amount to a foldback within the parameters behind. If nothing else, the history of this entire discourse should point to the question of beauty as a question of ideological

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hegemony, delimitation, and exclusion. As such, even unheeded and inverted, architecture’s is a question of ethics and not aesthetics, in theory.4

Notes 1. A building used as a model or precedent is as much a theoretical construct as any text labeled theoretical. 2. For a detailed discussion of this term, see (Heidegger) and (Derrida, Margins of Philosophy). Also: the enterprise of returning “strategically,” in idealization, to an origin or to a “priority” seen as simple, intact, normal, pure, self-identical, in order then to conceive of derivation, complication, deterioration, accident, etc. All metaphysicians, from Plato to Rousseau, Descartes to Husserl, have proceeded in this way, conceiving good to be before evil, the positive before the negative, the pure before the impure, the simple before the complex, the essential before the accidental, the imitated before the imitation, etc. And this is not just one metaphysical gesture among others, it is the metaphysical exigency, that which has been the most constant, most profound and most potent. (Derrida et al. 93) 3. This borderline is neither internal nor external to the body beautiful. It can neither be subsumed within it nor detached from it. It is also not a thing. The measure of the beautiful is the ornamental and vice versa. It is only by identifying the ornamental, by separating the additional from the essential that the principal and the peripheral are both made to appear as such. The border of the beautiful is never there. There is no ornament. There is only ornamentation perpetually construing the border of the beautiful. 4. The border between the ethical and the political here loses for good the indivisible simplicity of a limit . . . the determinability of this limit was never pure, and it never will be (Derrida, Adieu to Emmanuel Levinas 99). There is no responsibility without a dissident and inventive rupture with respect to tradition, authority, orthodoxy, rule, or doctrine (Derrida, The Gift of Death 27).

Reference List Derrida, Jacques. Adieu to Emmanuel Levinas. Translated by Pascale-Anne Brault and Michael Naas, 1st edition, Stanford University Press, 1999. ———. The Gift of Death. Translated by David Wills, 1st edition, University of Chicago Press, 1995. ———. Limited Inc. Translated by Samuel Weber, 1st edition, Northwestern University Press, 1988. ———. Margins of Philosophy. Translated by Alan Bass, Reprint edition, University of Chicago Press, 1985. Heidegger, Martin. Being and Time. Reprint edition, Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 2008.

Index

Académie Royale d’Architecture 114 accidental occurrences 44, 53, 62, 108, 113, 127–28 accurate proportions 103–5 Aesthetic and Critical Theories of John Ruskin, The (Landow) 184 Age of Enlightenment architects 2 Age of Reason 70–1 Alberti, Leone Battista 3, 5, 6, 13, 155; see also Ten Books on Architecture, The (Alberti); on collocation 45, 48; on columns 23, 45; congruity and 49; on finishing 45, 46–9; natural social order and 31–3; nature’s laws for beauty and 44–5; on numbers 21–2, 45–9; on ornament/ornamentation 15, 57, 58, 60–4, 113; on painting 26–7; on proportions 46–8, 54; on Roman perfection 75–6 Ancients/Moderns debate 67 apparent presence 217–18 architectural deceits 140–48 architectural Order 81, 87–8, 93, 95, 102–3, 107 architectural theory 215–20; apparent presence and 217–18; metaphysics of presence and 216–17; self-referential presence and 218–19 Architecture, Essai sur l’Art (Architecture, Essay on Art) (Boullée) 114 architecture proper 130 art as a gift 127–36; architecture and 128–29; Deity demands and 133–35; Ruskin definition of 127 art of building, elements of 23–4 audacity, described 165 Austin, J. L. 13 auxiliary brightness, ornamentation as 59

beauty; see also Seven Lamps of Architecture, The (Ruskin); Ten Books on Architecture, The (Alberti): absence of 39; Alberti on 37–60; architecture and 5–6, 13; collocation and 48–9; and contingency 52–4; contingent on ugly 41–2, 54–6; definition of 39; and divinity 50–1; finishing and 46–8; Laugier on 78–87; number and 45–6; ornament and 56–60, 190–91; Perrault on 67–8; Ruskin definition of 175 beauty, Ruskin’s lamp of 174–84 bienséance 106, 115 blind prejudice, Laugier and 72–5 Blondel, François 67 Boullée, Étienne-Louis 13, 105, 114–15; on character concept 115–16, 117; on proportions 115 Brolin, Brent C. 186 Burke, Edmund 168 careless faults 110 cause and effect, Laugier on 68–75 character concept 11; Boullée on 115–16, 117; Durand on 118; Laugier on 104–5; Ruskin on 128–29, 136–37, 163, 165, 178–79; true ornament and 109 Chinese architecture traditions 6 civil category of architecture proper 130 collocation 48–9; Alberti on 45, 48 color, Alberti on 27 columns: Alberti on 23, 45; Laugier on 67, 80–1, 87–93, 99, 101–2, 119 congruity 49 contingency and beauty 52–4 “Cours d’architecture” (Blondel) 67 Crawford Manor 9–10, 11 critical architecture 12

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Index

decoration see ornament/ornamentation de Cordemoy, M. 70–1 definite objective, Laugier on 84–5 Deity demands 133–35, 175–76, 177, 180 De re aedificatoria (On the Art of Building) (Laugier) 66 design, Alberti on 20–2 devotional category of architecture proper 130, 131 divine character 194 divinity and beauty 50–1 domestic category of architecture proper 130 drapery, Ruskin on 199–200 drawings, Alberti on 23–30 Durand, Jean-Nicolas-Louis 116–17, 128; on character concept 117–18; concept of appropriate beauty 118 École Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées 114 edifice: Alberti on 20–1, 155; Wright and 155–56 effect, truth of 93–4 Elements of Architecture, The (Wotton) 66 engaged columns 94–5 Enlightenment architecture 15 entablatures 80–1, 87–8, 92, 94–5, 98, 101–3 Essay on Architecture, An (Laugier) 15, 66–120; on cause and effect 68–75; on essential and inconsequential 107–13; gifts and 77–8, 82–4; Greek perfection and 75–7; iron use and 144; on origination and substitution 87–107; theoreticians following 113–20; transformations and 66–8; on true and beautiful 78–87 essentials: and inconsequential, Laugier on 107–13; Laugier on 81–2, 84, 86–7 finishing, Alberti on 45, 46–9 Flight of Fancy: The Banishment and Return of Ornament (Brolin) 186 forms 105 forms, Ruskin on 200–202 Four Books of Architecture (Palladio) 15, 66 frankness, described 165 gifts: of fixed principles 81–2; of genius 81–4; Laugier on 77–8, 82–4 Gothic architecture 120 Guild House 9, 10; proportions and 9 harmonic proportions 47–8

imperfection 8; Alberti on examination of 24–5, 28–30; Laugier on 78 inaccurate representation 91–4 inconsequential, Laugier on 107–13 Indian architecture traditions 6 judgement and opinions 42–3 kings, Alberti on 30–7 lamp of beauty 174–84 lamp of life 155–68 lamp of power 168–74 lamp of sacrifice 130–36 lamp of truth 137–55, 199 Landow, George P. 184 Laugier, Marc-Antoine 3–4, 8, 13; see also Essay on Architecture, An (Laugier); on architectural Order 81, 87–8, 93, 95, 102–3, 107; on beauty 78–87; blind prejudice and 72–5; on character concept 104–5; on columns 67, 80–1, 87–93, 99, 101–2, 119; on custom 73; on definite objective 84–5; effect and, truth of 93–4; on engaged columns 94–5; on entablatures 80–1, 87–8, 92, 94–5, 98, 101–3; on essentials 81–2, 86–7; on forms 105; on nature 78–80, 87; on Orders 68, 103, 105–6, 108–9; on ornament/ ornamentation 16, 105, 107–11, 113; on pedestals 90–1; on penetrating the veil 71–2; on pilasters 91–7, 102; on proportions 71, 103–5; on roof gables 97–8; on superfluous pilasters 95–6 laws, lights and 125–27 laws of right 126–27, 130 Learning from Las Vegas (Venturi and Scott Brown) 8–10, 184 Le Corbusier 5, 6, 11–12, 13; on Modern architecture 186, 188–89; on ornament/ ornamentation 189 “Lectures on Architecture and Painting” (Ruskin) 184 life, Ruskin’s lamp of 155–68 lights, laws and 125–27 Loos, Adolf 186 mankind, nature of 31 mathematical worldview 81; Alberti’s stance 67 matter, Alberti on 20–2 mechanical worldview 81 memorial category of architecture proper 130

Index metaphysics of presence 216–17 military category of architecture proper 130 mind’s sight 38 models: Alberti on 23–30; vs. painting 26–7 Modern architecture, critique of 10–12, 14 Modernity 4 Modern Movement: ornament/ ornamentation and 186, 187–88, 189; Pevsner and 184 Modern Painters (Ruskin) 184 natural social order 31–3 nature 7–8; Alberti use of term 44–5; collocation and 48–9; finishing and 46–8; Laugier on 78–80, 87; number and 45–6 numbers: Alberti on 21–2, 45–9; harmonic proportions and 47–8; Perrault on 67; Ruskin on 147–48 Observations sur l’architecture (Laugier) 104–5 opinions: Alberti on 40–1; and judgement 42–3 Orders 9, 146; Laugier on 68, 103, 105–6, 108–9; Ruskin on 168–69 “Ordonnance for the five kinds of columns after the method of the Ancients” (Perrault) 67 Organic Modernism 16 origination and substitution, Laugier on 87–107 ornament/ornamentation 16, 218–19; see also Seven Lamps of Architecture, The (Ruskin); Ten Books on Architecture, The (Alberti); Alberti on 15, 57, 58, 60–4, 113; assimilation of, Ruskin and 190–211; as auxiliary brightness 59; beauty and 56–60; Brolin on 186; determining what is 192–93; determining what is not 191–92; before insertion of 209–11; Laugier on 16, 105, 107–11, 113; Le Corbusier on 189; Loos on 186; Modern Movement and 186, 187–88, 189; Pevsner on 184; Ruskin on 16, 131, 184–93, 195, 197, 200, 202–6 painting vs. models 26–7 Palladio, Andrea 66 pedestals 90–1 perfection 7–8, 14–15; Alberti and cause of 23–30; of beauty 58–60; Laugier on 76–8; texts related to 66–7; theology and 50–1

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Perrault, Claude 67–8; on numbers 67; on proportions 67–8 Pevsner, Nikolaus 184 “Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful, A” (Burke) 168 pilasters: Alberti on 23; Laugier on 91–7, 102; superfluous 95–6 Pioneers of Modern Design (Pevsner) 184 pointed architecture 119–20 positive beauty 67–8 Post-Modernity 4 power, Ruskin’s lamp of 168–74 Précis des Leçons d’Architecture (Précis of the Lectures on Architecture) (Durand) 116 production in architecture, modes of 155; see also lamp of life proportions 22, 207–8; Alberti on 46–8, 54, 103; Blondel on 67; Boullée on 115; Guild House 9; Laugier on 71, 103–5; Perrault on 67–8; Ruskin on 207–9 Pugin, A. Welby 13, 118–19; critique of Greek architecture 119; on pointed architecture 119–20 Renaissance architects 2, 3–4, 15 ribband, Ruskin on 197–98 Roman taught lessons, Laugier on 75–7 Romanticism architecture 15 roof gables 97–8 Royal Academy of Architecture 67 Royal Academy of Science 67 Rudolf, Paul 9 Ruskin, John 4, 6, 14; see also Seven Lamps of Architecture, The (Ruskin); on architectural deceits 140–48; on architecture and building 128–32; on architecture proper categories 130–31; on character concept 128–29, 136–37, 163, 165, 178–79; critics of 184–85; definition of beauty 175; Deity demands and 133–35, 175–76, 177, 180; on drapery 199–200; on forms 200–202; iron use and 140–45; on laws of right 126–27, 130; living architecture to 162–63; on numbers 147–48; on Orders 168–69; on ornament/ornamentation 16, 131, 184–93, 195, 197, 200, 202–6; paint use and 145–46; on proportions 207–9; on ribband 197–98; on scroll 196–97, 198–99; on sublimity 170; on the ugly 179–80; on use of machines 158–59

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Index

sacrifice, Ruskin’s lamp of 130–36 Scott Brown, Denise 8–10, 13–14, 184, 186, 189 scroll, Ruskin on 196–97, 198–99 self-referential architecture 116, 218–19 Seven Lamps of Architecture, The (Ruskin) 15, 125–211; on art as a gift 127–36; assimilation of ornament and 190–211; lamp of beauty 174–84; lamp of life 155–68; lamp of power 168–74; lamp of sacrifice 130–36; lamp of truth 137–55, 199; on laws and lights 125–27; on life and death 155–68; on ornamentation 184–93; on pleasure and disgust 174–84; on power and awe 168–74; on truth and deception 136–55 sham pediments 98–9 sight, for Alberti 38 Socrates 39 sublimity 170; see also lamp of power substitution and origination, Laugier on 87–107 superfluous pilasters 95–6 Ten Books on Architecture, The (Alberti) 15, 20–64; on beauty and ugly 37–60; customs and 33; on design and matter 20–2; on drawings and models 23–30; on ornamental and theoretical 60–4; on painting 26–7; theoretical edifice, explained 20–1; on tyrants and kings 30–7 theoretical, Alberti on 60–4 Towards a New Architecture (Le Corbusier) 11–12

transformations 66–8 true architecture 94, 96, 107–9, 142, 143 true beauty 72, 74, 79, 87–8, 94, 98–100, 111 True Principles, The (Pugin) 120 truth, Ruskin’s lamp of 137–55 truth and deception, Ruskin on 136–55 tyrants, Alberti on 30–7 ugly: Alberti on 37–60; beautiful contingent on 41–2, 54–6; Ruskin on 179–80, 195–96 unique proportions 104 unnatural representation 92, 94, 98 Unrau, John 185, 187 Venturi, Robert 8–11, 13–14, 184, 186, 189 Viollet-le-Duc, E. 156 vital imitation 165–66 Vitruvius 5 3, 4, 5, 7, 24, 72, 114 Western architecture: aim of 6–8; balance/ counterbalance theories of 4–6; beauty and 5–6, 13; canonical treatises on 3–5; vs. Chinese/Indian traditions 6; critique of 8–10; history of 1–4; introduction to 1–16; nature and 7–8; study of 2; term use of 1; theoretical discourse on 15; writing on 2–3 Wotton, Henry 5, 24, 66 Wright, Frank Lloyd 7, 16; living architecture to 162–63; threat of imitation and 167; on use of machines 158