The Living Tradition of Architecture 2016023178, 9781138640481, 9781138640504, 9781315636573

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The Living Tradition of Architecture

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The Living Tradition of Architecture Alberto Pérez-Gómez — Christian Frost — Dagmar Weston — David Leatherbarrow Gabriele Bryant — Joseph Rykwert — Karsten Harries — Kenneth Frampton — Mari Hvattum Patrick Lynch — Robin Middleton — Stephen Witherford — Werner Oechslin Preface by Eric Parry Dedication by Daniel Libeskind

Edited with an introduction by José de Paiva

First published 2017 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2017 José de Paiva The right of the editor to be identified as the author of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, 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. The views expressed in this book remain those of each author and do not necessarily represent those of the editor. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. Publisher’s Note This book has been prepared from camera-ready copy provided by the editor. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Paiva, José de (Architect), editor. Title: The living tradition of architecture / Alberto Pérez-Gómez, Christian Frost, Dagmar Weston, David Leatherbarrow, Gabriele Bryant, Joseph Rykwert, Karsten Harries, Kenneth Frampton, Mari Hvattum, Patrick Lynch, Robin Middleton, Stephen Witherford, Werner Oechslin ; Preface by Eric Parry ; Dedication by Daniel Libeskind ; Edited with an introduction by José de Paiva. Description: New York : Routledge, 2017. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2016023178| ISBN 9781138640481 (hb : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781138640504 (pb : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781315636573 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Architecture and history. Classification: LCC NA2543.H55 L58 2017 | DDC 720.9--dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016023178 ISBN: 978-1-138-64048-1 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-138-64050-4 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-315-63657-3 (ebk) Cover photo: Hélène Binet. Witherford Watson Mann, Astley Castle, Warwickshire. Photographed in 2012. Design by Daniel Benneworth-Gray. Typeset in Adobe Caslon.

Contents

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Acknowledgements

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Eric Parry Preface

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José de Paiva The Living Tradition of Architecture

21

Daniel Libeskind “Remembrance of Things Past”

I

The background of architecture as living tradition

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Werner Oechslin “Prudentia non est scientia”

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Joseph Rykwert Model, Type and the Great Church

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Mari Hvattum Goethe Blindfolded

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Karsten Harries Beauty, Nostalgia, Hope: The pulpit in Oppolding

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Robin Middleton Ideas on Movement in Architecture in Britain and France during the Eighteenth Century

Contents

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The modern transmission of architectural knowledge and experience

148

Kenneth Frampton Towards an Ontological Architecture: A philosophical excursus

160

Gabriele Bryant Modern Aesthetics and the Machine: Technology and the Gesamtkunstwerk in early twentieth-century Germany

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Alberto Pérez-Gómez Le Corbusier’s La Tourette and the Hermeneutic Imagination

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David Leatherbarrow Rule and Law – Architecture and Nature: Kahn’s design for the St Andrew’s Priory

III

Coming to terms with the conditions for contemporary practice

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Dagmar Weston ‘The Language of Stones’: Towards a situated architecture in the design studio

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Christian Frost Tradition and Historicism in the Remodelling of Tate Britain

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Patrick Lynch Civic Bodies: Lynch Architects at Victoria Street

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Stephen Witherford “Half of it is not necessarily in ruins”

297 305 337 355 357

Curricula vitæ Endnotes Index Image credits Bibliography

Acknowledgements

Any endeavour to approach the living tradition of architecture calls for the living experience of many years summed up in a form of writing which will, at each turn, rekindle its present memory for our time. The following collection brings together some of the most relevant contemporary authors, and in that sense, emerged from a long gestation before essays were written and writings quickly gathered. This collection is dedicated in honour of Dalibor Vesely. As the years passed since the idea came into conversation, it was at his instance that work began. All essays as they arrived were discussed with him regularly, drawings too were offered, going then through his demanding vision. This book would not have been possible without such vision, it is openly structured in its light. The production of writing, the collection itself, depended solely on the generosity of its authors whose lifelong work and experience in the field speaks for itself. The deepest thanks are owed to Joseph Rykwert, Kenneth Frampton, Robin Middleton, who responded most promptly with their own writing. Thanks are owed to Karsten Harries for the true beauty, nostalgia and hope of his approach to life and architecture, to Werner Oechslin and the rigour of his critical interpretation, to Daniel Libeskind and the wonderful genius of his drawing dedication. Thanks are owed to the height of the writings of Alberto Pérez-Gómez and David Leatherbarrow on traditional forms of life and modern architecture. And profound acknowledgement must be made here to Eric Parry whose work and friendship to this project has contributed decisively to its existence. Thanks are owed to Dagmar Weston, and Mari Hvattum, and Christian Frost, and especially Gabriele Bryant for her personal contribution to this book, which is real and selfless.

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Thanks are owed to Patrick Lynch for his friendship, work and readiness in the midst of battle. Thanks are owed to Stephen Witherford and the truly poetic vision that has taken flesh in Astley Castle. The nature of this work required the council of many, but especially, the sensitivity and rigour of Alexandra Stara, whose direct assistance during the initial stages was determinant to the present publication. As words came to visibility, the task inevitably called for the artistic commitment of photographers and visual artists, in particular the work of Hélène Binet whose photography for the cover and many of the projects brings their nature to light; but also David Grandorge and his vision of the urban hinterland; and Rut Blees Luxemburg and her monumental photographic work. At the request of the authors, additional images were provided by Angeliki Sioli and Tony Bryant, which illustrate some of the most important examples of twentieth-century architecture. Among friends and colleagues, special acknowledgement should be made to Claudia Tschunko, Damien Lee, Eimear Hanratty, Katharina Parsons, Matthew Wells, and Russell Watson, who either through their reading or advice contributed to the present existence of this book. Thanks are owed to Daniel Benneworth-Gray, whose visual sensitivity and experience contributed decisively to the tangible quality of this volume and careful presentation of its contents. The library and archival resources involved in this task were substantial, and a final but very special mention should be made here to the Stiftung Bibliothek Werner Oechslin, the Louis I. Kahn Collection, University of Pennsylvania and the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, and the Sir John Soane Museum in London.

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The following contributors share their profound thinking about the contemporary dilemma of how to reconcile the autonomous achievements of modern science and technology with our inherited culture and an increasingly fragile natural order. Architecture with its specificity of place, its capacity to support social coherence, to harbour creativity and collectively to represent a society through its urban manifestations remains an essential bridge between past, present and future possibilities. There is a historical fault line that defines two eras either side of the Prague Spring of 1968 and the mixed blessing of exile which saw the arrival of Dalibor Vesely in London. Before that date, Vesely was fully charged with a knowledge of Central European culture and its ever more crucial importance in the topic of the book here under scrutiny. Depending upon your acquaintance with the name as your eye casts over the list of contributors to this book, the interconnections will be more or less apparent, for he is the common threshold across which they have all passed. Three contributors most directly share that heritage: Joseph Rykwert who grew up in Warsaw in a family steeped in the Austro-Hungarian sway and whose essay “Model, Type and the Great Church” considers the early northern trajectory of Byzantine influence; Karsten Harries who born in Jena, Germany, returns to the synthesis of the Bavarian rococo church, embodied in a late masterpiece, the pulpit in Oppolding; Werner Oechslin who founded the Stiftung Bibliothek Werner Oechslin in Einsieldeln where

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since 1999 he has organised the Baroque summer course, an influential forum for scholars of European culture. Unsolicited pairings have emerged like the re-enactment of preceding conversations: Werner Oechslin and Kenneth Frampton, the search for philosophical roots; Alberto Pérez-Gómez and David Leatherbarrow, the sacred in the hands of twentieth-century masters; Mari Hvattum and Gabriele Bryant, the influence of nineteenth-century German philosophical thinking; Stephen Witherford and Christian Frost and the question of renewal and reframing of existing fabric; Robin Middleton and Patrick Lynch on movement and rhythm; and in singular conclusion, Dagmar Motycka Weston on the profundity of stone. The generative cohesion of his far flung group of contributors is in large measure due to the far sighted support of the heads of three schools of Architecture. Firstly Tony Eardley at Kentucky, USA, who employed both Daniel Libeskind and Peter Carl to teach at the school in 1976–1979, where at the time David Leatherbarrow was a student and Dalibor a Visiting Professor. Secondly Alvin Boyarsky at the Architectural Association, London, where Dalibor deployed much of his creative energy between 1968 and 1981 in running a sequence of influential Diploma studios. At the A.A. between 1974 and 1978 both Daniel Libeskind and Alberto Pérez-Gómez taught studio, and Daniel first exhibited his drawings and collages of which his hommage to Dalibor “Remembrance of things past” is a clear echo. The litany of others, by now famous, studio teachers were the public face of the school. In parallel Robin Middleton developed one of the most advanced open lecture programmes in London alongside the history and theory programme known as General Studies. The third head was Colin St John Wilson, who at the University of Cambridge’s Department of Architecture drew in firstly Robin Middleton and then Joseph Rykwert (from the University of Essex), Dalibor Vesely and Peter Carl. The confluence at Cambridge between 1980 and 2010 between

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the academic and creative exploration of Architecture as a pivotal cultural framework is manifest in the rich landscape of this book, which importantly includes works of the two Architectural practices emergent from the school and the promise of many others. All contributors have distinguished themselves as educators, writers or practitioners of Architecture, and many traversing these boundaries at different stages of their careers. They have been drawn together by José de Paiva, whose contribution these last few years has been one of unstinting support and generosity, without which this book would not have been possible.

Eric Parry

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As we open the field of our modern situation, it is almost inevitable we should find ourselves before the extent of fragmentation that resulted from the overthrow of traditional thought once dominant in the Western world. In our time, this broken mirror often strives to regain its identity from the enduring integrity of the phenomenon of body. And yet, the notion of body we inherited is itself founded on the very tradition modernity has sought to overcome. Still today our modern vision of space cannot aptly translate the expanse of the body that once presided over Western art and architecture. While in the pre-modern world of Christian tradition, the word body was overarching, covering all beings, the spiritual and physical domain of reality, the notion was tainted by the Classical question of embodiment, the substance of the body itself and deep mystery of its animation. Today, to speak of the spatiality of a living body summons up a field of questioning almost entirely forgotten by modernity. And yet, as we speak of modernity, we must face visions of spatiality, which have long preceded us. In the field of architecture, so broadly called to address the thingness of things, the question visibly springs to the fore. Whether we speak of the embodiment of ideas or the embodiment of culture, this fragmented body of our discourse is for the most part not only at odds with the significance of its own history, more often it recalls fragments of thought, long thought since Antiquity. In spite of this latent memory, modernity has relegated its past into secular history, a history far off the traditions of thought it strives to articulate. Such

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distancing is not new. We need not describe the vast territories of thought that have been approached in this way. Today words falling into traditional categories of beauty, the eternal, and the vocabulary of religion are continually filtered by a modern vision. Words closer to us and to the tradition of Western thought fall especially into this category, and to utter them now calls for an unprecedented degree of care that, it too, is scattered and rarely within sight of its own birthplace. Visibly, throughout the historiography of architecture, most Christian art – indeed, most of Western architecture ‒ has seen its voice suppressed in favour of a history of styles, of building types, of form and space which tell us more of our own time than of our past. Rare have been the cases where traditional notions of body and their ancestry in the Classical and Christian worlds have been recalled. And yet, even a cursory look at Antiquity shows the Classical notion of embodiment as fundamentally different from the Christian vision that came to shape the Western world. Unlike the Classical question of the nature and animation of the body and the fate of the wandering soul, Christian tradition emerged from the Hebrew world and from the deep divide separating the word and spirit of the Law from becoming a reality in the flesh. This vision of the living body of flesh and blood, as it gained ground in early Christianity, was integral to the bridging of the abyss and from the very beginning the focal point of celebration of the deep mystery expressed in the dwelling of light in our visible world (cf. Jo 1, 1–14). In the long journey that ensued, the concept of dwelling was key to the primary vision of incarnation that albeit in renewed, secular form still remains the underlying mystery to our understanding of words and things. Its antiquity guides still our way of asking the question of creativity from beyond the landscape of human thought to the proximity of built reality. The field of architecture traditionally played a decisive role in the task of bringing the nature of our world to tangible life. Architecture has not just been the historical embodiment of our culture. Deeply in the tradition of Western

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thought, our vision of utterance, of language, of light itself, has long since been cast into stone. Venerable reminders of this ancestry can be found in the oldest tradition of the commandments of the Hebrew bible (cf. Deut 5, 22; 6, 9) that preceded the Christian reading of the Old Testament. The allegories of the New Testament multiplied this vision in rich vocabulary, of “rock” as foundation (cf. Mt 16, 18), of “stone” rejected and becoming “corner stone” (cf. Ps 118, 22; Mt 21, 42; Mk 12, 10; Lk 20, 17; Acts 4,11; 1 Pt 2, 7), and the “living stones” that stand upon it (cf. 1 Pt 2, 5). There should be no illusion that, while Christian tradition shaped the Western vision of the world and architecture, our history is now built on its ruins. The vast and rich fabric of time leading to the overthrow of the edifice contributed decisively to the transformation of our world, placing in its stead a modern world narrative. Now, it is the history of tradition ‒ rather than tradition as such ‒ that is more readily accessible to us, and only in niches can a living tradition be found. It was from these abandoned ruins that populate the landscape of modern historiography that notions such as civilisation and culture emerged. Our elusive vision of culture throughout modernity reflects its visions of the past in different tones which grew in stature in the nineteenth century. These ranged from historical notions of civilisation and culture (Kultur) to the personal domain of cultivation (Bildung). It should not be surprising that the overarching centrality of Western civilisation in this narrative, in time, should have become one of the primary instruments of its own decline and fall, giving way to a plurality of civilisations as cultures. To overcome this relentless tide we must turn to the primary search that once animated the modern approach as it departed from effective history. The most momentous contribution in this regard was that of modern hermeneutics to the understanding of history in light of the boundaries of life and narrative. Until recently, contributions have been made, not least from the field of architecture, where the role of common ground, a common ground of reference, has shown to be integral to the very nature of the communicative space of

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culture1 ‒ which finds its identity in the inner life of tradition; which is visible, and perhaps also in its deeper sense in the role played still today by the experience of craft and know-how in modern art. This practical knowledge once founded on the experience of traditional crafts now reflects the problem of culture itself, a culture partly oblivious to the past, partly replaced by superficial cultivation. Modern art – as opposed to traditional craft – now reflects this historic and aesthetic distance ‒ a tradition seen from without. *** The difference that separates modern history from the past ‒ of thought, of craft and building ‒ is patent in countless examples. Still today, it is only half-understood that the historicist and aesthetic interpretation of the Classical world tells us more of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries than of Antiquity. This is ever more apparent in those territories where aesthetics has apparently run its course, and yet reappears under the guise of the terms of humanism in the lexicon of style, of taste, and judgement. The distance that separates us from the past is not merely historical, or cultural, or contextual. It finds its life and true ground in our ability to understand the past that is buried in our own present, in the intellectual legacy of the Western world, as a condition latent to modern life and architecture. Understanding tradition in its own terms has remained otherwise an elusive task, a task outside the nature of building, and building far from a tradition that cannot be replicated. Stark clarity is gained from the vision of style that has lasted more or less uninterruptedly since the eighteenth century ‒ an exercise perhaps ironically comparable to speaking a language of Antiquity with the accent of aesthetics. When first adopted by aesthetics, the category of style derived its sources from the instrumental dimension of writing; the notion was further amplified by spurious etymology (Gr. ıIJࠎȜȠȢ), thereby seeking to draw ancient architectural

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roots from the Classical world. If in hindsight it may appear illusory to us the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century belief that the emulation of style would result in a form of material enactment of history, today it is still not entirely germane to the domain of creativity and the visual arts that the style of writing can tell us only little, if anything, of what is written. The main question of the continuity of representation and creativity is in fact much older. It can be traced to the tradition of the oldest books of the Bible, from Genesis and the utterance of creation, through the landscape of the spirit and the flesh, and brought to the Christian understanding of the Word, made flesh. The Christian understanding of body was itself founded on this mystery. Its continuity, the continuity of a living body from beyond the depths of creation, was debated at length throughout human history, and consolidated from the medieval metaphysics and geometry of light and vision in Grosseteste, Bonaventura, and many more where the nature of visibility was sought in what could be described as a depth of vision, akin, and on its deepest level, identical, to seeing (cf. Gen 1, 3–31) and listening (cf. Deut 5, 1; 6, 4). With its primordial sources in the ancient Hebrew world, such tradition was reflected in the primacy of the voice of God, as well as in the Old Testament concern with images. In that ancient world, the prohibition of taking the name of God in vain (cf. Ex 20, 7) was not a mere question of reverence, but the recognition of the limits of man in speaking of that which precedes creation. The nature itself of language has been handed down through a more or less continuous body of transmission. Its historicality is now but latent. And yet, its primordial role is time and again recalled in the handing down of practical knowledge and experience. Here, the depth of knowledge integral to experience must be regarded in its twofoldedness, from the depth of practical wisdom with sources in ancient Greece, and from the ancient Hebrew handing down of living memory. This active role of memory took flesh in Christianity as ĮȞȐȝȞȒıȚȢ (cf. Lk 22, 19). And from the depth of this encounter, the sources

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of a tradition so intimately founded on transmission came to shape a new understanding of the nature of thought (‫ݷ‬ȡșȩȢįȩȟĮ), of that which is taught (įȩȟĮȜȩȖȠȢ), and the teaching itself (Gr. įȚįĮȤȒ, Lat. doctrina). Historically, the difference that separated Christian teaching from the worldly domain (țȩıȝȠȢ or mundanus) should be far from novelty. In John, words like “world”, “worldly”, or “mundane”, refer not to the țȩıȝȠȢ of Ancient Greece, but to the mundane world of cities. It was from this understanding of cities that refuge in the desert was sought. With its precedents in strands of ancient Judaic spirituality, the desert was embraced by early Christianity in the first hermitages away from the world (fuga mundi or fuga sæculi), allowing different ways of life and a setting for the transmission of knowledge and for spiritual traditions to grow. The desert called for the cultivation of a world whose references were radically different from those of mundane cities. In the desert, early monastic life was from the very beginning largely set against (contra mundum), and of necessity apart, from the world. And yet, in the narratives of the New Testament, retreating into the desert was but a preparation before returning to the city, the city of Jerusalem and the events that would follow. High above all the tragedies of Ancient Greece, the Gospels speak of the relentless path of rejection and condemnation truth was bound to encounter upon entering the worldly domain (cf. Mt 20, 18; Mk 8, 31; 9, 31; Lk 9, 22.44; Jo 1, 14; 8, 45–46; 14, 6.17; 18, 23.37–38); and still, the call of the city could not be ignored, neither in light of the Gospel narratives, nor in the tradition of Christianity and monastic life that would later develop. Augustine provides us here with ample examples of the dilemma of truth in the world in his own Confessions, marked by the worldliness of his youth in the Roman provinces, a dilemma later reflected in the two cities ‒ the city of God and the city of men. If the dilemma had been answered in early coenobitic life, the break could not be altogether radical. The story is known; and Augustine himself did not

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forever remain behind familiar walls, but again ventured into a world plagued by conflict. The decline and fall of Empire was then felt most acutely. By the following century, under the guidance of Benedict, the walls of monasteries would become the last redoubts of libraries that largely informed Western thought. The guiding role of tradition in monasticism had set the course towards a fundamental shift in the geography of knowledge. In the cities of Christianised Europe, unique seats of learning in its truest sense were cathedral schools where the building tradition of architecture and dissemination of knowledge for centuries took place. From divine wisdom to secular knowledge, one of the most explicit steps in bringing learning to cities was the founding of universities, in many cases from the existing schools. First as collegiate structures, the learning there involved was structured in light of Classical education (trivium, quadrivium). And yet, perhaps their life made cities places not of an actual coexistence, but of quiet superimposition of higher learning to worldly affairs. Contrary to greater visibility, the institution of universities may have contributed to veil more than reveal, the very nature of knowledge it had initially set forth to disseminate. Unlike the spreading of the Gospel, centuries past, the dissemination of learning was now cast into the heart of the city. And as the cathedral, school, beacon of faith, pilgrimage, and body of light cast into stone descended into the market square, the distance separating worldly affairs from the height of the spire would remain largely unanswered, notoriously within the walls of the Church. *** The word reformation is itself evocative of a past and of the challenges faced by its actualisation.2 While the reform of religious institutions played a role of paramount importance, the scholarly work carried out by many of the orders founded or reformed in the wake of the Council of Trent would become crucial to the exploration of natural philosophy and the early beginnings of modern

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science. At the very core of this scholarly and teaching activity was the challenge of bringing the domain of contemplation to the world of active life, the vita activa. The step represented by the new and reformed institutions was guided by the spirit of resistance to the mundane, far more visibly than in preceding centuries, and more strictly bound to the first rules of life. Known precedents were established by the growing number of monasteries, until then founded in the countryside, and now partly brought to the city. But of their own nature, the inner boundaries of monastic or conventual rule could only rarely extend beyond the protective walls of the vita contemplativa. The challenge of the city called for a life of contemplation also in action (simul in actione contemplativus), free from the constraints of traditional rule and along a new mode of proceeding (modus procedendi), reflecting the life of Christ and the mystery of incarnation. The phrase modus procedendi, which seems to draw its primary sources from French jurisprudence, held originally at its core the nature of the application of the law to particular cases. But beyond the specific field of canon law, by the sixteenth century the phrase would have been part of common vocabulary in the teaching of theology and philosophy. Here and more broadly, the contribution of the Jesuits to intellectual life and the visual arts would prove inestimable. Their mode of proceeding was founded on the traditional understanding of man described in particular in the Old Testament (cf. Deut 6, 5) and inherited by Christian tradition along the Classical vision of the human soul (Phaedrus, 246a). Such confluence had long attained its peak. And three vital forces – long since reflected in three vows of religious life throughout Christianity – would become elemental to the new mode of proceeding as a reflection of the incarnation of the Word (cf. Mt 22, 36–40; Mk 12, 28–34; Lk 10, 25–28). Moving from the spirit (spiritus) through the heart (cor) and to practice (practica), the spirit was understood and grasped through listening (obœdientia), and brought to the level of discourse (practica) and actual works (opera). This methodical structure did not limit itself to the spoken word, but entailed a continuous living exercise, where practica was identified with the explicit visible realm.

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Ample testimony is rendered by the emphasis on the nature of visibility and the intellectual exploration of the time, ranging from the metaphysics of light and vision to geometry and architecture. This was accompanied by a new approach to Scripture, its interpretation and translation, largely through the contribution of Protestant hermeneutics, soon to be emulated at slow pace by the Catholic world. On its fringes, the enquiry into visibility, though bound by Scripture, had gained autonomy on a series of fields. In line with the tradition of Scholasticism, much of the enquiry was articulated in geometric terms (theologia more geometrico) and frequently brought in analogy to the logical structure of discourse. Throughout contemporary treatises, notions of logica recta and obliqua were seen on a par with architectura recta and obliqua. Visual representation was seen and often described in view of this logical structure, its indirectness and metaphoricity. Figures of speech and their subtext, irony, and indirect meaning were founded on a common ground to the understanding of the deep mystery of visibility, the structure of perception, the indirectly felt presence of light, the natural deformation of the visual field. Having taken its course from the systematisation of perspective ‒ as indeed the whole endeavour of systematisation of the visible world – could then be best described as a grammar extending to, and including, the very nature of language and discourse. By the seventeenth century, the exploration was all-pervasive through to a potential geometrical structure of visibility. And its broadness and depth is all too apparent in painting and architectural examples of perspectival deformation (deformatio) and reformation (reformatio), anamorphosis, the transformation of geometric figures, and of the field of geometry itself. But was there ever an altogether radical departure from the tradition of Western thought? And was such departure not precluded by the nature of the traditional concepts employed ‒ the historicality of language itself ? There should be little doubt that from the same vocabulary of Classical optics of ancient thought and the phenomenal realm of experience, the optics of

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Descartes and Newton came to be founded; from the nature and experience of weight (gravitas), the modern concept of gravity was articulated; from the phenomenal realm of cosmic conditions – once diagrammatised in Ptolemy – the hypothesis of Copernicus was formulated, and the compromise of Tycho, and the heliocentrism of Galileo, and on Kepler’s laws of motion, modern science came to gain ground. In many ways the drama and uneven departure that then took place remains still with us, perhaps in our time more explicitly than ever, reminding us at every corner of the tense separation of arts from sciences, of humanity from technology, of what it means to be human from the instrumental means at our disposal. Much has been argued over and against the relevance of each fragmentary field ‒ as indeed fragmentation has ensued and specialisation now thrives. Little is known of the consequences, every time more drastic of abandoning whole bodies of learning – on a deeper level, the very understanding of the role of tradition in bringing to light the thought of our human world. *** It would be from along the edge of this cliff that Western thought as we know it today would find conditions to flourish. The divide had grown to become transversal from the period of formation of modern thought, coming to plague the historicist vision of the arts and their visual interpretation of the past. What came to be known as the querelle of ancients and moderns would be reflected in countless attempts to revive Antiquity and the Classical tradition of painting, sculpture, and architecture. If the times of the ancien régime had been of dramatic coexistence of traditional thought with the new emerging science, in no other time had the divide become as explicit as the eighteenth century. Marked as we are by a modern vision, it is only too current for us to see its traditional setting against the backdrop of impending Revolution. And yet, forgotten perhaps as it may be, throughout the Old Continent, for the

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most part outside its capitals and in the rural countryside, religious and pastoral life continued. And the extinction of religious orders that in time would come into force would fail to dissolve this link. All too often is this period brought forth as a visual reference within the arts and the field of architecture in particular. Only too briefly can we allude here to this felt and more tangible beginning of the modern narrative, the genealogy of modern thinking. Within the depths of eighteenth-century philosophical thought, an almost silent, and yet far more profound, revolution would occur that would radically set the course for contemporary thought. It was then that Kant’s contribution played a fundamental role, where the resounding divide that separates our human judgment from things themselves would also become the very foundation for our modern interpretation of ontological difference and aesthetic consciousness. Plenty has been said of the intellectual and historical background to his work. But we should not be satisfied that the role of the positive and arbitrary – at the core of Kant’s ethics – finds its parallel in the domain of the objective and subjective in art. In fact, both lines of questioning had already been anticipated in the existing dichotomy of positive and arbitrary beauty of the past century. But more broadly, it had been the overwhelming power of the question of knowledge, articulated in the question of certainty, which invested the new science with its modern weight. Its consequences, far-reaching as they were, would soon extend to the arts and humanities as a whole. It would be in the shadow of modern science that Baumgarten called for an art that, like a science, would address perception (aesthetica).3 The debate is well known, the term itself having been heavily criticised by Kant ‒ who favoured the acception of aesthetics solely as speculative philosophy or a science of perception.4 What followed should strike us then all the more by the partial indifference for the momentous questions that had arisen. Reflections of such neglect can

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be found still in Hegel’s Aesthetics. There, the broad acception of aesthetics itself was outlined ‒ in view of the apparently arbitrary dismissal of the beauty of nature,5 and the deliberate dismissal of the original project of a science of sensibility, characterised as superficial.6 Hegel’s enterprise would favour instead the commonly accepted notion of aesthetics as a science of beauty and art, and more precisely a philosophy of fine art. *** Our vision of the modern world no doubt owes much to the enabling power of the humanities to the detriment of its own primary tradition, a tradition that from the very beginning was built, not on secularism, but on religion. A brief gaze at the generation of Hegel and Schleiermacher would perhaps suffice to show its significance. Strongly founded on a Protestant vision, the radicality of their contribution took flesh as an existential enquiry into human nature in the landscape of history, ranging from the traditional understanding of spirit and soul to the modern interpretation of mind and perception. This was essentially the question that albeit in different tones would again be reflected in Brentano’s early work well into the nineteenth century. In Classical and Scholastic interpretation, the phenomenon of mind travelled across the full expanse of consciousness, arising on the primordial form of continuity of the created world. This traditional vision of human thought in its wider and deepest sense would be vastly modified as a direct consequence of the modern understanding of difference; there, the mind became radically bound by the realm of perception (Wahrnehmung). Partly clarified by Brentano’s concept of intentionality (intentionale), the nature of perception was cast still in light of the Scholastic vision of mental phenomena. But in bringing the ancient vision of the mind to the domain of consciousness, a step had been taken towards what would come to form the ground of modern psychology, and thereby open a path secondary to the traditional aim of philosophy.

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Perhaps this secondary path is reflected still in our modern and often fragmented approach, which tends to focus far too intensely on how Brentano’s thought was structured than on its primary goal. A similar argument frequently occurs with the interpretation of Husserl ‒ whose phenomenological method is often seen as one of many possibilities, and whose main historical significance is attested by a renewed focus on things themselves. Known to his contemporaries, and recognised even by his students, Husserl’s contribution, from the publication of his Logical Investigations at the turn of the century, was in its time often read in parallel to the works of Scholasticism ‒ chiefly among them, Aquinas.7 And yet, in a confession openly made to his students, Husserl himself is said never to have read Aquinas. Was it by sheer coincidence that the distance, separating the ideal from the real, made a reappearance in his own transcendental psychology? The goal was, in fact, quite other. And though Husserl’s work was initially described within its scope, the field, not to say the modern concept of psychology itself, would soon be discarded. At the core of the work was the growing weight of positive scientific criteria, propelling the investigation and bearing far greater consequences to modern thinking. The nature of the investigation itself made under such conditions called for a method of philosophical enquiry founded solely on the phenomenal realm of experience. Husserl’s rehabilitation of the Classical understanding of ‫݋‬ʌȠȤȒwould become the first methodical step in this phenomenological reduction of our belief to the domain of experience. As a crucial step, it would represent the fundamental rehabilitation of phenomena ‒ to the detriment of the factical domain of the experiment standing at the presumed foundation of modern science. Ultimately, the goal of the investigation did not concern things themselves, nor was their object-like quality (Gegenständlichkeit) especially fruitful. It was in contrast the essence (Wesen) of things themselves that revealed the horizon of things in their primary challenge ‒ we could almost say – in view of the

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radical difference separating us from the horizon of what things are; from the truth of our phenomenal world of experience. The attempt at the enterprise was initially carried forward by the young Heidegger; and the field first opened by Husserl would prove determinant to the breadth, and depth, of the enquiry that was to follow. Its aim however, would soon differ from Husserl’s. Unlike the course that had been set, Heidegger’s work would initiate a renewed approach to the articulation of the phenomenal realm of experience (ijĮȚȞȩȝİȞRȞȜިȖȠȢ) as a privileged field of investigation and also point of departure. The primary question had long been raised, time and again appearing reflected across the layers of the history of metaphysics. Traditionally, the essence of things themselves shared a common ground with their nature or substance. While the concept of nature described both the origin and medium of an entity, substance described its essence metaphorically as laying underneath the superficiality of appearances. Appearing surcharged by historical layers of interpretation, the orientation of the approach towards things themselves (ܻʌȠijĮަȞİıșĮȚIJ‫ޟ‬ijĮȚȞȩȝİȞĮ) now called for the destruction (Destruktion) of those same layers that, across time, had hidden ‒ more than revealed ‒ the fundamental question of being. The elusive commonality of being would come to form the primordial ground of investigation. Throughout Heidegger, first through the failed attempt at a reinvention of language, and then the turn to poetry, language would play a primary role in articulating the historicality of being, calling in our time for a deeper degree of consideration and care (Sorge). Language was, in this task, the primary source and field of exploration. And while being-in-the-world called for an approach to spatiality, which is reflected also in the later essays, the question itself would remain largely untreated. Among the many possible explanations for the omission was perhaps the interpretation of time that, rather than space, from the early work had set the primordial horizon for the pursuit of being. In the later stages of questioning, as we know, the references to poetry

14

The Living Tradition of Architecture

are telling ‒ reverting often to Hölderlin as a recurring source, but also to the Classics, to Plato, and to the Gospels and their translations, namely by Luther. In a sense, the legacy of hermeneutics, first originated in the Protestant tradition, would play a role in this last stretch of the endeavour. *** These are roughly described some of the traits of the landscape upon which the contribution of Hans-Georg Gadamer would come to light. Truth and Method, first published in 1960, had long been awaited. The genuine warmth with which it was received is perhaps only comparable to the misunderstanding of its primary goal by many of its contemporaries. Behind the warm reception was the gaging of intellectual history and philosophical investigation in the direct measure of their practical use. This deep misconception of the true goal of philosophy would be made plain by Gadamer in his second edition, of 1965. There, the end of philosophy was aptly identified ‒ not with any field external to philosophy, but more radically in that “which happens to us over and above our wanting and doing”.8 The contribution of modern hermeneutics ‒ as indeed modern philosophy herself ‒ did not of her own nature offer a method for the humanities, or the arts; the goal was philosophical, the nature of the argument also, and in this task the role of language would again prove crucial. The approach to the Classical concept of ȜިȖȠȢ ‒ and its intellectual tension with the verbum of Christianity described in Truth and Method ‒ would again recall the historical distinction of the Classical concept of embodiment from the Christian mystery of incarnation. The phenomenon of body – called for by the nature of the argument itself and left untreated by Heidegger – would then be addressed briefly throughout Gadamer’s later essays. But along this wide span of enquiry, the focus on the work of art had travelled from the inherited vision of aesthetics to the deeper domain of

15

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modern ontology and hermeneutics. In so doing, the recurring distinction of subject from object had been overcome by the phenomenon of play. In this task, of the questions raised and answered in full historical measure, the hermeneutics of the work of art would especially bear fruit; and notably, the relevance of the beautiful and the role of play in art, the nature of ornament as encapsulating the movement of the particular to the universal, and the inherited ground of building, dwelling, thinking, and the legacy of aesthetics and religious experience would find in architecture a privileged field of enquiry. In our own time, the extent of the task can perhaps be best summarised in Gadamer’s own words: We should appreciate the magnitude of the task involved in reconciling in a fruitful and appropriate way the great monuments and buildings of the past with our modern forms of transport, the methods of lighting available to us today, and the different conditions under which we see them. Perhaps I may give an example of what I mean. On a journey in the Iberian Peninsula I was deeply moved to discover a cathedral in which the authentic language of these Spanish and Portuguese religious buildings had not yet been obscured, so to speak, by the illumination provided by electric lights. Obviously, the narrow apertures that let us glimpse the sky outside, and the open portal that allows the daylight to flood into the interior represent the only proper way to encounter these mighty citadels of religion. Now I am not suggesting that we can simply disregard the conditions under which we customarily see things. It is no more possible to do this than to disregard all the other aspects of modern life. The task involved in bringing together the petrified remnants of yesterday and the life of today provides a vivid illustration of what tradition always means: not just the careful preservation of monuments, but the constant interaction between our aims in the present and the past to which we still belong.9

Today, more often than perhaps should be the case, discussion within architecture looks to the humanities for solid ground. That common discourse is rarely substantiated by daily practice is ‒ or should be ‒ painfully evident. Painfully, not because architecture should be based or founded on a field external to itself or its recent findings. But because especially today, architecture as most

16

The Living Tradition of Architecture

arts in their enterprise are increasingly cast away from the profundity once attained ‒ away from what we should now describe as its own tradition, that at such depths coincides with those of human thought. It is not that architecture has moved away from philosophy or religion. It has moved away also from the visual arts that traditionally described its familiar field. The work of architecture is today more than ever pressed towards the surface, seemingly out of the breadth that has historically informed and always pertained to its task. Now as in the past of modernity, the cliff is transversal in defining the frontiers of the humanities. Now more than ever the humanities have been seen as secondary and often defended under the weak pretext of their potential value for an everydayness, perhaps more accomplished or under the guise of authenticity, an everydayness ever more secondary. The depth of understanding (Verstehen) ‒ once ventured by Dilthey as a guiding light for investigation ‒ is now jeopardised and seldom taken in the full measure of the challenge it represents. Architecture, in its common discourse, now almost oblivious to its own past, takes refuge in the received categories of the eighteenth century, seemingly impervious to the thought that has since taken its course. The relativism of taste, style, judgement, in its positive and arbitrary form, are still current, while architecture, its communicative role, and ontological depth are perhaps just as questioned as seldom understood. The nature of the contemporary situation partakes of this loss of references, of orientation, and finally, apparent blindness. The very basic simplicity of enquiry, and the silence it now faces, is, and should be, telling. Painfully, because these are questions raised and answered long ago. Painfully because architecture ‒ of all arts the most traditionally grounded on the depths and foundations of its own edifice – now views its own tradition as past. Should our task have become today one of opening the doors of the living tradition of architecture, then our task has only just begun.

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† in memoriam DALIBOR VESELY 1934–2015 This work is dedicated to one of the greatest educators of our time, whose own legacy connects us all – in particular his students – to the living tradition of twentieth-century thought.

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I

The background of architecture as living tradition

One might indeed enquire why it is that, though a boy may be a mathematician, he cannot be a metaphysician or a natural philosopher. Perhaps the answer is that Mathematics deals with abstractions whereas the first principles of Metaphysics and Natural Philosophy are derived from experience: the young can only repeat them without conviction of their truth, whereas the formal concepts of Mathematics are easily understood. Again, in deliberation there is a double possibility of error: you may go wrong either in your general principle or in your particular fact … And it is clear that Prudence is not the same as Scientific Knowledge …1 — Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, VI, 8, 6-7.

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Werner Oechslin “Prudentia non est scientia”: Abstraction and experience and the Aristotelian parable of the puer

LXYHQLVSXHUʌĮ߿ȢȞ‫ޢ‬ȠȢ An argument from the Nicomachean Ethics The sixth book of the Nicomachean Ethics deals with the virtues of the mind, all of which Aristotle sets out and summarizes under the notions of art, science, prudence, wisdom, and reason.2 They are all connected in different ways to truth and to the search for truth; and this is where Aristotle’s observations and reflections begin. Those include not only a distinction of the activity of ‘knowing’ from the activity of drawing a ‘conclusion’ – and the distinction of a necessary nature from a contingent nature – but also a focus towards action for the sake of practical reason. This is illustrated with an example. Among the older philosophers, we find the wise Anaxagoras and Thales3, who immune to earthly goods, are 'not prudent', as well as Homer. Artists also make their appearance in a ‘significant’ way. Phidias and Polykleitos appear as examples of wisdom.4 In contrast, Pericles appears as prudent, because he has the right view of reality, practises moderation, and possesses the quality of judgement, which is a prerequisite of prudence.5 We can begin by concluding that special weight is given to prudence in this book of the Nicomachean Ethics, as already in the introduction the book refers explicitly to the “middle” and the “right reason”, the recta ratio (‫ݷ‬ȡșȩȢ ȜȩȖȠȢ) that is directed towards the “middle”.6

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Also rather surprising at first sight in the context of this discussion is the case of the iuvenis, of the youth, who, according to Aristotle, might well be a geometer and mathematician, certainly wise and knowledgeable, but devoid of prudence. This is meant as a sign of the fact that – when reflecting on how to attain the good that is humanly achievable – different things must be considered; and this requires experience, which the youth happens to lack. Prudence shows itself in praxis (‫ݘ‬į‫ޡ‬ijȡȩȞȘıȚȢʌȡĮțIJȚț߰), even if certain guiding orientations are provided for which Aristotle uses the term “architectonic”. Indeed, prudence and the civilis facultas (ʌȠȜȚIJȚț߰) are fundamentally one and the same.7 This is so even when the “nomothetic” – which is literally the legislative and in Aristotle’s characterization the “architectonic” aspect – differs from prudence. Specifically in this case prudence is “each and every particular good” (proprium uniuscuiusque bonum), which is more clearly oriented towards the self-interest of the individual.8 Aristotle further clarifies that the equation of prudence to civilis facultas refers to the hexis (‫݌‬ȟȚȢ), or in the more common Latin version the habitus. But they do not constitute an essential sameness. In the Latin translation of Argyropoulos – according to the edition of 1496 – we find right at the beginning of the sixth chapter, and thus clearly emphasized, the sentence: “At qui civilis facultas & prudentia idem esse habitus: esse tamen ipsarum non idem est” – “Though civic ability and prudence are one same habit, they are not of the same being”. In this particular case, concrete prudent practise must be examined, and here Aristotle seeks clarification. For this purpose he employs the example of a youth, who is equipped for geometry and mathematics but not with prudence. The reason for this is that the object of mathematics exists by abstraction and so is devoid of experience. In the version of Argyropoulos, it reads as follows: “An quia mathematica quidem sunt per abstractionem” 9 – “It is because the objects of mathematics exist by abstraction”. In the commentary by Jacques Lefèvre d’Étaples, according to the above and the following

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sentence, the youth is merely capable of assertion, fitting the mathematical principle which is confirmed and explained more precisely: “Primo que mathematicus cognitione abstrahit/ neque experientia eget. at sapientis/ et naturalis principia: deprehenduntur experientia. Quapropter adolescentes illa quidem dicunt: attamen illis non credunt. Secundo. Mathematicorum diffinitiones non obscure sunt. Obscuriores autem sunt: et sapientis/ et naturalis.” 10 – Firstly the mathematician abstracts from cognition and does not act by experience; contrarily the principles of the wise and natural are taken up through experience. This is the reason why adolescents pronounce those [principles], but do not believe in them. Secondly the definitions of the mathematicians are not obscure; rather it is wise and natural definitions that are obscure. The argument culminates in the conclusion reached by Aristotle himself shortly afterwards, according to which prudence is not a science, and that indeed prudence is the opposite of what could be described as ‘pure’ intellect. Prudence “opponitur igitur intellectui”,11 – “is opposed to the intellect” – “Scientia igitur non est” – It is not science. Instead, prudence requires consultatio, consultation and reflection, and that requires time in order for one to be finally “well advised”. Prudence is shown only when this is the case and the process is concluded. After all, the good consultation (consultatio bona) has to prove itself to be the right one (rectitudo), and only in this way can one arrive at the right judgement (existimatio vera).12 So, at first, it appears that things are clearly distinguished and clarified in the image of the as yet inexperienced puer. That prudence is not compatible with childlike naivety and its related immediacy and swiftness, seems convincing and clear. Examination, deliberation and reflection are called for instead. A prudent person acts ‘thoughtfully’. Such thought appears even more evidently emphasized in the Italian translation of the Nicomachean Ethics by Bernardo Segni of 1550, and is further clarified in the image of the process of giving birth patiently:

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Bernardo Segni, L’Ethica d’Aristotile tradotta in lingua vulgare fiorentina (Firenze: Lorenzo Torrentino, 1550), frontispiece.

“Ma il giovane di questa [esperienza] manca, conciosia [sic] chè la lunghezza del tempo la partorisca”13 – “But the youth lacks this [experience], to which only the length of time may give birth”. Those who are still young lack in time and experience and altogether the patience that goes with it. They are – following the connection that has been established by Aristotle – suited for the abstract, mathematical insight that is independent of time, but not for that which requires experience and is connected with time and ultimately with history: “Iuvenis autem non est expertus. Experientiam enim

34

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temporis efficit longitudo”14 – “The youth is moreover no expert, for time length makes experience.” Longitudo efficit: the bringing forth by means of the long extension of time, Segni adorns with the image of the process of giving birth: partorisca. With this he suggests that experience is connected with effort and pain, but also with that which is longed and wished for. We aspire to and strive for prudence! While Aristotle drives the argument towards the universal and the particular in this context, driving it into play and adding the term “architectonic” to the general direction of the civilis facultas, Segni finds himself driven towards further discussion and explanation. The civic ability is differentiated into the “architettonica, & in quella, che è chiamata attiva, & particulare”15 – “into the architectonic, and that which is called active and particular”. Furthermore, it seems to be a given for Segni that in any case: “L’Architettonica considera il bene publico in universale” 16 – the Architectonic considers public good from a universal point of view. It must be elsewhere implemented concretely in the context of the città or the famiglia. But science is also “scienzia intorno all’universale” – it is also “science about the universal” – and by extension the habitus of intellect is also in the vicinity of prudence. On the other hand, prudence has to be set apart from the “external sense”.17 Thus Segni resorts, on the basis of Thomas Aquinas, to the “senso interno chiamato da’ Latini Cogitativa” – the “internal sense authors in Latin call Cogitative”. The latter is given to separate the general – and abstract – from concrete things.18 Building on all of these deliberations, Segni devises a ramification, according to which, prudenza is differentiated into the “architectonic” – for the universal and fundamental – inasmuch as prudenza is shared by many and relates not just to the family, but to all things civile; and on the other hand into the ‘particular’, whereby the latter leads to – concrete – reflection and judgement.19 Prudence thus experiences a comprehensive and increased valuation in meaning, allowing hope for a synthesis.

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In praise of ‘childlike naivety’: Irritation and alienation; knowledge versus creativity Das Volk und das Kind sieht. Der Gebildete sieht nur noch das Ideal, das nicht zu sehen ist.20 — Herwarth Walden Da stossen uns nun bei weiterer Ueberlegung Fälle in Menge auf, welche zeigen, dass Sicherheit und Schnelligkeit des Eintretens bestimmter Vorstellungen bei bestimmten Eindrücken auch erworben werden kann, selbst wo nichts von einer solchen Verbindung durch die Natur gegeben ist.21 — Hermann Helmholtz

But this is where the difficulties begin, where contradictions arise. Assigning to knowledge and the respective competence a place in the ‘whole’ of society as it is laid out in the Nicomachean Ethics does not prove to be the highest aim everywhere. Under the banner of ‘modern’ ideas of progress, other forces come into play. Knowledge – and even more clearly, ‘science’ – develop a dynamic of their own; and their clear distinction from prudence according to the Aristotelian prudentia non est scientia frequently leads to separation, removal, and conflict. Centrifugal forces are often stronger. And only the rhetoric of the new, modern querelle appears to profit in its manifesto-like exaggeration of “discountenance” (Blitzartigkeit), presented as the privilege of childlike naivety at the expense of more circumspect argumentation. In his widely read book, Rembrandt als Erzieher of 1890, Julius Langbehn already branded the scientific orientation on the first page as “die schwache Seite unserer modernen Zeitbildung” – “the weak side of the culture of our modern times”: “Die Wissenschaft zerstiebt allseitig in Spezialismus” 22 – “Science is dissipating to all sides into specialization”. His equation reads “je wissenschaftlicher … desto unschöpferischer” 23 – “the more scientific … the more

36

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Hermann Helmholtz, Die Thatsachen in der Wahrnehmung. Rede gehalten zur Stiftungsfeier der Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität zu Berlin am 3 August 1878 (Berlin: August Hirschwald, 1879).

uncreative”. By contrast, the diffuse notion of Kunstwollen, the “will to art” that removed creativity from an intellectually arrogant “Alexandrian” grip soon became the notion of the day. Herwarth Walden put it succinctly in his book Einblick in Kunst: Expressionismus, Futurismus, Kubismus when he wrote in 1917: “Das Volk und das Kind sieht. Der Gebildete sieht nur noch das Ideal, das nicht zu sehen ist” 24 – “The people and the child see. The cultivated person now only sees the ideal that cannot be seen”. The puer appears anew as the ‘true’ representative of the soul of the people; the puer is now seen in contrast to the ‘maleducated’ cultivated person! Hermann Muthesius – who used the attribute kraus, “odd”, to characterize the popular and not quite socially acceptable bestseller by Langbehn Der Rembrandtdeutsche – on his part put it like this in his Dresden Werkbund speech of 1911: “Die kunstgeschichtliche Erkenntnisarbeit verscheuchte die

37

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lebendige Architektur” 25 – “The art history academic endeavour has driven out living architecture”. According to Muthesius, Semper had already noted in 1851 on the occasion of the London World Exhibition “daß in der Kunst die barbarischen und halbbarbarischen Völker die gebildeten Nationen besiegt hätten” 26 – “… that in art, the barbaric and semi-barbaric peoples had been victorious over the civilised nations”. Art and science then stand in opposition as enemies; and the puer symbolizes not just the fresh view towards abstraction, which is undistracted by experience and deep reflection, but also the equally undisturbed access to creativity – and art. No doubt, science contributed its part to the differentiation, becoming irrevocably fixed in favour of a precise assessment of scientific work. When Hermann Helmholtz in his famous speech, “Die Thatsachen in der Wahrnehmung” of 1878 spoke in favour of the proof of “observation” (Anschaubarkeit), he demanded “wissenschaftliche Kenntnisse ihrer Gesetze” – “unambiguous proofs and the scientific knowledge of their laws”. It was clear to him, that “scientific proof ” however meant a rejection of the former attributes to Anschauung, where an idea would appear spontaneously without disturbing reflection and effort in the very moment of sense-perception (Vorstellung ohne Besinnen und Mühe sogleich mit dem sinnlichen Eindruck).27 What was lost, and fits perfectly with the unprejudiced puer, Helmholtz describes in terms of “Leichtigkeit, Schnelligkeit, blitzähnliche Relevanz” ‒ “lightness, speed, and lightning evidence”.28 Here is where two worlds drift apart! But, how different were the expectations concerning the “pädagogischen Werth der gebildeten Anschauung”, the “pedagogical value of the cultivated view” with which Pestalozzi and Herbart regarded the child and the youth. “Das Kind ist getheilt zwischen Begehren, Bemerken und Phantasieren” – “The child is divided between desire, observation, and imagination”. And from “observation” (Bemerken) – the “knowledge of the nature of things” could be directly derived (Kenntniß der Natur der Dinge).29 Naturally the puer had to be supported in his development and unfolding; he

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J. Georg Eccard, Programma de Historia Universali (Helmstedt; Wolfgang Hamm, 1706).

should not remain in a state of naivety for his whole life, as it might appear all-too-strongly in Herwarth Walden’s later conflation of “the child and the people” (das Kind und das Volk). Furthermore, the simple access to abstraction – which had already been noted by Aristotle – must not be a purpose in itself. Indeed, one shall and can avoid the long-recognized “torture of abstraction” (Abstraktionsfolter)30 if one is circumspect enough in the education of the senses that leads them towards sense intuitions (Anschauungen). Johann Christoph Friedrich GutsMuths put it like this: “Menschen, die man von Kindheit an sinnlich übte, zeichnen sich vor andern, denen man Begriffe ohne Anschauungen beizubringen suchte, die man schon frühzeitig auf die Abstractionsfolter brachte, ganz ungemein aus; sie sind stets reger und wacher, ihr Geist entzieht sich der grossen Schläfrigkeit, die nothwendig in Köpfen herrschen muss, in welchen nur dunkle Begriffe, wie dumpfe Irrlichter auf sumpfigem Boden

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hervorhüpfen; er ist stets aufgelegt sinnliche Eindrücke zu denken, weil ihm dies zur allgemeinen Fertigkeit geworden ist. So sammelt er sich einen Schatz von Begriffen, so gründet er auf den Scharfsinn seiner Sinne den Scharfsinn des Geistes.” 31 – “People who from early childhood on have been exercised in the senses stand out strongly against those whom one has tried to teach concepts without sense intuitions, whom one subjected to the ‘torture of abstraction’ early on; they are always more alert and awake, their mind resists the great sleepiness that must reign by necessity in those heads where only dark notions jump about, like dull reflections on muddy ground; one is always ready to think sense impressions, as this has become a pleasant ability. Thus one collects a treasure of notions, and the sharpness of one’s mind is founded on the sharpness of one’s senses.” Pestalozzi also makes use of such advantages when teaching how to deal with abstract numbers; he takes us from sense perception through insight and understanding, and finally to the competent handling of things that have so been ‘learned’; he introduces one of his instructions: “Um aber das Kind das Verhältnis einer Anzahl Einheiten mit einer andern Anzahl Einheiten, die ihm beyderseits zuerst in gleiche Theile zusammengefaßt vor Augen gestellt werden können, auf die kürzeste Art bestimmten zu lehren …” 32 – “But in order to teach the child in the shortest path to determine the relationship of a number of units to another number of units, which have first been put in front of his eyes both together in equal parts …”. This all points towards experience and to the much aspired prudence that is based on it. Does one want to make the puer into a prudent person after all? Maybe the question was not first and foremost about abstraction as such, but about the openness of sense, and about transience and the “lightning evidence” abandoned by Helmholtz. The latter would definitely serve the economy, and, if considered thoroughly, also prudence. Everything is in motion and could lead – following the steps of the ages of man – from ‘abstraction’ to practical reason. In contrast, remaining a child would imply standing still,

40

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which would contradict the course of nature, and would be synonymous to “remaining naïve without history” (geschichtslos naiv bleiben). At least this is how it is described by Leibniz’s secretary, Johann Georg Eccard, who by the time of the inauguration of his professorship in Helmstedt, included at the end of his syllabus words that speak to universal history along with Cicero: “Nescire, quid antea, quam natus sit, acciderit, id est semper esse puerum.” 33 Ignorance, especially the disregard for that which preceded us in history and experience, would mean forever remaining a child. Hence, there are not just advantages associated with the puer; and in this sense it seems advisable to overcome his condition. Yet, the dictum of the “people and the child”, who are uneducated – and because of this, not maleducated – has acquired a certain currency; and equally irritating sayings are those of “children and fools who speak the truth”. Everywhere there is a modicum of sense and truth in these sayings. But they are also misleading, as before the judicial authority, children and fools are hardly useful as witnesses – as legal scholarship asserts in reference to Seneca; it takes years until the one or the other understands (ut intelligat) and can appear as a credible witness.34 And so there is always a lacuna associated with the puer, as fresh and unburdened as he may appear to be. After all, how should we interpret the exclamation of the Egyptian priest directed at Solon: “O Solon, Solon! Vos Græci semper estis pueri, qui senex sit Græcus non datur” – “Oh Solon, Solon! You Greeks always remain children, not an old man is ever Greek.” The Jena professor Johann Philipp Treuner raises this issue in his syllabus of 1699 and addresses the lamentable state of philosophers, adding: “o philosophi, philosophi! Semper estis pueri, qui vero senex sit philosophus, non datur” – “o philosophers, philosophers! You always remain children, not an old man is ever truly a philosopher”. Still, would Treuner have simply reversed the question in order to lead the philosopher closer to not-knowing, as in: “maxima sapientia nostra sit, multa nescire”,35 to accept not knowing many things, is the greatest wisdom, we can have?

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One shall resign oneself and be content with the simple, with what is assigned to the puer. In Treuner’s words: “Puer ego sum, qui primas quoque literas aegre attingit, res, inquam, simplicissimas” – “I myself am a child, I say, who has hardly achieved anything beside the simplest first letters”. But, it is never that simple, and that is why Treuner adds: “Nihilominus in hac re simplicissima tantum difficultatis inest, ut sine labore inde non exeam” 36 – “Nonetheless there is so much difficulty in the simplest thing that, without work, there is no way of overcoming it”. We remain children if we assume erroneously, that is, naively – that things are simple; if we underestimate the difficulties and the always necessary labour of the mind!

Fiction and reality: the capacity for learning! Das eben ist die grösste Wohltat der Mathematik, dass man lange vorher, ehe man hinreichend bestimmte Erfahrungen besitzt, die Möglichkeiten überschauen kann, in deren Gebiet irgendwo Wirklichkeit liegen muss: daher man denn auch sehr unvollkommene Andeutungen der Erfahrungen benutzen kann, um sich mindestens von den gröbsten Irrthümern zu befreyen.37 — Johann Friedrich Herbart L’homme commence par voir, ensuite il entend, puis il parle et enfin il pense.38 — Vincent Huidobro

A multitude of things revolves around the puer! We are well advised to devote ourselves to the advantages ascribed to him not-yet-matured and capable of development. In the end, we return time and again to the beginning with our own insights and understanding. After all, the puer, that can still learn more and requires aid in doing so, does not simply describe an age category, but

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also a subordinate figure in a hierarchy.39 In that respect the puer independent of all inexperience has long become a metaphor and symbol of our doing. His discountenance (Blitzartigkeit) generally stands for the often unfulfilled longing for quick insight and understanding, and not just for rapid sense perception. Such insights could be helpful in redressing the stark contrast between creativity and knowledge. Knowledge does not have to detract from naivety and lack of prejudice; and if one understands knowledge as the willingness to always begin and question things anew, knowledge then becomes the necessary precondition of all endeavour for a new understanding. We constantly find ourselves in such situations anyway, even if we are – naively! – not always aware of them. Our ignorance determines everything. And that is what makes all those ‘childlike’ acrobatics, hair-splitting and contortions of all kinds ‒ with which difficulties are to be circumnavigated or removed and the fastest route to our goal ‒ all the more interesting. The poet has an advantage here: to him belongs, and he is responsible for, the ‘fiction’ the scientist all-too-gladly suppresses and conceals, even though the latter too, often avails himself of it. Into this category of intelligent ideas and inventions belongs the wonderful instruction for experimentation and order of thinking by means of which Huidobro assigns the artist an outstanding role in the context of an aesthetic theory under the title “La Création pure”.40 In his own words: “L’homme commence par voir, ensuite il entend, puis il parle et enfin il pense”. In the sphere of aesthetic experiments, to which the journal Esprit nouveau was dedicated, such insights have a liberating effect. They serve a philosophie scientifique, where the Chilean poet pleads in 1923 for the further development of art as an art de création, and an art determined by the “prédominance de la sensibilité sur l’intelligence” 41 – the “prevalence of sensitivity over intelligence”. With regard to ‘intellectual intuition’, Huidobro has his focus on Schelling, and when Huidobro searches for truth founded in the conscience of the individual, the conscience singulière, he turns to Schleiermacher. Thus prepared, Huidobro shows

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Johann Friedrich Herbart, Ueber die Möglichkeit und Notwendigkeit, Mathematik auf Psychologie anzuwenden (Königsberg: Hornträger, 1822).

how the artist collects the elements of his choice from the ‘objective world’ and then works them into a system from which to build a bridge into the ‘subjective world of the artist’. This then is carried out across a parallel second bridge, the bridge of technique, in order to add and incorporate back into the ‘objective world’ a new work (sous forme de fait nouveau).42 Speculative reason and freedom enter here into a quite plausible relationship; and above all, they do not go their separate ways. Inventiveness quite successfully goes along with the ratio cognoscendi ‒ the “knowing reason”. And the puer shows here a very different side to that of childlike, naïve innocence and unreflectiveness. In his contribution to Esprit nouveau, Huidobro explicitly turns against the intention to deny the artist such broadly based activity: “presque tous les savants modernes veulent nier chez l’artiste le droit de création et on dirait que les artistes eux-mêmes ont peur de

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ce mot” 43 ‒ “almost all modern scholars wish to deny the artist the right to creation and one might say artists themselves are afraid of this word”. It must be noted that this is not about a ‘creative’, inventive, or even ‘original’ artwork; what is debated is creativity tout court! 44 Huidobro speaks not without reason very generally about the development ‒ from the art of the reproduction and adaptation ‒ towards a creative art. And in parallel to this, he speaks of the evolution of the homme-miroir who only reproduces, towards the homme-Dieu, who produces creatively.45 Soon after, Le Corbusier brought forward similar arguments about the task and mission of the architect; he was to fulfill his obligations, but not just to: “répondre: Servir bien. Servir bien, mais aussi servir le dieu qui est en nous” 46 ‒ but not only does he have to “answer: To serve well. To serve well, but also to serve the god that is in us.” The artists rebel against the dictate of the “men of sciences” (hommes de sciences).47 And that is why Huidobro emphatically points out all those abilities that are connected with the création pure. Where the opposition between science and art has become more firmly established than one might think, it is worthwhile taking a look at the lack of prejudice, indeed the carefreeness associated with the puer. Georg F. Hartlaub in 1922 started from the position of “childlike creation as a value in itself ” (Eigenwert kindlichen Gestaltens) in order to then describe more generally the “genius of the child” (Genius des Kindes).48 In some cases this may have led to the narrowing of perspectives, to an overtly childlike dreaminess and playfulness (Träumerei und Spielerei). And this very much in contrast with the child prodigy (Wunderkinder) and the higher achievements of the genius (Mehrleistungen des Genius) that are reached through “precocious ingenuity” (ingenia precocia).49 Recent times have prided themselves of having released the child from the grip of adulthood. What has been gained? Now children are endowed with a “natural childlike dignity” (kindlicher Naturwürde) or even protected by “natural childlike law” (kindliches Naturrecht).50 All this has its reasons, but the creativity and intellectual freshness ascribed to the

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Georg F. Hartlaub, Der Genius im Kinde (Breslau: Ferdinand Hirt, 1922).

puer rests on a much wider ground. The child, it too, learns and acquires early experiences, and on that basis gains insight and understanding along its development. On the other hand, as far as abstraction is concerned, there are many more different things at stake than ‘still-being-a-child’ might simply suggest. It has to be – more than the sheer lack of experience and insight for the sake of spontaneity – about the different nature of mathematical thought, which is why Evert W. Beth and Jean Piaget stated with Moritz Pasch: “La pensée mathématique marche à l’encontre de la nature humaine” 51 ‒ “Mathematical thought is going to the encounter of human nature”. The hopes connected with this had been stated in a much earlier study concerning the relationship of mathematics and psychology by Friedrich Herbart in 1822: “Das eben ist die grösste Wohltat der Mathematik, dass man lange vorher, ehe man

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hinreichend bestimmte Erfahrungen besitzt, die Möglichkeiten überschauen kann, in deren Gebiet irgendwo Wirklichkeit liegen muss: daher man denn auch sehr unvollkommene Andeutungen der Erfahrung benutzen kann, um sich mindestens von den gröbsten Irrthümern zu befreyen.” 52 – “This after all is the greatest blessing of mathematics, that long before one is sufficiently endowed with certain experiences, one can oversee the possibilities somewhere in those areas where reality must lay: so one can also use very imperfect hints of experiences in order to free oneself at least of the greatest errors.” This should also follow from the sentence “Unsre Gedanken sind schneller, wie der Blitz” 53 ‒ “Our thoughts are faster, like lightning” in favour of the free-floating mind and pure sense intuition (Anschauung). However, without a link to the world and to experience this does not work either, and Herbart’s statement concerning the usefulness of ‘imperfect’ experience has long moved into the realm of much talked discursiveness. In Piaget’s argumentation, the special gift for abstraction can be found in the possibility of still insufficiently developed abilities – that is, by means of (virtual) abilities given to them so as to form improved modes of thinking. Piaget identifies these more specifically as “reflecting abstraction” (abstraction réfléchissante) just as he deduces processes of ‘reconstruction’ from elements described as “projected or ‘reflected’” (projetés ou “réfléchis”).54 All this is not quite so spontaneous and ‘childlike’; this other puer appears against a background more like something owed to the ideal projection of a state of naivety, which is longed for. This is why the ‘childlike’ mode could be seen as projected onto whole cultures. Johann Gottlieb Rhode in his “Begriff der Mythologie und die richtigste Methode dieselbe wissenschaftlich zu fördern” (1819) wrote then by analogy to an observed state, ‘still lacking’ sufficient foundations for insight and understanding: “Es kommt dabei alles auf den Grad der Klarheit an, mit welchem der kindliche Geist des höchsten Alterthums eine solche Anschauung aufzufassen, oder sie zu einer Idee zu erheben vermochte; ob er von dem sinnlichen Polytheismus emporstieg, oder ob er umgekehrt, von dem

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E.W.Beth et J.Piaget, Epistémologie mathématique et Psychologie. Essai sur les relations entre la logique formelle et la pensée réelle (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1961).

geistigen Monotheismus zu dem sinnlichen Polytheismus herbasank.” 55 – “It all depends here on the degree of clarity with which the childlike mind of high Antiquity could comprehend such an intuition and elevate it to an idea; if it ascended from a polytheism of the senses, or on the contrary, if it descended from spiritual monotheism to sensual polytheism.” Still, this is not enough; the ‘degree of clarity’ in itself could not be decisive in this matter debated between Rhode and Creuzer. The philosophy of history idea of an ascent and downfall had moved beyond the “operations of reflective thought” (opérations de la pensée réfléchie) for the sake of more simple mechanisms. And this is how time and again one dealt with the puer and the ideas associated with it. Logical and psychological considerations often went separate ways as Piaget explicitly regrets in his introduction to the research on the child’s development of the notion of number.56 There, questions on the relation of “immediacy and

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Johann Friedrich Herbart, Pestalozzi’s Idee eines ABC der Anschauung als ein Cyklus von Vorübungen im Auffassen der Gestalten wissenschaftlich ausgeführt. Zweyte vermehrte Ausgabe (Göttingen: Johann Friedrich Römer, 1804).

interpretation of meaning” (Unmittelbarkeit und Sinndeutung)57 were kept to topical interests and points of view. Yet, this highly fascinating problem can only be understood if we look at those questions as a whole. The historical ‘case’ is embedded in them, and in contrast its ‘interest’ is better preserved in this way with regard to the questions raised by the issue itself. The question concerning the ability for abstraction is not an isolated problem, and it would be difficult to take it out of context of a developed and fully formed ability and experience. An author arguing otherwise, from the point of view of complexity, is Edmund Husserl,58 who does so in order to see generalization and abstraction the “artifice of economic intelligence” (denkökonomischer Kunstgriff), in accordance to an aspect much discussed in his time. Unsurprisingly he emphasizes that abstraction, “in the sense of a targeted emphasis” (im Sinne der pointierten Hervorhebung) of abstract

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contents, is to be distinguished from abstraction “in the sense of concept formation” (im Sinne der Begriffsbildung).59 The old question concerning appearance and reality is followed by the even more burning one of “the different essence of perception and imagination” (dem verschiedenen Wesen von Wahrnehmung und Phantasie).60 Husserl writes that “zu jeder möglichen Wahrnehmungsvorstellung [gehört] eine mögliche Phantasievorstellung” 61 ‒ “to every possible perceptual representation [corresponds] a possible imaginative representation”. The inner and the outer world ‒ that much is undisputed ‒ are interwoven in the most diverse ways!

… and architecture! Nasce ogni Arte dalla Isperienza. … & pero Vitr. Vuole che la Isperienza sia con la cognitione accompagnata. Il nascimento dell’Arti da principio è debole, ma col tempo acquista forza, & vigore.62 — Daniele Barbaro

A question arises if the puer, who enjoys the advantage concerning abstraction in a privileged way, only stands for a myth after all, and if this parable is a mere construct of our longing. Are these variants of our idea of a ‘love of geometry’? Might Aristotle have introduced the puer with a special calling for mathematics, only to distinguish better abstraction and experience from each other? In any case, in the time of humanism it was known that the Greeks educated their children at a tender age (in primis tenerisque Annis)63 in two respects, in poetry and mathematics. So it is not at all far-fetched to ask how the child and (mathematical) abstraction generally go together in order to then turn toward the fundamental question! This basically happened already with Aristotle. Since then the

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actual problem that was dealt with in the episode of the puer is ‘experience’ ‒ as a foundation for prudence and what was formerly thought as its inner opposition to science. Seen in this way, we do not have to prolong the question of how this would be relevant to the foundation of architecture. Daniele Barbaro dealt with this very question in 1556 in the “Proemio” to his edition of Vitruvius. Indeed, from the first sentence the “Proemio” is a reflection on the Aristotelian theory of habitus and its application to architecture. In Barbaro’s words:“Diverse sono le qualità delle cose, tra le quali una è, che habito se dimanda, secondo che si dice far buon’habito, esser bene habituato, & simiglianti modi, che dinotano, ò prendere, ò possedere una qualità, che di là dove ella è difficilmente si possa levare.” 64 – “Diverse are the qualities of things, among which one is: what is the customary habit required; another, when we say we make a good habit of something, to be of good habits and similar ways, which indicate either the taking or possessing of a quality that with difficulty may be carried forward from where it is.” This is inclusive of any science, any art, any virtue, and any vice; and it is how Barbaro begins to deal with their respective differences as the habitus is directed towards the intellect or the will or the prospect of achieving “certainty” (certezza), “clarity” (chiarezza), and the “firmness of that which is true” (fermezza del vero). In conclusion, Barbaro’s quest is intent on cognition and its corresponding chances of success. So, he distinguishes – always following Aristotle – between what is “necessarily true” (vero necessario) and what is “contingently true” (vero contingente). To what is necessarily true belongs scienzia along with the means it possesses of proving conclusively (habito de conclusione per vera, & necessaria prova acquistato), and also the intellect, of which mathematics lives especially (habito de i principij, & delle prove), and finally “wisdom” (sapienza) with its higher, superior insight and understanding (pronta, & sottile cognitione delle prove alle conclusioni applicate). To that which is contingently true (vero contingente) is assigned

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prudenza, the prudence directed towards human practical activity (habito moderatore delle attioni humane, & civili) but also art that, to begin with, Barbaro describes in terms of the production of works out of external matter (habito regolatore delle opere, che ricercano alcuna materia esteriore). Barbaro immediately follows with a more detailed definition. In his example of choice, this directly applies to building where the role of reason (cum ratione), stemming from Aristotle, is taken into consideration. Barbaro again: “L’Arte è habito nella mente humana, come in vero suggetto riposto, che la dispone fermamente a fare, & operare drittamente, & con ragione fuori di se, cose utili alla vita” – “Art is a habit in the human mind that is represented in the likeness of a true subject, that disposes the mind firmly to do, and operate, in a right way and with reason, out of itself, those things that are useful in life.” And just as in Aristotle, also in Barbaro prudenza and arte are fundamentally brought together in their orientation towards those contingent “things made by man” (cose fatte da gli huomini). Barbaro will not have missed that in Aristotle it is the very connection of prudence to ‘reasonable’ activity which is described as an ‘architectonic’ ability. Hardly surprisingly Barbaro then attempts to explain not just the connection between art and experience (Nasce ogni Arte dalla Isperienza), but also especially to underline their difference. Experience, when taken on its own, “works without reason” (opera senza ragione); with repeated experience and with the help of memoria, however, it is possible to seek out the grounds of “universal propositions” (propositioni universali) and to recognize in them the principles of art. In this respect, art surpasses experience, coming closer to the habit of sapienza because in this way too, by understanding the causes and reasons of things (intendendo le cause, & le ragione delle cose), the higher capacity of judgement is guaranteed. This path of development – from sheer experience to the insight and knowledge of principles – Barbaro summarizes in the sentence: “Il nascimento dell’Arti da principio è debole, ma col tempo acquista forza, & vigore” ‒ “the birth of

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Daniele Barbaro, I Dieci Libri Dell’Architettura Di M.Vitruvio Tradutti Et Commentati (Venezia: Francesco Marcolini 1556), frontispiece.

the arts in principle is weak, but in time acquires strength and vigour”. He also sees the fulfilment of Vitruvius’ quest for the scienza of architecture in the combination of experience and knowledge.65 Overcoming possible contradictions, Barbaro brings together the Aristotelian theory of habitus with Vitruvius’s ‘scientific’ quest. As Barbaro’s point of departure is that architecture also has principles that reason enables us to understand and learn, this route towards scienza and sapienza seems appropriate and right to him. Throughout his argument, mathematics is ever present. Barbaro characterizes it with the words “vigour and strength” (vigore & forza), with which he describes the growth of art from experience.

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Francesco Barozzi, Opusculum, in quo una Oratio, & duæ Quaestiones. altera de certitudine, & altera de medietate Mathematicarum continentur (Padova: Gratiosus Perchaacinus, 1560).

This reveals a very dynamic approach in dealing with mathematics and knowledge. After all, Aristotle too discusses in the sixth book of the Nicomachean Ethics the ways of dealing with, and acquiring, knowledge in the course of the explanation of induction and syllogism. Vitruvius on his part, literally took it from Aristotelian tradition that science is a habit of demonstration. This is patent in the Vitruvian definition architectura est scientia related in the course of the explanation of the ‘rational’ part of reasoning (ratiocinatio) as “to demonstrate and explain” (demonstrare atque explicare) (I, I, 1). So it follows that Barbaro is not just referring to the habit of ‘art’ (Lat. ars, Gr. IJȑȤȞȘ) in the stricter sense of Aristotle’s explanations. Rather, challenged by Vitruvius and the discussions concerning the status of art and mathematics at the time, Barbaro is also in pursuit of principles and scienza upon which to form an entirety.

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“Coniunctio una, & tota Mathematica”: the ‘middle temperature’ of mathematics in the tradition of Proclus; a dispute between Alessandro Piccolomini and Francesco Barozzi …ne in nobis eveniat, quod accidit ei, qui ex loco maxime calido in frigidissimum exiens algore vexatur, ni prius aliquantulum in eo meretur, qui temperatur est.66 — Francesco Barozzi

Not just art and architecture, but also mathematics was engaged at the time in debating its foundation and principles. The question regarding the certainty (certitudo) of mathematical insight was an important concern in 1560, particularly for Daniele Barbaro’s protégé Francesco Barozzi; and it led him to react accordingly to the views of Alessandro Piccolomini, whom Barbaro himself must have known from the early beginnings of the Accademia degli Infiammati and his teaching at the University of Padua. It was about the degree of granted certainty, the recognition of belonging in the first order of certainty (in primo ordine certitudinis), which could be confirmed with the authority of the writers of antiquity.67 But there were also reservations: “Certitudo mathematica non in omnibus expetenda” 68 (Mathematical certainty which is not to be desired in everyone). On what grounds and in which regard should this certainty be investigated and set forth? Should mathematical certainty be derived primarily from the possibilities of logic (a cogitatione, sive a ratione nostra), whose “aim” (scopus), “intention” (intentio), and “main subject” (subiectum principale) is none other than demonstration (demonstrare)? 69 Or is it rather, ante litteram, the case of the separation of res cogitans from res extensa? It was well known that arithmetic and abstract numbers were connected with quantities and thereby with the external world. But what kind of connection is this with nature to which humanity, “bound

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Alessandro Piccolomini, In Mechanicas Quaestiones Aristotelis … Eiusdem Commentarium de Certitudine Mathematicarum disciplinarum … (Venezia: Traianus Curtius, 1565).

by corporeal ties” (corporeis illigata vinculis) can only under the greatest difficulties be able to arrive at judgements on true / false or good / bad?70 What is at stake here are human mental abilities tout court. On this occasion Alessandro Piccolomini recalls his own youth (in adolescentia mea) and confesses that, despite his early learning of mathematics, he did not attain an insight into the much-praised value of mathematical demonstration, nor did he even feel with strength to arrive there.71 Instead, it seemed to him like a paradox (quasi ʌĮȡȐįȠȟȠȞ), which led him to the work

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of Proclus for assistance – more specifically the latter’s sceptical remarks on the impossibility of purely abstract symbols in geometry.72 At the end of a long discussion, dedicated more to logic than to mathematics, Piccolomini seems to find the solution in the Aristotelian parable of the puer, describing the access to mathematics for those who are not “experts”, essentially those who have not immersed themselves at length and in a time-consuming way into its fundamental questions. In his own words: “pueri autem non sunt expertes, ad abstrahendum vero maxime sunt ideonei” 73 – “children, however, are also not experts, they are mostly prone to abstracting.” They can do it, but they do not understand it! This seems to be the solution to the problem, or rather, in this way one can avoid the aporia that would result otherwise. Piccolomini underlines the respective issue: “Hæc sunt verba Aristo. valde prægnantia.” – “These are the very weighty words of Aristotle.” And then follows with his views concerning the experience required and the large amount of time needed by lengthier observation for the sake of a deeper understanding. In contrast, mathematical, abstract descriptions open themselves effortlessly and in depth to our mind (penitus & medullitus) precisely because they are “abstract”. This also acquits them from further investigation; and in this way content and form are related and mediated, and all assigned to quantity as given in the external world of the senses. Piccolomini underlines that one does not have to understand mathematics in all its philosophical depth to still be able to avail oneself of its advantages.74 In this fashion Piccolomini wants to establish the high rank of mathematical certainty in connecting abstract forms with external things. And with this opinion he leaves the discussion to other participants: “et illius aliis doctoribus ansam dederim” 75 – “and I left this argument to the other doctors”. “Ansam sibi præbuisse diceret …!” 76 – The challenge of Piccolomini – quoted as Recentior or referred to as opinio recentioris in the subsequent text – was taken up by the native from Crete, Francesco Barozzi. The latter had just

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translated Proclus’ commentary on Euclid into Latin and at the same time presented his additional reflections, nota bene, on the certainty of mathematics (certitudo Mathematicarum) and on the medietas. To substantiate those Barozzi had used Proclus as his prime witness. Both publications were dedicated by Barozzi in 1560 to his patron Daniele Barbaro.77 The difference to Piccolomini might at first appear minor, but in essence it concerns different modes of thought that have repeatedly given rise to fundamental discussions well into modern times. To these two complementing attempts at explaining the high degree of certainty of mathematics, Barozzi added the epithets naturalis and divina, respectively. At the end of his work stands the thesis that at stake was not just the obvious connection of mathematics to the res extensa, described there in particular as subiecta materia. Such connection makes the mediating value of mathematics apparent. But more importantly, it was also the case that the enquiry was intent on the great power of demonstration that casts the right light on the significance of mathematics and its medietas: “& non solum propter subiectam sibi materiam (ut voluit eruditissimus Recentior) verum etiam propter suas potissimas demonstrationes in primo certitudinis ordine ponendam esse, abunde patet.” 78 “… and, not only through the subject matter itself (as wished the most erudite Recentior); but also due to the most powerful demonstrations must be put in the first rank of certainty, as is sufficiently clear.” This is what later also allowed someone like Joseph Scaliger to say that the fame of mathematics is linked to the “happiness of demonstrations” (felicitas demonstrationum).79 Barozzi’s concern – in parallel with Piccolomini’s writings – was with the demonstration of proofs and the arguments derived “from the best authors” (ex optimis Authoribus). For him, too, the point of departure is Aristotle’s narrative of the puer, able to deal with mathematical abstraction without understanding its deeper grounds. Barozzi here literally takes over Piccolomini’s assessment (pueri autem non sunt expertes, ad abstrahendum vero maxime sunt idonei), in order to then enter more deeply into the discussion regarding materia and phantasia

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‒ as well as the process of abstracting from the subiecta materia. Such process would be lacking in hidden justifications ad causas, were it only concerned with what is accessible to the senses.80 Barozzi neither turns away from the facts of sense perception, which are evident and inevitable, nor does he so wish to restrict the mathematical matter under discussion, nor consign mathematics solely to quantitative criteria. A mediating position must be reached – Barozzi makes it the theme of a second essay – to approach a solution in agreement with Proclus. Barozzi’s explanations then lead from what was essentially the unquestioned high degree of certitudo to the all-enlightening medietas of mathematics.81 In his second essay Barozzi discusses again the different emphasis of Platonic and peripatetic tradition, to which the respective definitions of mathematics as divina and naturalis best apply. But as the focus is now primarily on the medietas, the mediate and mediating position of mathematics, Barozzi asserts that in Platonic philosophy – always with an emphasis on its distance to the things – next to contemplatio and actio, a third necessary part is played by conversation (sermocinatio). This immediately leads not surprisingly to the questions, whether sermocinatio simply belongs to logic, or whether such an “ability to dissert” (facultas disserendi) constitutes a science (scientia) or art (ars).82 Barozzi attempts to unify the different positions by means of a conciliatio of Aristotle and Plato. This is found in his final proposition, according to which mathematics as a “true medium” (verum medium) takes on an intermediary place between naturalis and divina. Barozzi underlines that, because of its obvious advantages of easy disposition and order, mathematics is to be thoroughly studied before all other arts and sciences: “qua tamen commoditatis gratia, & lectionis ordine ante omnes artes, atque scientias perdiscenda est”.83 A hint is left here to Daniele Barbaro by Barozzi, with regard to the latter's further arguments in his commentary on Proclus. It shows that Barozzi regarded his argument as best placed in that context. In the

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short piece concerning the medietas of mathematics, Barozzi furthermore invokes Plotinus in a special way. The polarization of mere aptitude versus deeper understanding between idonei and expertes, which Piccolomini had taken from Aristotle’s tale, here recedes into the background. Instead, Barozzi postulates even more strongly the middle position of mathematics, and employs for this purpose a plausible image, according to which one can only go from a hot to a cold place if in between one rests for a while in a ‘temperate’ place. The Aristotelian stance is modified here to the classical sentence “quandoquidem intellectilem essentiam haud percipere possumus, quin prius sensilem, quæ cerni, tangique potest agnoscamus” – “since we cannot by any means perceive the intellective essence, if we do not dispose of the sensual impression which we can individuate and touch”. And between the Aristotelian stance and this “essence” (essentia), “which is of all matter void” (quæ ab omni materia est vacua), mathematics stands in the middle and is open to both sides.84 In the end, what Barozzi formulates as a general study recommendation, had been, adressed to the young people, formulated by Plotinus, to let them be from early on accustomed to the world of abstract thinking and ‘divine matters’: “Hæc autem media essentia nulla alia est, nisi mathematica, cuius scientiam divinus ait Plotinus adolescentulis esse tradendam, ut benef icio partis eius abstrahentis divinis, penitusque abstractis animos suos assuefaciant”.85 (This but middle essence is none other than mathematical, whose science the divine Plotinus says young adolescents are taught for the benefit of the abstracting function of accustoming their souls to the divine and painstakingly abstract.) Hence, the narrative of the puer has taken a clear turn with Barozzi. Against the Aristotelian view starting from worldly objects Barozzi places Platonic order – which ascribes the highest rank to divine things, the second to mathematics, and only the third to the natural things.86 Above all other sciences, a privileged place befits mathematics because of its mediating position, whereby its significance and usefulness for all ‘natural things’

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and for all sciences and arts is underlined.87 Throughout, Barozzi refers to Proclus, who opens his commentary on Euclid with an explanation of the “ȝİıȩIJȘȢIJࠛȞȝĮșȘȝĮIJȚțࠛȞ”, the middle position of mathematics, thereby revealing his central philosophical concern. In mathematics – and by extension in architecture – both aspects are united, the intellectual world of idea and imagination as well as the connection to the external objective world accessible to the senses. Max Steck went as far as seeing this as the foundation for what in modern times was newly recognized and propagated as Gestalt,88 and thus established a line of argument, which leads him beyond Proclus from Nicolaus Cusanus through Kepler to Leibniz.89 The work of Proclus, that Barozzi translated and dedicated to Barbaro, contributes to unfold this and other viewpoints, like the higher ‘dialectics’ that appears as the peak of mathematical sciences. The work, according to Barozzi following Proclus, culminates in “coniunctio una, & tota Mathematica” (in one and wholly mathematical combination), where the principles of all sciences “simpliciori quodam modo – “the some simpler way” are condensed.90 This is not so much in anticipation of the later manifestations of a mathesis universalis, but a concrete reference to Plato’s Republic, on whose seventh book Proclus based himself in particular.91 Having also taken Aristotle’s metaphysics as a point of departure, Proclus had highlighted the forms of mathematical beauty, identifying them with the mathematical “reasons” (rationes) of “order” (ordo), “convenience” (convenientia), and “determinacy” (determinatio). In geometry finally, Proclus foresaw the possibility of freeing ourselves from physical ties and raise towards the spiritual (à sensu ad mentem).92 In this, the central part of neoplatonic doctrine was brought closer to the possibilities of architecture, than the doctrine of proportions, elevated into a dogma in modern times, ever could.

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Prudence: Freedom! Denn wenn sie, als reine Vernunft, wirklich practisch ist, so beweiset sie ihre und ihrer Begriffe Realität durch die That, und alles Vernünfteln wider die Möglichkeit, es zu seyn, ist vergeblich.93 — Immanuel Kant Sehr bald gerieht ich in den Fehler der rein radicalen Abstraction, wo ich die ganze Conception für ein bestimmtes Werk der Baukunst aus seinem nächsten trivialen Zweck allein und aus der Construction entwickelte; in diesem Falle entstand etwas Trockenes, Starres, das der Freiheit ermangelte und zwei wesentliche Elemente, das Historische und das Poetische, ganz ausschloß.94 — Karl Friedrich Schinkel

It would be false to assign Proclus’ ideas of mathematical beauty to a purely abstract world. In keeping with their mediate position, Proclus pleads in favour of their effect on the body as well as the soul (& in corporibus, & in animis pulchritudinem efficere). Proclus argues, however, against an all-too exclusive ‘worldly’ view of those who say “… neque felices sumus felicitatem cognoscendo, sed feliciter vivendo”.95 (we are not happy in knowing happiness, but by living happily). At the bottom of the whole debate between Alessandro Piccolomini and Francesco Barozzi is the shared interest in investigating these questions of body and soul, for which Aristotle and Plato provide different, albeit complementary arguments. The conciliatio is closer than the one-sided radicalization of each position. The medietas of Proclus, and Barozzi, in conjunction with the unifying role of ‘dialectics’, provide the basis for the discussion to remain open and relevant. In particular, the geometry of vision links the two worlds, taking us from sheer symbols to bodies (ab impartibili Signo progrediens, ad Solida), and then back again from the more complex to the simpler forms and principles (a compositoribus ad simpliciora, & ad horum recurrens principia).96

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Immanuel Kant, Critik der practischen Vernunft (Riga: Johann Friedrich Hartknoch, 1788).

One would think that architects would be familiar with this. At least for Daniele Barbaro, architecture without the dignità of mathematics would be merely a “fallacious conjecture, and experience abandoned by truth” (fallace coniettura, & dal vero abbandonata Isperienza). And yet it takes readiness of hand (prontezza di mano) to take care of things in the external world (in qualche materia esteriore).97 And in this particular, as Barbaro has previously expressed and underlined, it requires a discerning prudence. We can also clarify it by saying: The more we open the question of a purely spiritual, as well as sensitive world – as it happens no doubt with the concept of medietas – all the more examination and judgement is required on a case-by-case basis. And this points towards the use of prudentia, which the inexperienced puer lacks, as he has not yet acquired ‘insight’ and all the while is merely endowed with an ‘aptitude’ for mathematics.

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Prudent, on the other hand, is Karl Friedrich Schinkel when he leaves behind the confines of pure abstraction that appeared to him as something “dry, rigid, lacking in freedom” (Trockenes, Starres, das der Freiheit ermangelte) in order to discover “the historic and the poetic” (das Historische und das Poetische) ‒ as necessary conditions ‘in the external world’ to make life visible. And prudent are Kant’s arguments, which he links to the discussion of practical reason (practische Vernunft) built on the very concept of prudence. Against the background of discussion about the relationship of the purely spiritual to the world of sense perception, the preliminary remarks that Kant recorded in his preface to the Critik der practischen Vernunft (1788) seem particularly apposite. There Kant explains why exactly he neither wished to add the little word rein – “pure” – to his practische Vernunft, as one might perhaps have expected after the Critik der reinen Vernunft – nor with regard as to how “the parallelism of this [practical reason] with the speculative” is actually given (der Parallelism derselben [der practischen Vernunft] mit der speculativen). However, the orientation towards the “practical” stands in the way of the “pure”. Kant holds that “narrow reasoning” (Vernünfteln) has no place at this point. Much more swiftly does he begin to talk about freedom, which as a result is described as the “ratio essendi des moralischen Gesetzes” (the reason for the existence of moral law). In this context, this means the necessary orientation towards “the highest good” (das höchste Gut). And we should perhaps remind ourselves that this quest for the good, also finds itself in the first sentence of the Nicomachean Ethics prior to any further discussion. With prudentia – and the respective leading concept of Architektonik, which Kant defines as “art of systems” (Kunst der Systeme) – the discussion of responsibility is again brought into view; and it denotes three possibilities: the first, that of “economy” which can also be translated as “household management” (Ƞ‫ݧ‬țȠȞȠȝȓĮ); the second, that of “legislature” (ȞȠȝȠșİıȓĮ); and finally, that of “politics” or “statesmanship” (ʌȠȜȚIJȚțȒ), the latter being the one Argyropoulos had summarily emphasized and translated as civilis facultas. It was in this

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context that Aristotle had introduced the parable of the puer, who might seem endowed with mathematical ability, but also is not yet prudent. Naturally, this is connected with the Aristotelian sequence of philosophical options including the priority of reality. But prudence also requires after all that one should reflect about it. In agreement with Vitruvius, for Daniele Barbaro it is clear that mathematical ability has to be employed for the purpose of prudence and that despite the high status of mathematics, the architect deals with practical activity and production. According to the Aristotelian doctrine of habitus, the architect has “art” (ars) and “prudence” (prudenza) by his side. In addition to this, Barbaro sees experience developing constantly; the puer will not remain in a state of naivety or even be proud of it; he will instead avail himself of the opportunities of education, as has been set forth from Herder to Pestalozzi, and he will also ‘do’ this. “Intuition is susceptible of being formed” (Die Anschauung ist der Bildung fähig), and one could first approach “the sense through the spirit” (zuerst den Sinn beym Geiste) in Herbart's words.98 And the connection to mathematics he sees this way: “Alles, was zur Auffassung der Gestaltung durch Begriff, von den größten Köpfen aller Zeiten geleistet worden ist: das findet sich gesammelt in einer großen Wissenschaft, in der Mathematik.” 99 (All that has been achieved by the greatest minds of our times for the comprehension of formation by means of concepts is found in one great science, in mathematics). From here on, medietas leads us back again into the context of making, which is why in primary sources there is frequent discussion of mathematicæ mixtæ. The latter concerns the approach to external, natural things from the standpoint of mathematical ideas. And this allows us to reach for a ‘helpful gesture’: 100 “res naturalis sub mathematicis imaginationibus pertractant” – “the natural thing is studied under the imaginary visions of the mathematician”, as Pedro Ciruelo had put it in introductory form in his discussion on perspective.101 And because this takes place in the contingent, open world, the corresponding scope for action and the accompanying freedom is given. Raffaello Maffei, also known as il Volterrano, begins the introductory summary of the sixth book of Aristotle's

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Politics with the statement: “Subiectum democraticæ, politiæ, libertas” 102 – “The subject of democracy, of polity, is freedom.” From this, and from the insight into the diversity of mankind, results the necessity of ethical and political order, to which architecture and architectonics – as already had been set forth by Aristotle in the Nicomachean Ethics – lend a helping hand. It is good that the puer already understands the suitability of these ‘abstract’ means, if not their deeper meaning. Dalibor Vesely, to whom these reflections are dedicated, summarized the connection between freedom, practical activity and ethics in architecture, in the sentence: “The original meaning of praxis is living and acting in solidarity and in accordance with ethical principles”.103

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Buildings rarely come out of book-bound commands and recipes. Such a relationship within – nevermind across – cultures is inevitably tortuous, indirect, perplexing. But in some cases it can illuminate the place of building in the culture of its time, even its resonance across distance. One such case is presented by the holy books which some Byzantine clergy who accompanied the Princess Anna, sister of the Emperor Basil II, on her northward journey to marry the newly converted Vladimir, Prince of Kiev, carried in their luggage: bibles and commentaries, psalteries, of course, and other devotional texts. One of the less obvious of these last was the Christian Topography, by then attributed to Kosmas the Deacon.2 The book was half a millennium old when it reached Kiev, but was read and copied still. The three complete surviving manuscripts are vividly illuminated, and historians of Byzantine art have paid a great deal of attention to the miniatures and to their influence, yet have not been equally interested in the text which they illustrate.3 The learned and sagacious – if unfortunate – Patriarch Photius in his commonplace book, his Library or Myrobiblion, dismisses the “Christian’s book” (he does not name the author) both for its content and style, finding it “mean in phrase, unseemly in syntax”; the stories purveyed are historically spurious (although Photius commends “the Christian’s” concentration on the desert tabernacle) so that “he seems concerned more with fable than with true witness”; the cosmology and astronomy he finds equally improbable,4 since, like most of his lettered contemporaries, Photius would

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have taken for granted the Ptolomaic account of the spherical Earth, whose circumference had, after all, been quite accurately measured centuries earlier.5 What then explains the trouble Photius’ contemporaries and successors took to copy and illustrate this bad book? Perhaps the most attention-grabbing part is the commentary on the passages in Exodus that set out the details of the Desert Tabernacle and of the Ark of the Covenant as a cosmogram in his Books IV and V – as Photius noted.6 It was also the passage most elaborately illustrated by the miniaturists. Not much is known of the author; he was probably an Alexandrian, and his other – misleading – soubriquet, Indikopleustes, suggests that he sailed around India. Although he had travelled far (when he probably traded in spices), and may indeed have ventured into the Indian Ocean, he seems to have stuck to its African coast even if he also travelled inland; his transcribing of the two inscriptions on the throne-cenotaph at Adulis for the Negus who reigned in Axum shows him to have not only trade but also cultural dealings in Africa.7 He certainly knew from hearsay about India and even Ceylon – nor does he make inordinate claims about personal travel experience. It is not clear whether he later became a priest or a monk, and he does not assume any name or title; at the end of his fifth book (which may have been the conclusion of the first ‘redaction’ of the work), the colophon placed after the concluding prayers runs, ³ȋȡȚıIJȚĮȞȠࠎȋȡȚıIJȚĮȞȚț‫ޣ‬ȉȠʌȠȖȡĮijȓĮʌİȡȚİțIJȚț‫ޣ‬ʌĮȞIJާȢIJȠࠎțȩıȝȠȣ´: “A Christian’s Christian Topography setting out the entire world”.8 That one surviving work (his other writings – a geography, a commentary on the Song of Songs – are lost) was probably written, to judge by internal evidence, about or after 547, the year of the two eclipses he mentions, but probably before the fifth Constantinople Council of 553, when some of the authors on whom he relies (though he does not name them), Theodore of Mopsuestia and Thomas of Edessa, as well as his master Mar Abas9 came under the shadow of the conciliar condemnation of Nestorianism; for his part, he constantly protests his orthodoxy.

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Though it opens humbly, the book is polemical in intention and aggressive in tone: Right at the beginning, Kosmas rejects as pagan and/or heretical any account of the world as a sphere – a view commonplace among many of his Alexandrian contemporaries and shared by the dominant neo-Aristotelian thinkers and scientists in the city, of whom Kosmas’ implicit opponent John Philoponus (himself a Monophysite theologian as well as Aristotelian commentator) was about the most prominent.10 Kosmas’ world is a parallelepiped – a two- (sometimes three-) cube one, more or less square in section and covered by a hemispherical vault, from the centre of which the Divine presence looks down on His creation. The formula is not entirely explicit; so, for instance, the two-square table of the shewbreads, he says (Scripture does not), is the shape of the Earth,11 while the heaven is a vault, like his image (for which – again – he can give no scriptural reference) of the curved cover of the Ark of the Covenant. His detailed geography of the flat created world is irrelevant to my argument, enough to say that there was in the middle a world-mountain, while the Okeanos into which all rivers flowed surrounded the inhabited earth; this geography owes at least as much to Greco-Roman legend as to Scripture. Kosmas, however, claims to derive the geometry and the imagery of this diagram from Scripture alone, relying almost exclusively on the account of the God-given model or pattern – ʺʩʰʡʺ12 – for the Tabernacle in the desert, which was indeed ten cubits square on section.13 In the desert Tabernacle and in the Holy of Holies of the Jerusalem Temple, the divine presence appeared in the portable acacia-wood Ark of the Covenant into which Moses was commanded to “put the testimony that I shall give thee”, so that “there I will meet with thee from above the mercy-seat, from between the two cherubim which are above the ark of the testimony”.14 The scriptural specifications do not declare these precise measurements (or even their abstracted proportions) to be condensations of a world-picture for builders to follow, but Kosmas offers them as the proto- or archetype

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The Ark of Testimony labelled dzȀȚ‫׆‬ȦIJާ‫ר‬IJȠ٦ ɦĮȡIJΟȡȓȠΟThe Ark with its vaulted cover and two ȋİȡȠΟ‫׆‬ȓɦ on either side of it, the priests ǽĮȤĮȡȓĮ‫ ר‬and ǹ‫׆‬ȚȐ; over the vault ǴȜĮ‫ר‬IJȒȡȚȠQ, Mercy Seat; after the Codex Sinaiticus, fol. 82r.

of sacred building.15 The mosaic cherubim, which still look down from the pendentives of the Islamicised and secularised Hagia Sophia, may be vastly magnified images of the same cherubim whose wings shadowed the mercy-seat on the Ark of the Covenant. At the time Kosmas was writing his book in Alexandria, much Imperial energy in Constantinople was channelled into the double project of rebuilding the ȂİȖȐȜȘDzțțȜȘıȓĮ, the ‘Great Church’ of the Holy Wisdom of God, and the smaller but almost equally important nearby ‘Ancient Church’, ʌĮȜĮȚȐ‫݋‬țțȜȘıȓĮ of Holy Peace, Hagia Irene, both of which had been established by the city’s re-founder Constantine, though both were burnt and wrecked beyond repair in the confused, violent, and savagely repressed Nika revolt of January 532. Both churches were to replace Constantine’s basilicas; the major churches associated with him after his conversion, the Great and the Old churches of his new Rome, as well as St Peter’s, St Paul, and the Lateran in the old Rome were all basilicas.16 Two other prominent ones were more intricate: the church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, where the basilica had a polygonal

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martyrion rotunda over the nativity grotto in lieu of the tribune; and even more crucially, the Anastasis in Jerusalem (now called the Holy Sepulchre), where the basilica was probably separate from the martyrion, itself a rotunda covered by some form of dome over the rock-tomb that bore the most intimate witness to the Resurrection. It was connected to the basilica by a colonnade or some other unifying element, a scheme that was not really taken up in less exalted locations.17 Both martyria figure conspicuously as rotundae on the early fifth-century mosaic in the apse of Santa Prudenziana in Rome.18 Martyria were prestigious and varied in form, from circular through various polygonal as well as more articulated central plans. Justinian wanted his new churches to rise quickly and the Great Church to set a new pattern; he appointed Anthemius of Tralles, scion of a prosperous and intellectually ambitious Lydian family, who had been trained as a mathematician and engineer – ȝȘȤĮȞȚțȩȢȝȘȤĮȞȠʌȠȚȩȢ – probably in Alexandria. Anthemius may well have been called to imperial service some years earlier, and involved in the building of the palatine church of Saints Sergius and Bacchus.19 In his great work, Anthemius associated with another mathematician from Asia Minor, Isidore of Miletus the elder, who may indeed have been his teacher (and whose nephew, Isidore the younger, would restore the great dome when it collapsed shortly after the 557 earthquake).20 Isidore had more obvious Alexandrian connections, having commented on the Kamarika, the lost treatise on vaulting which Heron of Alexandria had written a half-millennium earlier – which incidentally deals with the geometry of triangles on a spherical surface, and that, of course, is what pendentives were.21 They and the dome which they supported required a powerful structure. The descriptions praise the ashlar masonry of the piers, yet for all the massy stonework that bore Justinian’s shimmering, coruscated cupola, it nevertheless seemed to hover over the space as a token of the divine presence “as if it had been suspended from the heavens on golden chains”.22

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Church of the Saints Sergius and Bacchus, Constantinople (Istanbul), 6th century AD, view of the interior.

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Anthemius and Isidore did introduce a structural – but also a formal – revolution in church building. Its precursor was the church of Saints Sergius and Bacchus I mentioned earlier. But another was begun even before the riots – soon after 520 – in the Italian outpost of Justinian’s empire, Ravenna. The relatively small church of the local protomartyr, San Vitale, is elaborately decorated. The famous, uniquely vivid mosaic figures of Justinian and Theodora with their suites seem arrested in a permanent offertory procession on the curved walls on either side of the altar. The church has the two stories of apsed columns – like Saints Sergius and Bacchus – within rectilineal walls covered by the dome, which has lost its mosaics.23 All three have two contignations of columns, which serve to mould the inner volume; and in all three the intricate exterior is enclosed by straight and austere, almost shabby walls. A few precedents for such structures survive, notably the Nymphaeum – a pleasure-pavilion – of the Lycinian Gardens in Rome, built some twenty years before Constantine’s conversion, which was eloquent of the constriction of the Empire’s scope, the dissipation of its humanity “in the effort to save it, the mirage of unearthly bliss. A squat, polygonal tower encapsulated an airy pavilion, whose tall curtains, dissolved by light and movement, melting insensibly into the circle of its dome, were scarcely to be grasped as an enclosure. At eye level they billowed outward in an uninterrupted kaleidoscope of apses and garden vistas. The drum high above was an immaterial ring of light beneath a shimmering canopy of mosaic. All below was uncertainly shifting. All above was radiance, a remotely ethereal promise …”.24 It may not be surprising that the Nymphaeum was later mistaken for a temple; its dome has no oculus; nor do those in the near-contemporary heroon of Diocletian, his fortified palace-factory-camp in Spalatum / Split; nor did most Late Antique and Early Christian domes witness that of Santa Costanza in Rome. They offer a new type of sacrality, and are in sharp contrast to earlier Imperial buildings. The greatest of Roman domes, that

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of the Pantheon, had a majestic calendric articulation so that the sunlight falling from its oculus to travel over its floor made it a virtual sundial. Once this tribute to the sun is superceded, the oculus does not return to domical building for over a thousand years – not until it reappears as the lantern of the Renaissance church, when the Pantheon is again seen as the most prestigious exemplar of antiquity, and a cosmogram to boot: “perche egli é di figura del Mondo, cioé Ritonda …”.25 The Lycinian dome hovers over a polygonal drum, and in many Byzantine churches the soaring dome is an even more emphatic vision of unearthly power, its shimmering mosaic illuminated from below as a built image of the Creator surveying His work from the sky-vault – as He does in Kosmas’ world-picture in which the type of the long-perished Ark and Tabernacle become tacitly conflated with the similarly divinely commanded Solomonic Jerusalem temple, but equally abstract since it was not identified with any visible building or even ruin,26 and references to it abound. Justinian invoked it as he entered the Great Church after the scaffolding had been struck and thanked God for allowing him to complete this great work. “Solomon, I have surpassed you.”27 (Pl. 1) Without any concession to Kosmas’ astronomical or geographical ‘absurdities’, that same Patriarch Photius, whom I quoted as having dismissed them, preaching – in the exercise of his episcopal duties – at the consecration of a palace church dedicated to the Virgin by the Emperor Michael III, invoked the scriptural passages I have just mentioned and eulogized the presence of the Pantokrator in the central dome while maintaining that the church surpassed its biblical exemplars “as the true object surpasses its type”.28 Yet even in Justinian’s expansive time, the later Empire was more exposed than in Diocletian’s or Constantine’s; the sinuous dance of Byzantine columns had to be contained and hemmed in by severely rectilineal walls of brick – sometimes alternating with stone – and articulated by pilasters. Such a homely effect of the exterior walls was further modulated by atrium, narthex, baptistry – outbuildings which precluded any monumentally frontal effect.29

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The masonry may be fair-faced or marble-sheathed, as it sometimes is in Justinian’s churches, but it is always inferior to the elaborate, unitary and luminous interiors. The tributes to the new Great Church, such as those of Procopius or Paul the Silentiary, are largely concerned with the interior, the brilliantly polished marbles and mosaic, the sparkle and the light, the precious metals of the screens, and the ambo – as well as the harmonious – proportions. About the atrium, which sometimes introduced the narthex, or of the exterior revetment of the church they say little.30 The outside of the dome, seen rising above the city, is of course praised, while the exterior walls are appreciated mostly for their strength and solidity.31 The probable date of Kosmas’ book falls a decade after the Nika conspiracy, the time when the Great Church was rising. In view of their mathematical acumen, it is highly unlikely that Anthemius and Isidore, however pious, would be at all impressed – or even aware of – Kosmas’ particular cosmographic musings, any more than Photius would take them seriously three hundred years later. Yet Kosmas was not an isolated figure, and the ideas which he set down were not all that idiosyncratic, but had popular and ‘common-sense’ assent in Alexandria, whatever litterateurs and scientists – even theologians – thought. The type he offered organizes the mythical world-surface according to the sanctified geometry of Ark, Tabernacle, and, by implication, the Jerusalem Holy of Holies. The specific Christian element is the image of the divine presence on the central compartment of the world-vault. In the interiors of both Justinian’s main buildings, a cosmographic typology cognate to Kosmas’ was observed: Hagia Irene is perhaps even more explicitly a vault covering a 1:3 rectangle, with a dome rising over the centre. Hagia Sophia invokes the type more stealthily: Taking the dome diameter of 100 Byzantine feet as its dominant, the internal length from apse to narthex is 294 – just short of 300 – feet.32 But if you read the unified interior volume covered by the dome and the two half-domes at their springing, but extended by the columnar tri-conches eastward and westward, it will constitute itself into a virtual double-cube.

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But it is the triple-cube schema which is taken up as the Byzantine commonplace, inherited by the Balkans and by the Russian church: A nave, usually covered by a vault, is articulated into a back square, a middle section covered by a dome, and a ‘chancel’ section usually ending in an apse. And this remains the ‘interior’ scheme, however complex the development of aisles and side-chapels or exterior walls may become – and it may even configure the ‘nave’ of later cross-in-square churches.33 It is the type which Kosmas’ text helped to transmit and validate, the type which the scribes and the miniaturists commemorated. Yet its power also depended on that great exemplar which Justinian provided. In succeeding ages, the configuration established at Hagia Irene and Hagia Sophia was variously modified, but the dome, always closed and never pierced by an oculus or lantern, provided the perfect surface for a holy presence that looks down on worshippers. Indeed, as the dome structure developed, so the drum which carried it grew ever taller, as it did in Russian churches, and even though their wooden roofs were shaped into cones or more elaborated onion shapes, the internal type remained unchanged for many centuries. At Hosios Lukas and at Daphne (both in central Greece), the Pantokrator looks down severely from the dome on the faithful – while at the great Lavra church on Mount Athos, the twelfth-century painted ultimate Judge is encircled by nine choirs of angels. Again in the Dormition cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin (which Aristotele Fioravanti built in the late sixteenth century), the divine presence looks down from the dome in the form of the Mandylion.34 In its abbreviated form, this type – a dome with two (or sometimes four) half-domes – became, through Sinan’s genius, the prototype of the Ottoman mosque, and so infiltrates Kosmas’ cosmogram into other regions, other world-pictures. The Koranic inscriptions on the centre of later Islamic domes have the typological force of holy images in Byzantine churches.35

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What was the power which bound so many Byzantine, Levantine, Balkan, Russian, Ottoman builders to it? How did the type which Hagia Sophia first splendidly embodied get formulated in the first place? Why did the type only govern interiors and allow exteriors to relate to other constructional modes? Such questions refer back to the nature of type in architecture. The question needs to be asked because such a courtly and bookish construction of a building type is very different from the general modern understanding of that process, in which habitual planning and constructional patterns are somehow embedded in a collective building, unconscious through a popular enlisting of time-worn shapes and methods into everyday practice. The problem of type was clearly formulated some two centuries ago by the forbidding of lucid champion of historicism, Antoine-Chrysostome Quatremère de Quincy, in his monumental Dictionary of Architecture.36 His article “Type” made the explicit distinction between what is physically offered for emulation – the model – and what exists only as a conceptual reference, a notional structure which he called “the type”: “The model taken up in the effecting of a work of art is an object which should be copied as it is; the type, on the other hand, is an object after which everyone can imagine works which will not look like each other. Everything is exact and given in the model; everything is more or less vague in the type.”37 Much of the vigorous (and voluminous) contemporary discussion of ‘type’ in architecture refers, in fact, to physical models. This is worth observing: Typology has come to mean the perpetuation of plan-shapes welded to some commonplace of structural method. It became the currency of discussion from the sixties to the nineties of the twentieth century, particularly in France, where the morphology of urban building was almost turned into a slogan, while the notion of form – ȝȠȡijȒ – and of type coalesced38 until they became something very much like what Quatremère had meant by “model” – a physical precedent. It was invoked as an appeal to the commonplace of urban housing in opposition to an excessive reliance on invention ex novo

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by many of the architects of the modern movement. Quatremère warned severely against any such scrambling: “In confusing the ‘type’, an imaginative model, with a material conception of actual example … all its value is taken away … and architecture itself is eviscerated.”39 Clearly, Kosmas offered no physical model to the builders of his time: The scriptural cosmogram, as embodied in the Desert Tabernacle of Deuteronomy as well as (by implication) the Holy of Holies of the Jerusalem temple described in the Book of Kings, was a textual type. All that was left of the Jerusalem temple by Kosmas’ time were a few stones or fragmentary (and in some ways conflicting) descriptions. The type had therefore to be adapted by Justinian’s builders. The triple definition of the Minerva Medica – the mouvementé, rhythmic grouping of columns at eye-level supporting a light-admitting drum over which hovered the glittering penumbra of the golden dome – was metamorphosed into an image of a world whose outer edges required clear definition, but within whose bounded volume the in-and-out movement of the curved screens of purple and green columns appeared to Procopius like a dance.40 What the improbable cosmology and the fabulist’s account of the temple and the world (however unfaithful to the details of scriptural precedent) as well as the far-fetched topography offered its readers is the type of sacred building for them to follow. They would be faithful to it, but only ‘in their fashion’, and that is after all the fidelity that a type requires. Its binding power depends on its potential for generating a diversity of embodiments – analogously perhaps to the way the Vastupurusamandala square (subdivided either into eighty-one or sixty-four units) acts as a cosmogram underlying very varied Indian building.41 And that variety may well be the essential power of ‘type’. Rather, different shapes may, for all their differences, remain creatures of the seed-notion. It is worth returning further to Quatremère’s lapidary formulation: “We therefore see that the imitation of type has nothing which feeling and thinking might not recognize, nothing to which prejudice or ignorance might object.”42

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Yet “prejudice” and “ignorance” were very much what Kosmas traded in. How did he, for all that, manage to establish or at least transmit a type which exercised its power intermittently for a millennium and more? Perhaps the link of custom, which the type established with the liturgical practice of the Eastern Church in all its regional variants, referred back to the ceremonial of the Great Church, since it is the interplay of mythopoiesis and customary action, of ritual, which allows any type to generate the varieties of built form. The dome, therefore, with its pledge of a divine presence, remained the overwhelming image in the interior space.43 The ring of light which flooded the space below it from the many windows enhanced its mysterious penumbra – and that was true to Kosmas’ type. The dance of the columns which outlined the volume at eye-level for the visitor at Hagia Sophia allowed him to sense the intermediate fastness of the enclosing walls. The balletic and precious cosmogram was confirmed by the shining presence of the enclosing rectangle whose internal surfaces were sheathed in marble as gleaming as that of the columns, in sharp contrast to the lacklustre exterior. As the Empire frittered and contracted, so even the inner envelope was often dissolved and replicated, as it would be at Hosios Lukas. Something analogous did happen in Western Europe, where the great cathedrals were constituted about the crossed naves but relied on their west-work towers to assert their urban presence, while their interior walls were pierced by the jewelled polychromies of stained glass to realize a quite different type. And yet the glory of Hagia Sophia was known in the west. Suger, the jewel-loving Abbot of Saint-Denis, reports having heard of its glories from Bishop Hugo of Laon, though a more or less reliable image of the church had to wait for another learned traveller – Cyriacus of Ancona in the fifteenth century. When that Kievian Prince Vladimir was considering adopting a new religion, he sent envoys to examine the various alternatives: They were not impressed by the Jewish Khazars, nor the Moslem Bulgarians, nor even

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by the all-too-sober Latins. But witnessing the celebration of the liturgy in Hagia Sophia, they thought they were in heaven. That, at any rate, is the legend told by Nestor in his chronicle, though the long commercial and conflictual relations between Constantinople (Tsaragrad) and Russian principalities make the legend implausible.44 At any rate, Prince Vladimir certainly imported Byzantine craftsmen to build his great church of St Sophia in Kiev, named after the Byzantine prototype, much as the main gate of his city was called “the golden” after the great gate of Constantinople. And with Kosmas’ text, he had imported the tabernacle-type of the church into Russian orthodoxy.

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Mari Hvattum Goethe Blindfolded

In November 1795, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe spent a couple of days visiting his friend Friedrich Schiller. Goethe was planning a journey, and had, as part of his preparations, launched into an intense study of architecture. “He had many interesting things to say about the art of building”, Schiller recounted in a letter to their mutual friend, Wilhelm von Humboldt. Schiller was particularly fascinated by Goethe’s notion of architectural beauty. A beautiful building, the poet proposed, should not only look good, but be discernible to the moving body: “Goethe demanded from a beautiful building that it be made, not only to please the eye, but in such a way that even a blindfolded person being led through would perceive and enjoy it.”1 Goethe’s desire to be led blindfolded through a beautiful building invites speculation. What did he hope to experience? The way the moving body measures and resonates in space, perhaps? How the sound of footsteps reverberates in changing materials and surfaces? Or perhaps something else altogether, a kind of sensuous approximation of the je ne sais quoi of architecture? We will never know for sure; the passage is not elaborated by Schiller, and has but faint echoes in Goethe’s later works on architecture. Goethe’s blindfolded promenade is nevertheless a good point of departure for exploring architecture’s particular entanglement of the haptic and the optic, and for understanding the privileged role of movement in structuring architectural experience. This chapter takes Goethe’s dream as a starting point for exploring Sverre Fehn’s Storhamarlåven in south-eastern Norway – a beautiful

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building indeed, created specifically to be walked in. Surface, sound, and movement are vital components of this museum, contributing to a rich and sensuous architectural promenade. (Pl. 2) And yet, a museum, needless to say, cannot be fully experienced blindfolded. It is defined by vision and depends on the particular distance offered by the gaze. Not a passive gaze, in this case, but an active intellectual and corporeal participation informed by bodily movement as well as historical experience. To explore this particular mode of participation, I draw, in addition to Goethe, on the German nineteenth-century thinker August Schmarsow, whose theory of spatial experience helps us reflect both on Goethe’s blindfolded walk as well as on Fehn’s architectural promenade at Hamar.

A beautiful building Låve is the Norwegian word for barn, yet Storhamarlåven (which literally means the barn of the farm Storhamar) did not originate as a farm building. (Pl. 3) Begun in the 1250s by Bishop Peter, the Storhamar complex was built as a bishop’s palace adjacent to the twelfth-century Hamar Cathedral, whose Romanesque ruins are still present a stone’s throw to the west. In the early fifteenth century the palace was fortified, creating a walled courtyard with a well and several smaller buildings. Somewhat later, a keep was constructed, making the palace into a medieval castle of sorts. An early sixteenth century source tells that the tower of the bishop’s castle was “built as high as the highest tower of the cathedral, so that they might stand and speak to one another, and speak loudly”.2 In 1567 the castle was burnt down during the Nordic Seven Years’ War, then left as a ruin for 150 years. Only in 1716, when assessor Jens Grønbeck took over the farm, did building resume.3 He used the medieval remains to build himself some very grand stables, and a huge new wing for livestock was added to the north in the 1770s. Several new additions were made

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in the early nineteenth century, most importantly an extension to the north wing and an entirely new wing to the south. Around 1860, Storhamarlåven had acquired the U-shaped footprint that it still retains, forming an imposing, fort-like structure in the rolling landscape of Hedemark. In 1946, by then in a severe state of decay, the building was bought by the Hedemark Museum. Archaeological excavations yielded rich finds on the site, particularly from the medieval bishop’s castle, and it was decided to turn the palace-cum-barn into a new exhibition building for the museum. The task was a challenging one. The old building was structurally unstable, making it impossible to know in advance how much of it could be reused, or in what way. As the brief could not be fixed in advance, it was difficult to arrange an architectural competition. Instead, the building committee commissioned the 43-year-old architect Sverre Fehn to work closely together with local experts, defining the brief and shaping the building in parallel. Work started in 1969.4 The site was a mess: a palimpsest of different historical layers crumbling onto each other. In addition to the medieval masonry and the eighteenth-century timber structure, the archaeologists had uncovered foundations of several additional buildings inside the courtyard, including the central well. They had also excavated parts of the medieval Kaupang (market place) outside the bishop’s court, including an intricate network of roads. Despite the chaotic proliferation of archaeological remains, what impressed Fehn was the precision of the place; “a precision dictated by man’s rhythm”, as he put it.5 He associated this rhythm with the local landscape and the changing of the seasons, but was also acutely aware of the larger historical structures of which Storhamar was a part. Neither the thirteenth-century bishop nor the eighteenth-century landowner operated solely, or even chiefly, according to local circumstance. Rather, they were entangled in cultural connections of a far more global kind: the thirteenth-century Catholic Church, for instance; eighteenth-century Enlightenment culture with its agricultural reforms; and – if we include the barn’s current inhabitants – the modern world of museums.

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The collection bears this out. Its 50,000 objects were all found locally, yet the French crucifixes, Dutch ceramics, German glassware, and English coins gather around them a large world. They testify to a lively, trans-territorial exchange and document a wide range of past practices related to religious life, agriculture, trade, and warfare. The objects make it abundantly clear that Storhamarlåven cannot be read, as some critics have done, simply as an articulation of a local genius loci. Both the building and its content speak of cultural exchange at a far bigger scale, testifying to a complex intertwining of the local and the global, past and present. And it does so, largely, by means of movement.

Circumambulating Storhamarlåven The Storhamarlåven museum is designed as a walk; an architectural promenade of which Goethe might have approved. Given that the building has been a route in one way or another at all stages of its existence, the solution appears not so much as a modern design concept as a structure integral to the palace itself. In the middle ages, the main street from the cathedral to the Kaupang went right along the bishop’s palace, a thoroughfare that was later engulfed by the expanding farm building. Fehn envisioned how the medieval architect had determined the layout of the cathedral and the palace by foot – literally walking the plan of the buildings.6 Traces of the foot are found in a more concrete sense as well, as the medieval paving is still intact in several places. The eighteenth-century barn, too, was built for movement, its interior structured by a system of elevated gangways for driving and loading hay. In its modern version, Storhamarlåven picks up on all these routes, devising an elaborate system of paths and ramps that structure the entire museum. Fehn’s architectural promenade starts by the museum entrance, which coincides with the entrance gate to the bishop’s keep. From here you cross the

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medieval west wing, passing under an elevated concrete ramp and reemerging in the courtyard on the other side of the barn. Standing on ground level in the courtyard, you find yourself in a palimpsest of ruins whose exact footprint it is hard to make out. Only when moving upwards, along what Richard Weston once called the “boomerang ramp”, does one get a sense of the bishop’s court with its half-vanished traces of buildings.7 The ramps allow you to “get hold of the ruins” said Fehn. They provide, he seemed to suggest, not only the possibility of seeing the ruins from above, but of grasping them in a more fundamental sense.8 We will ponder that later. After an exuberant curve, the ramp lands two floors up in the south wing, in an area for temporary exhibitions above the great auditorium. Taking a spiral stair to the floor below, one encounters the first of the permanent exhibitions: a pre-Christian find from the local area. From this level you enter the ‘bridge’: an elevated concrete ramp running the entire length of the west wing. This is the medieval part of the exhibition, displaying parts of the rich finds from the bishop’s palace. Various objects are displayed along the bridge on carefully designed pedestals, and three huge concrete ‘boxes’, each lifted from the ground by a single pillar, attach themselves to the route, providing spaces for tableau-like exhibitions to which we will return. From the bridge you enter the north wing, which is dedicated to agriculture, trade, and travel. Here, the ramp widens into two interlocking L-shaped plateaux before slipping through the external wall to the south and winding its way back down to the ground floor level. From here, you traverse a small auditorium before passing through exhibitions dedicated to hunting, fishing, and folk art. At the north end of the west wing you are carried on a short concrete ramp down to the medieval paving of the entrance hall, back to where you started. There are good reasons to pause right here, in the entrance hall, noting the smell, temperature, acoustics, and spatial depth that makes up its particular ambience. The entrance hall is unclimatised, and has a cool, musty air for most of the year. The high ceiling and concrete ramp overhead create strange

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acoustics; in some places your voice seems to disappear into the void, in others it is abruptly echoed. Partly visible barrel vaults sticking up from the ground – the still unexcavated cellars of the bishop’s palace – give the place an almost visceral sense of depth. The floor underfoot has two kinds of paving. The area over the medieval foundations is paved with slate, while the old entranceway still has its original round cobblestones, worn by centuries of horses’ hoofs. It is smooth, yet somewhat wobbly to the modern foot. As for most good walks, it is not enough to do the Storhamarlåven promenade once only. If the first brisk round has given us an overall sense of the place, we should now do a slow circumambulation with lots of stops. And while our first walkabout obediently followed the curators’ recommended route, we may now pursue a more erratic itinerary, starting from the short concrete ramp that descends into the entrance hall from the north. This carefully crafted object is typical of Fehn’s work. It is cast in one piece, forming a U-shaped channel with its sides as thick as its floor. The ramp ends at a pointed angle so that it touches the medieval floor merely with its tip, making a remarkably light gesture for such a sturdy object. To step up from the smooth medieval stone floor to the hard-edged concrete of the ramp is one of those moments I imagine Goethe would have appreciated, had he been a blindfolded guest in Fehn’s museum. Tip-toeing above history, the ramp establishes a sequence of sensations experienced in motion. The sequence is played out visually, to be sure – the bold geometry of the ramp against the amorphous ruins surrounding it is something seen – but seeing it goes together with touching it, sounding it, stepping on it, and feeling it underfoot. The ramp lifts you up from the ground of history, allowing you, as Fehn put it, to “get hold of ” it. From being literally immersed in history in the entrance hall, the ramp creates a distance which makes the past comprehensible in a new way. In a sense, the whole story of the museum is told in this move from immersion to reflection, and Fehn’s architecture facilitates that move through sight and sense.

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Continuing our counter-clock circumambulation, we walk up the short ramp and skip a few hundred years of history by taking a shortcut up a spiral stair. There are several such stairs in the museum, sturdy but elegant concrete spirals acting as subversive time machines in the curators’ chronological sequence. Arriving up at the northern end of the bridge, the most noticeable elements are the three concrete boxes that jut up from the medieval floor below, each precariously perched on a round concrete pillar. As opposed to most other elements in the museum, these boxes reach all the way to the ceiling, forming heavy, monolithic volumes along the ramp. To enter one of them is a surprise. Moving from the open ramp into the small, enclosed cabinet involves not only a visual transition, but a bodily one, in which acoustics, temperature, and feeling under foot change abruptly. The tableau-like displays, lit from above, create a sense of being in a world apart. Take the one dedicated to medieval religious art, for instance. It is sparsely furnished, containing only nine objects. To the left of the entrance is a small votive relic called “the devil’s finger”, extravagantly displayed in a glass case placed at the tip of a tall, vertical iron bar. On the floor along the left wall stands a rectangular slab of yellow sandstone, its sharp edges and polished surface making it clear that it is a modern piece. Two items are attached to it: a tiny silver crucifix in a glass vitrine, pinned into the slab’s upper edge, and a fragment of a medieval gravestone inset into its right upper corner. The slab itself is made up of two parts, held together by two iron locks that form a mysterious but precise relief in the surface. The arrangement seems studiously significant, yet its precise meaning is far from clear. The architectural historian Hans-Henrik Egede-Nissen, who had numerous conversations with Fehn about this particular display, sums up the architect’s intentions: “The display contains a certain visual provocation, over which the eye does not easily pass. One is forced to look again, to search for the connection that may justify the assembly. Perhaps it has to do with the relationship between the death of the body and the promise of a resurrected soul, made possible by the suffering

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of Christ – or perhaps it is about the heaviness of earthly life versus the lightness of the heavenly. The vitrine provides no answers, but offers itself as an object for meditation.”9 On the same wall, by the corner, hangs an incense bowl, while the wall straight across from the entrance contains the two perhaps most significant objects in the room. One is a thirteenth century figure of a Madonna and child, displayed in a simple glass vitrine about a meter above the floor. The vitrine is held by an elaborate iron console screwed into the wall, and seems to cantilever from its iron surround. Above it, in the right top corner, hangs a crucified Christ. He has long since lost his original thirteenth-century crucifix, and is instead suspended from a tubular iron bar, asymmetrically spanning the corner of the room. The figure is mounted higher than usual for a museum display; you could hardly touch its feet if you tried. The flimsiness of the hanging arrangement, together with the height at which it is hung, makes the figure seem to soar upwards towards the skylight. Fehn was not particularly religious but knew the Apostolic Creed from his Protestant upbringing. The cabinet display becomes his personal interpretation of the ascent of Christ.10 The two figures – the earthbound Madonna and the ascending Christ – constitute a skewered but significant axis. More than a didactic display in a museum, they seem to define a trans-historical space that moves the visitor both literally and metaphorically. On the one hand there is the physical movement as you go along the bridge and peer into the cabinet, seeing the Madonna and a pair of disembodied feet. As you enter the cabinet and discover the crucified figure, the movement of your body continues in the movement of the eyes, as the gaze inevitably follows the ascending Christ up towards the light above. This corporeal movement aligns with the metaphorical movement of the display; an ancient story of the movement from matter to spirit and from earth to heaven. Fehn plays deftly on all these kinds of movement, managing in the process both to move us and to make us move.

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Fehn – like Goethe – was acutely aware of sensory participation as a fundamental aspect of architecture. Buildings are perceived with your skin, nose, feet, and ears, as well as with your eyes. The gaze at work in these spaces, moreover, is not passive or neutral, but corporeally engaged and culturally informed. It is an embodied gaze by which the seer is “immersed in the visible by his body”, as Maurice Merleau-Ponty puts it.11

The embodied gaze The question of sensation has gotten renewed relevance in recent years, as the much proclaimed ‘sensuous turn’ has hit contemporary architecture and culture alike. Philosophers such as Gernot Böhme have called for a more embodied understanding of human culture, in which sense-experience is yet again granted ontological and epistemological significance.12 From the hegemony of language oriented thinking, we have been brought, says the anthropologist David Howes, “perhaps with a gasp of surprise or a recoil of disgust – into the realm of the body and the senses”.13 In the field of architecture, theorists like Juhani Pallasmaa have long called for a haptic architecture to counter a disembodied and image-fixated modern tradition – to combat the “tyranny of the gaze”, as he puts it.14 Fehn is often portrayed as a precursor for such a sensuous turn. His particular attention to movement and touch makes his work, at least seemingly, the perfect example of what a haptic architecture might be. And yet Fehn’s architecture (or any architecture for that matter) should not be seen as merely a critique of an ‘ocularcentric’ modernity. Rather than treating the haptic and the optic as competing domains, Fehn explores the way they overlap. To reflect on this overlap, it may be useful to seek beyond contemporary sensationalism, turning instead to nineteenth-century empathy theory and to the architectural historian August Schmarsow who theorized precisely the entanglement between sight, sensation, movement, and memory.

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Writing at the turn of the nineteenth century, Schmarsow rebelled against the pervading art-historical take on architecture, with its incessant focus on form, façade, and style. He was not interested in the representational apparatus of architectural style, cultivated so carefully by the historicists, but rather in architecture as the embodiment of an impulse or drive. For Schmarsow, the drive most distinctly at play in architectural creation was man’s innate sense of space – our Raumgefühl. The human being has an intuitive sense of space, Schmarsow wrote, yet this pre-cognitive sense is not a disembodied Kantian category. Rather than a mental construct, Raumgefühl is a sense instilled through sensory experience and sustained through the memory of that experience.15 The sense of space, then, is constituted by the sedimented memory of our bodily involvement with the world. This involvement primarily takes place through movement. As Schmarsow put it: “The linguistic terms that we use for space, such as ‘extension’, ‘expanse’, and ‘direction’, suggest continuous activity on our part, as we transfer our own feeling of movement directly to the static spatial form”.16 Space, then, requires our involvement – a corporeal involvement which at the same time makes us who we are, and establishes the preconditions for architectural space. Schmarsow’s association of space to movement resounds with a powerful echo of Gottfried Semper, who many years earlier wrote about the rhythmical movement of ritual dance as the origin of architecture. 17 Schmarsow is indeed famous for developing Semper’s notion of architecture as Raumkunst and for locating bodily movement at the heart of architectural creation and experience alike. In the essay “The Essence of Architectural Creation” from 1893, Schmarsow wrote lucidly about this – how space implies movement, and how we take measure of our enclosures with our own bodies. And yet, it is not the movement itself that constitutes our sense of space. Rather, it is the ‘echo’ of this movement, stored deep within our bodies as sensuous memory. Schmarsow labelled this echo a “sensory residue”; the corporeal memory of our movement through space. This, for Schmarsow, is what makes our experience

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of space possible, and also, ultimately, what makes architecture meaningful. As he wrote: “The intuited form of space, which surrounds us wherever we may be and which we then always erect around ourselves and consider more necessary than the form of our own body, consists of the residues of sensory experience to which the muscular sensation of our body, the sensitivity of our skin, and the structure of our body all contribute”.18 Schmarsow’s ideas are helpful when trying to understand Fehn’s Storhamarlåven. Far from expelling vision, Fehn uses the “sensory residue” of sight and movement to explore historical space. To move from the cobblestone pavement onto the smooth concrete ramp in the entrance hall, for instance, is a powerful reminder of the way sight, touch, movement, and memory brings a whole world into play. Stepping from the bridge into the enclosed cabinet and following the ascending Christ towards the light, is another. Schmarsow thought that our primal, pre-cognitive, sensuous intercourse with the world leaves traces – residues – which in turn prepare our three-dimensional and spatial understanding of the world. He argued that this spatial understanding – even when reduced to a purely visual gaze – still involves the memory of movement and involvement with the world. Storhamarlåven testifies to this insight not only in its spatial but also in its curatorial layout. The objects are in motion as it were, displayed at the angles at which they might have been used. This goes for the religious object, but even more so for utensils and tools. The yoke tilts forwards, its share literally ploughing into the iron plinth. The little tray for seed grain hangs slightly skewered, as if suspended from the belt of the sower. It is a difficult balance which can easily tip over into a hyper-aestheticized orchestration of the past – sometimes it does. Yet surprisingly often it works. In Fehn’s museum, the space measured by the eye is augmented, enriched, and sometimes contradicted by the space paced out by the moving body, making for a rich and oftentimes unexpected architectural experience. The sight of the displayed objects, even when we cannot touch them, evokes corporeal memories of past uses, gestures and acts, making them

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curiously recognizable. The gaze mobilized in Storhamarlåven is not a matter of passive perception but of active participation, mobilizing corporeal memory and historical experience. In that sense, the museum writes itself into a long tradition for exploring the interrelatedness of body, mind, and eye, as a successor, one might say, of Goethe’s blindfolded walk.

Architecture and attentiveness The entangled relationship between seeing, sensing, moving, and remembering belies an easy critique of ‘the tyranny of vision’ and precludes the facile proclamation of any sudden ‘sensuous turn’. Goethe knew that entanglement well. The dream of walking blindfolded through a beautiful building testifies less to a rejection of the gaze than to a need for a kind of synaesthetic attentiveness – an attitude combining knowing, feeling, and looking in a particularly intense way. Dalibor Vesely taught this kind of attentiveness to generations of architecture students at Essex and Cambridge, and I count myself lucky to be one of them. I always wanted to bring Dalibor to Hamar to see Fehn’s museum. And although it never happened I can imagine him there, walking, like a blindfolded Goethe, through a beautiful building with his eyes closed and his mind wide open.

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Karsten Harries Beauty, Nostalgia, Hope: The pulpit in Oppolding

Kantian prelude Robinson Crusoe would not have planted a beautiful flower garden just for himself, Kant claims in the Critique of Judgment: “Only in society is the beautiful of empirical interest. And if we grant that the urge to society is natural to man but that his fitness and propensity for it, i.e. sociability is a requirement of man as a creature with a vocation for society and hence is a property pertaining to his humanity, then we must also inevitably regard taste as an ability to judge whatever allows us to communicate even our feeling to everyone else, and hence regard taste as a means of furthering something that everyone’s natural inclination demands.”1 We are social animals and are truly happy only when we can share what we value with others. To create something beautiful is to create it for others to appreciate, to share with them what gives us pleasure. Such creation builds community, and Kant suggests that the progress of culture can be measured by the extent to which a society has progressed from concerns with merely pleasant sensations to a concern with their communication. “But in the end, when civilization has reached its peak, it makes this communication almost the principal activity of refined inclination, and sensations are valued only to the extent that they are universally communicable. At that point, even if the pleasure that each person has in such an object is inconsiderable and of

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no significant interest of its own, still its value is increased almost endlessly by the idea of its universal communicability.”2 Kant is quite aware that such a concern all too easily fuses “with all the [other] inclinations and passions that reach their greatest variety and highest degree in society; and if our interest in the beautiful is based on these, then it can provide only a very ambiguous transition from the agreeable to the good.”3 That presupposes that beauty, as Kant understands it, can build a bridge from the agreeable to the good. And this, not that disinterested satisfaction the beautiful was earlier said to grant,4 is what matters most to Kant: “Now I maintain that the beautiful is the symbol of the morally good; and only because we refer the beautiful to the morally good (we all do so naturally and require others also to do so, as a duty) does our liking for it include a claim to everyone’s assent, while the mind is also conscious of being ennobled, by this [reference], above a mere receptivity for pleasure derived from sense impressions, and it assesses the value of other people too on the basis of [their having] a similar maxim in their power of judgment.”5 Not that Kant thinks that an interest in the beautiful necessarily betrays a good character; much, he observes speaks against this. He is thus “quite willing to concede that an interest in the beautiful in art … provides no proof whatever that [someone’s] way of thinking is attached to the morally good, or even inclined toward it.”6 But Kant does maintain “that to take a direct interest in the beauty of nature (not merely to have the taste needed to judge it) is always the mark of a good soul; and that, if this interest is habitual, if it readily associates itself with the contemplation of nature, this [fact] indicates at least a mental attunement favorable to moral feeling.”7 To enjoy beautiful nature is inevitably also to take an interest in it, an interest that is akin to moral feeling. Lovingly such a person lets a wild flower, a bird, an insect be what they are. Nature presents itself as if it had been created for her or him. In beautiful nature we feel at home. How are we to understand Kant’s claim that the appreciation of the beauty of nature is akin to moral feeling? Both involve something like a recognition

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of an incarnation of spirit in matter: Spirit without seems to answer spirit within. To be sure, as Kant emphasizes, science can know nothing of such an incarnation. And does such talk of incarnation of spirit in matter not sound hopelessly out of date? And yet such incarnation would seem to be a presupposition of any ethics, for morality presupposes that we experience others as persons deserving respect. But this is to say that I must experience the other as more than just an object among objects, say as a very complicated robot governed by a computer brain so complicated that it successfully simulates human intelligence. Were I to learn that what I took to be a person was just some simulacrum, I would no longer experience the aura that alone lets me recognize the other as a person, like myself. I would lose what lets me know that I am not alone. Edmund Burke touches on a matter of profound importance when, in his Enquiry, he links the pleasure we take in beauty to the “passions which belong to society” – where he distinguishes “the society of the sexes” from that “more general society, which we have with men and with other animals, and which we may in some sort be said to have even with the inanimate world.”8 I do indeed think of the mountains I am most familiar with as having personalities, almost like persons. Each has its special aura. But has Walter Benjamin not taught us to recognize the self-deception that supports such an experience? Children may experience natural objects as if they were persons, but hardly someone truly of this modern age. Not that Benjamin did not know such experiences: He, too, speaks thus of the aura of a distant mountain range observed on some warm summer day or of a branch casting its shadow over you.9 For a moment we seem to glimpse a home beyond our everyday world. Kant’s privileging of the beauty of nature still belongs with the Baroque celebration of nature as a divine gift. Here we have a decisive difference between him and Hegel, who is almost exclusively interested in the beauty of art. Hegel has crossed the threshold that separates Baroque and Modernity, a threshold Kant still straddles. In characteristically modern fashion, Hegel thus thinks

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nature as material to be understood, appropriated, and used by us as we see fit. Considered just in itself, Hegel insists, nature cannot be considered beautiful: “Mind, and mind only, is capable of truth, and comprehends in itself all that is, so that whatever is beautiful can only be really and truly beautiful as partaking in this higher element and as created thereby. In this sense the beauty of nature reveals itself as but a reflection of the beauty which belongs to the mind, as an imperfect, incomplete mode of being, as a mode whose really substantial element is contained in the mind itself.”10 Kant had a very different understanding of beauty: He leaves no doubt that for him the ground of all artificial beauty finally is the beauty of nature, a beauty that transcends human artifice. In this connection the following passage is of special interest: “What do poets praise more highly than the nightingale’s enchantingly beautiful song? And yet, we have cases where some jovial innkeeper, unable to find such a songster, played a trick – received with greatest satisfaction [initially] – on the guests staying at his inn to enjoy the country air, by hiding in a bush some roguish youngster who (with a reed or rush in his mouth) knew how to copy that song in a way very similar to nature’s. But as soon as one realizes that it was all deception, no one will long endure listening to this song that before he had considered so charming.”11 Interest here comes into play in a decisive way. The assumption is that, formally considered, what is heard remains more or less indistinguishable from the song of the true nightingale. From a purely aesthetic point of view, it would seem, there should be no reason to rank one above the other. But the judgment of the guests visiting Kant’s inn is not adequately understood as based just on the formal properties of the nightingale’s song; i.e. it is not a pure aesthetic judgment in Kant’s sense; and it is the associated interest that here gives the experience of beauty its weight. But what is that interest? Might one not prefer the simulacrum, which demonstrates the skill of the human creator or performer?

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But once we learn of the deception, though we hear the same melody, its aura vanishes. What matters is that what is heard is experienced by us as a product of nature, as not born of artifice. Kant here does not hesitate to invoke the medieval understanding of nature as a text: The beauties of nature present themselves to us as ciphers addressed to us.12 Spirit without, spirit of which we are not the author, seems to speak to our own spirit: “A bird’s song proclaims his joyfulness and contentment with his existence. At least this is how we interpret nature, whether or not it has such an intention.”13 Nature speaks to us, “as it were”, and the plural “we” is important: It matters that the experience be a shared experience. Beautiful nature speaks to us of our spiritual home, recalling the medieval understanding of the beautiful as a figure of paradise. It makes us feel joyful and content with our existence.

A pulpit I have no difficulty sharing Kant’s sentiments: The way I experience beautiful nature is not all that different from the way he must have experienced it. And no more than he did do I think here first of all of sublime nature in which we feel homeless, but of nature in which generations made their living and found their home. Certain landscapes especially have given me that sense, e.g. East Prussia, Franconia, Maine, Virginia, Tuscany, Vieques. But the landscape that I associate most readily with such an experience is Bavaria. That of course is highly subjective; it depends on my personal history, on memories that connect me with that particular landscape. No doubt my experience of the beauty of the Bavarian landscape is colored by nostalgia, by a dream of homecoming, where nostalgia mingles with an indefinite hope. But is nostalgia not to be condemned for failing to confront the challenge of present and future? Let me begin pursuing the nexus beauty, nostalgia, hope by turning to just one work of art, a pulpit my wife and I like to visit whenever we fly to Munich.

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Johann Baptist Lethner, St Johannes der Täufer (Oppolding, Oberbayern, Germany, 1765), view from the exterior.

It has become a kind of yearly ritual with us. The contrast between the modern airport and the little church we visit shortly after arriving is striking. Although the trip to Oppolding takes at most an hour, the airport and the world to which it belongs seem suddenly far away. In a way I find difficult to explain, visiting the church with its pulpit lets us feel content, makes us somehow more hopeful, and given the world we live in, it seems important to hold on to hope. The small church, dating from 1765, is surrounded by just a few farmhouses. An experience of the spirit of the place, the genius loci is very much part of the experience of this pulpit. The relationship of our experience of beauty to place and space deserves further discussion. According to Walter Benjamin, the appreciation of the aura of some artifact depends on an appreciation of its embeddedness in its historical context, of its place in the ongoing story of

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humanity. That is certainly true of this pulpit. To really appreciate its special aura, we need not only to experience it in its place, but also have to have a sense of its historical place. Such awareness establishes a sense of distance, but also a sense of homecoming. To be sure, we are separated from the world that created such works by the Enlightenment. And yet, that temporal distance loses some of its significance when we allow ourselves to become absorbed by the church and its pulpit and by what they have to tell us. To do so, we must understand its language, its spiritual significance, and this means also, and especially, the spiritual significance of the rocaille ornament on which its creator relied. (Pl. 4) The pulpit is a capriccio in stucco, bound neither by the rules of representation, nor by those of architecture, hardly bound, it would seem, even by the serving function that would seem to be part of the very essence of ornament. What here is ornament? What ornament-bearer? The pulpit suggests a musical composition in three movements14: first the steep stairs, their ornamental railing introduced by a rising, shallow inverse C-curve capped by a hook or handle that promises the priest support as he begins his ascent, accompanied by the once-interrupted, tripartite melody of the handrail, releasing him into the pulpit proper. No longer ascending, the handrail now gains the horizontal, first curving upward into a small hook, then falling back, its movement interrupted by rocaille forms spilling out of the pulpit, meeting a more vigorous rocaille rising from below, opening a gap in the heavy molding at the pulpit’s base, the place of the molding here taken by a flower. The pulpit’s ‘architecture’ seems too weak to contain the play of rocaille, which animates, bends, and breaks through moldings and railings, asserting the vertical, preparing for the pulpit’s climax: the canopy, which here has become a single rocaille that surges upward, crests, encircling the dove of the holy spirit, and disintegrates, returning to earth in two angel’s heads and a garland of flowers. One thinks of water, baptismal water – an appropriate association given that the church is consecrated to St John the Baptist – but also of

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Johann Anton Pader, pulpit (1765), St Johannes der Täufer, detail of the canopy.

pentecostal fire, appropriate to a pulpit. Ornament here appears on the verge of transforming itself into a piece of abstract sculpture, a characteristic feature of the last phase of rococo ornamentation. I called the pulpit a capriccio. “The term capriccio – like fantasia or scherzo – can be traced back to the sixteenth century. Initially it implied an either ignorant or purposeful blending of conventional practices and rules and was as likely to denote censure as it was praise.”15 In the case of this pulpit there is no suggestion of ignorance: The creator of these forms would seem to have been very much a master of his art, which he here pushes to an extreme that would seem to permit no further progress. The pulpit thus presents itself to us both as a consummation of rocaille ornamentation and by the same token as marking its end. Indeed, there is a sense in which the triumph of rocaille in works such as this pulpit figures the end of all ornament in its highest sense, i.e. of ornament understood as more

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Detail of the canopy with image of the Holy Spirit.

than just an aesthetic addendum that could equally well be different. Not long after that the question was to be raised: In what style should we build?, the title of a book by Heinrich Hübsch.16 That title suggests that a threshold had been crossed. Hübsch’s question would not have occurred to the creators of the church in Oppolding. That gives it an air of inevitability. The pulpit in Oppolding occupies the threshold that both joins and separates ornament from art for art’s sake.17 By the same token, it occupies the threshold that both joins and separates an art for art’s sake from an art for God’s sake. But can its capriciousness be reconciled with the seriousness often thought alone appropriate to divine worship? We can almost hear some sober, enlightened critic newly arrived from Leipzig or Hamburg, censure the intoxicated creator of these freely moving forms – and intoxicated here is not just a metaphor: A letter in the parish archive suggests that the creator

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of this pulpit was all too fond of wine.18 But what room does Dionysian intoxication deserve in a church? Does divine service not demand sobriety and discipline? We should, however, keep in mind the strange similarities between Dionysus and Christ: both are associated with wine; both are born of a human mother and a god; both are martyred and killed only to rise again; both represent a victory of life over death. This pulpit, the work of a long anonymous artist, now known to have been Johann Anton Bader, member of a family renowned through several generations for its stucco work,19 seems to me to rank with the very best art the eighteenth century has produced. Art historians do not seem to have taken much note. Of course, pulpits do not figure prominently in most histories of art. To be sure, for many centuries the church had not only been the leading building task in the West, but offered a framework for the other arts, and in this context there can be no doubt of a pulpit’s function and significance: As a platform serving the proclamation of God’s Word, it had been an essential part of the church’s furnishings at least since the early Middle Ages, providing a small stage on which a member of the clergy stands in order to read the Gospel lesson and deliver a sermon. It is thus a place where the Holy Spirit should descend. According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, The Holy Spirit “reveals God, makes known to us Christ, his Word, his living Utterance, but the Spirit does not speak of himself. The Spirit who ‘has spoken through the prophets’ makes us hear the Father’s Word, but we do not hear the Spirit himself. We know him only in the movement by which he reveals the Word to us and disposes us to welcome him in faith.”20 The Catechism also lists the various symbols of the Holy Spirit in the Bible: Perhaps the most obvious one to recognize in this pulpit is the dove. “When Christ comes up from the water of his baptism, the Holy Spirit, in the form of a dove, comes down upon him and remains with him” (Mt 3, 16). Note how the passage links the symbolism of water to that of the dove. Water “signifies the Holy Spirit’s action in Baptism”. And there is something

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watery about the rocaille of this pulpit. The dove of the Holy Spirit is familiar from traditional representations of the Annunciation; and the Virgin is figured by a shell. The pearl, which the medievals took to be the result of the wedding of earth and sky (dew or lightning) inside a shell, offered itself as a figure of Christ. Mary thus becomes the shell that holds the pearl that is Jesus, she, too, the site of the descent of the Holy Spirit. Can we generalize and understand rocaille, the shell-work that forms this pulpit as also a figure of Mary?21 In this pulpit, I want to suggest, ornament possesses a spiritual significance: It enacts the descent of the divine logos into the mundane and temporal, if you wish, the wedding of heaven and earth. The joyous character of this wedding is symbolized by the roses you see in this pulpit. And that would seem to be the fundamental mood of this pulpit, as more generally of the Bavarian rococo: joy. Joy triumphs over death, the joy of Easter and the hope connected with it.

Heidegger’s Black Forest farmhouse In my thinking, works like the pulpit in Oppolding occupy somewhat the same place as the Black Forest farmhouse does in Heidegger’s “Building Dwelling Thinking” – both date from the eighteenth century. Both appeals seem to speak of a vain desire to return to a past that, while it may figure a state of both freedom and happiness, never was as remembered. The Enlightenment, to which we owe the term “nostalgia”, thus understood it first of all as something to be overcome, as a disease, an aberration, incompatible with humanity’s truly coming of age.22 Not that Heidegger offered his farmhouse to the architects who had invited him to speak, not too long after the destruction wrought by World War II, as an example of how we should build today. He knew that we cannot return to such a farmhouse. What he had said earlier of the temple in

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Paestum or the cathedral in Bamberg remains true in this case: “The world of the work that stands there has perished. World-withdrawal and world-decay can never be undone. The works are no longer what they once were.”23 It would be irresponsible to build once again such farmhouses. But must the same not be said of the way Heidegger would bind authentic dwelling to place, to landscape and home, that here has become image? Heidegger himself poses the question: “Is there still that quiet dwelling of man between earth and sky? Does the meditative spirit still preside over the land? Is there still home that nourishes roots, in whose soil the human being ever stands, i.e., is rooted (bodenständig)?”24 We may want to ask: Should there be such rootedness? Is it compatible with freedom? Again and again one senses in Heidegger a nostalgic longing for something lost, figured by field-path and bell-tower. But must the same not be said of my invocation of the Oppolding pulpit? Should we not resist such nostalgia and the lament over the way things and the earth have been neglected or, worse, violated by technology and, connected with it, over the rootlessness of modern man: “All the things with which modern communications technology constantly stimulates, assaults, and presses human beings are today already much closer to us than the field surrounding the farm, the sky over the land, the hourly passage of night and day, closer than habit and custom in the village, closer than the tradition of our native world.” 25 But who of us still lives on a farm, surrounded by its field? Given that computer and television, car and airplane are much closer to most of us than field-path and bell-tower, that they help to determine the much more world-open way of our modern dwelling – does this not mean that we become homeless in our world when we attempt to keep our distance from technology? More free, more mobile than our parents and grandparents, do we not have to embrace technology if we are to find the “new ground and soil on which we can stand and endure in this technological world, unthreatened by it”?26 Heidegger knew this; he was not hoping for the recovery of some lost paradise. The conclusion of his lecture warns of all such dreams: What matters

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is not to return to some lost home, but to hope for a homecoming in some unpredictable future. To keep such hope alive, he claimed, we have to both affirm and yet keep our distance from technology. But why should technology not offer us such a home. Must we agree with Heidegger, when he invites us to consider “that here, by means of technology, an attack on the life and the essence of the human being prepares itself, compared with which the explosion of the hydrogen bomb means little”? 27 Such discomfort with technology presides over Heidegger’s “Building Dwelling Thinking”. He never could feel at home in our technological world, continued to dream of a homecoming, even as he came to recognize ever more clearly the vanity of such nostalgia. Returning to his native Messkirch, where his father had been a sexton, no longer meant coming home: “The earlier expectation, to be sure already attended by doubts, that what makes home home could still and immediately be saved, this expectation we are no longer permitted to still hold on to. More fitting is a word that I wrote in 1946 [to] a French friend: ‘Homelessness is the fate of the world.’ Modern man is about to arrange himself with this homelessness.”28 Heidegger liked to cite a few lines by Friedrich Hölderlin: For at home is the spirit Not in the beginning, not at the source. Home wears on him. Colony loves, and brave forgetting the spirit.29

To find itself, the poet insists, the spirit must leave home behind, has to arrange itself with the new environment. To refuse to let go of home is like a disease. Home wears on us. That is why the spirit loves colony and brave forgetting. In his interpretation of Hölderlin’s hymn, “Der Ister”, Heidegger calls the law of not being at home the law of coming to be at home.30 And yet thoughts of the home left behind will not leave us. And thus the founders of colonies seek in foreign parts a more perfect repetition of home. Is this not at bottom the same insight that let Ortega y Gasset, at the same conference where

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Heidegger gave his lecture “Building Dwelling Thinking”, compare technology with a fabulous orthopedic apparatus and demand of the architect, too, similar creations?31 The creation of such an orthopedic apparatus presupposes not only that dissatisfaction with our, in so many ways, less-than-perfect bodies emphasized by Ortega, but also knows about the body’s indispensability. And similarly the spirit knows about the many imperfections of home, but also about the indispensability of home, is aware of both. This is why it loves home even in the strange and unfamiliar, why it loves colony, the repetition of home in the foreign, but loves also the unexpected and never-before-seen that it is encountering in the new world it has now entered, knows that timidly clinging to home stands in the way of such love, and for this reason spirit loves brave forgetting. In this sense Heidegger can say that it is a home we have left behind, to which we cannot return, and which yet does not let go of us, which calls us mortals into our dwelling. Centrifugal and centripetal tendencies war and compete in us human beings, in our dwelling – should war and compete – also in our building! Human beings would lose themselves were they not to remain underway, in search of home, full of hope. Works like the pulpit in Oppolding help me to hold on to an in many ways quite irrational hope.

Beauty Let me return, at least briefly, to the tiny church in Oppolding and to its pulpit. Just what is it that lets me take such interest in this particular work? First of all, no doubt, its very special beauty. But does “beauty” do justice to the way I experience its aura? Consider how our experience would differ if we were to encounter the pulpit, say, in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, like an eighteenth-century temple of Dendur. We would still experience its beauty, recognize the aesthetic achievement of its creator. But in this particular church the pulpit transports us into a different world, a world that reckoned differently

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with time. But that is misleadingly expressed: We are not really transported into a different world; the world that built that church has perished, never to return. And who would want to return to that world? Important here is the period, the middle of the eighteenth-century. In this respect, too, my invocation of the pulpit invites comparison with Heidegger’s invocation of a Black Forest farmhouse, dating from the very same period. In more than one way both works place us on the threshold of our modern world. First of all, historically: They bring us back to a way of life that had not yet replaced God with reason to provide life with measure and ground. But not just historically do they place us on the threshold of our modern world: In buildings such as these, a bygone world casts something like light into our modern world, hinting at a plenitude that transcends and eludes the reach of our reason. But to repeat: Is it not nostalgia that thus endows such works with their aura? What is nostalgia? How does it relate to our experience of beauty? Is it necessarily to be condemned? Like “aesthetics”, “nostalgia” is a word we owe to the Enlightenment. Both have their origin in attempts to assign a place in the architecture raised by reason to experiences too important to be dismissed that yet resist comprehension. These experiences have their common root in a dissatisfaction with everyday reality. In that sense, aesthetics, and beauty as aesthetics came to understand it – i.e. the beauty that was to preside over the progress of modern art—and nostalgia belong together. Both speak to the continued power of something that the Enlightenment had to consider irrational, that challenges the hegemony of reason. We owe the term “aesthetics” to Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten, who can be said to have founded aesthetics as a philosophical discipline, to be placed beside logic, metaphysics, and ethics in his dissertation, Meditationes de nonnullis ad poema pertinentibus of 1735, translated as Reflections on Poetry.32 Baumgarten attempted to show how within the philosophical edifice established by Descartes, Leibniz, and their successors, room could be made for the philosophical study of poetry, more generally of art.

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Given his time and place, it was obvious to Baumgarten how he should approach the matter. The general framework was provided by Descartes. It suggested to him his definition of the experience of beauty, i.e. of aesthetic experience, as a perception of perfection that is clear, but not distinct. Whatever presents itself clearly and distinctly is transparent: In it there is nothing that escapes the mind’s grasp. Nothing is hidden; no mystery remains. From this it follows that whatever we are presented by our senses may be clear, but can never be distinct. The phenomenon of perspective precludes this. Clarity and distinctness demand thus a standpoint beyond perspective, the standpoint of thought. According to Descartes, only the clear and distinct gives us adequate access to truth and to reality. Reality is given its measure in our ability to comprehend it. Sensory perception has to be transformed into intellectual knowledge if it is to lead us to the truth. A downgrading of the senses and thus of art is the inevitable consequence. Descartes himself spent little time discussing perceptions that are clear, but not distinct. But their importance for aesthetics is hinted at by a passage in Leibniz’s Discourse on Metaphysics: “When I am able to recognize a thing among others, without being able to say in what its difference and characteristics consist, the knowledge is confused. Sometimes indeed we may know clearly, that is without being in the slightest doubt, that a poem or a picture is well or badly done because there is in it an ‘I don’t know what’ which satisfies or shocks us. Such knowledge is not yet distinct.” 33 The knowledge that something is beautiful is thus clear, but not distinct. To know something distinctly is to be able to explain what something is. This is not the case with our perception of the beautiful. Leibniz himself spent little time on beauty and clearly subordinates the clear and confused to the clear and distinct. But the former is rehabilitated to some extent by his follower Christian Wolff, who argued that our knowledge of particulars is never clear and distinct. The discipline that, according to Wolff, deals above all with particulars is history, which is concerned with individuals.

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As the science of particulars, history has to take its place beside philosophy and natural science if our understanding of reality is not to remain one-sided. Baumgarten became the founder of modern aesthetics by applying Wolff ’s insight into history to art. Artworks demand to be appreciated as the particulars they are. In this respect they are like persons. Such appreciation cannot be clear and distinct. But our experience of beauty is not adequately understood as clear and confused perception. What Baumgarten finds missing is evident from his definition of the experience of beauty as a perception of perfection that is clear, but not distinct. What then is meant by perfection? In his Metaphysics Baumgarten defines perfection as follows: “If many things considered together contain the reason for some other thing, they harmonize in respect to this thing. This harmony is perfection.”34 In this sense the different steps of a proof in geometry may be said to harmonize with respect to the theorem to be proved. But the perfection of such a proof must be distinguished from the perfection of a work of art, from beauty. The beautiful, too, is an organized whole. But its perfection is not understood; its appreciation requires taste. The implications of Baumgarten’s understanding of the work of art are spelled out by his discussion of the poem’s theme: “By theme we mean that whose representation contains the sufficient reason of other representations supplied in the discourse, but which does not have its own sufficient reason in them.”35 In creating a unity out of a manifold the poet is thus like another god, the work he creates like another world, having its own closure. The simile leads Baumgarten to make the following provocative claim: “We observed a little while ago that the poet is like a maker or creator. So the poem ought to be like a world. Hence by analogy whatever is evident to the philosophers concerning the real world, the same ought to be thought of a poem.”36 This is to say that whatever the metaphysicians have said about the world is by analogy true of the poem. Aesthetics can thus appropriate the propositions of metaphysics – where Baumgarten is thinking above all of Leibniz and

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Wolff – if it understands them “by analogy”. Take Leibniz’s Monadology, which represents the world as a perfectly ordered whole. The philosopher’s discourse, to be sure, aims to be clear and distinct. But note what the simile suggests: The work of art has a structure that is very much like that of what according to Leibniz is the best of all possible worlds. Both are what they ought to be. The poem’s theme is its God, we can say; or, the world is a poem that has God for its theme. Today we are, to be sure, unlikely to be convinced by Leibniz’s metaphysics. But note that Baumgarten’s simile does not depend for its effectiveness on whether Leibniz is right or wrong. Baumgarten invites us, although this is hardly what he intended, to read the Monadology as a philosophical poem that presents a world whose order is not secured by clear and distinct reasoning but by an act of imagination. Just this makes it a poem, despite its medium. So read, it cannot claim truth, even as it figures a perfect world. Baumgarten’s definition leads to the very center of the modern divorce of the beautiful from the true and the good. To speak of beauty as perfection is to insist on its self-sufficiency. The aesthetic object, and more especially, the successful work of art is autonomous: Its point is not to refer beyond itself, to express some edifying thought or to represent some cherished object or person. To praise it for being true or to condemn it for being false is to have missed what matters: that it present itself to us as an absorbing presence. Presenting itself to us as being just as it should be, a beautiful work of art releases us from the sense of arbitrariness and contingency that is so much part of our everyday life, that again and again lets us wonder: Why this and not that? Absorbed in a work of art, we no longer face different possibilities. But this is to say also that we no longer face the future, no longer confront the real world. In time, the artwork’s perfection lifts the burden of time, allowing us to exist, if only for a time, in a seemingly timeless present. In that sense it can be said to figure paradise and that means also our dreams of home.

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Nostalgia “Nostalgia” antedates “aesthetics” by half a century. The term was coined by Johannes Hofer (1669–1752), an Alsatian medical student, not yet twenty, in Basel, in his dissertation of 1688, by joining nostos, meaning “a journey back home”, and algia, meaning “pain”, to name what in the vernacular was called Heimweh, and which he had come to recognize as a disease that in extreme cases could be cured only by allowing the patient to return home.37 Memories of home here become an obstacle to making one’s home in a new environment. Hofer’s subjects were Swiss, and the Swiss were indeed especially associated with this strange ailment, where Hofer notes in his revised dissertation that an outbreak of nostalgia was often linked to a playing of the Kühe-Reyen, a “certain rustic cantilena, to which the Swiss drive the herds to pasture in the Alps.” 38 Since the Swiss were sought-after mercenaries, such outbreaks were a concern especially for the French, who, as Rousseau reports, forbade the tune “from being played in their Troops on pain of death, since it would cause those who heard it to dissolve in tears, desert, or die, so much would it arouse in them the ardent desire to see their country again.”39 But just what was it that drew them back home with such force? Was it the air, the milk, the food? A convincing answer eluded the enlightened doctors. In the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries nostalgia gradually ceased to be considered primarily a medical problem, as it came to be recognized as a disease, not so much of the body as of the soul, born of a dissatisfaction with present reality that transforms a remembered or perhaps mostly imagined past into a figure of a paradise to which one longed to return. But just such dissatisfaction presented the Enlightenment with a challenge. Why should the Enlightenment, celebrated by Immanuel Kant as the coming of age of humanity, have given birth to this strange

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ailment that made the suffering individual long to return to what objectively was a less advanced state of existence? Kant thus tended to dismiss nostalgia as the product of the troubled imagination of someone who refused to grow up, suggesting that it is not so much a particular place the nostalgic vainly longs for, but for a childhood transfigured by memory into a lost paradise.40 But that dismissal is called into question by Kant’s observation that nostalgia is more likely to afflict those who grew up in backward regions that, while “poor in money”, were socially still more firmly knitted together. The nostalgic is said not yet to have made patria ubi bene his motto. So understood, nostalgia implies a legitimate critique of an increasingly money-centered modernity that has paid for an increase in freedom and material well-being with a loss of place and with it of genuine community. So understood, the longing for home figures a legitimate longing, not so much for a particular place or for lost childhood, as for a sense of community difficult to reconcile with emphasis on the atomic individual who would have reason alone to bind freedom. Nostalgia presupposes a dissatisfaction with present circumstances. Important in this connection is Illbruck’s insight that what we are nostalgic about is both something very definite and yet at the same time indeterminable: Particular places figure a transcendental home that never was nor can be. That is not-so-very distant from the medieval understanding of beauty as a figure of paradise or from Kant’s understanding of the beauty of the song of the nightingale. Beauty and nostalgia are indeed related phenomena. It is thus not surprising that Schopenhauer, who found the human condition as such unsatisfactory, since our desire for true happiness will in principle remain unmet due to the essential temporality of our being in the world, should have linked nostalgia and artistic genius. Both are expressions of our unhappiness with the world we have to live in. But is Schopenhauer right to blame the human condition? Isn’t it rather the way that our particular historical situation has distorted reality? A Marxist

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would associate it with capitalism. As Frederic Jameson observes: “It is scarcely surprising that out of the alienating structures of nineteenth- and twentieth-century capitalism we should look back with a (not necessarily unrevolutionary) nostalgia at such moments in which life, and form, are still relatively whole, and which seem at the same time to afford a glimpse into the nature of some future nonalienated existence as well.”41 This calls for specification. What historical periods offer us such “moments in which life, and form, are still relatively whole”? In keeping with his time, Marx was thinking first of all of Greece, and especially of its art. Attempting to explain its appeal, Marx appeals to the joy we experience when we observe children: “A man cannot become a child again, or he becomes childish. But does he not find joy in the child’s naiveté, and must he not try to reproduce its truth at a higher stage? Does not the true character of each epoch come alive in the nature of its children? Why should not the historic childhood of humanity, its most beautiful unfolding, as a stage never to return, exercise an eternal charm?”42 Why does Marx here call “the historic childhood of humanity, its most beautiful unfolding”? This is to claim not only, in the tradition of Winckelmann, Schiller, and Hegel, that art will never again be as beautiful as it was in ancient Greece, but also that humanity will never again unfold itself quite so beautifully. Is human progress then bought at the price of beauty? At the price of feeling at home in the world? Schopenhauer, to be sure, would have us challenge the claim that there ever was or can be the kind of non-alienated existence of which the Marxist dreams. But the general point does seem defensible: What moves us in great art, both as memory and as promise, is the ever-elusive idea of a fuller humanity. Nostalgia is part of such appreciation, where nostalgia is not divorced from hope, just as thoughts of the paradise lost intertwine with the expectation of paradise regained. Art and nostalgia both testify to the human power of self-transcendence that lets us dream up figures of what Kant called the highest good, a state where virtue and happiness both receive their due.

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Hope I have been attracted to the eighteenth century because it places us on the threshold of our modern world. But more important to me than this particular historical threshold is what separates what Kant called the land of pure understanding, according to him an island, from the unknown regions that lie beyond. I therefore do not want to put too much weight on this particular period. In fits and starts the modern world took shape over a millennia-old history. There are other such thresholds that invite similar reflections. Nietzsche and Heidegger thus looked back all the way to ancient Greece, to the death of tragedy and the emergence of a culture based on objectifying reason. With both, that turn to Greece was tied to an attempt to restore to art its lost sacred dimension, where both were aware of the untimeliness of such an attempt. We are of course separated from that threshold by the Christian Middle Ages, another age of faith, which lets us ask what led faith to return, where to point to barbarian invasions is to give an only very incomplete answer. That faith, too, was shattered, an analogous development. I have thus been especially interested in the period around 1400. There is a sense in which our modern world could be said to have its origin in the Florence of the time. My book Infinity and Perspective is an exploration of this threshold, straddled by Nicholas of Cusa, while the slightly younger Alberti, whose perspectival method, prefiguring Descartes’ method in significant ways, has already passed it.43 Work I began in that book has now been developed in an extraordinary way by Johannes Hoff in The Analogical Turn: Rethinking Modernity with Nicholas of Cusa.44 As Hoff understands it, Cusa’s encounter with Alberti, at a time when our modern world was beginning to take shape, points the way toward a renewed understanding of creation as theophany, a manifestation of the divine. Such an understanding, he suggests, is supported by experiences of the invisible in the visible, so when we lovingly encounter another person or by our joint experience of something beautiful, say the call of a nightingale on some summer evening.

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But if there is a sense in which the modern world can be said to have been born around 1400, there is always a complicated prehistory, and it hardly developed in a single stream. Between Renaissance and Enlightenment lies the Baroque, lies a return of faith, where the Reformation lets one think first of all of music, and the Counter-Reformation of the visual arts. The pulpit in Oppolding offers a late example. And why should art not once again play such a role and serve the sacred? But how is art to do that today? Much more easily supported is an interpretation of modern art as offering something like Ersatz for the lost sacred. Schopenhauer has such an understanding of art. In its essence this is still the view of Michael Fried: “Presentness is grace”.45 But to provide an aesthetic analogue to redemption, art has to settle here for beautiful illusion. There is no genuine homecoming. When appealing to the Bavarian Rococo, as I did in this essay, am I not guilty of doing what Nietzsche in his later preface accuses himself of having done in The Birth of Tragedy?: But, my dear sir, what in the world is romantic if your book isn’t? Can deep hatred against “the Now”, against “reality” and “modern ideas” be pushed further than you pushed it in your artists’ metaphysics? Believing sooner in the Nothing, sooner in the devil than in “the Now”? Is it not a deep bass of wrath and the lust for destruction that we hear humming underneath all your contrapuntal vocal art and seduction of the ear, a furious resolve against everything that is “now”, a will that is not far removed from practical nihilism and seems to say: “sooner let nothing be true than that you should be right, than that your truth should be proved right”.46

Later, in Morgenröte, Nietzsche will have this to say about romanticism: “Too much energy is wasted on all sorts of resurrections of the dead. Perhaps the whole romantic movement is best understood from this point of view.”47

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Nietzsche was well aware of the part romantic nostalgia played in his overly simplistic reconstruction of the tragic age of the Greeks to which he opposed the Socratic faith in reason. What he provided there hardly could claim historical accuracy. He had created, if you want, a historical myth, something in between reality and fiction, where that fiction has its place between our everyday existence and a dream that haunts us, as Kant insists we cannot but be haunted by the idea of the highest good, where a Christian would think of heaven. I want to call what Nietzsche had created a Zwischenwelt.48 Myths present us with such Zwischenwelten: worlds that mediate between the everyday world and a reality that our very nature makes us long for but that finally eludes understanding. Kant might have spoken of symbolic representations of an idea of reason. The highest good is such an idea. “The moral law is reason’s formal condition for the use of our freedom and hence obligates us all by itself, independently of any purpose whatever as material condition. But it also determines for us and a priori, a final purpose, and makes it obligatory for us to strive toward [achieving] it; and that purpose is the highest good in the world that we can achieve through freedom.”49 The highest good is thus a goal we must strive for: “The subjective condition under which man (and, as far as we can conceive, any [other] rational [and] finite being as well) can set himself a final purpose under the above law, is happiness. Hence the highest physical good we can [achieve] in the world is happiness, and this is what we are to further as the final purpose as far as we can, [though] subject to the objective condition that man be in harmony with the law of morality, [since] our worthiness to be happy consists in that harmony.” 50 Key here is the idea of happiness, where true happiness cannot be reduced to a physical good; that would reduce man to an animal. The idea of happiness builds a bridge between our nature and what morality demands. And that bridge must be built if we are not to despair over the point of acting morally. But it can be built only if what we most profoundly desire is not rendered altogether vain by

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reality, as Schopenhauer thought, if we believe in some sort of attunement between reality and what we long for. Such faith presupposes a profound optimism, while the pessimist will find little here to convince him. Shared experiences, such as that of the pulpit in Oppolding or of a nightingale’s call, feed such optimism.

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Robin Middleton Ideas on Movement in Architecture in Britain and France during the Eighteenth Century

One of Dalibor Vesely’s concerns was with the concept of movement during the baroque era; he wrote more than one paper on the subject, laying emphasis on the Aristotelian understanding as a process of change, divinely inspired, in the fulfillment of intrinsic possibilities. He related the notion to the architecture of Borromini and Guarini. My concern, however, has been of a more prosaic, indeed, flat-footed kind. I seek to record the responses of men and women, from the baroque period into the eighteenth century, as they moved through architecture. I am interested in how they articulated the experience. Most of the examples I offer, I have already recorded here and there, but I repeat them once again, unabashed, in an attempt to chart a history. The OED notes, bluntly, that the use of the word “movement” is “somewhat rare between the 14th and the 18th c.; not found, e.g. in Shaks., Milton’s poetry, or the Bible of 1611”. But examples are cited from Chaucer and others, relating to movements in the heavens, the movements of bodies and of the soul, and, in 1706, in dancing. There is no mention of Kepler, Leibniz, or Descartes and their studies on the movements of the planets, and machines, nor even of Lebrun and his effort to record the meanings of gestures and facial expressions, all of whom must have impinged on British thinking by the end of the seventeenth century. There is nothing, as one might expect, relating to architecture.

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The Dictionnaire de l’Académie française (1st ed., 1694) does not provide a history of the use of words, though it does provide examples of different meanings – one dear to Vesely’s heart, “Mouvement d’alteration, Le mouvement insensible qui arrive dans un corps, et qui en change les qualités sans en changer la substance” – “Movement of alteration, the intangible movement that comes over a body, and that changes therein its qualities without changing its substance” – but, once again, nothing relating to the experience of architecture. From Alberti onwards there was an insistent engagement with the theory of architecture, yet there is, in that vast literature, before the eighteenth century, no more than occasional asides referring to movement in architecture: nothing on the visual stimulus of moving in relation to architectural forms. Clearly, anyone moving in relation to buildings must have been sharply aware of the sensations aroused, but such sensations seem not to have been articulated. Elisabeth Kieven has noted that Bernini’s sketches of the high altar of Saint Peter’s give clear evidence of an acute awareness of the differences arising when viewing from different positions, but no significant observations on that matter are recorded, whether in the writings of Bernini, Borromini, or Guarini,1 where one would expect to find something of the kind. For the self-awareness that emerges in the eighteenth century was, it is safe to assume, an outcome of the great philosophical surges of the seventeenth century. Maupertuis, concisely, if crudely, summed up the new understanding of the cosmos in his Système de la nature of 1751. “Quelques Philosophes”, he writes, “ont cru qu’avec la matière et le movement ils pouvoient expliquer toute la Nature” 2 – “Several philosophers have believed that, with matter and movement, they could explain the whole of Nature.” He referred, of course, to the cosmologies of both Descartes and Newton. In Britain, Newton was clearly to the fore. He had charted a new heaven and a new earth with his Philosophiæ naturalis principia mathematica of 1687. And this had been given an altogether down-to-earth corollary in 1690 with John Locke’s An essay concerning human understanding.

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Locke was intent to demonstrate that all knowledge – or almost all knowledge – and understanding of the world emerges from the experience of the five senses; that our personal experience of the objects around us serves as the basis of all we can feel or think. The emergence of sensationalist theories can be charted in other writings, but Locke suffices as the spur to a new and more active response to the world about men and women in the early eighteenth century. “Movement” became a cult word then, whether to describe the workings of the universe or of the emotions. England – the British Isles – one would think, would provide the first evidence of a direct link between that word and the experience of architecture. However, not much concerned with ideas on architecture was to be published in Britain during the first half of the eighteenth century; most works with any concerns of that sort were translations from the French – Fréart (1664, again in 1680, yet again in 1723 and 1735), Perrault (1708, again in 1722), Dezallier d’Argenville (1712, again in 1728). Later in the century, when a picturesque theory of landscape architecture had evolved in response to the teachings of Locke, there were numerous accounts of spectators moving through landscapes, though little therein by way of interpretation. This literature begins, effectively, only in 1770, with the publication of Thomas Whately’s Observations on modern gardening, to be followed by the writings of Uvedale Price, Humphry Repton, and Richard Payne Knight, to which we shall return – briefly. A foretaste, however, is provided by William Chambers’s account of moving from one scene to another in the gardens of the Chinese, in the final pages of his Designs of Chinese Buildings, Furniture, Dresses, Machines and Utensils of 1757 – a book issued in both English and French. This was evidently influenced by a report of the missionary, Jean-Denis Attiret, in the volume of the Lettres édifiantes et curieuses écrites des missions etrangères of 1749, describing the route through the Yuan Ming Yuan (the Garden of perfect splendor), the garden of the Emperor of China, that drew the visitor

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Sir John Soane, ‘Views of a Grove or Avenue of trees – to illustrate the probable origin of Gothic architecture’, s. d. Opposite: Claude Desgots, avenue of trees (c. 1732-1730), Palais Royal, Paris, view between two rows of trees.

from pavilion to pavilion along zig-zag paths and over bridges. Chambers was, no doubt, familiar also with Father Ripa’s engravings of the garden, a set of which had been purchased from him by Lord Burlington. The account, however, is descriptive only; it provides no hint of the experience involved. Slightly later, in 1759, in A Treatise on Civil Architecture, Chambers comes close to describing the effect of movement on architecture when he deals with the changing aspect of the ovolo mouldings in the Doric cornice and the roses in the soffit panels of the Composite cornice when viewed in strict elevation or from either above or below, which must, perforce, he recommended, be dimensioned in relation to the position of the spectator. He makes other remarks relating to the experience of viewing, but he was concerned chiefly with what the eye could take in at a glance, scarcely at all with a succession of changes.3

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The first work that might be thought to broach that matter is the Elements of Criticism, published in 1762, by Henry Home, Lord Kames. He did not write much on architecture, his work was largely concerned with literary forms, but at the end of the third volume there is a section on architecture and landscape gardening. Kames was a firm admirer of Locke, though in some respects he went further than Locke. Unlike Locke, he included a chapter on “Motion and force”, and he was concerned there with the emotions that might be aroused by motion, though not in its relation to architecture. However, he did tackle the matter of successive emotions, resulting in climax, as a literary device. “A gradual process from small to great”, he writes elsewhere in his first volume, “is not less remarkable in figurative than in real grandeur or elevation. Everyone must have observed the delightful effect of a number of thoughts or sentiments, artfully disposed like an ascending series, and

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making impressions stronger and stronger. Such disposition of members in a period, is distinguished by a proper name, being termed a climax”.4 Later, in the third volume, he applies this literary mode of composition to architecture: he proposes an arrangement for a succession of rooms in a house – a country house – to arrive at a climax: “My plan is, first a handsome portico, proportioned to the size and fashion of the front: this portico leads into a waiting room of a larger size; and this again to the great room, all by a progression from small to great. If the house be very large, there may be space for the following suit of rooms; first, a portico; second, a passage within the house bounded by rows of columns on each side connected by arcades; third an octagon room, or any other figure, about the centre of the building; and lastly, the great room.”5 Kames is concerned with stirring feelings of grandeur. His analysis is rudimentary, but it marks the beginning of discussions of this sort. More important, perhaps, is the momentous change Kames introduces into the discussion of those two essential components of movement in relation to architecture – space and time. Locke had included short chapters on the “Idea of space”, the “Idea of duration”, and “Ideas of duration and expansion, considered together” in his Essay concerning Human Understanding, but he had dealt with these concepts largely in mathematical terms, in terms of measurement. Space is defined as the repetition of inches, feet, yards, fathoms, miles, and even the diameter of the earth; time is defined by the repetition of minutes, hours, days, months, and years. This is, of course, at one with the standard methods of representing space, whether architectural or natural, advanced by perspective theorists of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, whether in Jean Dubreuil’s Perspective pratique … of 1642 (translated into English in 1673) or the Manière universelle de Monsieur Desargues, issued by Abraham Bosse in 1648. And these formulae were to remain the norm for the centuries to follow. But Kames, pursuing rather the essential concerns of Locke, rejected the mathematical measures as purely artificial devices.

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They took no account, he explained, of a person’s apprehension of time in different emotional states and in differing circumstances. Pain could make the progress of time seem endless. Happiness could make it pass all too swiftly. The only natural measure, Kames proposed, however imperfect, was the intensity of individual perceptions. But even these were inconstant, for actual experience might seem very different in recollection. The definition of space, clearly related by Kames to his analysis of time, was even more elusive – “The natural measure of space”, he wrote, “appears more obscure than that of time”.6 He chose as his measure of space the largest angle of vision, or rather perception, which might serve as a module to define its extent. But even this was modified by changing circumstances or by repetition. “The first time one beholds the sea”, he writes, “it appears to be large beyond all bounds. When it becomes familiar, and raises our wonder in no degree, it appears less than it is in reality”.7 And he relates such stirring of wonder even to the effects of furniture in a room. Clearly, Kames was thinking in very different terms from his forerunners, though he attempted to advance no theory of architecture in this connexion. Kames’s notions, however, were shared by two of the most explicit commentators in Britain on movement in its relation to architecture – Robert and James Adam. As early as May 1758, Alexander Carlyle records in his Autobiography, he viewed Blenheim Palace in the company of James, the younger of the two brothers – “Though he did not say”, he writes, “that Sir John Vanbrugh’s design was faultless, yet he said it ill-deserved the aspersions laid upon it, for he had seen few palaces where there was more movement, as he called it, than Blenheim”.8 This seems to be the first record of “movement” as a critical term in architecture. James was, at that time, living in London with Robert, to whom the idea might be credited. However, the term seems to have been bandied about in Rome. James arrived there in February 1761, and there, on 27 November 1762, he finished off an essay of his own in which he greatly furthered the concept and provided the basis for the comments

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that were to be included in The Works in Architecture of Robert and James Adam, issued between July 1773 and April 1779. In his Roman essay, James writes: “What is so material an excellence in landscape is no less requisite for composition in architecture, namely the variety of contour, a rise and fall of the different parts and likewise those great projections and recesses which produce a broad light and shade. (I have seen buildings which without anything to recommend them but merely a considerable degree of movement, have by that alone been rendered agreeable and even interesting, such is Blenheim and Heriot’s hospital in Edinburgh)”.9 The word “movement” was used by James elsewhere in this essay to refer to contrasting forms in an architectural composition. But he was evidently thinking also in terms of moving through space. In describing picturesque effects that might be obtained internally, he writes: “A proper mixture of domes, vaults and coved ceilings and flat soffits over rooms of varying shapes and sizes are capable of forming such a beautiful variety as cannot fail to delight and charm the instructed spectator. A movement in the section is likewise derived from steps in a great circular or long room”.10 We get something of the same sort from Robert Adam too, first in describing the central sequence of spaces in the palace at Split in the Ruins of the Palace of the Emperor Diocletian at Spalatro, issued in 1764. There, he writes, “If from the centre of the crypto porticus, we look back at those parts of the palace which we have already passed through, we may observe a striking instance of that gradation from less to greater, which some connoisseurs are so fond, and which they distinguish by the name of climax in architecture”.11 There can be little doubt that one of the connoisseurs to whom Adam referred was Kames; they knew one another well, and Kames had consulted Adam when writing his chapters on gardening and architecture. Though Adam was to write, famously, to Kames on 31 March 1763 – a year after the publication of the Elements of Criticism – that he had “but few moments to dedicate to theory and speculation”.12

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In 1762, J. J. Winckelmann’s Anmerkungen über die Baukunst der Alten was published in Leipzig, the preface signed “Rome, December 1760”. Therein, dealing with the evolution from stark simplicity to complexity in architecture, Winckelmann writes: “Nachdem aber die Mannigfaltigkeit in der Baukunst gesucht wurde, welche durch Senkungen und Erhobenheitig man durch Hoht und Bogenliien ensteht, unterbrach man die geraden Glieder und Theile, und dadurch vervielfältigten sich dieselben”.13 This was translated into French only in 1783 as Remarques sur l’architecture des anciens; there Winckelmann’s “lowering” and “raising” were rendered as “movement”: “Mais lorsque l’on commence à chercher la variété dans l’architecture, laquelle consiste dans le movement et la différence des plans, on interrompit les membres droits pour y substituer les profils”14 – “But as soon as one begins to look for variety in architecture, which consists of the movement and the difference in plans, we have interrupted the upright membres and replaced them by outlines”. Winckelmann was concerned with movement in architecture in the relationship of elements one to another. The Adams were clearly using the term in a much broader context, to include not only the elements of composition, but also the passage of the spectator in relation to them. The oft-quoted footnote in the first preface to their Works in architecture, issued on 24 July 1773, must serve as the fullest summary of their ideas on that matter. “Movement”, one reads there, “is meant to express, the rise and fall, the advance and recess, with other diversity of form, in the different parts of a building, so as to add greatly to the picturesque of the composition. For the rising and falling, advancing and receding, with the convexity and concavity, and other forms of the great parts, have the same effect in architecture, that hill and dale, foreground and distance, swelling and sinking have in landscape. That is, they serve to produce a diversified contour, that groups and contrasts like a picture, and creates a variety of light and shade, which gives great spirit, beauty and effect to the composition”.15 There are other descriptions of this sort in the first preface to the Works. Writing of the changes of levels

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encountered in the old house at Syon, Robert notes, “The inequality of levels has been managed in such a manner as to increase the scenery and add to the movement, so that an apparent defect has been converted into a real beauty”. But whatever the initiative of the Adam brothers in transposing landscape theory into architectural terms, right from the start it is clear that they were, by then, much indebted to Thomas Whately, whose pioneering work on landscape design appeared, as already noted, in 1770. Already, on his second page, Whately writes: “The shape of ground must be either a convex, a concave, or a plane; in terms less technical called a swell, a hollow, and a level. By combinations of these are formed all the irregularities of which ground is capable; and the beauty of it depends on the degrees and proportions in which they are blended. Both the convex and the concave are forms in themselves of more variety than a plane …”16 And thus he continues, at length. Whately’s book was to be published in French, in 1771. Its impact was immediate. But the French had already embarked on an exploration of the effects of movement, whether emotional or physical, of their own. In the wake of Lebrun, the amateur artist and connoisseur Roger de Piles roundly declared, in 1708, that though the established rules of composition, drawing, and expression must needs be understood in any proper assessment of a painting, the deciding factor in judging any work of art was the impact made at first sight – the “clin d’œil” – with which the work was taken in at a glance. Eleven years later, in 1719, the Abbé Jean-Baptiste Dubos, who had spent the early years of the century in London, in the circle of Locke, issued a far more comprehensive work of criticism, the Réflexions critiques sur la poésie et sur la peinture, in which he upheld, even more unequivocally, the role of individual feeling and passion in fixing the quality of a work of art. This was to be translated into English in 1748. “The heart”, one reads there, “is agitated of itself, by a motion previous to all deliberation, when the object presented is really affecting; whether this object has received its being from nature or from an imitation made by art. Our heart is made and organized

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for this very purpose: Its operation therefore runs before our reasoning, as the action of the eye and ear precedes it in their sensations”.17 More sharply, he asked, “Do we ever reason to know whether a ragoo be good or bad?”18 The individual response was all. There is not much of architecture in Dubos’ interminable study, but when he does refer to it, it is in exactly the same terms as to the other arts: “The mind”, he writes, “resigns itself without any wondering, to whatever moves it. A person skilled in architecture does not examine a pillar or inspect a particular part of a palace, ‘till after having given a glance (a coup d’œil) over the whole pile of building and settled in his imagination a distinct idea of the edifice”.19 Dubos’ book ran to eight further editions in France during the course of the century, and it was to be translated into other languages. Its influence was immense. Yet it was not until 1753, in the Abbé Marc-Antoine Laugier’s Essai sur l’architecture, that something of a direct, personal reaction to architecture appears again in the literature. There it involves movement, both of the emotions and the physical kind. Describing his reactions on entering the cathedral of Notre-Dame in Paris, Laugier writes: “au premier coup d’œil mes regards sont arrêtés, mon imagination est frapée par l’étendue, la hauteur, le dégagement de cette vaste nef; je suis forcé de donner quelques moments à la surprise qu’excite en moi le majestueux de l’ensemble. Revenu de cette premier admiration, si je m’attache au detail, je trouve des absurdités sans nombre: mais je rejette le blâme sur le malheur des temps. De sorte qu’après avoir bien épluché, bien critiqué; revenu au milieu de cette nef, j’admire encore, et il reste dans moi une impression qui me fait dire: Voilà bien défauts, mais voilà qui est grand.” 20 – “at first glance my eyes stopped, my imagination was struck by the extent, the height, the span of this vast nave; I am forced to give in for a few moments to the surprise which is excited in me by the majesty of the whole. Having returned from this first wonderment, I attach myself to detail, I find inumerable absurdities: but I refuse to blame the misfortune of times. So, after having gone through it and criticised it thoroughly, and having returned to

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the middle of this nave, I admire still and there remains in me an impression that makes me say: Look, so many faults, but look how big it is.” And he continued thus, to end in the proposal that Gothic architecture serves as the model for contemporary church building. There is something of this kind, in 1756, in Le Génie du Louvre aux Champs-Elysées: Dialogue entre la ville de Paris, le Louvre, l’Ombre de Colbert et Perrault, written by that even sharper and more acerbic critic, Étienne La Font de Saint-Yenne, who had been campaigning for years for the completion of the Louvre. His Génie du Louvre is a Dantesque excursus. Perrault, addressing the Louvre (personified) on the state of architecture, rejects current conventions: “Je ne trouvais dans les discours de nos architectes que des esclaves d’une routine aveugle et des règles qu’il faut oser franchir en plusieurs occasions. Mais c’est le génie seul qui les fait apercevoir ces occasions, qui demandent une sagacité de vue et une intelligence supérieure des effets de l’ensemble qu’il faut prévoir avant l’exécution, intelligence que ne donne point la science de l’optique, quoique absolument nécessaire à tout architecte, ses règles devenant inutiles par la variété infinie des positions où se trouve l’œil du spectateur et qu’elles ne sauraient prévoir. Il est encore une autre connaissance qui n’est pas moins nécessaire au grand architecte, surtout dans les façades extérieures et qui sont si fort éclairées. C’est celle du clair-obscur et des effets pittoresques des lumières dans les saillies des masses et des renforcements. C’est elle qui donne le mouvement aux parties d’un grand édifice et fait jouir l’œil du spectateur d’une satisfaction qui le ravit sans en savoir la cause.” 21 – “In our architects’ speeches, I did not find but the slaves of blind routine and rules that one must dare break on several occasions. But it is genius alone that makes them perceive these occasions, which require sharpness of sight and superior intelligence to foresee the effects of the whole before execution. Such intelligence is not granted in any way by the science of optics however absolutely necessary to every architect, its rules becoming useless at the infinite variety of positions where the eye of the spectator will be found, and which optics would not be able to predict. Especially with regard to external

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façades that are more strongly lit, no less necessary to the great architect is still that other knowledge of light and darkness, and the picturesque effects of light onto the projections of volumes and reinforcements. This is what gives movement to the parts of a great edifice and makes the eye of the spectator enjoy a satisfaction that delights without knowing the cause.” There is, as might be imagined, yet more in La Font de Saint-Yenne on the vital importance of the direct response in the viewing of architecture, but the work that was to really break with convention and to render the viewing of architecture on the move of unimagined significance was the Histoire de la disposition et des formes différentes que les Chrétiens ont données à leurs temples, published in 1764, by Julien-David Leroy. He established a new way of looking at architecture. By this date, I should note, Locke’s Essay had run into seven further editions and printings in France (not counting four abridged editions), and his ideas had been refined and developed somewhat by his follower, Étienne Bonnot de Condillac, in particular in the Traité des sensations of 1754, in which the conceit of a statue being endowed with the senses, one by one, was explored. The title alone of this book indicates the stress of the work. Leroy’s small book was written to commemorate the laying of the foundation stone of the most ambitious work of architecture of the century, Jacques-Germain Soufflot’s great church of Sainte-Geneviève, the Panthéon, in Paris. The book contains four chapters, the first two dealing with the evolution of church architecture, the last with a survey of recent colonnaded churches, from the chapel of Versailles to the Madeleine and Sainte-Geneviève, both then under construction. The third chapter outlined Leroy’s new understanding of the effects of architectural form. He explored two visual phenomena: the impact of serried ranks of columns and the apparent size of buildings, in particular, internally. Beauty in architecture derived from the impact, the pleasure, and the variety of sensations aroused. A plain wall and a wall pierced with a few

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openings might stir feelings of a similar kind; a wall with larger openings might occasion a shift in emphasis to what lay beyond; a line of columns in place of the wall would arouse sensations of yet another kind. Colonnades, Leroy thought – and as a summary history of architecture confirmed – aroused the most agreeable of all sensations. Colonnades were, moreover, the basis of all grandeur in architecture – “ils produisent presque toujours infailliblement dans les édifices, la grandeur, qui a seule le droit de nous affecter fortement, et sans laquelle l’architecture la plus pure n’attire que peu notre attention” 22 – “they produce almost always without fail in buildings the grandeur that alone has the right to affect us strongly, and without which even the purest architecture would not attract but a little of our attention”. Colonnades, he eloquently pursued, might stir the soul in much the same way as the immensity of the sky, or the vastness of the earth and the sea. But size alone, Leroy cautioned, did not always stir the strongest emotions. Sometimes the relationship of the parts of a building, one to another, could be of far greater effect. The impression made by the Pantheon in Rome, for instance, though in some measure owing to its size and scale, was determined rather by the contrast between the deep-shadowed portico and the dramatically top-lit interior, to be taken in at a glance – “un coup d’œil”. The columns of St Peter’s might be larger than those of the Pantheon, but those of the latter undoubtedly stirred the soul more effectively. Architecture should not be composed of too many elements; they aroused too many differing sensations, diminishing rather than enhancing the impact. Artists reduced the number of figures in their paintings to focus the effect. A theatrical performance with too many distractions lost its thrust. However, like poetry, architecture must needs stir successive sensations: “Une piéce de vers, dit M. de Marmontel dans sa Poëtique, qui présente à notre imagination une suite de tableaux variés, nous intéresse plus qu’un tableau qui ne nous montre qu’un seul monument pris dans la nature: et c’est peut-être cette espèce de movement, dans lequel la Poësie entretient notre âme, qui fait que nous la préférons à la Peinture.”23

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– “A piece of verse, Monsieur de Marmontel says in his Poetics, which presents our imagination with a suite of varied pictures, is of greater interest to us than a picture which does not show us but a single monument taken from nature: and it is perhaps this kind of movement in which Poetry entertains our soul that makes us prefer it to Painting.” Pursuing the effect of columns, Leroy suggested that one considers the different sensations aroused in viewing a wall with engaged columns and one with the columns set, separately, well in front of it. There was no question but that the second would produce something of beauty, not the first. “Si vous promenez dans un jardin”, he continued, “à quelque distance et le long d’une rangée d’arbres plantés régulierement, dont tous les troncs toucheroient un mur percé d’arcades, la situation respective des arbres avec ces arcades, ne vous paroîtra changer que d’une manière très-insensible, et votre âme n’éprouvera aucune sensation nouvelle, quoique vous ayez eu toujours les yeux fixés sur les arbres et sur les ouvertures du mur, et qu’en marchant vous ayez parcouru assez vite une espace considérable. Mais si cette rangée d’arbres est éloignée du mur, en vous promenant de meme, vous jouirez d’un spectacle nouveau, par les différens espaces du mur que les arbres paroîtront, à chaque pas que vous ferez, couvrir successivement. Tantôt vous verrez les arbres diviser les arcades en deux parties égales, un instant après les couper inégalement, ou les laisser entièrement à découvert et ne cacher que leurs intervals; enfin, si vous vous approchez, ou que vous vous éloigniez de ces arbres, le mur vous paroîtra monter jusqu’à la naissance de leurs branches, ou couper leurs troncs à des hauteurs très-différentes. Ainsi quoique nous ayons supposé le mur décoré régulièrement, et les arbres également éloignés; la premiere des décorations semblera immobile, pendant que l’autre au contraire s’animant en quelque sort par le mouvement du spectateur, lui présentera une succession de vûes très-variées, qui résulteront de la combinaison infinie qu’il se procure, des objets simples qui produisent ces vûes.” 24 – “If you walk in a garden along and at some distance from a row of trees, regularly planted so that their trunks touch a wall pierced by arched openings, the apparent relation between trees and arches will

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change imperceptibly, and your soul will receive no new sensation, though you keep your eyes fixed on the trees and the openings in the wall and though you cover a considerable distance in a short time. But if the line of trees is set at a distance from the wall, you may walk in just the same way and enjoy a new view at every successive step as the trees mask a different section of the wall. At one moment, you will see the trees divide the arches into two equal parts; a moment later they will divide them unequally or leave them entirely clear and mask only the intervals between them. As you move closer or farther away, the top of the wall will appear to rise level with the lowest branches or to intersect the trunks at widely differing heights. And so, although we have assumed the wall to be regularly decorated and the trees equally spaced, the former scheme will seem immobile, while the latter will come to life as the spectator moves, presenting him with a succession of highly varied views created by the infinity of possible combinations of the simple objects that he perceives.” And thus in architecture. Consider, Leroy suggested, the east front of the Louvre – “le plus beau morceau d’architecture de l’Europe” – “the finest piece of architecture in Europe” – “parcourons des yeux toute l’étendue du Louvre, en marchant le long des maisons qui lui font face; éloignons-nous-en pour en saisir l’ensemble, approchons-nous-en assez près pour découvrir la richesse de son plafond, de ses niches, de ses médaillons: saisissons le moment où le soleil y produit encore les effets les plus piquans, en faisant briller quelques parties du plus grand éclat, tandis que d’autres couvertes d’ombres les font resortir. Combien la magnificence du fond de ce péristyle, combinée de mille façons différentes, avec le contour agréable des colonnes qui sont devant, et avec la manière dont il est éclairé, ne nous offriront-t-ils pas des tableaux enchanteurs.” 25 – “run your eye along the full extent of the colonnade of the Louvre while walking the length of the row of houses opposite; stand back to take in the whole; then come close enough to discern the richness of its soffit, its niches, its medallions; catch the moment when the sun’s rays add the most striking effects by picking out certain parts

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while plunging others in shadow; how many enchanting views are supplied by the magnificence of the back wall of this colonnade combined in a thousand different ways with the pleasing outlines of the columns in front of it and with the fall of the light!” There was yet more. He moved on then to generalize on the way a colonnaded façade should be viewed: “Quand nous voulons jouir de l’ensemble d’un péristyle, nous sommes obligés de nous en éloigner a une certaine distance, afin d’embrasser toute la masse, alors les divers mouvements que nous faisons, font peu changer la situation apparente des corps isolés qui les forment. Lorsque nous nous en approchons, un spectacle différent nous affecte; l’ensemble de la masse nous échappe, mais la proximité où nous sommes des colonnes nous en dédommage, et les changements que le spectateur observe dans les tableaux qu’il est le maître de se créer en changeant de lieu, sont plus frappans, plus rapides et plus variés. Mais si le spectateur entre sous le péristyle même, un spectacle tout nouveau s’offre à ses regards, à chaque pas qu’il fait, la situation des colonnes avec les objets qu’il découvre en dehors du péristyle varie, soit qu’il découvre soit un païsage, ou la disposition pittoresque des maisons d’une ville, ou la magnificence d’un intérieur.” 26 – “When we want to appreciate a colonnade as a whole, we are obliged to stand well back, in order to embrace the whole mass of it; then our movements make little change in the positions of the discrete solids of which it is composed. As we come closer, our view alters. The mass of the whole of the building escapes us, but we are compensated by our closeness to the columns; as we change position, we create changes of view that are more striking, more rapid, and more varied. But if we enter beneath the colonnade itself, an entirely new spectacle offers itself to our eyes: every step we take adds change and variety to the relation of the positions of the columns and the scene outside the colonnade, whether this be a landscape, or the picturesque disposition of the houses of a city, or the magnificence of an interior.” Columnar interiors, as might be imagined, were equally enthusiastically extolled. Leroy writes:“En général, dans les temples ou les églises, quelques vastes

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qu’ils soient, le spectateur en découvre d’un coup d’œil presque toute la capacité; et comme il est toujours situé très-près de quelques files de colonnes, et que les fonds qu’il découvre sont ordinairement bien plus compliqués, et bien plus riches que ceux des péristyles extérieurs; les moindres mouvements qu’il fait produisent les changemens les plus frappans dans les aspects que cette intérieure lui présente” 27 – “Inside a temple or a church, however large, the spectator generally takes in almost the entire volume of the space at a glance; and, as he is always standing very close to a number of rows of columns, and as the walls that he sees beyond are commonly far richer and more complicated than those of external colonnades, his slightest movements produce the most striking changes in his view of the interior.” Quite astonishing, was his conclusion: “Enfin, la beauté qui résulte de ces péristyles est si générale, qu’elle se feroit encore sentir, si les pilliers qui les forment, au lieu d’offrir au spectateur de superbes colonnes Corinthiennes, ne lui présentoient que des troncs d’arbres coupés à leurs racines, et à la naissance de leurs branches …” 28 – “In short, so universal is the beauty derived from such colonnades that it would remain apparent even if their constituent pillars were not superb Corinthian columns but mere trunks of trees, cut off above the roots and below the springing of the boughs.” Most of the Histoire was to be incorporated into the theoretical essays in the second edition of Leroy’s great work, Les ruines des plus beaux monuments de la Grèce, of 1770. The first edition had been issued in 1758, the outcome of Leroy’s all-too-eager response to Stuart and Revett’s proposal, of 1752, to publish a survey of the antique monuments of Athens. Leroy reached Greece after the Englishmen, but, aided by the Comte de Caylus, he rushed his book to completion long before even the first volume of Stuart and Revett’s Antiquities of Athens was published in 1762. They were outraged. Stuart attacked Leroy vigorously and viciously for his mistakes and omissions. But Leroy’s book was a triumph. Richard Dalton had issued a sheaf of twenty-one engravings of the buildings of Athens in 1751, but it was Leroy’s work that first revealed the splendor of Greek architecture to the world.

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Leroy’s Histoire was enthusiastically reviewed in the L’Année littéraire in September 1764 – the section on colonnades was extolled as a work of genius – but his theories were no doubt disseminated rather through the medium of the Ruines of 1770. And there is a great deal more of interest there, including much on symmetry and contrast as modes of composition, distortions, and visual effects, though no more on movement. Laugier seems to have been inspired by Leroy to free himself, as never before, from the restraints of architectural custom and taste. In his Observations sur l’architecture of 1765, he proposed that the columns of churches might be designed as vast palm trunks, the branches and leaves spreading out under the vaults. In apses and ambulatories columns might be more closely set, to intensify effects: “Les colonnes très-serrées augmentent la capacité apparente d’un vaisseau. Il en est d’elles comme des arbres mit fort près l’une de l’autre, aux deux côtés d’une allée” 29 – “Closely set columns increase the size of a nave. They are like trees set close to one another on the two sides of an avenue”. Later, J. N. L. Durand, Leroy’s pupil, was to quote his thoughts on colonnades and tree trunks, at some length, in the first volume, of 1813, of the Nouveau précis des leçons d’architecture données à l’École impériale polytechnique, and thus they might have been transmitted far into the nineteenth century, and even beyond, if one seeks to connect to Le Corbusier’s “promenade architecturale”, of 1923, and also his well-known definition of architecture of the same year: “L’architecture est le jeu savant, correct et magnifique des volumes assemblés sous la lumière” 30 – “Architecture is the masterly, correct and magnificent play of masses brought together in light”. In England, Leroy’s ideas were taken up early – “variety in peristyles”, Chambers scrawled in notes for lectures in the early 1770s, “because the form changes as the spectator removes his situation or as the sun encreases or diminishes the shadow”.31 When John Soane, Chambers’s pupil, began to prepare his lectures in November and December 1804, he began by translating the theoretical texts of the Ruines of 1770. At the same time,

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he designed a colonnade of what he termed “mutilated trunks of ancient columns”, leading from his house at Pitzhanger Manor to the outbuildings in which he intended to educate his sons on architecture. In his lecture notes, of 1807, he noted the experience of walking in Egyptian hypostyle halls – he had never been to Egypt – “the varied play of shadow in the different hours of the day … these bodies at rest seem to move about the spectator as he advances in the enclosures, in proportion as he advances because the points of view change each moment …”.32 Among the illustrations Soane prepared for his lectures was one of a man walking down an avenue of trees. However, as is already evident, with the publication of Whately’s Observations on Modern Gardening in 1770, movement and aesthetic experience were to become central features of picturesque garden design, though, oddly, as noted, they were but summarily analysed. Whately opened his study with a description of the elements of a landscape garden – the form of the ground itself, the woods, the water, the rocks, and the structures (once retreats, too often nowadays, he complained, objects of lavish display) – he turned then to the principles of composition to provide something of character and picturesque beauty, to form either a farm, a park, a garden, or a riding. He ends with a survey of the effects of the seasons and the light at different times of the day. He refers throughout to well-known sites and gardens – the farm at Woburn Abbey, the gardens at the Leasowes and Hagley, Painshill and Stowe, with Persfield as the exemplar of a riding (not for walking). The gardens are carefully described as a succession of views and effects, punctuated by places for contemplation and rest. Movement is involved throughout, but the word itself is not used, rather “the walk continues” or “the next scene” or “a winding descent leads”. There is no analysis of movement as part of the visual experience. The major studies that followed to establish the form and meaning of the picturesque landscape, the works of Uvedale Price, Humphry Repton and Richard Payne Knight, have little more to offer on that matter. Payne

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Knight opened the discussion, in bantering mood, in 1794, with The Landscape, a didactic poem, which included two illustrations, a view of a neglected park and one of the park “improved” – a thrust at Capability Brown. Uvedale Price followed, within the same year, with An Essay on the Picturesque as Compared with the Sublime and the Beautiful. This was long and serious, concerned to establish the picturesque as an independent category, distinct from the sublime and the beautiful, considered to derive from painting. Price referred more often to paintings than to landscapes or gardens. He sought to define the characteristics of the picturesque as variety and intricacy, contrast and roughness (even accident, neglect, and deformity). Like Whately, he enumerated the elements of composition, preferring that the contour of the ground be as little altered as possible, picturesque effect to be obtained rather with the planting and management of trees. The distinguishing feature of water, he somewhat surprisingly thought, was its effect as a mirror, rather than in movement. Scenes and views he regarded as paintings. He rarely invokes their relationships, one to another; he has nothing to say on the experience of moving from one to another. There is scarce more to note in Repton’s Sketches and Hints on Landscape Gardening of the following year, or in the rude letters and revisions that these men published in the years that followed, to establish their positions and postures.33 Repton, one might note, opted for dashing water rather than stillness. Even when Payne Knight entered the fray, in 1805, fully armed with An Analytical Enquiry into the Principles of Taste, he had nothing to say on the experience of moving through a landscape or architecture. Knight dismissed Price’s attempt to separate the beautiful and the picturesque as futile – imaginary, was his word. He offered in his book myriad analyses of actions and sensations, associations and responses, passions and pleasures – including two entries on the sexual tastes of brutes – but nothing on movement. The record is surprising and dispiriting.

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However, in A letter to H. Repton, Esq., Uvedale Price did, in a footnote, remark on the difference in looking at a bank from above and below.34 More significantly – far more significantly – in a supplementary ‘Essay on architecture and building, as connected with scenery’, one of Three Essays, which he first published in 1798, he identified a new category for analysing architecture – the illusion of motion. He observed that, in a bridge, the contrast between the large open voids and the narrow solids manifested an illusion of motion. He made bold to suggest that an air of rapid motion in a building suggested lightness, resistance to motion massiveness. His remarks must needs be quoted in full: “It is true that all solid buildings, though not equally immoveable, are in themselves equally motionless; but where the surface is even, the eye glides easily along it, and that ideal motion of the sight, is in some degree transferred to the object itself: all easy transitions, therefore, from one object, or from one part of an object to another, which constitute so principal a cause of beauty, are equally a cause of lightness; and it may be observed, that many of the terms used on such occasions, are borrowed from those of motion. To apply this to the present subject I must observe, that where the general surface of a bridge is even, and where the projections and ornaments are such as give relief to the whole, but do not break the continuity of its outline, the eye moves easily and rapidly along from arch to arch, till it reaches the opposite side: but that ideal motion, with the lightness which attends it, is gone, whenever the eye is stopped and checked in its progress by projecting parts. Where such projections create any grand, or picturesque effect, they compensate the want of lightness; and in reality cannot be said to injure, but to change the character of the object. In other cases they merely injure it; and of this, in my mind, there cannot be a more glaring example, than in the columns of Blackfriar’s Bridge, considering them solely on the principle which I have just been discussing: but indeed it appears to me, that, in general, columns are ill suited to bridges, as they can hardly be made essential parts of them, and it is an acknowledged maxim,

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that what is ornamental, should, if possible, appear to answer some purpose of utility.”35 Each of these theorists was fond enough of a winding path, and considered it a basic feature of the picturesque landscape, but Price and Knight dreaded lest it be identified with the serpentine line, proclaimed by William Hogarth in 1753 in the Analysis of Beauty, as the line of beauty, and associated thereafter, in landscape design, with the work of Capability Brown, anathema to both gentlemen, whatever their own disagreements. Kames had no such animadversion. In the Elements of Criticism, in his chapter on “Motion and force”, he notes, Hogarth in mind, “Motion in a straight line is no doubt agreeable. But we prefer undulating motion, as of waves, of a flame, of a ship under sail. Such motion is more free, and also more natural. Hence the beauty of a serpentine river”.36 The chapter following is “Novelty and the unexpected”. William Shenston, too, whose detailed description of his garden at the Leasowes was published two years later, was at ease with the serpentine line, which, indeed, he thought inevitable the link between the views and inscriptions that made up his retreat. Uvedale Price remained wary. He identified that line with the “soft insensible transitions” of the paths and lakes of Capability Brown and his followers; the smoothness of their work he thought quite disgusting. Though by the time he came to respond to Knight’s objections to his Essay, he was ready to agree with both Burke and Sir Joshua Reynolds that the idea of a single line of beauty was ridiculous. A spate of publications on picturesque theory was initiated in France in 1771, with F. P. de Latapie’s translation of Whately’s book, L’Art de former les jardins modernes, ou l’art des jardins anglois. The word movement occurs fifteen times in this, not one of them to our purpose. Whately’s pioneering work was followed, in 1774, by an Essai sur les jardins, by Claude-Henri Watelet, a man of wealth and fashion, as also some sensitivity. His book is loosely constructed, but it nonetheless focuses on two rustic retreats, an ideal ferme

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ornée and his own Moulin Joli, laid out on the banks of the Seine. The features of the farm are linked by a winding path, the traverse of which is carefully described, including the sensations aroused: “Mais déja, parcourant ma route sinueuse et doucement inclinée, j’ai découvert aspects agreeables; puis je les ai perdus de vue, pour les retrouver avec plus de plaisir” 37 – “But when walking along my sinuous and gently inclined path, I discovered pleasing views; then I lost them from sight to find them again with more pleasure”, and thus forth. But there is little to tell of analysis in his account of the route through the farm or of that through his own retreat. The word movement occurs twenty-five times in the book, sometimes to describe social responses, sometimes to describe the action of water or machines; only once is it used as a critical term in relation to architecture. Describing the effect of changing levels of ground, Watelet writes: “la variété des niveaux supplée en partie dans cet art, au defaut de movement, ainsi dans l’architecture, les colonnes isolées et les jeux des plans produisent à chaque pas qu’on fait, des aspects différents: on se laisse tromper par cette diversité successive, comme l’enfant, porté par le courant d’un fleuve, croit que les objets qu’il apperçoit, changent de place, et sont animés.” 38 – “In this art the variations of level serve, rather than movement; just as in architecture freestanding columns and the play of levels produce, at each step one takes, different views which engage one with their continuous diversity, just as a child on a river believes that the things he sees are changing place and are moving.” Watelet had perhaps been reading Leroy. Earlier, one might note, stirred by the writings of Locke and Condillac, Watelet had thought to introduce movement as a critical term in painting. In the preface to his L’Art de peindre. Poëme. Avec des réflexions sur la différentes parties de la peinture, published first in a small folio edition in Paris in 1760, he describes how he searched for a term to explain the effect of invention or inspiration in painting and hit upon the term mouvement: “le mouvement qui agit sans cesse dans tous les êtres, se présente à moi comme le caractère le plus noble des ouvrages de la nature, et par consequent comme la source ou l’artiste de génie

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doit puiser toutes les beautés de l’expression” 39 – “movement, which never ceases in people, seems to me one of the most admirable characteristics of nature, and thus as the source, for the gifted artist, for all the beauties of expression”. But enough. Analysing the French tracts singly for remarks on architecture and movement is unrewarding. All uphold the importance of movement in garden design. Almost all regard the winding path, punctuated by incidents and effects, as an essential feature: “… enrichir enfin son voisinage d’objets de pur agrément, pour y former des points de promenade, des points de repos et des points de vue: tels furent dès l’origine les effets nécessaires du bon goût que l’homme aisé porte sur tout ce qui l’environne.” – “to enrich one’s surroundings with objects of pleasure, to form stages on a walk, points of rest or viewing, these from the start have been the aims of taste that a man of means may confer on all that is about him.”40 (Duchesne) “Votre grand ensemble est une promenade pour les yeux, un tableau général pour la maison; vos details doivent être autant de petits tableaux particuliers pour les différentes points de repos que voulez établir dans le promenade; il faut donc qu’on s’y arrête avec plaisir.” – “the whole composition is a promenade for viewing, a background to the house, the details should be small, individual pictures at the different viewing points established along the route, where one must stop with pleasure.”41 (Girardin) “Le véritable art est celui de savoir y retenir les promeneurs, par la variété des objets, sans quoi ils iront chercher dans la franche campagne, ce qui leur manquera dans ce jardin, l’image de la liberté.” – “the true art is in knowing how to engage the walkers with the variety of things, so that they look to the open countryside for that which is lacking in the garden, the image of freedom.”42 (Carmontelle) The guides to the gardens – Chantilly (1783), Montmorenci (1784), Ermenonville (1788), Chantilly (1791) – are, as might be expected, much the same. All these texts are suffused with patterns of movement and the sensations aroused, agreeable or otherwise, while viewing, but they provide

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no analysis of the experience. Even the soundest of the theoretical works, J.-M. Morel’s Theorie des jardins of 1776, grounded in a real understanding of the workings of nature, and a delight in them, eschewing the formula for composition offered by the others, to emphasize rather the natural elements to be employed and their changing form and aspect in different seasons, even at different times of the day – even Morel makes no attempt to decipher the experience of viewing, least of all in relation to architecture, which he discouraged in gardens. Likewise, even C. C. L. Hirschfeld – whose cumbersome Théorie de l’art des jardins was published in five volumes in French, between 1779 and 1785, at the same time as the German edition – made no more than sporadic remarks on the complexities of vision, none at all in relation to architecture and movement. Yet he considered movement of the essence of garden design. He quoted Watelet on the matter: “C’est l’esprit de la Nature” – “it is the spirit of Nature”. Movement is given a separate entry – three pages43 – in the theoretical exposition in the first volume of the work, and, as Linda Parshall has shown, is introduced here, there, and everywhere, throughout.44 But nowhere does Hirschfeld enlarge understanding. Having surveyed, more diligently than might be apparent, the writings of the theorists of the picturesque, anticipating some evidence of an enhanced understanding of the art of looking, whether at landscape or architecture, to little resulting effect, it comes as no surprise to find that the two French architects most deeply influenced by these theorists, Nicolas Le Camus de Mézières and Étienne-Louis Boullée, evinced no interest in the complexities of vision, still less in those of vision in motion. Le Camus de Mézières’s Le génie de l’architecture, of 1780, is devoted, in the main, to the explanation of a model town house, which he describes in matter-of-fact fashion, room by room, through to the last service buildings, stipulating the character required of the decorations and the sensations to be aroused in each, distinguishing even between the effect of cut and growing flowers. Boullée’s powerful descriptions

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of his great designs, not to be published before the twentieth century, resonate, over and over again, with Morel’s invocations of the seasons and their lights and shades as a means conjuring character. Character was of the essence in his designs. Something, one would have thought, by way of a new sharpness of vision, would have emerged in these writings. There is nothing to report. Viewing was always part of travel; but with picturesque travel it became an end in itself. In Britain, this was promoted most famously by William Gilpin – involved, also, in the picturesque disputes – beginning in 1748 with A dialogue upon the gardens at Stowe, but getting into his stride rather with Observations on the river Wye, and several parts of south Wales in 1783 (the imprint is 1782); to be followed by Observations … on … the mountains and lakes of Cumberland and Westmoreland in 1786; the … Highlands and Scotland in 1789; Remarks on forest scenery… Illustrated by scenes of New Forest in Hampshire in 1791; … the coasts of Hampshire, Sussex and Kent in 1804; … the counties of Cambridge, Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex. Also several parts of north Wales in 1809. These are, in the main, descriptive, but in the Remarks on forest scenery…, he records an experience of seeing the passing scene from the window of a moving chaise through a Claude glass: “a succession of high-coloured pictures is continually gliding before the eye. They are like the visions of the imagination; or brilliant landscapes of a dream. Forms and colours, in brightest array, fleet before us; and if the transient glance of a good composition happens to unite with them, we should give any price to fix, and appropriate the scene”.45 J. M. W. Turner, one suspects, had read of this account when he stuck his head out of the window of a speeding train, and held it there for about nine minutes, to observe the effects of a torrential downpour, to be imitated forthwith by a curious fellow traveller, Lady Simon, who recognized the outcome, at once, when she viewed ‘Rain, steam and speed’ at the Royal Academy in 1843.46 Clearly, movement is a shifting topic.

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II

The modern transmission of architectural knowledge and experience

A work of architecture extends beyond itself in two ways. It is as much determined by the aim which it is to serve as by the place it is to take up in a total spatial context. Every architect has to consider both these things. His plan is influenced by the fact that the building has to serve a particular living purpose and must be adapted to particular architectural circumstances. Hence we call a successful building a ‘happy solution’, and mean by this both that it perfectly fulfills its purpose and that its construction has added something new to the spatial dimensions of a town or a landscape. Through this dual ordering the building presents a true increase of being: it is a work of art … A building is never primarily a work of art. Its purpose, through which it belongs in the context of life, cannot be separated from itself without its losing some of its reality. If it has become merely an object of the aesthetic consciousness, then it has merely a shadowy reality and lives a distorted life only in the degenerate form of an object of interest to tourists, or a subject for photography. The work of art in itself proves to be a pure abstraction.1 — Hans-Georg Gadamer

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Kenneth Frampton Towards an Ontological Architecture: A philosophical excursus

This move away from aestheticization in favor of an all-encompassing ontological experience of the environment has something of its origin in Edmund Husserl’s phenomenology as this was fully elaborated toward the end of his life in his magnum opus, The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Philosophy of 1937, wherein he wrote with regard to the ontic presence of things: “Perception is related only to the present. But this present is always meant as having an endless past behind it and an open future before it. We soon see that we need the intentional analysis of recollection as the original manner of being conscious of the past, but we also see that such an analysis presupposes in principle that of perception, since memory, curiously enough, implies having-perceived. If we consider perception abstractly, by itself, we find its intentional accomplishment to be presentation, making something present: the object gives itself as ‘there’, originally there, present …” 2 Husserl’s insistence on the primacy of the “life-world”, along with his slogan “back to the things themselves” is the origin of a line of thought that engages a wide range of philosophers who, while of diverse affiliations, nonetheless belong to a continuous line of development extending from Husserl and Martin Heidegger to include such figures as Hannah Arendt, Herbert Marcuse, Karl Jaspers, and Gadamer. At one remove one may also include Jean-Paul Sartre and Maurice Merleau-Ponty, who assimilated

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this line of thought into France; a line which has also culminated most recently in the “weak thought” of the Italian philosopher Gianni Vattimo. This tradition has the potential of augmenting the dialectical legacy of socialism by emphasizing the ontological sensitivity of the subject with respect to the environment. With the above citation from Husserl in mind, it is important to acknowledge that, besides its tectonic and abstract character, architecture, unlike the other arts, is as much a presentation as it is a representation, and vice versa, whereby the ‘body-being’ encounters both aspects simultaneously. There is perhaps no single text that is more evocative of the ontological scope of architecture than Heidegger’s characterization of the anchoring of a Greek temple into its site, as this appears in his essay “The Origin of the Work of Art” of 1936: “The temple, in its standing there, first gives to things their look and to men their outlook on themselves. … When a work is created, brought forth out of material – stone, wood, metal, color, language, tone – we say also that it is made, set forth out of it. … In fabricating equipment – e.g., an ax – stone is used, and used up. It disappears into usefulness. The material is all the better and more suitable the less it resists perishing in the equipmental being of the equipment. By contrast the temple-work, in setting up a world, does not cause the material to disappear, but rather causes it to come forth for the very first time and to come into the Open of the work’s world. The rock comes to bear and rest and so first becomes rock; metals come to glitter and shimmer, colors to glow, tones to sing, the word to speak. All this comes forth as the work sets itself back into the massiveness and heaviness of stone, into the firmness and pliancy of wood, into the hardness and luster of metal, into the lighting and darkening of color, into the clang of tone, and into the naming power of the word.”3 Although Hannah Arendt’s seminal work, The Human Condition of 1958, does not refer either to Husserl or Heidegger, her disquisition on

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the way in which the “lifeworld” comes into being justifies, in my view, our reading of her magnum opus as an ontological overview. We may note in this regard that instead of focusing on the “things themselves”, to cite Husserl’s famous slogan, Arendt emphasizes the existential conditions under which things come into being. In this regard she differentiates between different experiential categories of production as these determine the different destinies of the things produced. “Labor is the activity which corresponds to the biological process of the human body, whose spontaneous growth, metabolism, and eventual decay are bound to the vital necessities produced and fed into the life process by labor. The human condition of labor is life itself. Work is the activity that corresponds to the unnaturalness of human existence, which is not embedded in and whose morality is not compensated by, the species’ ever-recurring life cycle. Work provides an artificial world of things, distinctly different from all the natural surroundings. Within its borders each individual life is housed, while the world itself is meant to outlast and transcend them all. The human condition of work is worldliness.”4 In her analysis of the public and the private realms of the vita activa, Arendt amplifies further her distinction between work and labor by contrasting the relative durability of the work of the homo faber, (i.e. man as fabricator) to the fungibility of the product of the animal laborans (i.e. man as laboring animal) whereby what is produced is intended for consumption. She will argue that where work aspires to the realization of things that are static, public, and permanent, labor is inherently processal, private, and impermanent. For Arendt, the human condition as such depends on the durability of the world, that is to say, on the capacity of built objects to resist the erosive forces of time, nature, and use. Of this artificial worldliness she writes: “The man-made world of things, the human artifice erected by homo faber, becomes a home for mortal men, whose stability will endure and outlast the ever-changing

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moment of their lives and actions, only insomuch as it transcends both the sheer functionalism of things produced for consumption and the sheer utility of objects produced for use. Life in its non-biological sense, the span of time each man has between birth and death, manifests itself in action and speech, both of which share with life its essential futility … If the animal laborans needs the help of homo faber to ease his labour and remove his pain, and if mortals need his help to erect a home on earth, acting and speaking men need the help of homo faber in his highest capacity, that is, the help of the artist, of poets and historiographers, of monument-builders or writers, because without them the only product of their activity, the story they enact and tell, would not survive at all. In order to be what the world is always meant to be, a home for men during their life on earth, the human artifice must be a place fit for action and speech, for activities not entirely useless for the necessities of life but of an entirely different nature from the manifold activities of fabrication by which the world itself and all things in it are produced.”5 An architect could hardly fail to remark on the way in which this distinction between labor and work parallels the dichotomous definition of architecture in the Oxford English Dictionary. The entry provides for two significantly different definitions of the term: first, “the art or science of constructing edifices for human use” and, second, “the action and process of building”. The designation “for human use” clearly imparts a human, if not humanist, connotation to the whole of the first definition in that it alludes to the creation of a human world, whereas the phrase “the action and process of building” implies a continuous act of building forever incomplete, comparable to the unending processes of biological labor. The fact that the dictionary goes on to define the term edif ice as alluding to a large and stately building, such as a church, a palace, or a fortress, gives a monumental connotation to the first definition, since these

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building types are invariably the embodiments of spiritual or temporal power and hence are also both institutional and permanent. Furthermore, the word edif ice is related to the verb “to edify”, which carries within itself the meaning “to build” but also “to educate”, “strengthen”, and “instruct”. These connotations directly allude to the institutional character of the public realm. Moreover, the Latin root of this word – ædif icare, from ædes, a building, and ultimately a hearth – and facere, the Latin verb “to make”, have within them the public connotations of the hearth as the primordial ‘space of public appearance’. These etymological distinctions relate to the long-standing division between the classical tradition of architecture and the vernacular culture of building. Even today, when a clear distinction between the city and the country no longer obtains, it is still possible to associate the one with the civilization of the city and the other with the culture of the countryside. The former alludes to the reification of civic institutions as opposed to the latter, which is to be associated with more open aggregated form, forever unfinished, implicating the organic. The split between edification as cosmogonic creation, and building as a process largely dedicated to meeting immediate needs, reflects the concomitant ambiguity of the homo faber in that the homo faber is neither solely an artist nor simply a tool maker. At the same time all building tends to aspire, however inadvertently, toward permanence, of which Arendt writes: “In this permanence, the very stability of the human artifice, which, being inhabited and used by mortals, can never be absolute, achieves a representation of its own. Nowhere else does the sheer durability of the world of things appear in such purity and clarity, nowhere else therefore does this thing-world reveal itself so spectacularly as the non-mortal home for mortal beings. It is as though worldly stability had become transparent in the permanence of art, so that a premonition of immortality, not the immortality of the soul or of life but of something immortal achieved

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by mortal hands, has become tangibly present, to shine and to be seen, to sound and to be heard, to speak, and to be read.”6 This passage is of critical consequence for architecture in as much as it categorically opposes the current state of affairs in which the environment is constantly on the verge of being overwhelmed by the proliferation of unrelated, amortizable free-standing objects. This commodification of the environment continues without redress by virtue of the fact that building qua building has come to assume an increasingly processal character with little regard for pre-existing conditions, irrespective of whether these are natural or man-made. This tendency toward environmental commodification was clearly foreseen by Arendt over half-a-century ago, when she wrote: “In our need for more and more rapid replacement of the worldly things around us, we can no longer afford to use them, to respect and preserve their inherent durability; we must consume, devour, as it were, our house and furniture and cars as though they were the ‘good things’ of nature which spoil uselessly if they are not drawn swiftly into the never-ending cycle of man’s metabolism with nature. It is as though we had forced open the distinguishing boundaries which protected the world, the human artifice, from nature, the biological process which goes on in its very midst as well as the natural cyclical processes which surround it, delivering and abandoning to them the always threatened stability of a human world.”7 Arendt goes on to relate this state of affairs to the emergence of mass society. She argues that this is difficult to endure not primarily because of the number of people involved, but because the world, due to the deliquescence of the public realm, has lost its capacity to gather people together, to relate and to separate them. Arendt’s corresponding concept of action is dependent on maintaining a space of appearance in a physical sense, virtually as a precondition for democratic governance. Elsewhere she implies that for a democracy to be effective, it must be direct and derive its power from a certain density of population. As

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she puts it, “The only indispensable material factor in the generation of power is the living together of people. Only where men live so close together that the potentialities for action are always present can power remain with them, and the foundation of cities which as city-states have remained paradigmatic for all Western political organization, are therefore indeed the most important material prerequisite for power.”8 This space of appearance enables each individual to confirm him or herself in speech and action, activities which possess an enduring quality in that they are integral with the act of remembrance. In this regard, with respect to memory, the homo faber hypothetically creates a world that is not only useful and durable but also beautiful and memorable, as opposed to the animal laborans who, in the conviction that life is the highest good, seeks only to lengthen the span of life and make the act of living easier and more comfortable. While Arendt’s The Human Condition makes no reference whatsoever to either Husserl or Heidegger, her thesis is nonetheless concerned with the constitution of things and with our inter-subjective experience of them in relation to our being. To this end, the hierarchical organization of space has the potential of resisting the reduction of architecture to nothing more than a combination of functional space with aesthetic form, rather than being an ontological presence that transcends both. In other words, we need to focus on the implicit status of both space and material constitution, and on our corporeal relationship with both aspects. At the same time, we need to take into consideration the relationship between the intrinsic structure of the fabric and its extrinsic appearance as a representation form. This, of necessity, must entail the connotational aspects of both material finishes and details, bearing in mind the ramifications any single material or detail might have in relation to both spatial hierarchy and our phenomenological experience of any particular volume. It is through such a cultivated perceptual process that we may

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understand the ways in which values are evoked through the detailed inflection of space, structure, and material. Merleau-Ponty’s Phenomenology of Perception, first published in French in 1945, augments the ontological implications of The Human Condition by positing the concept of the ‘body-being’ as the prime agency through which we experience the world. This recognition is intimately linked to our motility as the pre-condition through which we experience space. “In the action of the hand which is raised towards an object is contained a reference to the object, not as an object represented, but as that highly specific thing towards which we project ourselves, near which we are, in anticipation, and which we haunt. Consciousness is being-towards-the-thing through the intermediary of the body.… These elucidations enable us clearly to understand motility as basic intentionality. … Sight and movement are specific ways of entering into relationships with objects and if, through all these experiences, some unique function finds its expression, it is the momentum of existence, which does not cancel out the radical diversity of contents, because it links them to each other, not by placing them all under the control of an ‘I think’, but by guiding them towards the intersensory unity of a ‘world’.”9 Merleau-Ponty’s world view implies the possibility of a condition in which the body-being is not only sustained by the physical and institutional environment within which it is housed, but is also endowed with the potential to interpret and experience the environment so as to transcend our literal “throwness” into history. Thus our multi-sensory apprehension of the environment in terms of our corporeal experience of space, light, sound, and form is the existential pre-condition for an emergent political subjectivity. The primary assumption underlying this interpretive purview of architecture is that the values embodied in a work of architecture are to be apprehended not only through the sensuous tactility of the space but also through cultural associations incorporated into the articulation of

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its form. This reciprocal interplay between conception and perception, and vice versa, necessitates acknowledging the role played by tradition in the constitution of the form, including the tradition of the new. Of this continual interaction, the Polish philosopher Zygmunt Bauman has written: “The ambiguity which truly matters, the sense-giving ambivalence, the genuine foundation on which the cognitive usefulness of conceiving human habitat as the ‘world of culture’ rests, is the ambivalence between ‘creativity’ and ‘normative regulation’. The two ideas could not be further apart, yet both are – and must remain – present in the composite idea of culture. ‘Culture’ is as much about inventing as it is about preserving; about discontinuity as it is about continuation; about novelty as about tradition; about norm-following as much as about the transcendence of norm; about the unique as much as about the regular; about change as about the monotony of reproduction; about the unexpected as much as about the predictable.”10 In all of this I have attempted to engage a mode of beholding that Jonathan Hale has tentatively characterized as critical phenomenology.11 According to Hale, the first person to insist on the absolute inseparability of the body and the mind was the Austrian psychoanalyst Paul Schilder, in his book Das Körperschema. This thesis, first published in Berlin in 1923, was eventually translated into English in 1935 as The Image and Appearance of the Human Body. The subjectively experienced ‘body image’ is inseparable from the ‘body-being’, which in its turn is embedded in the body politic, that is to say the social, as Merleau-Ponty was to point out in The Phenomenology of Perception: “We must return to the social with which we are in contact by the mere fact of existing, and which we carry about inseparably with us before any objectification. Objective and scientific consciousness of the past and of civilizations would be impossible had I not, through the intermediary of my society, my cultural world and their horizons, at least a possible communication with them, and if the place of

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the Athenian Republic or the Roman Empire were not somewhere marked out on the borders of my own history.”12 This sense of cultural continuity is echoed in Gadamer’s concept of the “fusion of horizons” as set forth in his book, Truth and Method: “Every encounter with tradition that takes place within historical consciousness involves the experience of the tension between the text and the present. The hermeneutic task consists in not covering up this tension by attempting a naïve assimilation but consciously bringing it out. This is why it is part of the hermeneutic approach to project an historical horizon that is different from the horizon of the present. Historical consciousness is aware of its own otherness and hence distinguishes the horizon of tradition from its own. On the other hand, it is itself, as we are trying to show, only something laid over a continuing tradition, and hence it immediately recombines what it has distinguished in order, in the unity of the historical horizon that it thus acquires, to become again one with itself.”13 Architecture is a material culture that by its very nature has the potential to resist the current economic compulsion to commodify the entire world. The emerging impulse toward sustainable development, in response to the warming of the global climate, returns us to the necessity of achieving a balance between the gratification of desire and a level of homeostatic equilibrium essential to the survival of the species. It is already evident that our rampant consumption of non-renewable resources and the concomitant toxification of the environment can only have a disastrous outcome. The multiplicity of language games, which inseparable from the postmodern condition, is double-edged. On the one hand it constitutes the basis for a decentralized resistance to totalitarian domination. On the other, particularly with regard to architecture, it tends toward the proliferation of an insignificant spectacular form. It is at this juncture that criticism and creativity converge to provide an

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opening for an ontological architecture in which the corporeal potential of the subject is fully realized both individually and collectively, through the tactile experience of form.

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Europeans, you cannot have both technology and art.1 — Adolf Behne

The great problem that confronts our civilization at the present moment is this: Can the creative artist be reintegrated in the machine process?2 — Paul Frankl

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Gabriele Bryant Modern Aesthetics and the Machine: Technology and the Gesamtkunstwerk in early twentieth-century Germany

The period immediately after World War I was marked by widespread scepticism amongst German artists and intellectuals concerning the cultural role of modern technology. By the early 1920s, however, it was generally regarded as nostalgic to propagate cultural redemption via a return to the crafts, and the Expressionist utopian visions of crystal domes were increasingly branded as escapist. Rather, the machine, and with it the industrial mode of mass production, now came to be accepted either pragmatically as a necessity of modern life which could not be ignored – and its potential thus needed to be integrated into the creative process – or, more significantly for the following discussion, it was held up as a creative force related to Art, its status elevated into another agent in the quest for Culture. It has to be emphasized here that the turn away from Romantic models of aesthetic redemption toward an acceptance of industrial mass production and artistic-technological Sachlichkeit is by no means as sachlich as it is often made out to be. Instead, as Pehnt has succinctly characterized the change of mood: “In architecture the notion of progress migrated from an ecstatically conceived creative Art towards Building understood as a social service, which disguised its irrational impulses behind pragmatic arguments.”3 As traditional frames of reference were mobilized to come to

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grips with modern technology, German artists and intellectuals appropriated technology in a way specific to its Romantic-Idealist philosophical heritage: culturally reformist or redemptive aspirations were transferred from Art to Technology; Romantic notions of totality (Ars Una) could now come to include technology as a manifestation of ideal creative forces. Compared with the “mechanization of the world” (Walter Rathenau) associated with total rationalization and “Americanism”, German technology is presented in this context as animated with Geist (spirit), thus raising its products and processes to the level of Art. In the Idealist vision of the creative spirit overcoming given conditions, that is, transforming them into a higher state by means of Gestaltung, the machine can now be assigned the place not of a mere rationalistic instrument of production, but – in newly formulated cultural theories ideologically furnished with bits and pieces from Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, and Lebensphilosophie – it is ascribed an essentially creative role in the process of designing the New Man and his New Society. The integration of technology into the realm of aesthetic activity is thus not just to be read as a concession to the process of social and technological rationalization; “the spiritualization of the machine” (Friedrich Naumann) becomes the battle-cry of a generation of Idealist artists pursuing a New Style for the machine age. “The machine is the phenomenon of spiritual discipline par excellence”, Theo van Doesburg sums up the new creed in 1922.4 The artist-architect Peter Behrens can be seen as a representative voice in this process of cultural re-evaluation. In the pre-war Werkbund days, he declared that it is the new task of his generation “to tap into the very sources of Culture via Art and Technology”,5 and more than twenty years later he refers to technology as “in the Idealist sense … the embodiment of a new, still unknown world, a world which is to be thought of as a whole, an all-encompassing unity.”6 Between these statements, an affirmative re-evaluation of the cultural role of technology can be noted that goes beyond seeing industry as an

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important modern patron, or aiming at a mere aestheticization of its products. Technology infused with “Spirit”, that is, technology in alliance with Art, now becomes regarded as an embodiment of higher ideals and a potential cultural force in its own right. In a speech called “Zeitloses und Zeitbewegtes” (“The Timeless and the Timely”) in 1932, a late summarization of his artistic beliefs, Behrens calls for a “manifestation of a gesamtkünstlerisches awakening and a correspondence of all works, which would, beyond all aesthetics, weld together the different forms of creation with technology and architecture towards a harmonic unity.” 7 Such a unity of the realms of art and technology under the banner of Life will be affirmed by many of the advocates of the modern movement in architecture, leading to a critique of former Gesamtkunstwerk conceptions and a reformulation of their ideals in terms of a new unity that is to go beyond the sphere of aesthetics. Moholy-Nagy, one of the most emphatic advocates for a technical reorientation of the Bauhaus, stated in 1927: “What we need is not the Gesamtkunstwerk alongside and separate from which life flows by, but a synthesis of all the vital impulses spontaneously forming themselves into the all-embracing Gesamtwerk (Life), which abolishes all isolation, in which all individual accomplishments proceed from a biological necessity and culminate into a universal necessity.”8 And Sigfried Giedion put it in similar terms: “We are being driven into an indivisible life process. We see life more and more as a moving yet indivisible whole. The boundaries of individual fields blur. Where does science end, where does art begin, what is applied technology … ? Fields permeate and fertilize each other as they overlap. It is hardly of interest to us today where the conceptual boundary between art and science is drawn. We value these fields not hierarchically but as equally justified emanations of the highest impulse: LIFE! To grasp life as a totality (Gesamtkomplex), to allow no divisions, is among the most important concerns of the age!”9

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Walter Gropius and Adolf Meyer, Fagus Shoe Last Factory, Alfeld (1911-1912).

In the early decades of the twentieth century, under the wings of Lebensphilosophie, technology enters the realm of the “sister arts”. From now on, no Gesamtkunstwerk that is to be “timely” is conceivable without it. The Fagus Shoe Last Factory (1911–1912) by Walter Gropius and Adolf Meyer has been interpreted by Jaeggie as anticipating the later Bauhaus ideals, that is, both the “Great Building” of the Gesamtkunstwerk, and the new unity between Art and Technology as propagated after 1923.10 Gropius’s and Meyer’s work for Fagus fit perfectly into the company philosophy and the creation of a corporate identity for a modern entrepreneur who also used the Fagus building as Reklamearchitektur (advertising architecture). The design of the Fagus factory – perceived as the embodiment of modernity, precision, and social progressiveness – became an integral part of the company’s business strategy. Fagus appears as the highly satisfactory result of a negotiation of interests between an enlightened client with an unerring business sense and innovative architects who were seen by architectural critics as having passed “American directness through a quasi-aesthetic filter.”11 It has been

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Peter Behrens, AEG Turbine Factory, Berlin (1908-09).

convincingly argued by Posener that the main building of the Fagus factory can be read as an architectural revision of Behrens’s famous AEG turbine factory of 1908–1909, with Gropius and Meyer taking an “antithetically dependent” stand against Behrens.12 Gropius and Meyer, suggests Posener, “corrected” Behrens’s design by inversion: where Behrens had created solid and accentuated corner sections, Gropius and Meyer designed fully glazed corners without visible supports, although they were, it has to be emphasized, no more “structurally true” than Behrens’s solution.13 However, where Behrens was seen by critics as putting too much emphasis on weight, mass, pathos, and monumentality, the main Fagus building was characterized by a striking visual lightness that avoided overtly symbolic gestures. A parallel “antithetical dependence”, I suggest, can be observed in Gropius’s revision of Behrens’s pursuit of the Gesamtkunstwerk ideal. Where Behrens had taken the idea of the Gesamtkunstwerk from the religious cult-building to the private villa and from there to the modern factory building, a similar chain of transfers can be observed, though not in strict

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chronological order, in Gropius’s oeuvre from the “Cathedral of the Future” (as propagated in the Bauhaus-manifesto of 1919), to the Haus Sommerfeld (1920–1921) and the Fagus factory. However, where Behrens’s emphasis was on Architecture as Art, retaining the celebrational character of the cult-building in each of his creations, Gropius came to largely avoid open symbolic references to historical prototypes and styles, aiming ultimately at the utopia of a new stylistic unity that he was to find in the (symbolic) Sachlichkeit of the Neues Bauen. Gropius’s work and thought from the foundation of the Bauhaus to his conception of the Totaltheater and the later notion of “total architecture”,14 which was to comprise “the whole visible environment, from the simple domestic tool to the complicated city”, give testimony to the legacy of the Gesamtkunstwerk idea in his oeuvre. His regular theoretical statements concerning the synthesis of all creative endeavours for the sake of a rebirth of Culture are evidence of an attempted reformulation of the old Gesamtkunstwerk idea to incorporate a reconciliation of art and technology in the early twentieth century. Gropius’s demands for an “engagement with the whole totality of life”, the “unification of the material world”, are accompanied by the familiar critical topoi of the loss of modern man’s totality of being, the bemoaning of a “dissolution of cultural context.”15 If references to pre-industrial society prevailed during the early Bauhaus years and its vision of a Cathedral of the Future, Gropius was known before the war for his optimistic faith in a “unification of the different manifestations of the life of an epoch” through the works of industry. In 1910 he speaks, most clearly echoing Behrens, of the need “to bring art and technology into a happy unity”, whilst in 1916 he refers to the artist’s ability “to breathe a soul into the dead product of the machine”, clearly affirming here the primacy of art, the subordination of the machine under the creative force of the artist, only to emphasize again in 1922 their common Schaffensgrund (creative foundation).16

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Whilst Franciscono asserts a “change of thought that led from the so-called Expressionist phase of the Bauhaus … to the later, more pronounced objectivity and rationalism …, observing that this change corresponds to the abandonment of the idea of the Einheitskunstwerk”,17 we also need to emphasize the conceptual link between the Romantic notion of socio-cultural unity as exemplified by the idea of a Gesamtkunstwerk as Cathedral of the Future and the so-called rationalist visions of socio-cultural reform through a New Art and Architecture that followed them. The transition from Expressionism to Sachlichkeit and Neues Bauen, in fact, marks more of a formal than a conceptual change of paradigm, as the quasi-religious and utopian ideas of Expressionism are incorporated and newly defined, even though the continuities are obscured by the breaks in the adherence to or propagation of different formal movements, principles, or modes of production. As Colquhoun argues: “The doctrine of the Neues Bauen postulates a unity of art and technology, which in its incorporation of the machine … goes beyond Behrens and Muthesius. But it does not just celebrate technology at the expense of the crafts. Rather, it changes the notion of technology and transposes it into the enemy camp. Industrial production is no longer seen as something that alienates man from his community and larger social whole, but instead as something that connects him to the larger whole …. Both Expressionism and the Neues Bauen depended on totalizing theories, which invoked the separation of spirit and matter; the difference between the two consists in the fact that in the case of the Neues Bauen, this spirit could descend and come down to earth.”18 The continuity of concepts from German Romanticism and Idealist aesthetics in the debates on the “functionalist” character of the new architecture is emphasized here. And as Behne already noted perceptively: “There is no question but that the Functionalists, even the most sachlich ones, could more readily be classified as Romantics than as rationalists …. Their attitude inclines toward philosophy and has a metaphysical basis.”19 Despite

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the very different formal manifestations, the dismissal of the “Romantic” crafts and crystal programs of the post-war era leads to a “new sobriety” which still contains the traces of the Idealist-utopian visions of cultural redemption, transferred now onto a different plane and incorporating different media and formal-stylistic manifestations. Where technology has entered the realm of the sister arts, it is now seen as an enhancement, an increase of creative power, despite the fact that the quest is reformulated now in the language of a purported new “functionality”. In the avant-garde conceptions of art as will to power, the notion of creative technology appears as Potenzierung (increase of power), a kind of extension of the artist’s hand in bringing Culture to the masses. Technology, ennobled through its new union with Art, is eventually to be equated with Art as a manifestation of the creative spirit that will bring cultural redemption. In the most significant reformulation of the Gesamtkunstwerk agenda in the early twentieth century, we are dealing with not just the proclaimed integration of technology into the realm of Ars Una, but the fusion of aesthetic and technological chiliasm to achieve the Wagnerian aim to “bring salvation from this most unfortunate time.”20 In the nineteenth-century conception of the Gesamtkunstwerk, we might argue, the sister arts gather their forces for their subsequent joint assault on “reality”. The joining up of technology into this bond leads to the most radical modernist reformulation of the conception of the Gesamtkunstwerk, in which aesthetic and technological visions of cultural redemption are merged, with far-reaching consequences. “Not all times express the best of what they have to say in art”, the nineteenth-century aesthetician Conrad Fiedler is quoted in Walter Curt Behrendt’s Der Sieg des neuen Baustils (The Victory of the New Building Style) of 1927.21 Sieg is an attempt to explain the emergence of architectural modernism, “the birth of the form of our time”,22 in terms of what Behrendt calls “the machine style … the technical style.”23 The term “new” instead of “modern” in the title here – as in Neues Bauen – seems to imply both the influence of

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the Expressionist concept of the new man, as well as suggesting a rupture with past times and, not least, the idea of something “original” entering the world. The idea of a creation of an autonomous world, what Fiedler calls “the production of reality”, becomes the essence of modern Formgestaltung. The basis of this new technological Gestaltung is thus not mimetic, but a creation parallel to nature, the “creation of Gestalten which only come into being this way.”24 The theoretical shift concerning the foundation of such a new world from art to other realms of creation – in this case technology – in the period concerned marks a far-reaching expansion of Idealist art theory, the impact of which can be felt in various architectural conceptions within the modern movement. The modern artistic paradigm of a Vorahmung der Natur 25 (Blumenberg) that emerged in the aesthetic revolution can now be transferred to “form-creative technology”. The forging of the theory of a unified “modern movement” and an “international style” has to be seen in its historical context. The “Weissenhofsiedlung” at the Werkbund exhibition of 1927 in Stuttgart, one of the most important programmatic shows of the emergence of a new style, brought together leading modernists from across Europe for an exposition of the new paradigm of cultural renewal by means of a new domesticity adequate to mass society. By the late 1920s, the arrival of a new form of building and design for everyday life based on modern materials and technology was proclaimed in books and manifestos by a group of influential international architect-protagonists and historians. Whilst Peter Behrens had ultimately accepted the seminal role of industry in modern society with a kind of melancholic resignation, attempting to spiritually elevate it through Idealist art, most architects and critics of the next generation came to positively embrace industrial production and modern technology as the source and very essence of modern form creation. And as Nikolaus Pevsner, Philip Johnson, Henry-Russell Hitchcock, and Sigfried Giedion have become household names in this context as propagandists of the modern

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movement, we shall take a closer look here at Behrendt’s Sieg as an attempt to explain the emergence of architectural modernity in terms of the organic creation of technical form. “A formative power is at work today that has created an entire world of new, previously unknown forms”,26 he describes the new technical design, echoing the sentiment expressed by Gropius in an essay of 1914, entitled “Der stilbildende Wert industrieller Bauformen” (“The Value of Industrial Building Forms for the Development of Style”): “The urge to design (gestalten) in our time is carried with originary freshness by the development of industrial forms.”27 Behrendt (1884–1945) was a prolific writer on architecture and urban design, and in the richly illustrated Sieg he advocates the genesis of a modern architectural form that encompasses the many different facets of the modern movement in Europe, from Henry van de Velde to Hugo Häring and Mies van der Rohe, whilst also professing a great admiration for Frank Lloyd Wright and modern American design. Equally dismissive of adherence to historical styles and mere formalism – he is particularly scathing about aesthetic emulation of modern technology, which he rejects as “machine Romanticism”28 – Behrendt proposes a new Gestaltung as a unity of artistic creation and technological design. Transferring nineteenth-century Idealist aesthetic categories from art to modern technology, Behrendt speaks of the new time’s “will to form”, thus introducing another adaptation of Alois Riegl’s Kunstwollen. A shared Kunstwollen is invoked as the driving force behind creative acts in all areas of a particular period and culture. As a unifying concept that links not just the arts and crafts, but the impulses and form-creations (Gestaltungen) of artists, engineers, and even nature, Kunstwollen – or Gestaltungswollen, as it becomes more regularly referred to in the 1920s – is an important theoretical construct that fuels the most important modern Gesamtkunstwerk theories, and the extrapolation of aesthetic categories into the realm of technology is the precondition for the new status of technology amongst the sister arts.

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“What supports and drives the new movement … is the desire to come to terms with the new realities of our time... and to master them creatively through design (gestaltend, durch Gestaltung).” 29Gestaltung, a crucial concept for Behrendt and his contemporaries that goes beyond its translation as design, referring to both the form and the process of formation and shaping, also implies the meaning of Gestalt in psychology as a clear and organized totality. It is Fiedler’s concept of Gestaltung to which Behrendt refers explicitly in his propagation of the form-creating power of technology.30 The Idealist aesthetic theory of Kunstwollen and Gestaltung had already been used by Muthesius in 1913 to incorporate industrial works into an expanded definition of culture, when he wrote: “The same tendencies of Gestaltung appear with the artist, the architect, the engineer, the machinist, the tailor, the housekeeper, the craft-worker, the mother that makes her children’s clothes.”31 It is also against the background of this understanding of Gestaltung that Behrendt employs the word “style” – anathema to so many early modernists for its association with the nineteenth-century copying of historical precedents. Mertins holds that: “Baustil came to designate, for Behrendt, a totality of architectural production based … on the (organic) principle of expression and its biological counterpart, self-generation. … Moreover, the activity of Gestaltung promised to resolve the antinomies of modernity, for it was the principle of nature’s own self-fashioning creativity, as well as the regulative principle in art and technology… it established the unity of the arts as well as the unity of art and life…”32 It is such a notion of style and Formgestaltung as an embodiment of higher cultural truths that had dominated the thought of Peter Behrens as well as his students’ generation, with Style itself assuming the utopian status of the historical meta-Gesamtkunstwerk. The faith in the power of Gestaltung as a seminal force in the creation not just of a new aesthetic, but as a starting point for cultural renewal, provides a link between a variety of seemingly diverse artists and their conceptions of the Gesamtkunstwerk in the early twentieth century, despite the pronounced formal differences in their work.

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Mies van der Rohe is reported to have credited Peter Behrens with being the one who taught him “the great form”.33 As he is also well known to have rejected the type of historicizing form that engaged Behrens throughout much of his artistic career – “people who built factories like temples lie and sully the environment”34 was his later cutting private verdict on the turbine factory – as well as the dualism inherent in the notion of Form-gebung, I propose that it is Behrens’s (and Karl Friedrich Schinkel’s) Idealist philosophical conception of form and its general cultural value that had a lasting impact on him, even as he went on to criticize and redefine it. A kind of antithetical dependence, as has been observed in Gropius’s attitude to the artistic position of Behrens, can also be observed in Mies. By that we do not mean the crudely psychologizing cliché of the revolt against the father-figure, but an ideal abstraction of Behrens’s notion of form into its “essential” components, the Platonic-Mondrianesque stripping off of mere appearances to get to the underlying “truth” of the pure abstract “idea” – as embodiment of the Lebenswille of a particular time – which is, after all, characteristic of Mies’s position as Idealist-rationalist Wesensschauer and Gestalter. Against the elevation of technology itself into the new absolute, Mies explores the representational power of the new form of technology. Where Mies followed the path of raising modern technology into monumental form, “technology did not simply rule out art, but instead was treated as yet another instrument in the service of metaphysics … [and] the conceptual theme of Behrens’s work was repeated, only under more modern conditions.”35 Where Gestaltung of the true reality has become the great Idealist utopia, we have moved from Peter Behrens’s Idealist Formgebung as Überformung of technology to Mies’s equally Idealist Formfindung, where the abstraction of an autonomous form from modern technology is treated as a revelation of or participation in the absolute; from Style as the great meta-Gesamtkunstwerk to abstract “form” as the reconciliation of opposites, the great synthesis of spirit and matter, spirit and technology, the ultimate way toward a modern

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“representational” architecture. In the case of Mies van der Rohe, behind the rhetoric of artlessness and the fervent rejection of all formalism and aesthetic speculation lurks the Idealist conception of form as the result of a higher process of creation, vessel of the absolute, and symbol of the spiritual essence of modern culture. And perhaps it is also through this Idealist notion of the great form that Mies inherited the dilemma of the architect whose creations, as Anderson observed about Behrens, tend more toward an “answer to ‘The Time’, not the people.”36 The universalist aspirations of the architect who aims to distil the essence of his time and culture into his creations leads to a level of formal as well as conceptual abstraction that eventually allows for an “essentialist” interpretation of the abstract nature of technology, a re-evaluation of its Kulturwert. Technology in such a reading becomes theoretically endowed with a Gestaltungswille or Bildungskraft, notions that had first been transferred from nature to art in the systems of Idealist aesthetics. Where the purity of modern construction is reinterpreted as a manifestation of a reborn “Spirit of the Gothic”, the “constructive power” of modern technology will soon be hailed as the metaphysical foundation of all modern form creation. Where the Neues Bauen is to be understood as raumgefaßter Zeitwille (Mies), rather than rationalistic or utilitarian fulfillment of purpose, the new technology equally is to be understood not as a rationalistic mode of production, an instrument of rationalization, but an ideal(ized) realm of original creation. Mies hypostasizes his ideal of technology in terms of “order” as a carrier of meaning, as opposed to “organization” as mere purpose-orientedness,37 and the echo of the old kulturkritisch topos of the battle of Culture versus Civilization is hard to miss here. As Mies warns against the dangers of the slogans of rationalization and typification, ideal construction comes to inherit the status of ultimate modern myth of the origin from Idealist Art. The proclaimed rejection of Art for the sake of ideal construction is thus based on a reinterpretation of Technology in Idealist aesthetic categories.

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Joseph August Lux had written in his book Ingenieur-Ästhetik (Aesthetics of the Engineer) of 1910: “We cannot help it that nowadays, from early childhood onward, technology is more important than Plato.”38 However, in Mies van der Rohe’s Idealist interpretation of technological construction, we encounter the ultimate synthesis of modern technology and Neoplatonic philosophy. Mies’s transmutation of raw technique into the transcendentalized substance of a new artistic expression has been read by Mertins in terms of a redemption of technical structure,39 and I would add that his “building art [which] leans on the material forces of its time [to] bring about the spatial execution of its spiritual decisions”40 also aims at redemption through (an artistically transformed realm of ) technical structure. Where Friedrich Schiller had proclaimed the autonomous aesthetic sphere as a realm of freedom, Mies echoes: “We see in technology the opportunity to make ourselves free …. Technology is more than a method, it is a world in itself.”41 And where Max Horkheimer has memorably argued that “Art retains the utopia that fled religion”, we might add that technology is now held up as the new ideal realm that captures the – highly abstract – “spirit” that fled Art. The dream of bringing about a spiritual and social revolutionization of Culture through artistic-technological Totalgestaltung lies at the core of many avant-garde programs in the early twentieth century. However, this idea of a fusion of art and technology is not restricted to the modern movement and its various visions of socio-cultural progress. Whilst we have learned to associate the quest for a reconciliation of the artist with modern technology as the signature of the socially “progressive” modern movement(s), it needs to be understood that the idea of the arrival of a new culture founded on a unity of art and technology was adopted also by the forces of “reactionary modernism”,42 as artistic-technological modernism and ideological reaction are by no means mutually exclusive. After the radicalization of Art’s status of autonomy in the nineteenth century, it has to be noted that artists and intellectuals of the most diverse ideological backgrounds and orientations in

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the first part of the twentieth century are seeking a “connection with other spheres of values – especially politics and technology.”43 Into the familiar arena of dichotomies presented in the rhetoric of Kulturkritik as Gemeinschaft versus Gesellschaft, Kultur versus Zivilisation, and Seele versus Geist44 enters in the first decades of the twentieth century the new idea of a fusion of Romantic Idealism, conservative (nationalistic) ideology, and faith in the machine, leading to a gradual reassessment of the Kulturwert of technology. Rather than seeing technology as the enemy of “communal” or völkisch values, responsible for the mechanization of modern life, robbing man of his soul and thus dehumanizing him into a mere Teilmensch – a position previously held by many prominent conservatives and cultural pessimists – it now comes to be presented as an anti-materialist power akin to Art that can help to reverse the “degeneration” or “decay” due to an excess of civilization’s abstractions in modern capitalism and forge the New Man, to accelerate the arrival – or imperialist victory – of a New Culture. The new dialectics between cultural pessimism and faith in technological progress as its antidote in early twentieth-century Germany are perhaps most vividly illustrated in Herman Sörgel’s transcontinental Atlantropa project, which has been characterized as “the most gigantic technological-architectural utopia of the twentieth century … which itself bears the features of a Gesamtkunstwerk.”45 Atlantropa is the name of an aesthetic-technological vision based on the idea of gaining new Lebensraum by lowering the level of the Mediterranean and connecting the continents of Europe and Africa.46 Sörgel’s veneration for Oswald Spengler’s highly influential Untergang des Abendlandes (Decline of the West) of 1918–1922 culminates in the slogan “Either Decline of the West or Atlantropa as Turning Point and New Aim”.47 Sörgel thus turns Spenglerian cultural pessimism into an optimistic vision for the future, an argumentative twist familiar from many nineteenth-century historicist Gesamtkunstwerk agendas, in which the work of art is introduced as the agent or catalyst of historical change, an Idealist means to bring about

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a reversal of destiny. Though Spengler still viewed technology generally in a negative light, he did, however, confess to an admiration of the modern engineer as a “knowing priest of the machine”,48 and Sörgel clearly conceives himself in this light, describing himself as nothing less than a “Weltbaumeister”, thus using the same title as Bruno Taut had done for his architectural drama of 1919.49 “Where once art was silent, politics and philosophy began; where now the politician and the philosopher reach their limit, this is the point of departure for the artist again”, Richard Wagner wrote in Kunst und Revolution (1849),50 and we now find the echo of this “aesthetic fundamentalism”51 in the socio-political aspirations of what I shall call “technological fundamentalism”, where the engineer (Techniker) of the future must, in Sörgel’s words, “by no means be regarded any longer as a secondary factor next to politicians and economists”.52 In his popular Atlantropa-related novel, the writer John Knittel takes this faith in modern technology to its extreme by turning the engineer into the creator of the New Man: “Men had created these machines, and now these machines created new men.”53 Sörgel’s declared aim was “to create a foundation for a new cultural sphere and thereby contribute to the prevention of the decline and ultimate destruction of the Western cultural heritage.”54 Whilst nowadays the Atlantropa project appears as a megalomaniac fantasy, it might perhaps be surprising to learn how many notable architects Sörgel could persuade to cooperate. Conceived in the late 1920s and increasingly widely debated from the early 1930s onwards, the Atlantropa project was supported by many of the most prominent architectural thinkers and practitioners of its time, from Erich Mendelsohn and Fritz Höger to Peter Behrens, who submitted a design for a gigantic sluice crowned by a 400m Panropa-Tower for the projected dam at Gibraltar in 1931, as well as several sets of drawings from his master class in Vienna. Atlantropa, not a utopia of faraway islands but an aesthetic-technological vision of an artificially expanded Europe as new Atlantis to emerge from the Mediterranean, was also propagated by Erich Mendelsohn in a speech

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of 1932 entitled “Der schöpferische Sinn der Krise” (“The Creative Meaning of Crisis”) – the vocabulary again is drawn from the language of cultural pessimism – as a “vision of a new image of the world (Weltbild), a new world, a life of reason and order”,55 and I propose to regard it as a modern manifestation of the continuing fascination with the old dream of an aesthetic state.56 Sörgel’s “hypertrophic project of modernity”57 is a radical example of the appeal of the creation of a new ideal society on a tabula rasa in the early twentieth century. The Atlantropa project is founded on the idea of a technologically controlled reversal of the natural processes of geo-physical evolution, irrespective of any long-term ecological considerations. The Gesamtkunstwerk as the ideal state of a technologically monitored new empire is erected on the foundations of the ultimate subordination and control of nature, situated not in a utopian geography of temporal distance but on a newly created continent. The modern possibility of an Aus-räumung of the world, which started with the paradigm of perspective,58 culminates in the concerted efforts of instrumentalized aesthetics and science, the imperialistic force of “creation”, as the artistic-technological control of man and nature. The vision of Atlantropa provides a clear illustration of how aesthetic and technological fundamentalism join forces in the early twentieth century. However, whilst the Atlantropa project was to remain a fantasy, the roots of the early twentieth-century German idea of aesthetic-technological redemption that furnished it and its far-reaching ideological consequences need to be considered still further. The reality of industrialized warfare in World War I had led to a deep disillusionment among many of those who had originally greeted it with great euphoria as an opportunity for cultural catharsis. On the other hand, however, the Fronterlebnis was subsequently elevated into a mythical status of a heightened awareness of Life by some aesthetes, literati, and politicians. The writer Ernst Jünger was one of the most prominent myth-makers of inter-war “reactionary modernism”, the reconciliation of Innerlichkeit with

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Herman Sörgel in his Office with Atlantropa Maps and Plans (1933).

modern technology and its integration into the matrix of German Culture. Herf in this context criticizes the reading of Horkheimer and Adorno’s Dialectic of Enlightenment for the implication that the intertwining of myth and rationality that led to the German disaster was implicit in Enlightenment thought. Rather, he stresses a selective embrace of modernity and the unique German combination of industrial development and a weak liberal tradition as the social background of reactionary modernism, and he characterizes its creed as “the triumph of spirit and will over reason and the subsequent fusion of this will to an aesthetic mode.”59 Herf has drawn attention to the blending of German Romanticism with the cult of technology in the journals of German engineers. Equally, the aestheticization of technology in the avant-garde and the nihilistic celebration of the “experience” of the “spectacles” of technology in the big city and the war-trenches alike – from Italian Futurism to writers like Ezra Pound60 and German aesthetes like Jünger – need to be reemphasized as powerful components of the right-wing avant-garde that was drawn to fascism. With the elevation of the beautiful machine into a metaphysical dimension, technology comes to stand for the affirmation of life’s raw will,

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‘What is Atlantropa?’ (c. 1931), poster.

the articulation of an essential vitalistic force, as suggested by the title of Jünger’s eulogy to the machine, Fire and Blood, in which he elaborates: “The machine must also be incorporated into … a will to higher and deeper goals …. Ours is the first generation to begin to reconcile itself with the machine and to see in it not only the useful but the beautiful as well.”61 The beauty and sublimity, that is, the spiritually elevating and empowering aspect of the machine, appear to the aesthete as “magical realism”. In Jünger’s words: “The artistic individual, who suddenly sees in technology the totality (Ganzheit) instead of a functional assembly of iron parts … is as involved in finding the solution, that is, finding the deeper and more elevated satisfactions in the machine, as the engineer or the socialist is!”61 Technology here appears not as a product of the rationalistic mind, but in Jünger’s notorious metaphorizations, the aesthete’s “experience” of the industrial landscape and technological warfare, the purposive purposelessness of amoral art and technological power that merge in the category of Gestaltung, is firmly rooted in the Romantic tradition of Naturerlebnis, “magnificent and merciless spectacles. Only a few are granted the opportunity to sink into this sublime purposelessness, as one would sink into a work of art, or into

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the starry heaven.”63 As related manifestations of the will to power, Art and Technology join forces to shape the Gesamtkunstwerk Life as totale Mobilmachung (total mobilization, a military term for a gathering of all forces in preparation for combat), and it is this dangerous affinity between modern aesthetics and technology as instruments of ideological manipulation and political power which Walter Benjamin’s “Artwork” essay explores in terms of “fiat ars – pereat mundus”.64 War, through the purgatory aesthetic experience of the new technology it offers, can now be presented as presaging cultural renewal, the tabula rasa on which the system of new values is to be created; it is the creation myth of the New Man in the Jüngerian mould. By the time modern homo faber discovered aesthetics and aestheticized technology for his purposes, and all the major early-twentieth-century artists wholeheartedly embrace Nietzsche’s artistic Ermächtigungsgesetz, it becomes clear that much more than a mere Verkunstung of the world is aspired to. The emancipation of art in the “aesthetic differentiation”65 has created the theoretical preconditions for the tabula rasa, which is the breeding ground of the Gesamtkunstwerk, and this fascination, if not to say obsession, with the creation of a clean slate is but the other side, the dialectical counterpart, of the dream of total creativity. The connections between the aestheticization of life and the celebration of war under the category of Erlebnis have also been explored by Eksteins, who remarks on the “cult of technicism and its vitalist connotations, which had reverberations in much of German society by the last years of the nineteenth century”, and “the marriage of the primitive and the ultramodern” in this context.66 The seemingly contradictory links between primitivist ideology and the cult of the machine, the new image of technology as providing the means to tap straight into the original sources of Culture, indeed call for further investigation. The primitive hut as “notional origin”, one might say, now appears in a super-technological guise. The historicist program that can be summed up as “back to the future” is mirrored in the modernist “forward

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towards the origin”. The re-mythologization of technology that leads to its presentation as an “elementary” force also results in technology being put forward as the original source of a new Style, “a very particular style of life, which extends to the great and little things in life”.67 The ultimate appropriation of the Idealist agenda of reconciliation as a blending of art and technology, the humanistic and scientific realm, in order to overcome cultural crisis and to re-form cultural identity, is attempted in the ideology of the engineers.68 The many publications on the theme of Technik und Kultur in the early twentieth century bear witness to the concern to set the power of technology apart from positivistic science. Combining productivist and aesthetic categories to illuminate the cultural mission of technology, Manfred Schroter writes in Die Kulturmöglichkeit der Technik (The Cultural Potential of Technology) that art and technology fulfill a “need for unity”, they are at the heart of the “totality of the nation”, the centre of a cultural system which he illustrates in charts. Borrowing his terminology from Lebensphilosophie, he speaks of the Keimtrieb (germinating impulse) that brings together what he calls subjective and objective culture into an “organic synthesis.” Later he advocates this synthesis as a union of creative impulses and organization, of “idealism and exact thinking”.69 The Gesamtkunstwerk of the German Kulturnation is thus to be constructed on the foundations of a synthesis of its Idealistic heritage and technological leadership. As Heinrich Hardensett elaborates in his essay “Über das Verhältnis von industrieller Technik zur bildenden Kunst” (“Concerning the Relationship between Industrial Technology and Fine Art”), modern technological Sachlichkeit and modern functionalism are endowed with a pathos that speaks of metaphysical and aesthetic virtues and sets it apart from materialism, as it fulfills “the great longing of our time for community and Gestalt.” He emphasizes further “the fact that only in ‘Technik’ can the chaos of our creative endeavours find its unifying pole”, which indicates “an evolving new, somehow ‘technically’ formed image of culture.”70 The new dichotomy of categories in Kulturkritik

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is now constructed between technical (as artistic!) man, who infuses his creations with a Schopenhauerian will and thus raises them into the status of an activist metaphysic, and capitalist man, the latter being an exponent of abstract, quantitative calculations, positivism and mechanism, and equated, in the tradition of Sombart and others, with the modern merchant. The intimate relationship between Kulturpessimismus and the flight into an aesthetic utopia, the conception of a Gesamtkunstwerk as a program of aesthetic redemption in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, has frequently been noted. In the early twentieth century the introduction of technology as Kulturträger, the birth of technological utopias as models for socio-political reality in modernism, is made possible through its assimilation with “culturally productive” Art, representing the immediacy of Life and the Will to power as Gestaltung. In this context, it is the architect as artist-engineer who is uniquely placed to become the hero of the modern movement71 – as well as reactionary modernism. But it has to be kept in mind here that the idealization or “spiritualization” of technology through the transfer of the categories of the aesthetic experience of nature or art to the aesthetic celebration of the experience of industrialized warfare becomes possible only where art has been turned into a system of autonomous signs in the “aesthetic differentiation”. The reversal of this process, the re-symbolization or, better, re-ideologization of autonomous art – and subsequently technology – takes the form of a wilful attachment of supposedly higher values to particular forms and processes, through which the recreation of what is perceived as lost is to be reconstituted. However, it hardly needs pointing out now that in such a reversal of the symbolic relationship between art and its world, discussed by Blumenberg as a shift of paradigm toward art as Vorahmung der Natur, the Vorahmung in the Idealist dialectical sense can now be turned all too easily into an imperialist assault on a social reality that is perceived as wanting. The reciprocity between the modern dream of a tabula rasa and visions of total creativity needs to be fully understood; the destructive subordination

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or elimination of heterogeneity in the phenomena of the natural world as well as cultural life, the powerful enforcement of “identity” in the medium of aesthetic-technological mega-projects as ultimate modern manifestations of the Gesamtkunstwerk, must be recognized as but the other side of the coin of the modern dream of the total creatability of life, of man, of destiny. In the first decades of the twentieth century, Art and Technology are presented as joint forces in the conceptions of the new self-proclaimed Weltbaumeister. However, the idea of the Gesamtkunstwerk, which had its origin in the dialectical conceptions of German Idealism as an aesthetic counter-model to existing reality, has undergone fundamental changes that go far beyond the inclusion of technology as an equal to the arts (and Art) by the 1930s. In many of the artistic-technological Gesamtkunstwerk conceptions of the late 1920s and early 1930s, “intramundane eschatology and rational-instrumental power-phantasies enter into an unholy alliance.”72 Where Culture, Man, and Life itself are conceived as having the ontological status of a Gesamtkunstwerk, where the dialectical model of thought has given way to the will to power as artistic-technological imposition of the aspired-to socio-cultural Heil, the dream of aesthetic reconciliation and cultural renewal through aesthetic education turns into the nightmare of an implementation of a state of unity by means of aesthetic-technological Totalgestaltung.

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To judge by oneself; to understand relationships; to have one’s own feelings; to tend to be entirely disinterested; to force one’s material self into the background—is to conquer reasoned conclusions from life. Rather than submit to the constraints of a declining age, one may as well sacrifice oneself … take risks, be sensitive to everything, and open one’s heart more and more to others.1 — Le Corbusier

And this is a universal law: a living thing can be healthy, strong, and fruitful only when bounded by a horizon.2 — Friedrich Nietzsche

On the one hand, I believe that poetry and religion spring from the same source and it is not possible to dissociate the poem from its pretension to change man without the risk of turning the poem into an inoffensive form of literature. On the other hand, I believe that the Promethean thrust of modern poetry consists in its belligerence toward religion, the source of its deliberate will to create a new ‘sacred’, in contradistinction to the one that churches offer us today.3 — Octavio Paz

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The Convent of Sainte-Marie de La Tourette in Eveux-sur-L’Arbresle, near Lyon (designed between 1953 and 1955), is one of those very rare twentieth-century buildings that are almost universally praised as a masterpiece. Given the fragmented conditions of contemporary cultures, the reality of ca. 3000 surviving spoken languages on earth in contrast to the global village created by technology and telecommunications, and the common associations between culture, entertainment, and its ‘star architects’, can we yet think about La Tourette as more than just an architectural talking-piece, but as an authentic embodiment of culture? Indeed, I would like to argue that this work has deeper roots and addresses the human condition beyond its own particularities, as Catholic, Dominican, ‘modern’, and French. La Tourette is of course a special case: a building designed for a religious community and thus by definition sacred, i.e., “set apart”. Yet it seems to possess the power to transform any inhabitant into a participant, to effectively “change one’s life”. Its programmatic after-life is instructive. Given the waning interest in conventual life, today anyone can visit and even spend a few days in its meditative environment: a truly appropriate destiny for this building. Architects and critics from the most diverse cultural origins and persuasions have written eloquently about it, while the sensitive long-term users, the Dominican brothers that still live in the building, appreciate it as a

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most special place, “the most spiritual of all Dominican convents in France”.4 On his deathbed, Father Alain Couturier, a leading member of the Catholic reform movement after the war, editor since 1936 of the perodical L’Art sacré, and who was instrumental in the negotiations for Le Corbusier to proceed with the commission, called him “not only the greatest living architect” but also “the one in which the spontaneous sense of the sacred was most authentic and strong”.5 This statement by Father Couturier about an architect who was not outwardly religious but who devoted his life to an unceasing plastic search through many artistic media, must be taken seriously. While his work and theories changed drastically throughout his life, particularly his attitude toward technology that became more critical and nuanced in his later writings, Le Corbusier was adamant about the expressive capacity of architecture and the discipline’s potential to embody a sense

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A glimpse towards the central courtyard with the landscape framed in the background. Opposite: Le Corbusier, Convent of Sainte-Marie de La Tourette (Eveux-sur-L’Arbresle, France, 1953-1955), the convent’s entrance emerging on the side of the pathway.

of order. It may have seemed obvious to him that after Nietzsche, with the crisis of monotheisms, the problem of sacred space in a technological world could not be separated from the issue of significant space of public participation. I would like to argue that this commission gave Le Corbusier the opportunity to think about the possibilities of a truly ecumenical and secular spirituality – in the etymological sense of being “turned toward the world”, for a situated and embodied consciousness for which the act of perception, never passive, is both intellectual and emotional understanding, revealing a mystery inhabiting the surface of things, the luminous enigma of co-emerging vacuity and presence. We may recall how every summer Le Corbusier retired to his cabanon by the Mediterranean; his true home was indeed a simple hermitage where he relaxed and often prepared for his ambitious tasks. In his more mature writings he often acknowledged the crucial rootedness of architecture in the natural world, in a fashion that recalls Heidegger’s “fourfold”: the primary articulation of the sky, the earth, mortals, and divinities as the condition for dwelling. In the tradition of Romantic philosophy and surrealism, Le Corbusier must have perceived an analogy between the

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The volumes of the oratory and the cloister corridors by the central courtyard.

quest for spirituality and his own artistic struggle; a solitary task for the productive imagination that runs great risks as it attempts to account for the fullness of culture, rooted in gesture, habits, language, and institutions, through personal creative experiments. Yet, the Dominican friars were proud to associate their project with the spirit of aggressive ‘modernism’, which had characterized the Dominican order since St Dominic’s death in 1226. I would like to argue that in the case of La Tourette, and in contrast to some of his early ‘heroic’ projects, Le Corbusier considered tradition very seriously, but not understood as the “inert transmission of some already dead deposit of material [or forms], but as the living transmission of an innovation always capable of being reactivated by a return to the most creative moments of poetic activity”.6 These words by Paul Ricœur serve admirably well to characterize Le Corbusier’s approach in this project, deploying a hermeneutic imagination, looking not only at formal precedents, but particularly to rituals and habits, understood as narratives that could be reconfigured to create appropriate moods to this aim, both accommodating and twisting focal actions to invite reconciliation, perhaps even the participation of secular divinities beyond specific dogma.

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The cloister corridor leading to the church lit up with abundant natural light.

Tradition La Tourette is a true ‘analogical’ convent, operating like a mirror that reflects something so that we can truly see it, something slightly different that reveals what is already present but has never been truly seen. The conventual ‘archetype’ is always present and powerfully carried through. The building preserves the fundamental gestures of a conventual ‘type’, and gestures, we may recall with Maurice Merleau-Ponty, are the very expressivity of the body (as embodied consciousness), a point of contact between emerging language and habits, which in turn are the primary articulation and sedimentation of culture, making other forms of understanding possible. Le Corbusier seemed to have had a revelation here, one that makes this building stand out. A deceptively simple ‘index’ of historical sedimentation is the plan of the convent, evidently recognizable as such, transformed and yet left intact in order to convey a more universal, contemporary meaning. Unlike some earlier facades ‘composed’ through a tracé regulateur, this work deliberately offers its meanings as temporal experience, its variations on the conventual life preformed only in time. The building is emphatically

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not an aesthetic object; it must be inhabited. Formal and programmatic decisions were never dissociated; habits and rituals were taken very seriously, conceived as narratives that enable a hermeneutic imagination: perhaps our only option for architecture as an embodiment of culture in a world of “divided representation”. Formalistic or aesthetic criteria, therefore, simply cannot account for the richness of this work. The issue is a careful and thorough, if subversive, re-configuration of the traditional programs and rituals. To name a few instances, we may recall the pervasive ‘inversions’ that are present in the building: the building is lifted from its sloping terrain, suggesting a ‘cloister’ at ground level that is difficult to access and no longer reveals a natural relationship between the ground and the sky. The practice of ambulatory meditation is accommodated instead on the rooftop, by a cloister open to the heavens but securely bound by a man-made horizon, avoiding all views of the landscape and significantly never allowing a whole revolution. The refectory is provocative through its lack of hierarchy, a space between the forest and the building, even hostile to furniture, promoting an awareness of the communion implied in the act of eating together. The building is perforated throughout by small strip apertures and at places by larger windows, yet despite the physical amount of light penetrating the building, the atmosphere is a perpetual twilight, resonant with the ‘musical walls’, those large ondulatoires designed by means of the golden section that magically transform light into penumbra. The detailing of the strip windows along the corridors and the openings in the chapel and the church may even suggest the imminent demise of all light: imaginatively removing the concrete mullions would cause the heavy concrete building to close upon itself, excluding all daylight and revealing the luminosity of darkness, perhaps a nod to the negative theology that often underscored Christian religious architecture, but offered as embodied experience at this juncture. We may recall how Le Corbusier had praised the clarity of whitewashed walls in his earlier writings.7 Dwelling stripped of all bourgeois ‘hangings’

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was for him a condition for self-mastery. In La Tourette, the clarity no longer depends on finishes. His desire to show everything “as it is” is radicalized, and embracing the darkness becomes yet more luminous. As opposed to the shadows and dark corners that he deplored in the bourgeois home, the darkness in La Tourette can actually be “penetrated by one’s eyes”.8 The light that Le Corbusier always considered “the fundamental basis of architecture”,9 the light in his famous definition of architecture as “the masterly, correct and magnificent play of masses brought together in light”,10 became ‘contextual’ in his later writings. In New World of Space, he describes our perception of a flower, a mountain, or a tree in a landscape as a deceptive objectification:11 “We pause, struck by such interrelation in nature, and we gaze, moved by this harmonious orchestration of space, and we realize that we are looking at the reflection of light”. This “just consonance … not simply the effect of the subject chosen” is for him the issue.12 Then, he concludes, “A boundless depth opens up, effaces the walls, drives away contingent presences, accomplishes the miracle of ineffable space. I am not conscious of the miracle of faith, but I often live that of ineffable space, the consummation of plastic emotion”.13 The spaces of La Tourette are useful yet impenetrable, both bounded and infinite. “This is a difficult building to inhabit”, states an elderly Dominican brother. “It is demanding during all hours and all seasons of the year... during the day it is dark, and at night it is always alive... but its hostility sings …”.14 While never denying the autonomy of twentieth-century architectural syntax, the spaces in this building bear witness to the capacity of the individual imagination to create appropriate and moving atmospheres, giving place to the focal activities that the building supports, transcending self-referential games. I wish to stress that it is through the deliberate consideration of gestures, habits, and rituals that the hermeneutic imagination can function here so that tradition and innovation are not at odds. This building, as an experience, flaunts all logical contradictions; it is purposeful, yet it never yields to comfortable use: it proposes an architecture

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Church wall with organ in the center.

capable of acknowledging the aporias of time in our experience, embracing historicity and the end of History, the quest for a better future and the end of absolute progress, neither a linear time where the present might be a non-existent point between past and future nor a merely perpetual present. In the austere main church, a simple parallelepiped with slim clerestory openings whose lid always threatens to close, the Catholic rituals are possible, but always uneasy. The confessional, traditionally placed in discrete locations along the side aisles of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century churches, is now

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The imposing concrete materiality of the church.

displayed at the end of the long axis and painted red. The slim steel cross, the only icon in the space, stands by the side of the altar, imbued by all the tension of its asymmetrical location. And the side altars for daily mass, which in traditional church plans were located also along the side aisles, always assuming the congregation, ecclesia, are now sunk, becoming private places for a personal conversation between the priest and the divine. “The only time when the church has fit like a glove to a function”, said one of the older brothers, “was when Le Corbusier’s dead body spent the

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night here on its way to Paris, after the architect drowned while swimming close to his cabanon”. It has been suggested that there were even instructions from the architect to his office, that in the case of such an accident, his body should come through La Tourette. Is it possible to imagine the architect designing a space for his own wake, the demise of the heroic figure in a work that speaks eloquently through its simple, sober orthogonality about that which unites humans, the archeology of cultures: the ultimate metaphor and coincidence of opposites; the poetic, incandescent coincidence of life and death? Probably without knowing any of this, Arata Isozaki recognized the immense difference between the ‘Platonic’ spaces of Le Corbusier’s early work, driven by technological instrumentality, and the darkness and impenetrability of La Tourette, making a moving association between the ‘solid darkness’ of this building and the Mediterranean Sea into which the architect walked to die.15

Innovation It is well known that Le Corbusier was a serious painter, devoting most mornings of his life to this activity. As he put it himself: “Truly the key to my artistic creation is my pictorial work begun in 1918 and pursued regularly each day. The foundation of my research and intellectual production has its secret in the uninterrupted practice of my painting. It is there that one must find the source of my spiritual freedom, of my disinterestedness, of the faithfulness and integrity of my work.”16 This is of course a sort of experimentalism, always dangerous in its obsessions for the new, often in detriment of the familiar. As I have observed elsewhere, however, Le Corbusier’s concern with the “modern space” of painting was never simply transplanted to architecture.17 His work can hardly be reduced to the application of the matrix of axonometry in his purist paintings, for example, as a Cartesian

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The cloister and the convent's interior façades.

space for modernist syntax, such as the majority of his disciples have often assumed. Relatively early in his career, his true struggle was to find equivalent modes of presencing in the visual/erotic space of architectural situations. His experimentation with projection in the space of representation was a life-long passion that culminated in an awareness of artistic discovery as the unveiling of unexpected relationships between objects of the environing world, rapports emerging from the new contiguities construed in the work. In 1938, he wrote, in terms that recall a surrealist understanding of collage, that the difference between everyday, prosaic spoken language and painting consisted in a different way of denoting things. While the former names things narrowly and specifically, the latter is concerned with the quality of things, bringing them together freely. Thus it is the unexpected relationships, i.e., the space of metaphoric tension, that the artist discovers; this “is what the poet proclaims, that which the inspired being creates.”18 A decade later he wrote again about art in New World of Space.19 He explained the genesis of his Ubu sculptures, deliberately named in honor of Alfred Jarry, the founder of pataphysics: “Stones and pieces of wood led me on involuntarily to draw beings who became a species of monster or god.” Le Corbusier was aware

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Side altars for the celebration of the Eucharist.

of how the process offered much to his architecture precisely because it revealed “new things”, “unexpected” and “unknown”. He concluded: “When the inexplicable appears in human work, that is, when our spirit is projected far from the narrow relation of cause and effect … to the cosmic phenomenon in time, in space, in the intangible … then the inexplicable is the mystery of art.”20 This realization, emerging from an ‘experimental’ making that deliberately released itself from the dictates of rational planning, became invaluable for

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his design of La Tourette. If one compares the temporality in Le Corbusier’s early projects, the well-known promenades architecturales along the ramps of the villas in the 1920s and 1930s, for example, with the experience of walking in La Tourette, one must acknowledge an immense transformation. The clarity of transparent space threading the objets-type through a subjective, voyeuristic gaze is replaced by the embodied experience of uncertainty. The atmosphere where one walks among distinct places and which sets a dominant tone to experience is a penumbra, reminiscent of Giordano Bruno’s space, impenetrable to perspective. The place is rigorous and demanding, always discomforting in a way that makes sense. While it ‘works’, nothing fits, furnishings seem awkward or plainly out of place, yet it seems most appropriate. It is significant that among the preliminary proposals coming out of his own office, Le Corbusier rejected all that included rationalized ramps and circulations, in his own former ‘style’. Indeed, our experience of the building, despite its remarkably simple plan and the fact that all parts of the program are ‘familiar’ – such as cells, chapels, the main church with its ancillary spaces, refectory, and cloister – is one of utter and permanent disorientation. The internal space is always surprising, always new and mysterious, interwoven with an experience of time that contradicts any prosaic linearity. Our participation with the building adds up into layers that both reveal and conceal, thickening with our permanence.21 The labyrinth, the traditional paradigm of Daedalus and archetypal architectural idea of our western architectural tradition, is transformed here into embodied experience: a perceptual, emotional understanding of the coincidence between order and disorientation, most appropriate as a revelation of elemental, non-dogmatic spirituality, of that enigmatic purpose which co-emerges with one’s breath, spiritus, for mortal, embodied consciousness. La Tourette seems to embody the conviction that architecture must both reveal and constitute itself through experience as a de-idealized notion.22 There

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is mystery in embodied perception: depth is not homologous to breadth and height, and the present is ‘thick’ and reversible, but such ‘mysteries’ often hide behind the instrumentality of technological culture and its Cartesian assumptions. In the convent of La Tourette, human actions are rhetorically perceived as placed; the qualities are evident: Cartesian space no longer appears as ‘common place’. This architecture aims to manifest the ‘mystery’ as such, through its own temporality and dimensionality. Indeed, the disclosure of depth in the building reappears as a primordial dimension in time, distinct from the ‘third dimension’ of buildings reduced to aesthetic objects, reductive projections, or photographs. Bruno Reichlin similarly observed how the strip window destroys “traditional perspective space in architecture” by establishing a different relationship between what is near and what is far, obliterating the “frame” through the exaggerated distance between the vertical edges of the strip.23 The building closes upon itself, physically stopping the glances at the end of the corridors into the landscape, and when one does look out through the narrow strips, the far is brought near and is made subject to the same boundaries. Depth is here reinvested with its emerging quality, analogous in vision to the interiority communicated by speech, poetry, and musical harmony, modulated into the moods (Stimmungen) of the particular rooms. The building may be understood as the crystallization of a sort of musical notation, ultimately made real through manifold levels of ‘interpretation’ and ‘reenactment’. The architect was conspicuously unconcerned by the errors that often inexperienced craftsmen committed in the interpretation of the drawings. Le Corbusier was seldom on site, and this has produced abundant speculation about his role and that of Xenakis, the architect in charge of the project. While one must necessarily speculate about such things, it is likely that he deliberately embraced the difficulties imposed by the poverty of means in this project, turning this to his advantage: to make a place that revealed its poetic sense through the

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very ‘weakness’ and ephemerality of the technological world, our world, an ecumenical spirituality predicated, as we know from his own late theoretical testament, the Poème de l’angle droit, on the co-substantiality of light with darkness.

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The problem was a monastery. We began by assuming that no monastery existed … We had to forget the word monk, the word refectory, the word chapel, the cell …1 — Louis I. Kahn

… only those who play are serious! … the rule has been to play the game … the game of this house … all within the rules! Nothing outside the rules! Otherwise I no longer have a reason for being. That’s the key. A reason for being: to play.2 — Le Corbusier

If we speak with intelligence, we must base our strength on that which is common to all, as the city on the Law, and even more strongly. For all human laws are nourished by one, which is divine. For it governs as far as it will, and is sufficient for all, and more than enough.3 — Heraclitus

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David Leatherbarrow Rule and Law — Architecture and Nature: Kahn’s design for the St Andrew’s Priory

Although Louis I. Kahn announced in public lectures that he approached the design of St Andrew’s Benedictine Priory “only as an architect not as a monk”, knowing little, he suggested, about the monk’s life, he nevertheless sought to rearticulate what he understood to be essential in monastic culture. The task was not simple, for as a modern architect he faced both the secularization of the tradition and the aestheticization of its way of life. To some degree, he was defeated by both. Still, his concern for rule and law merits study because it points to key topics in the whole of monastic culture, from the time of its origin centuries ago until today. Moreover, the interplay of these topics explains many of the wonderful qualities of his work, not just his monastery designs (sadly unbuilt), but other types too. While the terms rule and law were analytically separated in his lectures, he sought their reciprocity in his designs. Primary elements of the natural world entered into the equation, particularly the desert in the case of St Andrew’s Priory, but also water found there and a grove of trees he proposed. No less important in his thinking and designs were the settings that made up what he called “the institutions of man”. The invocations of “beginnings” that were so common in his talks were more often

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than not highly speculative, even theoretical; yet, his sense of the tradition’s ancient foundations was not far off the mark. A brief review of these premises – especially the physical and symbolic meanings of the desert – will allow us to see his project’s ambition in terms that were at once architectural and cultural.

Alone in the desert From its very beginnings the monastic tradition assumed coordination between a way of life governed by one or another version of The Rule and the material conditions of the natural world.4 The type of terrain in which Western monasticism began, desolate hillsides and parched sands, was patently unpromising; not only isolated, but barren and unyielding. Arid wasteland set the stage for a life of poverty. Encouraging models had of course been provided: Jesus in the desert was one, John the Baptist on the banks of the Jordan River another. While neither locale was desirable for ordinary life, desolation seems to have allowed these figures and the monks who imitated their retreat undisturbed contact with God. A still more ancient pattern had been set with the exodus of the Jews into Sinai, and their forty year wander. Moreover, ancient Elijah seems to have been a model for the Baptist’s life, thanks to their similarly prophetic voices no doubt, but also because of more material similarities: both wore garments of hair and leather belts and were believed to have subsisted on locust, although some scholars now think John ate honey cakes and was a vegetarian, like the members of the Essene sect to which he is sometimes connected because they too practiced baptism and preferred desert living. Of course nothing like this had occurred in the Sonoma Desert that set the stage for Kahn’s project, but one should not for that reason assume that he was unaware of the range of meanings attached to what had for centuries been understood as a primary topos of spiritual life.

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A less distant model for Western monks – including the Benedictines Kahn’s project was designed to accommodate – was St Anthony the Great (251–356), often called the founder of monasticism, but only one among many “Desert Fathers”. He too sought the desert’s burning sun and nightly chill as the right context for holy living. After a spiritual awakening prompted him to dispose of a rather sizable family fortune, and some time living in a tomb near his home village south of present day Cairo, he embarked on a solitary path of renunciation that eventually led him to an abandoned fort on the eastern bank of the Nile, where, secluded behind high walls, he remained on his own for about twenty years, although visited by pilgrims, whose desire for face-to-face meetings he resisted, fearing that kind of association would distract him from the target of his devotion. After his rather obstinate first two decades, he accepted the attention and affection of the followers who had settled nearby, but for a couple of years only. A very great number had come – some historians say 5000 – but they couldn’t prevent him from seeking solitude once again, and remaining in relative isolation for his remaining forty-five years. Alone in his desert cell, St Anthony perfectly exemplifies the eremitic type of monk. In this inaugural case the names for the type of person and the place were bound together etymologically: ‫݋‬ȡȘȝȓĮ (eremia) is the Greek word for desert.5 Hermit cells were often hollows in a hillside, sometimes huts, located in the otherwise uninhabited lands of Syria, Palestine, and Egypt. Although shelters such as this could hardly be called architectural, their spatial attributes, simple though they were, were key in later monastic building practices, individually and together. Over time hermits formed groups, but met together only occasionally, mainly to share the holy sacraments. Those who grouped together were later named coenobitic monks. The ones who stayed by themselves in a single place were anchorites. What came to be called The Rule, in its several formulations, was not so much an imposition on but an outgrowth of desert life: its discipline, (diurnal and seasonal) rhythms,

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Louis I. Kahn, St Andrew’s Priory, Valyermo, California, 1966-67. Study model, detail. Opposite: Study model, whole site.

sharing, and divine model. Kahn’s concern for monastic life, particularly its institutions, did not prevent him from stressing the artificial character of the rules that bound the monks together. In physical terms, the most conspicuous elements of the desert setting were the sun and stars, stone and sand, and shadows. Although the last of these resulted from the interplay of the others, shadows can be taken as the first topographical premise of desert living. Withdrawn from the heat and glare, encaved under a woven roof or carved hollow, hermits were sheltered because they were shaded.6 Water was of course required, also desired, because there was rarely enough of it. When Kahn heard that the Benedictines who commissioned him had “discovered” a water source on their land in the Sonoma Desert, he announced that it would be the key to the entire project. “When the father asked me”, Kahn recalled, “‘What would be your plan for the monastery?’ I said the first thing I would do … [is] build a chapel where the water came from. And if you agree to this, we can settle the fountain. And then I think we should build an architecture of water … not just casually but very consciously in the shapes and dimensions which assert themselves very clearly … And from this order of water, you may

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place your chapel and the church and the cells and the workshops and the little community … Something must be done to show your appreciation that water can be found where water is scarce.”7 Dry as dust most of the time, the desert sites that were taken to be foundational in the monastic tradition typically lay unworked outside the hermit’s cave. Sequestered in his cell, Anthony received food from would-be followers, lowered over the abandoned fort’s high walls. His second desert retreat took him to the location of a spring under palm trees where he planted a garden that nourished him. One rather doubts that Kahn knew much about Anthony’s life, its habits, or topographical premises, but the modern architect sought the same situation nevertheless, particularly the shade granted by a grove surrounded by the desert. Despite his limited industry, one cannot say Anthony or any other Desert Father was generally idle. When not at work in a garden, grove, or field, the monk was at work on himself, undoing then refashioning himself, his spiritual self. Renunciation intended reform, I have said, and labor like that was far from easy. No less famous than Anthony’s seclusion were his torments. Centuries later

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View of desert site. Opposite: Site plan with topography.

St Benedict still called the hermit’s life “solitary combat”. But here, too, natural conditions provided a way of life – the one that would develop into monastic culture, with its image and orientation. The regularity of the desert rhythms, the hard law of incessant repetitions, provided a perfect model for the soul’s conformity to The Rule: its diet and habits, together with the cycles of meditation, reading, and prayer (the hours, offices, and opus Dei of the later tradition). The spatial and historical break represented by this environment and these practices, the natural and cultural repetitions that had no trace of origin or hint of end, provided monastic culture with its beginnings and its prospect. Each of the chapters that narrate the story of monasticism therefore follows the pattern set in and by The Desert: first, repudiation and rejection of contemporary culture, prompted by a new awareness of primary realities; second, retreat in order to recover experiences taken to be fundamental, which with the soul seeks realignment; and third, rearticulation of the new way of life (albeit mimetic) in the form of schedules, regimens, and rules that govern all manner of spiritual, social, and spatial practice. Each time this sequence was reenacted, the old tension between isolation and fellowship reemerged, the spatial structure

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of which determined the distances and connections between the monastery’s individual cells, shared cloister, and surrounding fields and pastures. Kahn called this order the “society of rooms”, an interconnectedness that allowed settings their individuality. All of the founders of the great monastic Orders – Benedict, of the Benedictines; Bruno, of the Carthusians; Bernard, of the Cistercians; Francis, of the Franciscans; Dominic, of the Dominicans; and Clare, of the Poor Clares – endeavored to build complementarity between communal and personal conditions, not sacrificing one to the other, according to the precepts of their Rule, which governed conditions that were not only spiritual and material but architectural and topographical. As for the founders of the Orders, the establishment of rules was decisive for Kahn too, generally in his discussions about architecture and specifically in his account of the St Andrew’s Priory design. He never attempted an account of rules without contrasting (and implicitly linking) them with laws. His distinction can be set out briefly because it was never elaborated at great length, only repetitively. Despite their brevity, his short statements are not easy to understand, however.

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Artificially natural order There is something poetic in following the law, Kahn observed, and there is something very secure about establishing rules that come from the law.8 I have noted already that he understood rules to be essentially artificial. I take it that one of the meanings he intended with this use of the word poetic was fabricated or man-made. No doubt he also thought artifacts of this kind were lyrical or expressive. The key question for us, however, concerns his understanding of how rules come from the law, how they were derived from, elaborated, or perhaps articulated conditions he called natural. Clarification of this connection, which in theological terms might be called participation or perhaps embodiment, will allow us to see the aim and success of his attempt to work through the dichotomy between rule and law, one that he accepted even though it burdened his work. Law for Kahn was physical not legal law; the first is unchangeable, the second subject to historical variation, which incidentally was also true of rules. To say that laws concern physical reality does not make them object-like things; for him they were more like forces or powers, essentially dynamic – the force of the wind, for example, or the power of gravity. Another attribute of “natural” law is that its energies harmonize with one another, are not isolated from one another, an example of which would be the correspondences between the law of water (its power of erosion and unwavering adherence to gravity’s pull) and of light (its insistently regular geometry) – the dance of reflections across a river’s surface shows the interchange of lawful behaviors. Harmony, as Leo Spitzer has shown, was intrinsic to classical and Christian cosmologies, which narrate the interplay of ordering powers.9 Kahn may well have known, but never referred directly to any of these stories. Nor have there been many architects whose arguments and projects didn’t assume harmonies, proportionalities, or symmetries of one kind or another (not always or only geometric). For his part Kahn seems to have intended the participation of his projects in what could

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Section through grove and cells, backed by mountain profile.

be called world harmony, although he also alluded to the kind of lawfulness described in classical physics as their proper framework. To explain further his sense of law, Kahn gave a couple of examples. The beauty of a violin, he observed, results from the fact that it is “out of the law”. The expression is etiological; he meant that the violin’s shape and dimensions were determined (at least partly) by auditory and mathematical harmonies, as well as the properties of wood that would allow craftsmen to bend and join the material to form the required profiles, thicknesses, and lengths. His next example is equally interesting: the traffic light. While the driver pressing the accelerator may resent the rules that govern stopping and going – hurried, he’d rather not stop – the regulations start to make sense once an image of a child wishing to cross the street comes to mind. The law from which traffic rules derive determines our shared respect for human life, particularly the child’s, for on that tacitly agreed principle, respect for others, the natural working of the world depends.10 Rules that govern traffic signals or violin making are good when laws taken to be shared and unchanging are followed. Here is Kahn’s conclusion: “the law says this, really … good rules tend to bring about that which the nature of man demands.”11 When based on law, rules bind people together, rather like religion.12

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The institutions of man Kahn’s name for the long-standing, if continually redefined associations of this binding type was institution. Of course monastic life is a good example of such a congress or society, maybe for him the best. As soon as one gives it some thought, however, the arrangement seems paradoxical, insofar as it gives equal weight to individuality and collectivity. Here’s the question: don’t the rules of the group constrain or diminish the person, restricting his or her freedom? Perhaps not, for each of the coenobitic Orders set out the conditions under which individuals who had chosen to do so could benefit from living-alone-together.13 That phrase is a good shorthand definition of monastic life. Further, these conditions – the rules of association and their material embodiment – were meant to be long-standing, having been established under unchanging and divine law, out of which the rules and habits had emerged. Kahn stressed not only their persistence but their artificiality: “[I]nstitutions remain forever and were somehow born with man.” He explained this thesis with reference to his early and much-celebrated science building in Philadelphia. The design of the Richards Laboratory caused him to realize “that an architect’s first duty is to think in terms of the institution that our minds create.”14 Thus, another difficulty: institutions remain forever and were “born with man”. Paradoxical though it seems, he repeatedly defended the idea. What recommends it also – quite apart from Kahn’s arguments and buildings – is its striking similarity to an ancient idea of cultural order described as “eternal being in time”.15 An institution is not exactly a building, however; it can be embodied in built settings, but in other ways too. A good example is the institution of play, one representation of which is the stadium or theater. But not all forms of play require such elaborate accommodations. Permanent indoor theaters are rather recent in the long history of theaters; plays are not, nor playing. In addition to an institution’s several forms or levels of articulation, Kahn stressed its social and historical character. The main points for him were these: institutions bind

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people together, like religions, we’ve seen, and are both formed and reformed over time. The historically constituted societies that result from this history give designers their task and pleasure: “[T]he architect’s search for indications of how the institution can be amplified or how a new institution can come out of an old one is probably one of the most delightful mental experiences that he can have.”16 The temporality of human institutions helps clarify Kahn’s distinction between “man-made” rule and “natural” law; the first a useful fiction, the second an insight into the workings of the world. The function of fiction understood in this way is to augment reality.17 How might this sense of law and rule or nature and institution be translated into architecture? How could a monastery embody their interplay so as to make it legible? For Kahn, the basic task of project making involved showing productive interchanges between what is good for all and what makes sense in a given situation, according to the way of life that defines an institution. Neither the generalities of law nor the particularities of an artificial set of rules were key; instead the decisions and interpretations that demonstrated how a design’s concrete conditions participated in patterns taken to be necessary and good. Project making was thought to discern the potential of rules to make laws (the powers at play in the world) both apparent and understandable. A hint about how this could be done was given in the short passage about water cited above: when they “assert themselves clearly”, the shapes and dimensions of the “architecture of water” indicate how its forces can be rendered legible.

Desert law and monastic rules In the St Andrew’s Priory design, “an aqueduct”, Kahn said, would make visible the law of water. His idea was that gravity’s pull would order and organize the handling of the supply, its channeling into cisterns and reservoirs, and

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its celebration in pools and fountains. He didn’t say, but one imagines this “architecture” would also depend on water’s pace of evaporation in the desert climate, the ways it reflected light, and so on – the harmony of powers described earlier. But even more of the design would result from water’s lawful behavior: the configuration of the rooms, individually and connected, in plan and section, would elaborate these laws, as would the arrangement of the indoor and outdoor public spaces, thus the entire composition. Kahn’s conclusion, already cited, was this: “From this order of water, you may place your chapel and the church and the cells and the workshops and the little community.”18 Water was not, however, the only element that structured the interplay of law and rule in the project. No less significant were three other elements of the design: the platforms cut into the slopes of the site, the configuration of the cells, and the grove with its associated gardens. A review of each of these topics will indicate how life lived according to an invented set of rules both embodied and articulated the law of natural conditions.

Water Water “abandons at every moment all sense of form”, observed the poet Francis Ponge; it is “always bent on self-humiliation, it lies flat on its stomach on the ground, almost a corpse, like the monks of certain orders. ‘Always lower’ seems to be its motto.”19 Yet, while it unhesitatingly obeys the force of gravity it also binds the soil to the sky (in the form of mist, fog, clouds, rain, and snow), together with all that the earth and heavens represent. There is no evidence that suggests Kahn knew of Ponge’s water poem published twenty years before his project, but he probably would have agreed with his comparison between the behaviors of water and of monks, their shared tendency downward coupled with their movement or orientation upward, or in a more secular views, outward.

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Because water had been “discovered” in this stretch of the desert the monks had obtained, Kahn felt confident he could build there, using its order to organize the institution.20 His site plans show a small group of pre-existing buildings owned by the Priory. They sit in the midst of a grove of trees on the valley floor below the hilltop site of his design. The place is known as Hidden Springs. It seems likely that the water Kahn used to order his plan had its source in this valley location, not on top of the hill.21 This meant the water would have been raised twice: from the spring (pumped through underground pipes) and then to the reservoir crowning a structure Kahn labeled the tower.22 Of course the purpose of raising the water was to put it to use, therefore returning it to the land, but in ways that made sense in the monastery, sense that was both practical and expressive. The geometry of the reservoir-crown is interestingly composite, an inverted pyramid lodged in the space between four wide-arched perimeter walls, seen best in an axonometric sketch. The arches revealed the reservoir’s downward inclination. They were also equipped with bells, which were noted on a section drawing that cut through the grove and cells. From its high elevation the water was released into two canals that supplied circular pools, one within the grove – at what seems to be the highest elevation of land on the site – and the other at the end point of the monk’s garden, the acute angle of which terminates in the compound’s boundary wall, offering a panoramic view of the mountains in the far distance (the mountains outlined in the section just mentioned). Thus the pools played corresponding roles: one gives focus to the oasis within the monastery, the other awareness of the desert that surrounds it. As the layout’s geometric center, the tower provided the institution with what can be called its point of “internal orientation”. The southern corners of its square plan link up with the monk’s garden toward the west and chapel to the east. Its northern side plays two roles: the midpoint releases the two canals just mentioned, and its western corner steps onto the entry

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platform – rather assertively, one can say. This prominent corner would have been the first thing seen upon entry to the whole ensemble, which is why it can also be understood as the threshold between the public and private parts of the monastery. Thus, the “architecture of water” played several roles, or took on a number of interrelated forms: 1) a source, 2) a raised supply, 3) a set of pools, 4) a web of canals crossing the slopes, and 5) a point of spatial orientation. This configuration set the rules of the game; the action was a matter of law.

Platform When selecting a site, the Renaissance architect Alberti wrote, “I would prefer to locate it on a level surface”.23 Such a surface could be a raised mound when building in the open plain or a plateau in the mountains. The plateau alternative is relevant in the case of St Andrew’s Priory. Kahn’s sections show that he, too, saw the need for a level base, located on a high plateau within the region, visible from different vantages and commanding views of the surroundings, the Hidden Springs valley below and the mountains in the distance. Although Kahn’s terrain approximated the even surface Alberti described, some cutting and filling would have been required for the uniformly consistent level he desired. The entry platform to which we have already referred (on which the big left foot of the tower has stepped) had to be built up on its northwest corner, where the approach ramp reached its end, and cut into the pre-existing slope, where it was limited by an inclined berm to the north and a retaining wall on the east, each buttressing the grove’s higher level. That the platform’s perimeter was varied would not have surprised Alberti: he had observed that “in mountains... it is clearly impossible to lay out the walls in a circle, rectangle, or whatever shape you choose, as you might on a level and open plain.”24 In Kahn’s design the new

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level was surrounded by heterogeneous elements: the apex of the entry ramp, the berm and retaining wall of the grove, a side and a half of the tower, the entry façade of the church – plus its corner and the path to the refectory – as well as the irregular base of the workshop pavilion. No sectional geometry could be more contrasting with the irregularity of this perimeter than the platform’s uniformly flat level. Why such insistence on unbroken horizontal planarity? Alberti may provide a clue once again. He argued that level decks stand as emblems of civic justice because they provide the topographical conditions for fair encounter; this is to say, when buildings and people face one another on the same footing, no one has an unfair advantage. When battles must be waged or contests fought, Alberti advised “you can fight upon equal foot” when the encounter takes place on a level deck.25 In Kahn’s terms, flatness and rectangularity ruled the association of the institution’s parts when the law of equal standing was followed.

Cells In The Stones of Le Thoronet, a fictional history of the construction of a Cistercian abbey in southern France, the members of the community were described as “building blocks of the church”.26 The architect-abbot described the stones and monks as follows: “Freshly shaped, the stone is a light, warm, yellow ochre; in time it will become a golden grey. Light seems to lay on it in turn all the colours of the prism, so that the grey is compounded of and impregnated with sunlight. The raw blocks torn from the ground, measured and scored, become noble material; each stroke, each visible flash of light bears witness to energy and perseverance. Are not we Cistercian monks like these stones? Torn from secular life, scored and chiseled by the Rule, our faces illuminated by faith, marked by our struggles with the Enemy?”

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As with the equal standing made legible by the platform’s perfect level, each of the monks played a part in the make-up of such an institution, and did so equally, having been shaped in the same way by The Rule. Incessant repetition was the ordering principle. Similarly, all of Kahn’s cells were designed to accommodate individuals identically – each a simple cell cut into the desert slope. In plan, groups of these cells were aligned on either side of living rooms, which in turn were centralized around fireplaces. Each interior also opened outward, onto the wider landscape. In section, the cell blocks were cut into the site on its northeastern face, but built up above the slope on the southwest. A rather surprising cut in the back-side retaining wall – arched in one drawing and a diagonal in another – suggests that a water channel, or series of nymphaeum-like pools, may have extended the “architecture of water” to this part of the project.27 Nevertheless, the base platform of the cell blocks imitated the artificial character of the entry deck, at least with respect to its standing on the land. Both the plan and section of the cells articulated the law of human association, which is to say equality in the face of ambient conditions or powers. Grove The bi-directional roof of Sverre Fehn’s Nordic Pavilion, finished the year Kahn started work on the St Andrew’s project, served the same purpose as the brise soleil devised by Le Corbusier and used by him in these same years to “break the sun” and cast shadows.28 While Le Corbusier’s aim was largely iconographic, Fehn’s was more largely practical, for he needed to “break” the hard Venetian light in order to create the right (Nordic) conditions for viewing the Scandinavian art works on show.29 The densely packed trees that Kahn envisaged for the St Andrew’s Priory hilltop grove would have served a comparable purpose: breaking the light, creating shadows, conditions appropriate to the desert location. The striking aspect of his design for the

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grove is that all of the trees shown in the sections and elevation have crowns that conform to a single-line upper horizon, as if they had been cut – which is of course impossible – to the same height. The technique is rather like Le Corbusier’s at La Tourette, the sectional design of which used a raised horizon (line) as the level from which “everything was measured”.30 At ground level, of course, Kahn’s trees conform to the site’s native slopes, varied as they were, but elevated. The grove was meant to be accessible to all, thanks to the inclined berm at the edge of the entry platform, but was reached by the monks indirectly, through the base of the tower. It also had a center, we have seen, not at the geometric midpoint – for that would have been very hard to plot and topographically insignificant – but at the source (the circular pool) from which water was widely and equally distributed through irrigation canals. Here, then, projected shadow and evaporative cooling made the desert’s conditions – unforgiving and unchanging as they were – both legible and delightful. The same qualities would have been apparent in the cells, platform, and water works, ruling monastic life as if it were natural law.

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III

Coming to terms with the conditions for contemporary practice

René Magritte, Castle in the Pyrenées (1959).

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Dagmar Motycka Weston ‘The Language of Stones’: Towards a situated architecture in the design studio

Today’s most conspicuous architecture tends to be dominated by an emphasis on autonomous form. The current hunger for novelty, which values the often arbitrary, iconic image of individual buildings above their content or meaningful integration into the urban context, is in part the product of the financial and instrumental concerns informing contemporary architectural practice. This condition also has roots in Romanticism, however, with its stress on the original creativity of the artist. This preoccupation, which tends to disregard the value of cultural continuity, history and specific urban traditions, is reflected also in much of today’s architectural education. To counteract this problem, one of the most important questions which current pedagogy needs to ask is how best to engender in young architects a concern for the traditional communicative role of architecture. The recognition of the modern malaise of formalism, placelessness and the poverty of meaning has led in recent decades to a renewed interest in place-making and strategies of regionalism. These explorations have been helpful, and reinforce this author’s conviction that to counteract the wide-spread tendency toward homogenization, aestheticism and banality, and to maintain its traditional ethical function, architecture must grow out of the given conditions of its

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setting; it must be situated in and expressive of a particular physical and cultural context. In this sense, the setting or site must play a central role in informing the content and form of architecture and of the public realm. The question of the appropriate content for architecture – of the kinds of themes which it should communicate – only arose with the waning of the classical tradition in the late eighteenth century, and is a characteristically modern issue. It is now often framed in terms of the original invention of the artist-architect. This modern emphasis often throws up the problem of the legibility of meaning. A conceptual, invented narrative – no matter how elaborate – fails to produce the pleasurable sense of deep recognition which an architecture situated in a shared background can evoke. This is because individual creativity, no matter how inspired, is only a poor substitute for the rich cultural memory which over time is sedimented in the situations which articulate the shared background, the world of human experience.1 The history of ideas and architectural tradition must play an essential role in helping to identify the kind of themes architecture and the public realm should communicate to be meaningful, and to fulfil their essential function – as did the civic buildings and communal spaces of pre-modern cities – of providing existential orientation to their inhabitants. The interpretative, hermeneutical approach, with its respect for tradition and its emphasis on the generative role of metaphor, is fruitful in this process.

‘The language of stones’ These are some of the principles which informed the pedagogical approach to an architectural design project, called ‘The Language of Stones’2 which the author ran in recent years at the University of Edinburgh. The project was inspired by reflection on the physical and cultural situation of south-east

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Scotland. Its brief was to design a geology study centre dedicated to the pioneering eighteenth-century Scottish geologist, James Hutton, on the north Berwickshire coast near Siccar Point. The remarkable geological configuration of this place, where the North Sea’s erosion has exposed the collision between rock strata of two different ages, was what Hutton termed an “unconformity”. It became for him evidence for his radical new scientific theory of the Earth as a dynamic system, constantly evolving in deep, geological time. This physical feature found its way into the thematics of many of the student projects. In establishing the topographical and cultural context for the project, areas of investigation included the culture of the Scottish Enlightenment centred in south-east Scotland, this area’s rich stone-building traditions, and the ancient iconography of stone architecture which included such archetypal images as thick walls, towers and caves. The students were taken on a geological tour of Siccar Point, and the natural and architectural topography of the whole site area was carefully studied and interpreted. The study of geological phenomena, and visits to a quarry, a stone yard, and a geological museum also served to engender a more hands-on, corporeal appreciation of the material and its qualities. It is one of the features of architectural modernity (with its mass industrial production, the demise of craft traditions and, typically, a separation of the architect from the process of making) that our understanding of building materials and of the construction process is on the whole conceptual and somewhat anaemic. This deficiency calls for us to explore materials as much as possible through the medium of our body, in a way which enables us to rediscover some of their primordial richness. It also requires understanding and experience of the building process, and a sensitivity to the inherent qualities of materials. The chief focus of the project was the thematics of stone, an elemental and architectural material with an extremely rich historical, iconographic and – more recently – scientific tradition.

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Masonry’s thickness and concavity. Tantallon Castle, East Lothian, fourteenth century.

Stone’s experiential, haptic dimension and sensual power While all building materials have a corporeal dimension, stone possesses for us human beings a potent visceral power. This is due to the way it is given to us in the natural world of experience. Being fundamentally of the earth, stone is the epitome of solidity. It can sometimes be the rough primordial matter waiting to be given form by the carver. It is often inert and impenetrable, a bulwark securing an inner world against a hostile exterior. At the same time it can be polished to a gleaming mirror surface or carved – as in Gothic foliage basket capitals – into the most delicate ornamental detail. Its weight reminds us of our own, earthy and inescapable engagement with gravity. Possessed of a massive materiality,

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many stone buildings speak a poetic language of thickness, load-bearing and concavity. This condition is expressed in post-and-lintel architecture but especially in vaulting. Conversely, thin tablets of stone, such as onyx or alabaster, can become a dematerialized, vitreous membrane, filtering mysterious light into dark interiors. Perceived through the medium of our soft bodies, stone is hard. Yet many stones are also paradoxically yielding, accepting lasting forms or marks. In reciprocity with our body, stone buildings have their own distinctive sound, texture and temperature. Having a natural affinity with water, light and shadow, they linger in memory and the imagination. These are some of the reasons why stone has always exerted a powerful fascination, and why the Surrealists and Le Corbusier, for example, saw rocks and pebbles as tantalising, tactile guides to the richness of the experiential world.

Scottish tradition of stone building and genius loci Scotland has a particularly rich geology and stone masonry tradition. The form and culture of the city of Edinburgh, for example, have always been shaped by its geological foundation, with the main, broad street of the ancient town forming along the natural spine connecting the massive stumps of two extinct volcanoes. The density and height of the stone tenements of the Old Town were, by the late seventeenth century, among the highest in Europe, due largely to the pressure on land in the naturally fortified centre. Arguably, this density and diversity of life concentrated in the city centre would eventually contribute to the ferment of the Scottish Enlightenment. The ancient tradition of building in stone in Edinburgh and the area of south-east Scotland has played a powerful part in their distinctive regional character, their genius loci. Scotland once had a large number of active stone quarries, and one can often see places where castles

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or tenements appear to grow directly out of the earth which supports them, instilling a coherence and a recognition of belonging. The prevalence of stone construction also meant that the employment of large numbers of people in the region was linked to it. The chthonic character of central Edinburgh gives it its atmosphere, and is also sometimes manifest in its literature. The use of local materials in pre-industrial cultures naturally led to an architecture which was of a particular place. Choosing to work with locally sourced materials and traditional methods, reinterpreting traditions in a contemporary idiom, is not only good for the local economy, but can also help in maintaining a meaningful regional character in the midst of today’s globalized construction industry.

The iconographic tradition of stone Stone – when understood in its primary phenomenal nature and not yet objectified – has an immensely rich iconographic tradition. Its deep archetypal images are embedded in the “latent world” of human experience, and resonate in the imagination and in reverie. Like other ancient building materials, stone was once understood in reciprocity with nature and shrouded in myth. Prior to the modern period, works of art and architecture were rooted in this symbolic tradition. The marbles and tessellated mosaic surfaces in Byzantine and medieval churches, for example, were often understood as symbolic representations of frozen oceans and of the geometrical patterns of the heavens respectively. 3 In churches, which represented the house of God or the created cosmos, the material qualities of colourful, veined, and reflective stone contributed to making the ideal order palpable. Contemporary explorations of the “imagination of matter” have strong affinities with this tradition. While the symbolic understanding has in the modern period tended to be sidelined

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Edinburgh Castle, view of the castle on its rock.

by the objectifying rationalism of science, many of its themes, such as the orientation of lived spatiality, or the cyclicality of day and night, of the seasons, and of human life, remain accessible to us within the cosmic conditions of the experiential world. The archetypal ancestor of all stone architecture is the cave. Dark, humid and of the earth, it is a fundamentally chthonic element, possessing regenerative powers. From the beginnings of human culture and in most religions, caves – with their feminine concavity – were associated with the womb of the Earth Mother. They were sites of cosmic mysteries and served as the earliest sanctuaries and burial places. The ancient understanding of caves as places of death and regeneration has been absorbed into Christianity. In one tradition Mary gave birth to Jesus in a cave, and she is often portrayed within the setting of the grotto as a kind of primal Mother goddess.

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Matthias Bernard Braun, a hermit (St Jerome) outside his cave, Kuks, Bohemia (early 18th century).

Jesus’ tomb and place of resurrection is likewise often imagined as a cavern. The descent into the cave or labyrinth, as in the myth of Theseus and the Minotaur, implies a confrontation with dark chthonic forces and death, and the possibility of cosmic renewal. In Mannerist gardens, the natural cave is represented by the grotto, the dark, mysterious place where the sun’s rays penetrate, promoting the natural creativity of the earth. Some of these themes characterize the caves in which holy men and hermits have sought solitary retreat. Le Corbusier’s and Édouard Trouin’s 1948 project for the cave sanctuary dedicated to St Mary Magdalene at La Sainte-Baume in Provence is a rare example of an imaginative interpretation of the cave theme in modern architecture.4 Stones have always been magical objects, worshipped for their supernatural powers and used in ritual. Sacred stones were sometimes emblems and bestowers of earthly power, as with the Stone of Destiny, for centuries associated with the power of the Scottish crown. Upright or horizontal, stones often mark birth or death. The standing stones or menhirs of Megalithic cultures were linked to cosmic fecundity.5 The stone circles abundant in the British Isles and parts of Continental Atlantic Europe are believed to have been models of the cosmos, great sacred calendars

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which marked key astronomical events. The boundary markers, found for example in the Assyrian or Roman world, were sentinels which circumscribed the world. The weight and permanence of such stones were part of their symbolic power. The verticality of standing stones endowed them with anthropomorphic connotations which permeate the classical tradition in architecture. The theme of the vertical stone was memorably adapted by Le Corbusier for his own iconographic system. He reimagined a standing stone which he had seen on a Brittany beach as the embodiment of the archetypal phallic vertical, forming a mystical union of the right angle with the eternal feminine of the sea horizon in an act of cosmic creativity.6 Metamorphosis has long been recognized as one of the fundamental principles underlying natural order. The hold it has had on the human imagination is manifest in the way it has been represented through the arts. While one material imitating another is an ancient architectural theme, Mannerist and Baroque art and architecture in particular thematised the metamorphic qualities of rock. The culture of curiosities, which flourished in Europe during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, was likewise rooted in a sense of continuity between the many natural elements in the created world, made manifest through analogy. The philosophical contemplation of the wonders of the world had not yet been supplanted by the drive to gather new and potentially productive knowledge. A particular admiration was reserved in the collectors’ cabinets for substances which seemed to transcend simple categories and revealed this analogical kinship, such as crystals, coral and seashells. Prior to the eighteenth century, the universe was still understood symbolically, as a great chain of being, animated by countless correspondences between all levels of creation. Affinities were also seen between the works of nature and those of man. Mannerist culture celebrated the cult of the artificial, where, especially in the design of gardens, the creative powers of nature were to be echoed by the genius of the artist, and where stucco, the

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Plate C2 (Flesh) from Poème de l’angle droit.

man-made stone, was frequently used to represent the natural material. Similarly, in the interiors of Baroque and Rococo churches, stucco was used within the zone of the earth to imitate polished marbles, while above, on the celestial level it would often simulate shifting clouds. In Bernini’s sculpture, heavy, inanimate marble would seem to metamorphose into swirling drapery, angels’ wings, or writhing bodies. One of the most striking examples of this is his sculpture Apollo and Daphne, a work based on Ovid’s Metamorphoses, which with near miraculous dexterity captures the moment of the hapless nymph’s transformation from flesh to tree. Such works of art and architecture served for the philosophical contemplation of the richness of the created world through its analogical structure. In the twentieth century, it was the Surrealists who were perhaps most attuned to the strangely animate qualities of architectural places. For their predecessor, Giorgio de Chirico, the modern city was an eerily

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communicative, sometimes threatening presence, while André Breton’s poetry often celebrated the mysteriously anthropomorphic and magical qualities of Paris. In a similar spirit, Salvador Dalí rhapsodised about the uncannily ‘edible’, metamorphic beauty of the Art Nouveau architecture of Gaudí and Guimard, which seems deliriously to transform itself from stone and iron to water and smoke.7 The early twentieth-century crystalline reveries of the Expressionist and Surrealist movements, in which the natural marvel of the crystal came to represent the transformation of reality to a shining, complete work of art, or the redemption of base matter through the work of the artist, also drew on nature’s power of growth and metamorphosis.8

Human temporality vs geological time The physical property of stone which has arguably contributed most to its iconographic richness is its durability, and its consequent capacity to act – in the form of architecture and cities – as the most lasting embodiment of culture. In the world of experience stone is given to us as incorruptible and ‘permanent’, contrasting with the palpable transience and finitude of human life. It has thus been widely deployed in sacred and sepulchral architecture. During the eighteenth century the temporality of stone was particularly thematised in the Romantic culture of ruins. The decaying stone fragments which travellers encountered on their Grand Tour made manifest human impotence in the face of the inexorable passage of time, and were a powerful catalyst for memory. The melancholy depictions of the silent, noble ruins of ancient Roman monuments, best exemplified by the work of G. B. Piranesi and his circle, reflected the new sensibility of the Sublime within the European psyche. Stone architecture has a powerful role as a receptacle of collective memory. Its sensual matter responds subtly to the cosmic conditions,

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weathering and eroding with the passage of time. It thus poetically narrates history and the collective memory of places. Stone was often reserved for architecture of special sacred or civic significance: the pyramid and labyrinth, the city wall and street, tower, temple and palace. It has also of course been the material par excellence of funerary architecture, becoming inseparable from the marking of death and the hope of an afterlife. It may be argued, as Adolf Loos has done, that the basic human act of making a grave is the primordial expression of architecture. Gravestones which – like columns – possess an anthropomorphic dimension, evoke the lingering presence of the deceased. They sometimes also echo the gabled form of tabernacle or house. Our immediate experience is at odds with the abstract modern conception of geological time. Human temporality is cyclical, concrete and finite. By contrast, the deep time described by the science of geology, spanning hundreds of millions of years of slow evolution, is deeply disorientating to us in its near-infinity. In its context, even stone – seen over unimaginably long epochs – becomes pliable: dramatically created, transformed, and destroyed by the earth’s forces. The initially counter-intuitive vision of deep time replaced the traditional, biblical view of creation which had persisted for many centuries. The adoption of a neutral, chronological scale is symptomatic of the theoretical structure which comes, in different ways, to dominate modern sciences. A fertile tension exists between these two views, which architecture can thematise.

Stone and modernity Since the late eighteenth century, with the emergence of new technologies and ‘scientific building’, European culture has seen a tendency towards abstraction and instrumentalization in architecture. These phenomena are

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Gravestones in Old Jewish cemetery in Prague.

coincidental with the draining of sacrality from human understanding of nature. Along with other building materials, stone became separated from its context in the experiential world, objectified and reimagined – more than had henceforth been possible – as an abstract, technical matter. The science of stereotomy – the deployment of geometric projections in determining the shape of stone or wooden elements in arches, vaults, trusses, stairs and domes – provides a good example of the gradual evolution of architectural thought at the beginning of the modern period away from practice and towards theory and method.9 While ideas about such instrumental uses of geometry go back to the sixteenth century in France, they could not begin to be realized until much later because the architectural world was still too deeply rooted within the experience and practice of the medieval craftsman. The geometrization of the cosmos in the seventeenth century was accompanied by increasingly ambitious attempts to replace practice

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by an all-embracing general theory, a theme underlying much of the epistemological shift which characterized the scientific revolution. The foundations for this were laid by Gérard Desargues, whose ‘universal method’ would facilitate the reduction in the early nineteenth century of the art of stonecutting to a set of methodical principles. The dubious goal of reducing a craft, deeply rooted in hand-making, to an autonomous technique, and of a complete severing of ties with the world of experience, was never fully realized. It continues, arguably, to come closer to our grasp with the advent of the new digital technologies. In contrast to the thematic and sensual richness of the situated understanding with which stone had been deployed previously, the early nineteenth century interpreted it theoretically, placing a new emphasis on technical, aesthetic and economic criteria. In his highly influential teaching at the École polytechnique in Paris in the early years of the century, Jean-Nicolas-Louis Durand saw stone in complete isolation from its traditional iconography, as simply a neutral building material. In his Précis des leçons d’architecture, he listed material types with emphasis on physical properties and cost.10 A few decades later, Eugène-Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc radically changed the understanding of sacred Gothic architecture by interpreting it in terms of structural rationalism. With the industrialization of construction and the advent of the clad-frame building, stone would also lose its essential load-bearing function, and thus some of its power. The late nineteenth and early twentieth century would see the development of non-structural stone cladding as a major architectural theme. The new construction methods of concrete or metal frame led to stone being used in a new way, clothing the building as a thin protective and decorative veneer. The language of the non-structural cladding as a dematerialized skin was theorized by Gottfried Semper and applied expressively by such figures as Otto Wagner, Josef Hoffmann, and Adolf Loos. The subsequent widespread acceptance in commercial architecture of

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stone as a non-structural, cladding material, combined with the development of new stone-cutting technologies, meant that stone could now easily be sliced into thin sheets, and used in the manner of expensive wallpaper. Thin veneer masquerading as a massive solid, it often had poorly detailed joints and flimsy, frayed edges, a problem often visible in contemporary cities. Despite such modern developments, however, the power of stone has lingered. Triggered perhaps by the further abstraction, but also the new possibilities which developing digital technologies bring to architectural production, there has recently been a resurgence of interest in the making of stone buildings, and stone is even in some cases being rediscovered as a structural material.11

James Hutton and the beginnings of the science of geology In Christian Europe prior to the eighteenth century, the earth was generally understood in terms of a sacred history, beginning with the creation and unfolding according to biblical narrative towards its eschatological conclusion.12 The world was seen as a sacred hierarchy whose order could be contemplated through analogy, with a multitude of correspondences like chain links connecting all its parts. Building materials, as indeed all matter, were part of this sacred story. This mytho-historical view began to be challenged by the new ideas of the scientific revolution. It was in the cultural context of the Scottish Enlightenment in the Edinburgh area in the second half of the eighteenth century that James Hutton developed his revolutionary theories about the formation of the earth’s rocks, laying the foundations of the new science of geology. Taking an active part in the culture which was thriving in Edinburgh’s streets, social clubs, and dinner parties provided Hutton with the essential, fertile conditions for his thought. Prompted by empirical observation, he posited that the planet is a dynamic

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system with a hot core, which continues endlessly to evolve in a series of repeating cycles of erosion, sedimentation, and transformation through heat and pressure. In his Theory of the Earth, first published in Edinburgh in 1788, Hutton referred to the earth as a rationally ordered machine, free of a moral purpose.13 In this he revealed a propensity towards a mechanistic view of the universe, which had been introduced into scientific culture by Galileo and Newton. Hutton was friendly with engineer and fellow Scot James Watt, the great improver of the steam engine and a member of the Lunar Society.14 It is revealing to note the extent to which Hutton’s theory of the earth as a kind of great heat engine reflected the rational principles of the Enlightenment. Now part of the rapidly growing body of productive knowledge, it seemed to echo the utilitarian sensibility and the technological developments of the nascent Industrial Revolution. Hutton’s most profound achievement was the radical notion of ‘deep’ or geological time: the view that the earth is unimaginably more ancient than the traditional cosmological narratives would suggest. His conception of virtually unlimited geological time formed the basis for the theory of organic evolution, with fossils contained within rocks becoming a kind of geological clock. Half a century after the publication of his work, his ideas would have a direct impact on the work of Charles Darwin. They therefore contributed significantly to laying the foundations of the great epistemological revolution of modernity. Hutton’s empirical method and his interpretation of the earth as a mechanistic system is symptomatic of the new scientific attitude. Seeking to obtain an objective understanding of nature, this attitude is rooted in the principles of physics and mathematics, quantifiability, predictability, and logic.15 The language of his enquiry belongs to science – unambiguous, coherent, and somewhat dry. These characteristics also inform positivism, in which mathematical relations are understood as the true foundations of reality, and the ultimate source of certainty. Phenomenological philosophy sees this as an artificial understanding, because it replaces concrete reality as it is given

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Eric Parry Architects, 30 Finsbury Square (London, 1999-2002), load-bearing stone façade.

in the natural world with a conceptual construction of thought. The ultimate objective of scientific enquiry (and of modern technology) is knowledge as power, knowledge geared specifically towards the control, manipulation, and exploitation of nature, which is in the process objectified.16 Concerned with the study and explanation of the physical world as a collection of objects, techno-scientific enquiry tends to oversimplify its manifold phenomena, presenting a reductivist picture. To counteract this process, it is necessary to resituate natural phenomena in the latent world of experience. His scientific investigations took James Hutton around Britain to make observations and collect evidence to support his theories. The geologically rich area of south-east Scotland, where he had also spent fourteen years as a modernizing farmer, was particularly significant to his studies. The volcanic

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landscape of Edinburgh’s Holyrood Park, with Arthur’s Seat and Salisbury Craggs, provided an invaluable laboratory of geological phenomena for his study. At Siccar Point on the Berwickshire coast he found the supreme illustration of his theory. The phenomenon of the “unconformity” which Hutton observed there is the startling geological configuration in which rock strata of very different ages meet at opposing angles.17 Providing powerful evidence for Hutton’s theories, this famous place, with its dramatic rock formations, has since become a pilgrimage destination for visitors from all over the world.

Stone, knowledge, and the “logic of the imagination” Hutton’s already quintessentially modern approach is far removed from the traditional cosmological understanding. The view of rock formations it produced is a world away from the mytho-historical understanding of stone’s significance, but is potentially equally compelling. This debate of whether it is possible to reconcile the poetic and the scientific view of reality goes back at least to the Romantic period, with the fear that the relentless drive of scientific enquiry to explain nature’s mysterious phenomena, such as a volcanic eruption or a rainbow, would inevitably diminish their magic. This is a problem which was of deep concern to the Surrealists, who often took the marvellous organic images found in nature as the inspiration for their work. The Surrealist leader André Breton and the writer and critic Roger Caillois shared a passion both for collecting and writing about stones. These they saw very much in the spirit of the traditional culture of curiosities, as part of the sacrality of nature and the marvellous physical embodiments of the earth’s mysteries.18 The stones which they collected became mementoes of their imaginative life and catalysts for their poetic and philosophical reflections. In 1934 Caillois

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Siccar Point, Berwickshire.

broke with Breton and the Surrealist movement (which he had briefly joined) over a disagreement in the crucial debate about the relationship between poetry and science.19 Breton generally deplored the unveiling and explanation of mystery, revering the principle of objective chance or unpredictability, which disrupts reason and yields “convulsive beauty”. Caillois argued that, on the contrary, trying rationally to understand the unexplained does not destroy its magic and that the knowledge gained by the more imaginative contemporary scientific explorations possesses a powerful modern poetry, a view which he shared with other cultural figures, such as Gaston Bachelard. In a letter to Breton, he insisted on the potential for the marvellous in science.20 Caillois would spend the rest of his career pondering the modern problem of finding meaningful common ground between science and poetry. Looking for elements of magic in natural phenomena, he often found hidden meanings and cryptic messages in the stones about which he was writing. They seemed to him to contain natural hieroglyphs, which evoked the ancient correspondences

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André Breton with his collection in his Paris studio.

between the microcosm and macrocosm, stone and flesh, the organic and the inorganic. Mysteriously petrified matter, they embodied revelations of cosmic time, provoking profound meditations on temporality. Caillois recognized in these lapidary reveries a “logic of the imagination”, which was capable of restoring the rich texture of the given through the phenomenon of resemblance.21 Closely akin to Gaston Bachelard’s enquiries into the “imagination of matter”, this approach promised, through its reliance on analogy and the poetic image, to re-articulate the latent connections which always exist between elements in the concrete world of experience. What does this imply for architecture? The natural processes studied by geology have, in my view, the potential to become a marvellous source of imagery for architecture. Phenomena such as stratification, metamorphosis, erosion, fossilization, crystallization, and tectonic plate movement lend themselves readily to architectural metaphor. They are,

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An eye agate from the collection of Roger Caillois, from L’Écriture des pierres (1970).

by and large, imperceptible in human time, yet become dramatic and awe-inspiring when enacted over geological epochs. If understood not as isolated objects but as phenomena situated in the latent world and communicable through the poetic image, they are richly metaphorical and capture the imagination.

Towards a situated architecture The aims of our design project were rooted in these themes. Stressing the significance of the physical and cultural context as inspiration of architectural design led to a study, parallel with the design, of historical and contemporary precedents and local building traditions. Efforts were made to rethink the current, overtly commercial visitor centre. The model of the positivist museum, in which exhibits are categorized and isolated,

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was reimagined as the richer ‘cabinet of curiosities’ – part architecture, part furniture – with an emphasis on placing the architectural elements and exhibits within a continuous network of communicative relationships, structuring a kind of latent world. The fertile tension between human and geological temporality was addressed in many of the projects metaphorically, by bringing a temporal dimension into the architecture through the deliberate manipulation of daylight, acknowledgement of cyclical seasonal changes, and a sensitivity to the way that architecture can embody memory. Thematising the weathering of materials through time (dramatic in the dampness of Scotland) sometimes led to a contrast being set up between the light-weight and ephemeral, and the massive and permanent. Most powerfully, the material imagination of stone conveys the signature of cosmic time itself. The geological imagery of strata, fault lines, crystals or volcanic activity (and indeed Hutton’s unconformity at Siccar Point) often provided inspiration, as well as the archetypal themes of caves,

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Fiona MacDonald, Project for a Geological Study Centre (2008). metaphorical studies, ‘unconformity’, museum.

brochs and standing stones. The project was sited on a semi-urban site in Cockburnspath, a coastal village which had connections with Hutton. A quiet residential community amid rolling fields, it is also host to large numbers of hikers, embarking there on a walk along the Southern Upland Way, a long trail which initially follows the coast and provides a connection to Siccar Point. The swampy valleys in the surrounding area are overgrown with shimmering reed beds. The village has now lost most of its civic functions, and its public realm would greatly benefit from new facilities. A development such as the geological study centre could bring new life to this community. The project produced a wide variety of inventive and poetic student work. I will conclude with three examples. Fiona Macdonald’s project was an imaginative interpretation of the study centre building and garden as a kind of petrified landscape of thick grey walls and brick terraces, an architectonic metaphor for Hutton’s principle of geological “unconformity”. Oriented towards Siccar

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Point on the coast nearby, the group of buildings marked the beginning of a journey of exploration. Simultaneously, through its series of inhabited thick walls, the project sensitively alluded to local historic precedents such as the stone dovecots, as well as the paradigm of the scholar’s study. Activities and specimen exhibits embedded in the walls recalled fossils nestled in geological strata. With its petrified landscape of walls, paths, and terraces, the study centre also enhanced the quality of the public realm of the village. Ben Watson’s project interpreted the brief as a series of elements – a chthonic stone museum tower, the skylit geologists’ studies, pub, public toilets, café and a series of outdoor public spaces ‘carved’ into the side of the hill – which are related to each other and to the context in a number of well-judged, situational relationships. The museum tower, enclosed in thick gabion walls, alluded to the local tradition of the stone dovecot, as well as to the cave or quarry. It provided an appropriate visual focus at the entry to the village, and a powerful setting for the stone exhibits. The public courtyard and staircase connected the new public amenities meaningfully to the main street of the village, creating also a rich stone landscape.

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Ben Williams, Project for a Geological Study Centre (2012), petrified garden wall. Opposite: Ben Watson, Project for a Geological Study Centre, 2011.

Ben Williams’ project was inspired by traditional building types and by ideas drawn from geology, including erosion and fissure. It sought to suggest a geological and human temporality by thematising the weathering of materials and the movement of light. It consisted of a series of programmatic elements – the visitor centre and wash house, museum and cabinet of curiosities, and the geologists’ quarters – arranged around a deep ‘crack’ which resembled a geological fault line, leading towards an outlook tower. This linear element became the ‘petrified garden’ around which the building was organized, and which provided a connection between the village and the coastal landscape. In carving a building out of the earth, the project paid close attention to the qualities of light which permeate the spaces. Each of these projects arose poetically out of the topography and context of the site, while being rooted in regional and historical traditions. A concern with a rich, multi-sensory experience of the place, and its participatory dimension outweighed any search for a novel visual image. Each project exploited the rich materiality of stone in entirely contemporary and imaginative ways. With its explorations of the

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physical and cultural fields, its engagement with metaphor, and with its reinterpretation of certain architectural traditions, the work of the design unit at its best succeeded in pointing a possible way toward the making of a situated architecture.22

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Since the late 1870s when the first legal moves were made to protect Britain’s built heritage, many buildings and monuments have been set aside for special treatment. The system, devised to monitor and assess eligibility for this protection, does allow a hierarchy of value in terms of quality (from Grade I to Grade II) but is limited by the fact that it places buildings from radically different eras in one classification system. This strange situation has resulted in two major anomalies. Firstly, some nineteenth-century buildings have now been listed alongside the buildings which, at the time, were seen by some to undermine; and secondly, apart from technical guidance directly linked to the original construction processes, the advice on the way new work can be undertaken to protect, adapt, or alter any existing structure is the same for all buildings irrespective of the period in which they were constructed. While the first anomaly is often the result of past circumstance, the second, more linked to present practice, is worthy of some further investigation. Tate Britain, a Grade II* building with its ‘neo-Baroque’ portico opened in 1897, is one such anomaly. Although it has been extended and adapted over the years, it is only the late twentieth-century adaptations that have followed conservation advice and stylistically separated the new work in reverence to the old structure. This situation is typical of much recent conservation work and raises the question whether contemporary preservation and adaptation of a

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nineteenth-century product of Eclecticism and Enlightenment Romanticism should be treated the same as the renovation of a Renaissance palace, a Baroque church, or a Medieval cathedral. Is it the case that buildings produced in the nineteenth century were subject to a similar cultural situation as these earlier exemplars, or were different sets of values present at the time which should be taken into consideration when they are being adapted? And if so, what might these differences be? Writing in 1910, Adolf Loos maintained that up until the nineteenth century, European culture had evolved through a continual re-evaluation of tradition, but that aspects of contemporary bourgeois culture had led to the weakening of this fundamentally creative process. He argued that earlier, “... the development of … culture had remained in a state of flux. One obeyed the commands of the hour and did not look forwards or backwards”.1 For him, fin-de-siècle Vienna had lost sight of this continually evolving process and, as a consequence, was operating “without culture”. He believed contemporary Viennese opinions concentrated too much on aesthetic judgement, self-consciousness, and instrumental thinking by focussing on the surface beauty of things and their possible effects on the viewer rather than reflecting on more refined ideas related, amongst other things, to the skills and techniques of production handed down through tradition. However, unlike other polemical writers of the period (Ruskin or Pugin, for example), he neither lamented the loss of an earlier ‘golden age’, nor advocated a staunch ‘form and utility’ modernity that should break away from the concerns of the past. He offered something between the two, and took what now seems to be a much misunderstood, more ambiguous position situated in the present but linked to earlier practice. In his most famous article, “Ornament und Verbrechen” (1908), he suggested that this contemporary focus on the surface beauty of things was particularly evident in the way ornament was superficially applied to the architecture of the time. He wrote, “Ornament is no longer a natural product of our culture, so that it is [now] a phenomenon either of backwardness or

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degeneration”. But at the same time as criticising the use of ornament for aesthetic reasons, he advocated its use when assisting craftsmen (who have no access to Art) in “… attaining the high points of their existence”. This tolerance was expanded further – and has more direct application to his own oeuvre – when he suggested that “Ornamented things first create a truly unaesthetic effect when they have been executed in the best material and with the greatest care and have taken hours of labour”. Here, extolling the virtue of craft, he is using the term “unaesthetic” as a compliment, implying that anything judged on purely aesthetic terms is by definition valueless in terms of craft and culture. This particular discussion of ornament and its value to culture as a whole was not new and was perhaps inspired by the three years he spent in America from 1893-1896, where he came across the work and writings of Louis Sullivan, an early exponent of the re-interpretation of ornament within the new technological age. By the time Loos arrived in the United States, the evolution of multi-storey buildings was well established, but even these new buildings were often decorated with Greek or Roman motifs borrowed from Renaissance culture already one step removed from their Ursprung. Sullivan was critical of this superficiality and suggested that: “… a building, quite devoid of ornament, may convey a noble and dignified sentiment by virtue of mass and proportion. It is not evident to me that ornament can intrinsically heighten these elemental properties …”2 But, like Loos later, he also recognised that there is value to ornament. He continued: “… the mass-composition and decorative system of a structure such as I have hinted at should be separable from each other only in theory and for purposes of analytical study … I believe … that a decorated structure, harmoniously conceived, well considered, cannot be stripped of its system of ornament without destroying its individuality.” For both Loos and Sullivan the use of ornament was questionable but not always wrong, and although their descriptions appear to rely more on good judgment than any system of analysis, they clearly lamented the lack of authenticity

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and meaning in contemporary architecture, contrasting their use of ornament with the decoration utilised in contemporary work designed using aspects of superficial imitation and aesthetic formalism. Karsten Harries articulated this difference more concisely by defining “… decoration that articulates a communal ethos ornament and decoration that we experience primarily as an aesthetic addition to a building decoration. So understood, decoration is the aesthetic analogue to ornament.”3 Treatises on the correct use of ornament go back to the classical world and can be traced back to Plato’s discourses on the use of rhetoric. Plato believed that true rhetoric was dialectic, but, like ornament used only in terms of its ‘aesthetic analogue’, rhetoric used to serve its own ends without recourse to ethos or justice had no value. In the Gorgias, he developed this argument metaphorically equating the arts that care for the body (gymnastics and medicine) with the political arts which care for the soul (legislation and justice). Then he suggested that these arts can be subject to misuse: “‘Sophistic is to legislation what beautification is to gymnastics, and rhetoric to justice what cookery is to medicine’ and that if the ‘soul’ defers decision making to the ‘body’ in these matters then eventually the understanding of the difference will be lost.” (Gorgias, 464c–465e). By the time Alberti wrote De Re Ædificatoria in 1452, a movement away from Plato’s concerns was already evident, with materials, construction, and decoration (pulchritudo et ornamentum) divided into independent chapters. It could be argued that this separation, for Alberti, was undertaken only to simplify his description of the different parts of the building process and that, for him, they were still all inextricably linked. However, the fact that these aspects could be separated at all was new, and his actions inadvertently created a platform upon which later theorists and practitioners could make this division even more pronounced so that by the nineteenth century, the two could be viewed as completely separate concerns. And, it was within the landscape of this debate, transformed into questions of heritage, style, and

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the meaning and value of ornament, that the new Tate Britain art gallery was commissioned. Architects, patrons, and the public all began to question what this and other new buildings should look like in relation to the successful buildings of the past (mostly viewed in relation to decoration and style) as well as which buildings of the past should be preserved.

The birth of the heritage movement In the conclusion to his 1862 book, History of the Modern Styles of Architecture, the architectural historian and businessman James Fergusson wrote: “The great lesson we have yet to learn before progress is again possible is, that Archaeology is not Architecture. It is not even Art in any form, but a Science … and till Architecture is practiced only for the sake of supplying the greatest amount of convenience attainable, combined with the most appropriate elegance, there is no hope of improvement in any direction in which Architecture has hitherto progressed.” Within this paragraph rests many of the prejudices – in both the positive and negative sense – which contributed to the development of the heritage movement in the United Kingdom in the latter part of the nineteenth century. Most obviously Fergusson questions whether architecture is a science or an art (whether its role is utilitarian or aesthetic); but he also expresses an attitude to history where past architectures, catalogued stylistically, can be plundered as long as they fulfil the utilitarian requirements of the present. Therefore, for him, all there was left to argue over was what historical style was most appropriate for use in new buildings constructed in contemporary settings, thus echoing the sentiments of Heinrich Hübsch’s 1828 work, In welchem Style sollen wir bauen?, where “architecture must remain a process of technical and historical experimentation”.4 Like many protagonists of the nineteenth century, Fergusson was not arguing for a radical future

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disconnected from the past based on utility alone – as was proposed in the modernity of the twentieth century – because his ‘preferences’ still allowed for prejudices born from cultural settings – albeit understood aesthetically – to be seen as a contributory factor in the final proposals for a project. He advocated the use of what he termed the “Italian Style”, associating it with Renaissance architecture which had already reinterpreted the classical tradition within a more contemporary context because he felt that, unlike Greek or Gothic architecture, it had not reached full maturity as a style. Although not everyone agreed with his stylistic preferences – different theorists coming to different conclusions often depending on their nationality, their faith, or their own aesthetic inclinations – Ferguson’s attitude to the past was not unique and was aligned with an increased interest in archaeology, ethnography, and the growth of the historiography of art that occurred during the nineteenth century. But even though his use of the term “appropriate elegance” to cover style choice suggests some concern for historical continuity (the style in question was inevitably one of the styles of the past), the understanding of ‘style’ supported by this view was significantly different from the ideas embodied in the very buildings cited from earlier eras. Prior to the eighteenth century the making and adaptation of architecture had been much more concerned with the relationship of architecture to ‘making’ as well as culture as a whole rather than to the debate on which historical style was more appropriate for any given situation. Architecture was seen as a part of culture, not as an expression of it, hence choices regarding ornamental programs were not subject purely to artistic ‘taste’ or, for that matter, social or utilitarian reform. In practice, the working method suggested here by Fergusson initially tended towards critically evaluating the social setting – or some other identifiable condition – before assessing current utility and thence suggesting an appropriate style. At first glance this almost linear process seems to be perfectly rational; and it was. But in rationalizing the design process in such a manner, it oversimplified a complex cultural situation. So although

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this form of historicism appears to be engaging in a rich discourse similar to earlier eras, linking architecture with its cultural setting, in reality it was just matching some cultural issues with stylistic form – almost like an architectural phrenology, suggesting that complex social conditions could be made manifest through the simple act of making a ‘space’. Even though this process was fundamentally limiting it did at least make a link between the past and the present and allowed value to be given to buildings of the past deemed satisfactory for current utility or of value if thought to be ‘elegant’. And, as a result, people became more aware of the damage that was being done to some extant architecture in the name of progress. Out of this atmosphere emerged movements interested in built heritage, particularly the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings (SPAB), founded in 1877 by William Morris and Philip Webb, who offered advice on the protection, preservation, and adaptation of historic sites and raised issues surrounding the ownership of these sites in relation to society’s collective responsibility to the “historic environment”.5 Now, one hundred or so years on, the manifesto is still active, and similar value is placed on buildings constructed within this era of historicism and stylistic ‘pick and mix’ (which Morris was criticizing) as the buildings constructed when ornamental programs embodied aspects of the cultural ethos of the time. Therefore the question that must be asked now is whether the heritage movement is currently advocating practices which contradict principles which led to its foundation in the first place.

The Manifesto of The Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings Although it was more the indiscriminate demolition of landscape heritage and architecture by moneyed landowners that led to the sanctioning of the heritage movement by government in the United Kingdom when the Ancient Monuments Protection Act, introduced by John Lubbock the 1st

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Baron Avebury, was passed in 1882, it was Morris and Webb’s attitude to the ‘protection’ of heritage which has had the most lasting influence. The Monuments Protection Act suggested that societies were custodians of the past, not its sole owner, and as a result began to save buildings of the past for the future, but it was SPAB who recommended the best way to deal with them. They suggested that the vogue for pastiche alterations and additions in the renovation of ancient buildings was misguided, but at the same time they also acknowledged that past eras seem to have had an ability to add to existing structures, increasing their value in the process, in a way that was impossible for architects of Morris’s time to emulate: “In early times this kind of forgery was impossible, because knowledge failed the builders, or perhaps because instinct held them back. If repairs were needed, if ambition or piety pricked on to change, that change was of necessity wrought in the unmistakable fashion of the time; a church of the eleventh century might be added to or altered in the twelfth, thirteenth, fourteenth, fifteenth, sixteenth, or even the seventeenth or eighteenth centuries; but every change, whatever history it destroyed, left history in the gap, and was alive with the spirit of the deeds done midst its fashioning. The result of all this was often a building in which the many changes, though harsh and visible enough, were, by their very contrast, interesting and instructive and could by no possibility mislead.” Perhaps the key phrase here is “change was of necessity wrought in the unmistakable fashion of the time”. They suggest that the eclectic fashion of their time is in itself self-consciously and (recalling Plato’s criticism of the Sophists) rhetorically historicist, and consequently more about re-fashioning than fashioning anew: “It is sad to say, that in this manner most of the bigger Minsters, and a vast number of more humble buildings, both in England and on the Continent, have been dealt with by men of talent often, and worthy of better employment, but deaf to the claims of poetry and history in the highest sense of the words.” So why, once the construction of historicist ‘forgeries’ was no longer fashionable, have architects remained unable to

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present more examples of well-judged adaptations? Could it be partially due to Morris and Webb’s suggestion for appropriate action in the face of heritage? They made a plea for architects to: “… show no pretence of other art, and otherwise to resist all tampering with either the fabric or ornament of the building as it stands; if it has become inconvenient for its present use, to raise another building rather than alter or enlarge the old one; in fine to treat our ancient buildings as monuments of a bygone art, created by bygone manners, that modern art cannot meddle with without destroying.” As a result, the very objectification of the past through the classification of styles that Morris and Webb were criticising for its ability to encourage contemporary forgeries became enshrined in their proposed advice for better practice in preservation. To paraphrase this closing sentence: If a building was deemed valuable enough to be retained, all contemporary additions should be stylistically separated from the original, thus defining all forms of ‘new’ architecture also as a style. How can this attitude foster a better engagement with tradition in its broader sense if the architect is being actively encouraged to design an addition which is more linked to a theoretically abstract idea of ‘what constitutes current fashion’ rather than investigate the nature of the particular ‘monument’ and setting under review? Webb’s own oeuvre, such as 1 Palace Green of 1868, or Standen of 1894, suggest that his buildings responded to both place and culture in such a way that this stark concluding statement would not result in a radical juxtaposition of old and new. However, the problems at the centre of the statement became apparent with the rise of the Modern Movement where the case against ornament and for the expression of functional utility became the prominent foundations of any aesthetic value. That is not to say that all modern extensions to old buildings executed following this guidance is flawed; it just means that the original building and its addition are not designed to be viewed as a part of a continuing tradition, and that this prejudice has fundamentally limited the possibility

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of conservation work for much of the last seventy years. There are exceptions to this, such as Hans Döllgast’s 1957 restoration and adaptation of Leo von Klenze’s Alte Pinakothek, München, of 1836; or more recently David Chipperfield’s 2009 renovation of Friedrich August Stüler’s Neues Museum (1843–1855) in Berlin, to name but two. But even here, where the architect has blurred some of the lines between the old and the new, the new work is ornamentally mute. Morris and Webb’s manifesto does not allow for the resolution of this problem, and as a result, their attitude to architecture expressed within their manifesto appears to be subject to the same misinterpretations and contradictions as historicists where judgments were made in relation to ‘form’ or ‘function’ (utility) rather than in the context of broader cultural horizons. Consequently, the question that must be asked today is whether conservation of nineteenth-century buildings should be subject to different rules or practices than buildings of different eras where architectural representation was more embodied rather than applied. The development, extension, and renovation of Tate Britain offers an interesting record of some of these issues as they have been addressed – or ignored – over the past hundred or so years, beginning with the demolition of one of the largest buildings in London.

A short history of the buildings of Tate Britain At the height of the debate on historicism and preservation, the vast structure of Millbank Prison, which covered over eighteen acres next to the Thames in West London, was demolished to make way for the National Gallery of British Art, the Royal Army Medical College, and Queen Alexandra’s Military Hospital as well as the Millbank Estate, one of London’s first major social housing estates. The prison, which had for a brief time fulfilled the role of the National Penitentiary, then as the holding place for prisoners awaiting

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deportation, was only seventy years old at the time of its demolition but had already found its way into the national consciousness described in Dickens Bleak House of 1869: “It was a large prison, with many courts and passages so like one another, and so uniformly paved, that I seemed to gain a new comprehension … of the fondness that solitary prisoners, shut up among the same staring walls from year to year, have had … for a weed, or a stray blade of grass. In an arched room … like a cellar up-stairs; with walls so glaringly white, that they made the massive iron window-bars and iron-bound door even more profoundly black than they were.” Although bricks from the demolished prison were used in the construction of the military hospital, college, and the housing estate, it is only the surrounding topography, where the octagonal imprint of the prison’s perimeter is still visible, that the scale of the original building is evident. Today the military college survives as Chelsea College of Art and Design, but only a few of the hospital buildings remain, the most prominent of which is the old Hospital Lodge abutting the Embankment. These red brick and stone buildings were built in the early part of the twentieth century in the ‘Imperial Baroque’ and ‘French Renaissance’6 styles deemed suitable for military institutions. The first phase of the National Gallery of British Art, later named Tate Gallery after its founder Sir Henry Tate, was designed by the Victorian architect Sidney J. Smith and opened in 1897. This initial building, constructed of Portland stone with neo-Baroque features, comprised the main entrance, the portico, and the first eight galleries – four on either side of the entrance – and was followed nine years later by another set of galleries parallel with the first, also designed by Smith. This second extension doubled the capacity of the gallery but was soon augmented by a further extension of 1910, funded by the Arts dealer Sir Joseph Duveen and designed by the architect W. H. Romaine-Walker to accommodate and display some of the Turner Bequest, most of which had remained in storage since Turner’s death in 1851. This smaller building added a further seven galleries on two floors extending the

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façade to the south along Atterbury Street. In 1917 the role of the gallery was extended beyond its original remit to house the British collection to include the nation’s modern international works, and as a consequence, a further extension along Atterbury Street was built, completed in 1926 also by Romaine-Walker, assisted by Gilbert Jenkins. This team was employed again in 1937 to construct the central sculpture galleries (the first of their kind in England) following a further bequest from Duveen. Throughout the three phases of the building, overseen by Romaine-Walker, there is already visible an evolving attitude to gallery design and the display of art insofar as each new gallery, whilst being clearly a part of an overall plan, managed to deliver something that was considered ‘contemporary’ – albeit in an architectural milieu obsessed with the uses of style. By the late sixties this somewhat deferential attitude towards the older building was no longer so prevalent, at least for the commissioning authorities responsible for new additions to the building. And even though a very radical option to construct an extension in front of the existing building on the Embankment was rejected overwhelmingly by public vote, a large modern gallery and conservation suite, designed by Richard Llewelyn-Davies and John Weeks, was built in the north-east corner of the site and completed in 1979. The office’s ethos of designing loose fit and “indeterminate architecture”7 flexible enough to accommodate future changes is most obvious in their new galleries which constitute a large open space for temporary exhibitions housed under a concrete vault which is capable of moderating the internal environment for the specific requirements of different exhibits. This bold extension was followed by a more rhetorical piece of architecture in 1982–1987 designed by James Stirling to re-house the Turner collection in more up-to-date facilities including new galleries, a lecture theatre, and more conservation spaces. This building attempted to reference both the original building, which it flanked, but also the neighbouring red brick and stone Queens Hospital Lodge on the edge of the site facing the river. This extension

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was followed in 2001 by a restructuring of the accommodation on Atterbury Street by John Miller and Partners, including the addition of ten new galleries on the lower level and a new entrance onto the street. Apart from the interior design of the coffee shop and restaurant by Dixon Jones from 1981–1984, these works constituted the extents of the Tate Britain when Caruso St John were appointed to oversee the refurbishment and development of the building for the future. The brief opened the way to a much broader interpretation of the relationship of each of the individual parts of the building to the whole and offered an opportunity to reassess the nature of the relationship the building should have with its nineteenth- and twentieth-century past going forward into its future.

Caruso St John additions Caruso St John architects took over from John Miller and Partners as architects for the Tate in 2006 with a brief to undertake a review of the whole site. The resultant design strategy split the proposed works into several stages beginning with the refurbishment of the Sidney Smith galleries to the right of the entrance, (incorporating up-to-date environmental controls), substantial work to the public areas around the entrance and basement, and the relocation of the members area on the upper level of the central rotunda. (Pl. 5) As a part of these works Caruso St John have carved a grand staircase, which now dominates the main view into the rotunda from the Millbank Foyer, down into the basement. This decorative stair, and the honed terrazzo that surrounds it, builds on motifs found elsewhere in the building (notably in the Millbank foyer glazing) and create a new material contrast with the cleaned, rough stone columns which line the space. (Pl. 6) This simple act of stripping back the grand entrance space to its tectonic core, then augmenting the stone and plaster detailing with the highly articulated

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Caruso St John, rehabilitation of Tate Britain (London, 2006-2013), Djanogly Café.

new balustrade and pavement, creates an ambiguous mix of old and new more common to work of the Novecento movement in Milan or Asplund in Stockholm than to any English precedents. The stance taken by the office in creating such a radical addition is also evident in other gestures challenging the conservation canon which, paradoxically, most visitors will assume was a part of the original building. Most notable of these features is the new fibrous plaster vaulted ceiling of the Djanogly Café which creates the illusion of a basement room in a large stone villa. The office went through much iteration of this ceiling to establish the folds, form, and springing points that complemented the metre-thick walls surrounding the space, thus creating a vision of the room which fits the narrative of the building as a whole. In this approach to creating spaces that have ‘spatial clarity’ but blur the boundaries of tectonic authenticity and the distinctions between old and new work, the office’s approach to the building as a whole begins to reveal itself as the making of a series of rooms related to the original building but shaped in a contemporary fashion. Their interventions have remodelled, re-lined, and unified the works within an overarching narrative, on the one hand responding to Morris’ description of what should be

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preserved – “… anything which can be looked on as artistic, picturesque, historical, antique, or substantial: any work, in short, over which educated, artistic people would think it worth while to argue at all” – but also in a way more ambiguous than his original call for stylistic separation of the old and the new. The Tate Director at the time, Penelope Curtis, described her ambitions related to the building, following seven years of intense collaboration with Caruso St John, as: “… to display the collection as a whole, without qualitative judgments that deemed some parts to be historic and others to be contemporary. History has no real or singular ending, just as the contemporary can mean very different things to different people and in different contexts.”8 The result of this productive collaboration displays all the richness of the restoration, renovation, adaptation evident in the works by Döllgast and Chipperfield cited earlier, but it is anything but ornamentally mute.

History, tradition, and ornament All of the various strategies for the development of Tate Modern over the years have, in their own terms, struggled with ideas of ‘authenticity’, either with respect to a particular idea or strategy, or concerns related to the identity of the building itself. But, as Fergusson’s earlier quotation suggests, the nineteenth century framed these ideas in a very particular manner that limited the extent to which engagement with the past could be seen as a creative at all. T. S. Eliot suggested in “Tradition and the Individual Talent” of 1921 that tradition, in literary circles, cannot be made agreeable as a word “without [a] comfortable reference to the reassuring science of archaeology as a positive force”. But he argued that this is too simple an interpretation of a complex phenomenon: “Yet if the only form of tradition, of handing down, consisted in following the ways of the immediate generation before us in a blind or timid adherence to its

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successes, “tradition” should positively be discouraged … Tradition … cannot be inherited, and if you want it you must obtain it by great labor. It involves … the historical … and the historical sense involves a perception, not only of the pastness of the past, but of its presence; the historical sense compels a man to write not merely with his own generation in his bones, but with a feeling that the whole of the literature of Europe from Homer and within it the whole of the literature of his own country has a simultaneous existence and composes a simultaneous order. This historical sense, which is a sense of the timeless as well as of the temporal and of the timeless and of the temporal together, is what makes a writer traditional. And it is at the same time what makes a writer most acutely conscious of his place in time, of his contemporaneity … No poet, no artist of any art, has his complete meaning alone.” In the case of Tate Britain where the building to be adapted was originally created during a period when much of the work was limited by the scope of tradition in the first place, this sense of the traditional was absent; the building full of dead metaphor. Morris and Webb would perhaps have seen it as “deaf to the claims of poetry and history in the highest sense of the words”. Nevertheless, because it is now ‘old’, it is also viewed as ‘historical’ and, to a certain extent, a part of a tradition which we have inherited, and as a consequence it is also offered a listing which elevates it to a level on par with buildings conceived in times much more engaged with the ideas of tradition voiced by Eliot. The use of ornament and the refashioning of the public spaces in Caruso St John’s work at the Tate has revitalized the rather staid atmosphere of the gallery on its own terms, and although supplementing or adding to the ornamental program of a Florentine Renaissance palace or a South German Rococo Church in a similar manner would be problematic, here it is an improvement. The use of ornament in the twenty-first century can always be questioned, and its use continues to be difficult for many reasons, but to add to the ornamental program of a nineteenth-century art gallery is an altogether

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different matter. To paraphrase Eliot, here the existing building formed an order which has been modified by the introduction of the new work. It was complete before the new work but since the addition of the new, the whole existing order has been altered; and so the relations, proportions, and values of each stage in the growth of the building towards the whole have been readjusted.

*** In assessing the characteristics of the vast amounts of built heritage we have now decided to preserve, the example of Tate Britain suggests that more sophisticated understandings of the culture which underpinned each building’s genesis is required so that new interventions can engage with these issues in an attempt to move the process of tradition forward. In order to really bring the richness of the past in to the present in a coherent manner, tradition must be recast as something of the future and not of the past. Its fundamental link with the past is only the root of a much more complex set of themes which both situate and frame the possibilities of all future architectural endeavour. Schinkel suggested this in 1835: “History has never copied earlier history and if it ever had done, such an act would not be told as a part of history. The only true historical act is one that introduces in some way an extra, a new element, into the world, from which a new history is produced.”9 Here Schinkel is not suggesting that the past should be discarded in order to develop a new architecture, but that a better understanding of culture, change, evolution, and representation in relation to tradition is required in order to make history. It could be argued that the most obvious place to begin this work in the twenty-first century is in relation to heritage and conservation where the past is already partially manifested.

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The original meaning of ‘decoration,’ or décor, adheres closely to that of ‘ornament’, which derives from the Latin translation and equivalent of the Greek kosmos – the order of the natural world. In this ontological understanding, order is an implicit and harmonious relationship of parts to the whole, which in our case corresponds to the reciprocity between the relationship of individual arts and the unified space. Architecture and the arts take their decorative meaning from the nonaesthetic, mediative role in the process of representation. They are thus closely related to the Greek understanding of representation as kosmospoiēsis, the articulation of meaning and order in view of the whole.1 — Dalibor Vesely

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Patrick Lynch Civic Bodies: Lynch Architects at Victoria Street

The client for our recent projects in Westminster, Land Securities, is in the unusual position of owning most of the land and buildings on Victoria Street, and so has the opportunity to act as a patron of architecture in the tradition of the great estates of Georgian London. Our task has been to respond to their ambitions to create a new city quarter that resolves some of the problems associated with a major urban transport hub. This task might be called civic architecture. Despite their excellence at railway design and sanitation technology, and the quality of their churches and town halls, Victorian patrons could not always reconcile civil engineering with civilitas. Certainly, Victoria is not synonymous with great buildings, nor is it known as a pleasant part of the city – despite its proximity to parks and national monuments, the river, Belgravia, St James, Pimlico, etc. The road engineers of the 1960s seemed to scorn civic culture. In the 1960s Land Securities constructed a number of mediocre modernist pastiches on Victoria Street, e.g. Portland House is a not-so-distant echo of Gio Ponti’s Pirelli Tower in Milan, itself copied by Beluschi et al. for the Pan Am building in New York. Land Securities are also developing and building projects at Victoria by David Chipperfield, PLP (formerly KPF), Benson and Forsyth, Caruso St John, HHbR (formerly Buschow Henley) and Lynch Architects. Victoria Street has always resisted attempts at imposing an over-arching aesthetic master plan. Conceived, originally at least, as a typical Victorian

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John Francis Bentley, Westminster Cathedral (London, 1895-1903), east façade looking towards Victoria Street. Opposite: Victoria Street, London.

High Street, until recently the rich hinterland of Victoria Street – its schools and housing – has been obscured by some very large and very monotonous twentieth-century buildings that (unwittingly?) denied its civic presence. Recent attempts by architects including Hopkins, Allies and Morrison and KPF to seek within this submerged urban richness a singular visual order seem in retrospect perhaps always to have been doomed to be defeated by the fragmentary and episodic character of Victoria Street. What is emerging instead are a number of buildings that address specific situations. In particular, buildings that seek to heal certain rifts in the civic structure, revealing connections between the train station and the palace; reconnecting the Cathedral and Victoria street; opening up pedestrian routes between City Hall and the urban grain to the north and south; and reinforcing the density of uses and urban forms that one expects to find on a typical High Street.

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This fragmented master planning approach is creating a typical London quarter, recovering the mixed character that we associate with London’s ‘urban villages’, albeit at a grand civic scale. The large urban estate developments of London over the past 200 years are typified by a number of buildings by different architects, and also by a number of different buildings by the same firm of architects, and Victoria Street is no different. Benson and Forsyth Architects’ Nova West is ambiguously a single block and almost an entire street in itself, as well as appearing as two distinct terraces. PLP Architecture are building a number of similarly detailed and variously scaled offices that together form a distinct urban cluster. EPR Architects built a series of buildings from the 1960s to 2005, and Burnet Tait and Partners were behind the creation of a series of mega-blocks from the late 1950s onwards. David Chipperfield Architects

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Patrick Lynch, Victoria Library, sketch, view of the exterior.

are set to transform Portland House into a more obviously civic urban tower, ironically whilst converting it from offices into homes. Lynch Architects have been involved in the process of the transformation of Victoria Street since 2006, and are now realising a number of urban blocks, each of which responds very precisely to their immediate context. Kings Gate and The Zig Zag building replace one third of the mega blocks that previously sat each side of the tower of City Hall, the other one being recently replaced by César Pelli’s 62 Buckingham Gate. The residential building, Kings Gate, defers to the civic importance and scale of City Hall, stepping back in plan to address its previously underplayed entrance portico. In the process, the tower’s slender elegant silhouette is revealed alongside its

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Lynch Architects, Victoria Library, 1:3 scale model. Inhabitable Models, Venice Biennale 2012.

quiet authority as arguably the most ‘public’ building on Victoria Street. In particular, the view from Wilcox Place now reveals the presence of the St James’ Court Hotel in the background of Victoria Street, and the creation of new pedestrian passages emphasizes the hitherto obscured civic depth of Victoria. Similarly, The Zig Zag Building seeks to create a good background context to J. F. Bentley’s masterpiece Westminster Cathedral, as well as amplifying the pedestrians’ experience of the High Street, whilst creating state of the art offices. Until recently, the high quality buildings on Victoria Street were neither complimented by good neighbours nor cherished. Frank Matcham’s robustly civic and charming Victoria Palace Theatre was abutted by domestic properties.

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Now it will be accompanied by another ‘palace’ – this time a palace of books. Victoria Library will be noticeably more flamboyant and ‘public’ than Lynch Architects’ other buildings, creating a counterpoint to the theatre and the grand stone portico of Victoria Station. These will together form a ‘stone urban room’ towards the Western end of Victoria Street to echo the stone piazza at its eastern end, Parliament Square. This local version of a national civic quarter will consolidate the setting of the listed theatre and emphasise the scale of the High Street. Nova East will act as refined and subtle ‘medium’ scale building, mediating the extreme contrast in scales between Portland House, the Duke of York, the theatre and PLP’s very tall office buildings. These buildings, along with Nova West, will be the dominant architectural figures on the skyline and the streetscape. In contrast, Lynch Architect’s projects are largely quieter in tone and more demure in architectural character, acting as the links between the large scale new projects and the existing local buildings, enabling a potentially disparate series of buildings in a fragmented urban setting to together form a coherent place. They are ‘collegiate’, generous buildings, uniting the older and younger players on the team, and allowing the star players to shine. We are working on two large urban sites, one of which forms the ‘planning gain’ for Victoria Transport Interchange (VTI), which is made up of a market-residential building along Buckingham Palace Road by Benson and Forsyth, and 3 large office blocks by PLP. I will describe in some detail the library project as well as some more mundane commissions close by. These projects seek to recover the civic status of institutions and dwellings and to renew the dignity of urban life. Our projects seek to recuperate the traditional notion of architecture as the embodiment of culture – both the culture of building, and the city as the embodiment of civic life. Victoria Library forms the ‘setting of a listed building’, Frank Matcham’s pseudo-Renaissance Victoria Palace Theatre. Large developments inspire complex taxation (known in planning law as Section 106 agreements). It is

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the ‘Section 106’ part of a much larger development that has been called variously Victoria Transport Interchange, Victoria Circle, and at the moment, Nova (North Victoria). These tie developers to paying tithes for receiving planning consent and provide local authorities with funds for improving the public realm and public services. Typically schools receive grants for new buildings, or pavements are changed from asphalt to stone. This levy stands in for general taxation, which successive governments since the 1980s have felt unable to declare in their manifestos. The shortfall in revenue gathered by central government is now raised directly by boroughs and the councils from developers who can see exactly where the tax will be spent. It stands in for, and in many ways replaces, if not replicates the Welfare State. Victoria Library sits above a sewer built by Sir Joseph Bazalgette in 1865, following his work on the draining of the marshland upon which Victoria was originally constructed. The former canal that became the mainline train terminal used to work in tandem with The Stag Brewery, which sat on the site of Portland House across from our site, and which is now being refurbished by David Chipperfield Architects. In-between the library and the sewer runs the Victoria Line, and in particular a new ticket hall is currently being built beneath our project, the ventilation towers of which will be incorporated into our building. Chipperfield is working on the conversion of Portland House to residential accommodation, and he also has designed the new entrance to the Victoria Line station, which will sit across Bressenden Place from the entrance to our library. Vogt Landscape are working on a large-scale planting scheme for Victoria Street and its neighbouring hinterland, which attempts to ‘soften’ the road engineered system and to allude to and bring closer the verdant world of St James’s Park. The presence of major subterranean technological infrastructure, and its submergence and taming of the natural world is a primary theme in our Victoria projects. It is also the principal inspiration for the iconographic program of sculptures that we have devised with the artist Hilary Koob-Sassen.

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The other major influence upon the design of the building is its southerly aspect and the need to limit solar gain and thus to limit the running costs of the library. Ventilation shafts represent the presence of the underground system and its reliance upon fresh air, and our project is in a crude sense a decorative carapace around this. Earth, air, sunlight; these are the primary ingredients of the decorative program. Hilary sees the screen façade as a trellis upon which the cultivated natural world blossoms into an expression of the fruits of culture, revealing the constant presence of the natural world and of the implicit tensions within technological infrastructure and public life. In urban terms our project is in fact a mixed-use L-shaped edge to a city block, and we have tried to consolidate and to emphasise the primacy of the block in this location in contrast to the neighbouring existing and proposed buildings whose forms are generated almost exactly as a correlation between the shape of sites defined by roads and the economic imperative, which ordinarily leads architects to build to the limit of the plot boundary. In programmatic terms, the library is accompanied by 36 units of affordable housing i.e. 10 x 1 bedroom ‘intermediate’ flats which ‘key workers’ (nurses, firemen, school teachers, etc.) will occupy and part own, and 26 family ‘social needs rented’ flats ranging from 2-4 bedrooms, which will be occupied by low-income residents. The library is pre-let to Westminster City Council at 50% of the market rental for office accommodation, and the ‘affordable housing’ was designed in tandem with Dominion, a ‘Registered Social Landlord’ who will manage the properties and act as landlord. Accompanying these uses, a small office building will sit perpendicular to Bressenden Place along Allington Street at the rear of the site, behind the Palace Theatre’s planned new fly-tower. This incorporates the façade and ground floor and basement of Suttons, a 1930s ‘Moderne’ Pawn Brokers, which used to sit 200m away on Victoria Street. Our initial intention was to house sculptures representing the 9 Muses in the solar-screen that defines the south façade of the library, and for each

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Patrick Lynch, Victoria Library, section, sketch.

of the muses to be represented not as a figure per se, but rather for the essence of each muse to be re-presented in a spatial and material analogue. Put somewhat crudely, each muse embodied and represented one aspect of culture central to ancient Greek society. This culture was oriented towards re-presenting aspects of the natural world. Urania re-presents and stands in for the role that astronomy plays in culture; astronomy is a metonym for the stars and the night sky, which in itself is one visible aspect of Cosmos – that is, order, unity, world, universe. And so what is necessarily partial in human understanding was understood in the familial metaphor of a family of sisters to be a form of linked unifying themes that taken together describe the unity of culture as a mirror of nature. The co-existence of the library and theatre led me initially to think that the muses was an appropriate metaphor for the essentially memorial nature of both, in the sense that a House of the Muses might be construed not only as a museum, and that a library houses all of the knowledge that we associate with the muses. The muses represent in fact the various aspects of culture that we collect in books and house in libraries. However, unlike a mediaeval library or an eighteenth-century university library such as Coimbra or a monastic collection such as at St Gall, a modern

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public library does not order books according to the trivium et quadrivium, or any other analogous system of Muse-like derivation. What can be said though, is that a library is now much less of an archive or a scriptorium than in the past: it houses not just images of the cornucopia of human activities contained previously within books, it actually houses them. A modern library in London is not just a metaphorical representation of an ideal civic life: it accommodates it, and should represent this fact. The question that arose immediately alongside this hermeneutic interpretation of ‘house of culture’ as ‘the muses’, was ‘how can the various aspects of culture housed in a library respond to its location in a city quarter?’ Since it is clear to me that a house of culture cannot simply stand-in for culture, and that the true home of this is the city itself of which a library is simply one part. It might be one of the most explicit parts of a city – but it must be explicit about its role and place in a city if it is to exhibit any of the civic qualities that Alberti demanded of architecture. It is not enough for a library simply to ‘look like a library’ in semiotic terms i.e. it is not enough to have a set of stone steps up to a portico in the manner of most nineteenth-century institutional buildings. It is not enough for a library to become instead a machine for reading or a machine for meaning. What remains interesting about the muses is that in depictions of them something of the character of each discipline and art is revealed, and that these share resemblances with each other. I take this to mean that they are like buildings in a city rather than strangers. In fact, buildings in cities not only define each other as different institutions or ‘types’ but share characteristics; buildings in fact can have many spatial typologies and even different building types within themselves. A library is not just a book depository or a store, but also a theatre for performances and readings as well as a place to study: it houses individual and communal activities, re-representing all of them to inhabitants and the city beyond. A library should exhibit aspects of civic culture and at the same time attempt to re-present the origins of our knowledge in the natural world.

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The question ‘how can the various aspects of culture housed in a library respond to its location in a city quarter?’ can only be answered as architecture. This is why the following text stands in for drawings and images that need to be imagined and also remembered when assessing the success or otherwise of architectural ambition. Civic ambitions might be defined as architectural ambition. The desire and ability to create memorable images and experiences of city institutions re-presents these values located somewhere, and are incarnate and heuristic. How, then? The base of the new building steps back from the entrance portico to the theatre creating the opportunity for a seat (from the necessity to face the exposed brick wall with stone). This new stone wall will house a bas-relief sculpture depicting the underground transport and technological systems, or in other words the history of the site. The Muse of history is Clio, and so it is possible to extrapolate a slightly hokey and pretentious allusion to her presence in a mural that represents the hidden aspects of the site. This intellectual scaffold became at once too obvious and pointless quite quickly, and as the project developed the thematic of the muses has become absorbed into a less self-conscious attempt to situate a number of spatial settings in relation to use and to their location. The stone bench is a typical architectural trope which was common to Renaissance palazzi, grounding the battered base of Alberti’s Palazzo Rucellai for instance in a common territory of use. Despite its niches and statues, Frank Matcham’s frons scenæ façade of The Victoria Palace Theatre is uninhabited and shallow. In contrast, our urban palace can operate not only as an allusion to a classical architectural trope analogically, but its use as a library enables us to inhabit the immediate territory with real bodies. The ground floor of the library is entered – during library hours – at the southeast corner of the building, and after-hours the upper floor restaurant and bar can be entered from the secondary entrance beside the theatre. So, the need for a large staircase at the ground floor, clearly orienting visitors

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and separating the childrens’ library from the foyer offers the opportunity also for an amphitheatre, enabling reading groups and recitals and actors next door to perform and to rehearse. This grand stair is of course a common spatial type in traditional and recent architecture, and its orientation towards natural light gives direction to a library. It also grounds the visitor in common experience of libraries generally, acting as an actual and imaginative link to the experiences that follow. In this case it seems obvious to us that a bas relief sculpture would be best revealed in light falling on to it from above, continuing the thematic of depth established outside in Hilary’s allusion to the underworld beneath Victoria Street – its murky past and birth in the control and purging of nature of its inhuman elements. You can experience what Peter Ackroyd calls, in London Under, “darkness visible”.2 In this vein the ascent through the library corresponds with an archetypal journey from earthly confusion towards illumination and transcendence, if only in terms of transition from thickness towards lightness, from opacity towards transparency. In our somewhat strained analogy, the muse of mass or choral poetry, Polyhymnia, seems an appropriate image to form the backdrop to the space for the various performances of being in a library. But this analogue should perhaps instead be seen as a basic contrast between matter and light. In typological terms the grand stair defines the first level of the library as a gallery, which opens above the entrance to reveal a balcony extension to the piano nobile; thus establishing the ground floor portico as a transitional order that also links the library loggia to the upper levels of the auditoria within. Theatre and library are established in continuity with each other both as urban figures on the streetscape, and as a series of territories held and defined by their theatrical façades; these are penetrated by a landscape of staircases that combine movement with stasis (drama), from bar to stage on the one hand, and from foyer to bar on the other hand next door. The large stair at ground floor resolves a practical problem by creating a territory between the childrens’ library – necessarily situated at

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ground floor – and its proximity to the main entrance. This solution avoids the need for walled barriers, but also creates a shared theatrical, civic topos for performances and play. Ascending to the 4th floor past and through three floors of reading floors, one emerges past a translucent red onyx wall, via a café, onto a south-facing roof terrace framed by a row of giant-order stone pillars that form a parterre overlooking the long sweep of the railways tracks towards the river. These house solar chimneys, precisely calibrated to purge warm air from the reading rooms below. They also establish an analogue between the gallery of a villa or a palace, and its garden or loggia. From this point one ascends still further into the double-height public meeting room, which will be used for planning committee meetings and other evening activities associated with the working of Westminster Council. Evening sunlight enters this room from a small, high west-facing window, situating the planning committees and the other events there in an explicit relationship with both the city beyond and also the natural world. The implied horizon of the actions to be enacted within is literally above, and also not quite aloof or distant from the life of the city. The theatricality of the terrace of the café below works in concert with the performances set up by the orientation and character of the double-height public room and the rhythm of the seasons. The calendar of political life – bi-weekly planning meetings, monthly council meetings, etc. – will become sensible as the background to urban order, and also effective upon the urban structure that situates the foreground of decision-making, the drama of justice, etc. The urban institutions of Victoria were present but hidden from each other by the domination of traffic-determined architecture. Victoria Street became typified in the 1960s by very long office buildings. Westminster City Hall is housed within a 19-storey office tower built as a speculative development (1960-66) to a design by Burnet Tait & Partners, and the Council rent it from Land Securities. Either side of it, the same architects

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66-74 Kingsgate House (London, 2010), demolished, 2012.

built two 135m-long slab blocks called Kingsgate House (to the west of City Hall) and Selbourne House to the east. The latter was demolished in 2009 and is now replaced with a new office building by César Pelli. My practice’s other building site on Victoria Street comprises two new buildings and 3 new public spaces next to City Hall. The District and Circle Line runs to the rear of our site forming the northern edge, cutting off Westminster City School and the St James’ Court Hotel from Victoria Street. The original Kingsgate building echoed this divisive condition, acting as wall between the south side of Victoria Street and the north. The land between the tube line and Kingsgate House was used solely as a service road for City Hall and the retail units that faced Victoria Street. Despite

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Lynch Architects, Kings Gate (London, 2010-2015), south façade.

these twin boundaries and the resulting apparent ‘rifts’ in the urban topography, alleyways such as Seaforth Place to the north of Victoria Street are still used. The service road was a pedestrian alternative to Victoria Street enabling passage across it to Westminster Cathedral to the south or east-west from Cardinal Place towards Christ Church Gardens past the Korean Embassy. A network of civic institutions existed, but they lacked any architectural articulation or civic presence. Tube and road infrastructure cut off the two sides of Victoria Street at the very moment that it was created. Our project is based upon a grand conceit that seeks to draw out the latent urbanity of Victoria as a city quarter. Our aim is to create a situation

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Rut Blees Luxemburg and Lynch Architects, ‘The Silver Forest’, Kingsgate House (London, 2012-2015), printed concrete panels along granite pilastrade.

in which it appears as if we have simply taken away a twentieth-century building, enabling ‘once again’ connections across Victoria Street. Our new office building has a solar-gain protecting layered façade that opens for ventilation, using cold water pumped up from below the site to cool its exposed concrete ceilings. We use the ‘coolth’ inherent in the high water table there to aid the building’s longevity and energy conservation i.e. sustainability. Which in this case means that the development will avoid technical obsolescence and remain a useful part of the city when fossil fuels become depleted or ridiculously expensive, and conventional ways of cooling modern buildings are impossible. The residential building is shaded by a filigrane stone screen that acts as a brise soleil. As well as cutting solar gain, the screen enables large south-facing domestic balconies to take their place on the street in a discrete, civic manner. The sun’s movement across the building reveals its spatial and material depth. Deep stone piers cast shadows onto inhabitants’ balconies, commingling the private and public aspects of these thresholds. Similarly, metal fins cast shadows across the surface of the glass facades of the offices, so that the presence of figures within the building will be revealed to the street. The deep window

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reveals situate the human figure within the façades of large buildings giving scale to the structures. This ambition is inspired by Joseph Rykwert’s statement about architecture “The metaphor with which I have been concerned with is more extended – a double one – in that it involves three terms, a body is like a building and the building in turn is like the world.”3 Our aim is to make architecture that confirms Alberti’s description of “second nature”; architecture that elaborates upon and extends the presence of the natural world into everyday life; architecture as mediation between nature and culture, forming the face and ground of the city. On the northwest side of the building, the layers of the façade are reduced, creating a different rhythm. In this situation – an office block and an apartment block – our buildings lack explicit representational ‘civic’ programs, and are conceived of as background to the neighbouring buildings that do, Westminster Cathedral and City Hall. The former exhibits strong urban characteristics, whilst City Hall is really only civic in the sense of being the tallest building in the middle part of Victoria Street. Its previous neighbours each side did not emphasise the urbane character of a tower structure. Our new buildings step up the street beginning with a contextually deferential stance towards the cathedral to the west. The office building is composed of what appears to be 3 blocks, whose scale, form and massing echo directly the apartment buildings that neighbour Bentley’s Cathedral quarter. In planning terms we form ‘the setting of the cathedral conservation area’ and ‘the setting of a listed building’. Our residential building continues this stepped composition in plan and section, and is angled to align with both the front and rear faces of the ground floor portico that forms the entrance to City Hall, bringing its threshold into play as part of a rhythm of spaces. This portico is the only example of architectural rhythm on this side of the street, and the only thing that could identify City Hall as anything other than a tall office building. Looking east up Victoria Street from the edge of Westminster Cathedral Piazza, Westminster City Hall will now appear

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Lynch Architects and Rut Blees Luxemburg, ‘The Silver Forest’, Kings Gate (London, 2012-2015).

as a distinct urban figure whose neighbours mediate in part the scale and programmatic differences of a city quarter. Looking west from this position you will see the corner of the new public library sat beside a theatre. The rhythm of spaces between these buldings is complemented by the rhythm of their façades, which are designed to modulate sunlight and to emphasise the volumetric quality of the architecture. A quiet ‘court’ is being created between our new residential building and City Hall. Lined with trees and without any public seating, this passage provides entrance to the apartments and is conceived of as a route connecting you to the medieval alleyways to the north and east. It is a version of the courts typical to Westminster, something like a Venetian or Portuguese largo, a route and a civic space, but not a piazza. Our Public Art Strategy for the project includes a number of other artists working in a variety of different media with the common theme of “second nature” (Alberti’s term for ornament). The two-storey sidewall of City Hall has been revealed by the demolition of the old Kingsgate House. This is now filled by a shallow bas-relief artwork 30m long x 8m tall by the photographic artist Rut Blees Luxemburg, (Pl. 7) cast into glass-reinforced concrete,

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and broken into panels formed by thin pilasters forming a pilastrade. An anamorphic projection reveals a path in a forest when viewed from the entrance of the apartment building, through a gap in the trees. The thematic content of the space is literally reflected in the artwork, and shadows of the real trees, and of people passing, reveal images of fragments of trees cast into the thin concrete. The revelation of an image of something naturalistic that predates the creation of the site is juxtaposed with the absolutely temporal conditions of Victoria Street, sunlight, weather, use, etc. combining to articulate an experience of temporal and spatial ‘depth’. Similarly, the staggered stone piers on the residential façade (which reduce each floor by a ratio of N-1), not only act as a solar screen, but appear to form curves when you pass underneath Kings Gate, in a sort of mimetic temporal-spatial projection of the passage of the sun across it; an ornamental moiré, revealed by human movement. The entrance to the residential building will be marked by an ornamental pattern carved into a cruciform granite pillar. This pattern is based upon a French eighteenth-century chinoiserie toile, designed by the textile artists Timorous Beasties. The theme of ecology ethics (as an aspect of civilitas) is articulated not only in the passive aspects of the façade and structure, but also in ornamentation that brings the interaction of site, architecture and sculpture to visible appearance and to a state of participation. A courtyard has been built between Kings Gate and The Zig Zag Building, which is something like a piazzetta lined with restaurants and bars. It is south facing. West evening sunlight illuminates the rear of the space in summer. The plan-form of the two new buildings is mirrored about this space, which creates a perspectival foreshortening of the courtyard and focus upon Kingsgate gardens beyond. Vogt call this space a ‘baroque dining room’. The strongly volumetric and geometric character of the porticoed structure creates a strong contrast with the buildings above, that appear somewhat distanced from the public territory below. The surface of the

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Lynch Architects, Victoria Library, axonometric.

concrete pillars is washed away to reveal the ‘latent aggregates’. They are smooth to touch with a large degree of visual contrast – the material ingredients of concrete are embodied as a form of Brutalist ornament. Tables and chairs from the bars and restaurants occupy both sides of the lower portion of the portico during the day and in the evening. Vogt have designed a 15m long concrete bench for the courtyard space. A delicatessen and bakery sit at the base of the residential building facing Victoria Street. The library is due to open in a few years’ time – once London Underground Limited complete a new ticket hall beneath it – and Victoria Street’s role in supporting the rich background rhythm of an energetic city quarter will become clearer. As in Baroque gardens and buildings, where the rhythmic character of typical situations appeared as niches and external rooms, our architecture is accompanied also by the rhythmic character of architectural façades and thresholds (as niches, windows, doorways, etc). (Pl. 8)

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Lynch Architects, Victoria Library, view of the interior.

My conception of architecture might be summarised as rhythmic armatures housing rhythmic situations. We have aimed to make architecture that is highly responsive to the rhythms of the seasons and to the daily life of Victoria Street. Architecture that reveals the hidden topography and scale of the city. The hope is for “iridescent architecture”4 that is nonetheless silent. This paradox is possible because “the silence of embodiment is always to a certain degree a voice of articulation,” Vesely reminds us, and “it is only under these conditions that we can understand the language and the cultural role of architecture.”5

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Feelings are always feelings of something. They always belong to a situation, which includes things, events and other people in the framework of the world. Feelings allow us to grasp each situation in its totality. There is a direct link between the possibility to grasp situations in their wholeness and the nature of feelings. In the global experience of a room we are aware of its size, light, colour, materiality and overall character in their simultaneity. It is the simultaneity of individual aspects (dimensions) of the room that gives our experience its intensity and concreteness not available in the analytical or more explicit understanding. This represents a paradox we have to face. The global experience available through feelings can never be sufficiently explicit to satisfy the expectations of transparency and rationality of analytical reasoning. This is the main (real) source of common misunderstanding in which feelings appear as vague and subjective – not because they are subjective, but because they cannot be expressed or described clearly.1 — Dalibor Vesely

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Stephen Witherford “Half of it is not necessarily in ruins”

The ruin Glaring sunlight cuts the shadows of blackened brick tunnels and bridge abutments. As the train gathers speed the flickering contrast of dark and light marks time. Bold letters on a passenger’s newspaper announce the government’s push for the complete rebuilding of Euston Station for the second time in fifty years; campaigners fight for the studious re-construction of the demolished Euston Arch. The promise of the future and the comfort of the past work like two pistons pushing in alternation, propelling Britain in a cycle of destruction and remaking. As the cab leaves Nuneaton, it cuts through Abbey Street, a casual rupturing of the foundational link between marketplace and abbey, town and church. Nun-less since the Dissolution, the abbey remains a ruin, rebuilt on its foundations in the late nineteenth century. The provisional brick building that encloses the crossing piers and the west wall has achieved an awkward sense of permanence, a frozen grimace anticipating some form of future completion. The abbey is not alone in seeming half-finished. It is straddled by patchy modernist planning, the rebuilding after heavy bombing; and surrounded by a ragged edge of retail sheds and car parks, followed by the collision of red

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Witherford Watson Mann, Astley Castle (Nuneaton, Warwickshire, 14th century), the site as found at the outset of the project, site photography.

brick terrace houses and large metal factories; until the lane reaches the red sandstone gatehouse of Arbury Hall and a pastoral landscape of modest beauty. Glimpsed through the trees on the far side of the lake, the castle seems half ruin, half landscape: an irregular shaped silhouette amongst the concentration of yews, oaks and pines. At the top of the meandering lane between the brick and stone cottages is an unusually short stone church, and, atop a mound, ringed by a scrubby moat, the remains of Astley Castle. The fire devoured everything that gave the castle enclosure, warmth and intimacy. Staircases, floors, ceilings, panelling, doors and window frames were all destroyed. The first floor is intermittently suggested by blackened brick fireplaces perched in the air and the grand stones of the west window openings. The line of the roof is lost between window heads and the castellated wall top. The gashes in the masonry walls, from the sky down to the earth, provoke a sense of monumentality, and tragic catastrophe. Close to the ground, where more is intact, the domestic scale is embodied in arched openings through the deep medieval walls, fireplaces and the doors and stone window frames.

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Left open to the sky for thirty years, water has patiently worked the large stones loose through many cycles of freeze-thaw, aided by the roots of colonising plants. The strong fortified manor has gradually eroded, standing abandoned on its mound. The marks of previous attempts to halt further collapse add to the sense of futility: scaffolding erected to brace bowing walls has itself succumbed to gravity. Wiry poles lean, buckled and bent under the force of falling stones. The tangle of steel and plants veils the brutal destruction beneath. It is not possible to grasp any sense of the whole, fragments offer only partial clues. A stone chimney stack rises from between blackened beams, the head of an arch emerges out of a pile of brick and rubble and what could be the remains of a tower leans drunkenly forward between two raucous buddleias. The protective stone walls have been breached, leaving the interiors in direct communication with the landscape, turning the stronghold into something porous, weak and chaotic. The almost total obliteration of the north and south walls and severe collapse of the eastern medieval core open up large views of the surroundings, and their traces of past destruction. The horizon of the ground is strongly evident in the cut of the moat and raised earth mound. Framed between the ruined edges is the broken top of the long-slighted curtain wall, the salvaged and rebuilt choir of St Mary’s Church, and vestiges of the estate landscape. The gaping opening that was once the roof reveals the buckled top of the walls and sky above. Whilst the thin surfaces of floor and ceiling have given way to the depths of ground and sky, the distinction between interior and exterior has been blurred by the colonisation of nature and the grotesque garden it has left. Plants grow out of the collapsed wet rubble and broken wall edges. Jackdaws roost on charred oak beams and nest in the sockets that once bore these into the stone walls. Sunlight penetrates deep into this garden, broken edges cast impossible shadows. Stone mullions are picked out in the light and then lost in the dark web of plants. The broken and roofless rock walls give a sense of measure to the movement of clouds overhead.

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When the debris and accumulated flora are cleared – the piles of mossy stones and twisted scaffold, the plants and trees – the raw walls that remain are brutal, shocking. The leaning and broken figure of the ruin in its state of near collapse reverberates with human loss. The sense of abandonment is overwhelming; it is physical, bodily. The hollow rooms, dead fireplaces and vacant windows speak of all that has been lost. It is hard to imagine how life might find a place here again. (Pl. 9)

The house For today, I think of a castle, half of it is not necessarily in ruins. This castle belongs to me, I picture it in a rustic setting, not far from Paris … What if the castle really existed! My guests are there to prove it does: their whim is the luminous road that leads to it. … Human psychism in its most universal aspect has found in the gothic castle and its accessories a point of fixation so precise that it becomes essential to discover what would be the equivalent for our own period.2 – André Breton

The house occupies the heart of the ruin, the deep-walled rectangular manor from which the castle grew. Brick walls bear solidly onto the rubble-filled red sandstone. The mottled slivers of clay trace the ruin’s broken edges in tiny increments: they fit tightly against the stones, locking into their disordered wandering. The gaping holes left by the destruction are spanned by huge concrete lintels. Brick clasps the ragged stones, and concrete bridges the great gaps, binding the fragments together, gripping the leaning walls tightly to prevent their fall. Ruin and house are conjoined to the point where each is completely dependent on the other for their existence: old and new hold onto each other for dear life.

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Brickwork takes its lead from the ragged stone edges, myriad permutations of the progression from ground to sky: broken wall bases close to the earth, midway up window reveals that have fallen away, collapsed springing points for arches, the edges of fireplace surrounds and gaps in the castellated top. No two stone blocks are the same, their precise selection by the masons rendered random by the destruction. The small bricks set forth from each encounter, quickly finding their rhythm, easing the broken pieces back into a set of strong cellular rooms. The ruin is larger than the house: only its medieval half is enclosed. On the eastern side are two external rooms. From outside they appear desolate: their windows are vacant and sunlight penetrates deep into their interior. Entering through the broken gothic doorway, these hollow courts are more poised than the ruin suggests, but also more unsettling. The northern one is like an entrance hall between the landscape and the house. It is two storeys high; the floors have all gone and the door and window openings on three sides are empty. The fourth side has a huge gash at the heart of the castle, filled with a stacked pair of oak framed windows. A shallow roof encloses the hollow room, its centre left open to reveal the sky. The walls are the same as those outside, their rich reds and purple-grey stones a continuation of the warm brick rug that lies on the ground. The second outdoor room is longer, with a finer rhythm of stone mullions and glimpses of ancient landscape. Ragged but sheltered, it feels too earthy to be an interior. Yet the raw brick and stone fireplace with its soot-blackened hearth is inviting. In front of the fireplace a thick slate topped table draws the room to a point of focus and anticipates the warmth from the hearth. The monumental stack of fireplaces stands between the two external rooms, tautly held into the body of the house by a single ‘T’ shaped concrete splint. (Pl. 10) The huge three-dimensional gash beneath this lintel is pressed by the sheer mass of the walls that edge it, and by the masonry that hangs over it. It is a threshold between the house and its external rooms,

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a transition compressed in a vice-like grip. The glass that fills this gash catches the light from the ruined windows and open roof. Reflections of edges and sky fracture into a further set of broken correspondences that rhyme with the irregular figures of the stone walls. New construction is in full contact with the remains, binding the niches, fireplaces, ruined windows and openings to the earth and to the light, together forming an implied whole that remains profoundly incomplete. The ruinous quality of the two external courts can be felt throughout the entire house. (Pl. 11) Revealing itself only gradually through a sequence of rooms, it seems to extend far further on the inside than is imaginable from outside. Moving into the hallway, the relative darkness, and physical presence of the bare sandstone walls betray the medieval core of the castle. Deep openings through the western wall are stabilised and edged with new stepped brickwork that approximates the splayed reveals. Beyond these are bedrooms that extend out to the outermost defensive wall. Their windows are set far back behind the heavily worn stone mullions that overlook the moat, appearing still hollow from the field beyond. Thresholds between house and landscape are deep. The ruined openings in the thick walls jaggedly frame views beyond. The hollow courts establish an extended depth between interior, mound and lakes, a depth occupied with shifting light: time feels tangible. Carpentry gives measure to habitable rooms within the monumental masonry shell. Stepping wood partitions form bedrooms and bathrooms that lead towards the moat, the curtain wall and the gothic windows that puncture it. The partitions create deep niches that echo those in the medieval walls. Framed by this room of steps and hollows, the studwork enclosure of the oak staircase rises up from the clay tiles of the floor, and hangs down from the wooden beams of the ceiling. The stair’s cubic skeleton locks tightly into the room that envelops it. Upstairs is a single large hall. Its raw walls are rubble and brick, its large oak-framed windows trace a regular rhythm, echoing the stone mullions of

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the ruin. Three tables, each beside a large window, have distinct atmospheres that meet and merge. Sitting, cooking and dining are set within the ruined walls and the pastoral landscape that extends beyond the moat. Through the huge south window, St Mary’s Church pushes up against the circle of comfortable chairs like the fourth wall of the room. The rumpled park of fish ponds and viewing mound stretches out behind the kitchen table. Beside the dining table, the hall opens out to the two outdoor rooms, their empty windows and bare walls washed by light from their half-roofs. Through the open void below the pointed arch the landscape rolls and drops to the lake.

Moments and centuries While we were there, we drew, we wrote, we talked … At Astley we friends lived life just that little bit more richly and as slightly better versions of ourselves.3 Towards the end of our honeymoon spent at Astley Castle my grandmother paid us a visit. After some time sitting at the table she pointed to the ruined fireplace in the outside court and announced, “That is where you grandfather proposed to me.” 4

We sit and eat together in the half-ruin half-house, the fireplace blazing below the stars, the cool breeze blowing through the hollow room. An owl flies in and lands on a stone ledge. Surrounded in the dialogue between destruction and continuity, a setting is created that is highly conducive to the wanderings of our imagination. Who lived here? How did they come to own it? What led to their demise? This resonant setting stirs our minds and we remember differently, we see unnoticed relationships between people and things, and we are moved to share recollections with those beside us. Stories mingle with the firelight to illuminate the stones, casting shadows and conjuring strange figures.

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The days play freely across the bare walls. The sun pushes through the hollow openings and gently feels its way around the weathered rooms over rough edges and into cavities, like the hand of a blind woman over the face of an old friend. The shadows of irregular wall edges are cast deep into the interiors. The patina and rich colours of the stones speak to the burns and blemishes of the clay bricks both in the bluish glare of the snow and green-gold of the spring evening. From the elevated vantage of the living room the pastoral landscape eases from lush fullness to stark structure, and the moat from fallen dark stems to a riot of yellow irises and wild flowers. The movement of the clouds is framed in the openings of roofs and walls. The rain brings out the rich warm colours of the sandstone and brick. The destruction wrought by the fire and weather makes what was invisible – that which was concealed behind the décor of the panelled interiors – visible. Archways in-filled with brick and rubble, large openings cut into medieval stones, the marks of so many piecemeal adaptations and changes are revealed like scars. The logic of these marks is long gone; there is no single interpretation, the stories they tell resist conclusive endings. The presence of historical time is tactile, emphatic. But it is not frozen. It is not fixed in a permanent moment judged to be its completion and set aside from everyday life to visit and simply gaze at. It is not a dream. This ruin lives again through us, and the chain of guests who precede and follow us: groups of friends, extended families, each staying here for a few days, a week at most. Many celebrate anniversaries and special events. Reading, writing, talking, playing games, cooking and eating: all happen, together, within the porous stone walls of the large upstairs hall, or under the open roof of the outdoor room. It is a festive house, outside of but reflecting on familiar routines and connections. The rhythms of co-existence and sharing bind young and old in the life of this house. The rooms are coherent enough to suggest behaviour, but open enough to not dictate it. The complex presence of time embodied in the walls, the

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Family meal in the external court.

strong presence of the sun as shafts of light and shadows cut through the empty windows and huge openings, the exposure of inside and intimacy of outside all serve to amplify the sense of incompleteness. (Pl. 12) The almost overwhelming presence of the earth in the rocks and bricks is cut through by the great openings to the sky and its reflections – a vivid setting for everyday activities. Between destruction and re-making, re-imagination creates the possibility to bind the old into a conversation with the present in a setting that supports opportunities for sharing. This half-ruin half-house opens up a space that can only be occupied by the imagination: individual and group, memory and projection – incomplete, open-ended, interwoven, mutually dependent. Memories and imaginings colonise and cling to the house like the tangled garden of plants enveloped the ruin.

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At the still-ruined castle, life is unexpectedly vivid. For all its mineral severity, something deeply human can be felt: the sheer will to be, to continue to exist. Destruction and abandonment are embodied in the irregular figure of the stones, but their resilience is felt more strongly. What remains draws attention to what is lost, and the traumas of the losing; but seeing what is no more only serves to enrich the significance of what persists. Continuity and loss illuminate and define each other like the light and shadows that cut through this half ruin. With special thanks to William Mann, for his invaluable suggestions and support in key aspects of structuring and phrasing this essay.

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Curricula Vitæ

José de Paiva (editor), born in Lisbon, graduated from the Escola de Artes Decorativas António Arroio in 1991, and from the Faculty of Architecture of the University of Lisbon in 1997 (Lisbon School). He holds an MPhil and a PhD by the University of Cambridge and has taught at Cambridge, and more recently as Visiting Professor at the University of Pennsylvania (PennDesign). In London since 2012, he is the author of Fragments towards a Theology of Architecture (2015).

Alberto Pérez-Gómez was born in Mexico City in 1949, where he studied and practiced architecture. In 1983 he became Director of Carleton University’s School of Architecture. Since January 1987 he has occupied the Bronfman Chair of Architectural History at McGill University, where he founded the History and Theory Post-Professional (Master’s and Doctoral) Programs. He has lectured extensively around the world and is the author of numerous articles published in major periodicals and books. His book Architecture and the Crisis of Modern Science (MIT Press, 1983) won the Hitchcock Award in 1984. Later books include Polyphilo or The Dark Forest Revisited (1992), Architectural Representation and the Perspective Hinge (co-authored with Louise Pelletier, 1997), and most recently, Built upon Love: Architectural Longing after Ethics and Aesthetics (2006), examining points of convergence between ethics and poetics in architectural history and philosophy. Pérez-Gómez is also co-editor (with Stephen Parcell) of a book series entitled Chora: Intervals in the Philosophy of Architecture.

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Curricula Vitæ

Christian Frost qualified as an architect in 1990, following the completion of his studies at the University of Cambridge. He has been in architectural practice in Australia, Germany, and the United Kingdom, designing buildings ranging from domestic properties to highly specialised arts projects. His postgraduate study concentrated on the transition from Classical to Medieval architecture. Following his appointment as a full time academic in 2001, at the Kingston University, he began to research on the history of the foundation of Salisbury, which resulted in his book Time, Space, and Order: The Making of Medieval Salisbury (Peter Lang, 2009). In 2013 he was appointed the Oscar Naddermier Professor of Architecture at Birmingham City University. Dagmar Motycka Weston studied architecture in Toronto, and holds postgraduate degrees from the Architectural Association and the University of Cambridge. She taught architectural history and design at the University of Edinburgh, where she is now an Honorary Fellow. She specializes in early 20th-century art and architecture, and in the cultural conditions of contemporary architectural education and practice. She has written extensively on the connections between surrealism and architecture, and on Le Corbusier. Her publications include book chapters in Symbols of Time in the History of Art, Modernism and the Spirit of the City, Tracing Modernity, The Humanities in Architectural Design, The Cultural Role of Architecture, and Phenomenologies of the City. Her current research focuses on the artist’s studio and personal museum as a matrix of creativity. Daniel Libeskind is an international architect and designer. His practice extends worldwide from museums and concert halls to convention centers, universities, hotels, shopping centers, and residential projects. Born in Łódź, Poland, in 1946, Libeskind was a virtuoso musician at a young age before giving up music to become an architect. He has received numerous awards and designed world-renowned projects including: the Jewish Museum in

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Berlin, the Denver Art Museum, the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, the Military History Museum in Dresden, and the masterplan for Ground Zero, among others. Daniel Libeskind’s commitment to expanding the scope of architecture reflects his profound interest and involvement in philosophy, art, literature, and music. Fundamental to Libeskind’s philosophy is the notion that buildings are crafted with the perceptible human energy and that they address the greater cultural context in which they are built. Daniel teaches and lectures at universities across the world. He resides in New York City with his wife and business partner, Nina Libeskind. David Leatherbarrow is Professor and Chair of the Graduate Group in Architecture and the School of Design, University of Pennsylvania (PennDesign). He has taught theory and design at the Polytechnic of Central London and Cambridge University, England, and holds visiting professorships in Denmark and China. David Leatherbarrow was also the recipient of the Visiting Scholar Fellowship from the Canadian Center of Architecture (1997–1998). Some of his books include: Architecture Oriented Otherwise, Topographical Stories, Surface Architecture (with Mohsen Mostafavi), Uncommon Ground, Roots of Architectural Invention, and On Weathering: The Life of Buildings in Time. His research is focused on history and theory of architecture and the city. Eric Parry established Eric Parry Architects in 1983. London has been the focus and the setting for most of his work. He was elected Royal Academician (RA) in 2006 and awarded the honorary degree of Doctor of Arts from the University of Bath in 2012. In addition to his work in architectural practice, he serves on the Kettle’s Yard Committee, the Canterbury Cathedral Fabric Advisory Committee, the Mayor’s Design Advisory Panel, the Council of the British School at Rome, and is an Architecture Foundation Trustee. Eric Parry served on the Arts Council of England’s Visual Arts and Architecture panel, chaired the Royal Academy Architecture Committee and the RIBA Awards

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Group, and was President of the Architectural Association. His contribution to academia includes fourteen years as Lecturer in Architecture at the University of Cambridge, and lectureships at the Graduate Design School, Harvard University, and the Tokyo Institute of Technology. Gabriele Bryant is a German architectural historian with an M.Phil and PhD Degree in ‘History and Philosophy of Architecture’ from the University of Cambridge. She has worked as a lecturer and researcher at the University of the Arts in Berlin, the Central European University in Prague, and the University of Oxford. Her main area of interest is the history of architecture, art, and ideas in the 19th and 20th centuries, and she has lectured and published widely on the idea of the Gesamtkunstwerk and modern German architecture. Joseph Rykwert is Paul Philippe Cret Professor Emeritus of Architecture at the University of Pennsylvania, and one of the foremost architectural historians and critics of his generation. He has spent most of his working life in the United Kingdom and America. Rykwert is the author of many influential works on architecture, including The Idea of a Town (1963), On Adam’s House in Paradise (1972), The Dancing Column (1996), and The Seduction of Place (2000). All his books have been translated into several languages. He has lectured or taught at many major schools of architecture throughout the world and has held visiting appointments at Princeton, the Cooper Union, New York, Harvard Graduate School of Design, the University of Sydney, of Louvain, the Institut d’Urbanisme, Paris, the Central European University, and others: in 1998–1999 he was a British Academy visiting professor at the University of Bath. He has held senior fellowships at the Center for Advanced Studies in the Visual Arts, Washington, and the Getty Center for the History of Art and the Humanities. In 1984 he was appointed Chevalier dans l’ordre des Arts et des Lettres. He holds honorary degrees from the University of Edinburgh (1995), the University of Cordoba, Argentina (1998), the University of Bath (2000), of Toronto (2005),

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Rome (2005), and Trieste (2007), and is a member of the Italian Accademia di San Luca and the Polish Academy. In 2000 he was awarded the Bruno Zevi prize in architectural history by the Biennale of Venice, and in 2009 the Gold Medal Bellas Artes, Madrid. He has been president of the international council of architectural critics (CICA) since 1996, and is the recipient of the 2014 Royal Gold Medal. He was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2014 Birthday Honours for services to architecture. Karsten Harries Born in Jena, Germany, in 1937, Karsten Harries went to the US in 1951. At Yale University, where he is the Howard H. Newman Professor of Philosophy, he has taught since 1961, interrupted only by two years at the University of Texas in Austin and a number of years spent in Germany. He is the author of more than 200 articles and reviews and the following books: The Meaning of Modern Art (1968), The Bavarian Rococo Church: Between Faith and Aestheticism (1983), The Broken Frame (1990), The Ethical Function of Architecture (1997), Infinity and Perspective (2001), Art Matters: A Critical Commentary on Martin Heidegger’s ‘The Origin of the Work of Art’ (2009), Die bayerische Rokokokirche: Das Irrrationale und das Sakrale (2009), Between Nihilism and Faith: A Commentary on Either/Or (2010), and Wahrheit: Die Architektur der Welt (2012). But older than his love of philosophy is his love of art and architecture, a love that was shaped long ago by the visual splendor of the Bavarian landscape with its rococo churches. As his essay in this collection demonstrates, this landscape continues to shape his life and thought. Kenneth Frampton was born in 1930 and trained as an architect at the Architectural Association School of Architecture, London. He has worked as an architect and as an architectural historian and critic, and is now Ware Professor of Architecture at the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, Columbia University, New York. He has taught at a number of leading institutions in the field, including the Royal College of Art in London, the ETH in Zurich,

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the Berlage Institute in Amsterdam, EPFL in Lausanne, and the Accademia di Architettura in Mendrisio. He is the author of Modern Architecture and the Critical Present (1980), Studies in Tectonic Culture (1995), American Masterworks (1995), Le Corbusier (2001), Labour, Work & Architecture (2005), and an updated fourth edition of Modern Architecture: A Critical History (2007). Mari Hvattum is an Architect MNAL and architectural historian with her PhD from the University of Cambridge. She has taught architectural history and theory at Architectural Association, University of Edinburgh, Mackintosh School of Architecture, University of Strathclyde, and Central European University, Prague, and is presently professor at the Oslo School of Architecture and Design. Hvattum writes on 19th and 20th century architectural discourse and practice and has published e.g. Gottfried Semper and the Problem of Historicism (CUP 2004), Tracing Modernity (Hvattum and Hermansen eds. Routledge 2004) Routes, Roads and Landscapes (Hvattum et.al. eds. Ashgate 2011), and the forthcoming monograph Arkitekt Heinrich Ernst Schirmer 1814–1887 (Pax 2014). Patrick Lynch is the founding director of Lynch Architects and a Visiting Professor at the University of Liverpool, where he also studied architecture. He holds a Master of Philosophy degree in the History of Architecture from Cambridge University, where he was supervised by Dalibor Vesely. He completed a PhD under the supervision of Peter Carl, Helen Mallinson and Joseph Rykwert at The Sir John Cass Faculty of Art, Architecture and Design. He is the author of The Theatricality of the Baroque City (Verlag Dr Muller, 2011), Mimesis (Artifice, 2015) and Civic Ground (Artifice, 2016). He previously taught at the Architectural Association and Cambridge. Lynch Architects won the Young Architect of the Year Award in 2005, and exhibited at the Venice Biennale in 2008 and 2012.

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Curricula Vitæ

Robin Middleton Born in 1931 in South Africa; studied architecture, University of the Witwatersrand, 1947–1952; PhD Cambridge University, 1953–1958; worked subsequently for Taylor Woodrow Construction Company; Architectural Design; Architectural Association School of Architecture, London; Cambridge University, Department of Architecture and History of Art; Columbia University, New York, Department of Archaeology and Art History. Publications relate mainly to 18th and 19th century British and French architecture. Stephen Witherford is the founding director of Witherford Watson Mann Architects, with Christopher Watson and William Mann. The practice was established in 2001 and has focused on exploring the spatial and social relationships between public buildings, public spaces, and public housing through a series of built designs, masterplans, urban frameworks, exhibitions, and articles. In 2005 the practice completed Amnesty International UK’s headquarters. They followed this with their internationally acclaimed Bankside Urban Forest public realm framework and in 2009 completed the Whitechapel Gallery extension with Robbrecht en Daem Architects. They have since completed the Olympic Park Legacy Masterplan Framework and the construction of a contemporary house within the medieval ruins of Astley Castle, for which they were awarded the 2013 RIBA Stirling Prize. Stephen is a Trustee of Tate Gallery, a member of Tate Modern Council, the Mayor’s Design Advisory Group, and the British School at Rome Faculty of Fine Arts. He was a Visiting Fellow in Urban Design on the London School of Economics Cities Programme. Werner Oechslin studied art history, archeology, philosophy, and mathematics in Zurich and Rome. From 1971 to 1974 he was assistant at the University of Zurich. In 1975 and 1978 he taught at MIT in Cambridge, MA., and in 1979 at the RISD in Providence. After a short period at the FU Berlin (1979–1980), where in 1980 he qualified as a university lecturer (Habilitation), he went as

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professor for five years to Bonn and in 1985 to the Ecole d’Architecture at the University of Geneva. Afterwards Werner Oechslin received a professorship in art history and architecture at the ETH Zurich. In 1987 he taught at the Harvard Graduate School of Design as a visiting professor. From 1987 to 2006 he was head of the Institute of the History and Theory of Architecture (gta). Werner Oechslin was member of the Board of Trustees at the CCA Montréal and of the consiglio scientifico during the foundation of the Scuola di Architettura in Mendrisio. Since 2003 he is in the management board of the Internationalen Bauakademie Berlin. Werner Oechslin’s contributions on the history of art and architecture from the 15th to the 20th century have been widely published. He specializes in the theory of architecture, in Baroque, modern architecture, and in 18th century as well as in specific problems of architectural drawing and typology and of ephemeral architecture. Some of his publications in the last years are ‘Stilhülse und Kern: Otto Wagner, Adolf Loos und der evolutionäre Weg zur modernen Architektur’ (Zurich/Berne 1994), that in 2002 was also published in English at Cambridge University Press; ‘Moderne entwerfen. Architektur und Kulturgeschichte’ (Cologne 1999); and together with Anja Buschow Oechslin, the new edition of ‘Kunstdenkmäler des Kantons Schwyz, Einsiedeln – Vol. I und II’ (Bern 2003). Werner Oechslin furthermore organized various exhibitions, among others ‘Triumph of Baroque’ (Turin/Washington 1999), ‘Palladio’ (Vicenza 1999), ‘Griechische Klassik. Idee oder Wirklichkeit’ (Berlin/Bonn 2002), ‘Gottfried Semper’ (Munich/Zurich 2003), ‘Vincenzo Scamozzi’ (Vicenza 2003), as well as ‘Barock-Baumeister und moderne Bauschule aus Vorarlberg’ (Bregenz/Austria 2006). From 1981 to 1998 he was co-editor of the art journal ‘Daidalos’, and from 1991 to 1997 also member of the editorial staff of the architectural journal ‘archithese’. He is the founder of the ‘Stiftung Bibliothek Werner Oechslin’ in Einsiedeln, that organizes since 1999 the annual international Baroque summer course and publishes the bulletin ‘Scholion’.

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Endnotes

José de Paiva The Living Tradition of Architecture (pp. 1–17) 1 2

3 4 5 6 7 8

9

Dalibor Vesely, Architecture in the Age of Divided Representation (Cambridge, MA and London: The MIT Press: 2004), pp. 44-107, esp. 96. Cf. Hubert Jedin, Katholische Reformation oder Gegenreformation: Ein Versuch zur Klärung der Begriffe nebst einer Jubiläumsbetrachtung über das Trienter Konzil (Lucerne: Verlag Josef Stocker, 1946), pp. 25-38, inter al. Cf. Aesthetica scripsit Alexand. Gottlieb Baumgarten (Traiecti cis Viadrum: Impens. Ioannis Christiani Kleyb, 1750), p. 4, §10. Cf. Critik der reinen Vernunft von Immanuel Kant, Professor in Königsberg (Riga: verlegts Johann Friedrich Hartknoch, 1781), p. 21, fn. (AA IV, 30). Cf. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel’s Vorlesungen über die Aesthetik, ed. D. Hotho (Berlin: Verlag von Dunder und Humblot, 1842), I, II, A–B, pp. 148-178. Cf. ibid., Einl., I–II, pp. 3-29, inter al. Cf. Edith Stein, Erkenntnis und Glaube (Freiburg, Basel and Vienna: Herder, 1993), pp. 20-21. Hans-Georg Gadamer, “Foreword to the Second Edition” in his Truth and Method, trans. by Joel Weinsheimer and Donald G. Marshall (London: Sheed & Ward, 1999), p. xxviii. Hans-Georg Gadamer, The Relevance of the Beautiful and Other Essays, trans. by Nicholas Walker (Cambridge University Press, 2002), p. 49.

Werner Oechslin “Prudentia non est scientia” (pp. 30–66) 1 2

Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, trans. H. Rackham, Loeb Classical Library, vol. 19 (Cambridge, MA: Heinemann and Harvard University Press, 1934). Cf. In the following: Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Book Six, 1138b–1145a; especially chapters 8 and 9, 1141b–1142a. – The following editions were used for the Greek and Latin texts, wherein the chapter partitions and their incipit sometimes differ: – German translation: Aristotle, Nikomachische Ethik, translated by Eugen Rolfes and edited by Günther Bien (Hamburg, Meiner and Darmstadt:

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3 4 5 6 7

8

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13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

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Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1995), p. 130 ff.: esp. 139–141. – Greek text: Operum Aristotelis Tomus II (Aurelia Allobrogum (Geneva): Petrus de la Roviere, 1605), p. 55 ff.; here: pp. 58–61. – Latin translation by Argyropoulos: “Opus Aristotelis de moribus ad Nicomachum: Ioanne Argiropylo interpræte”, in: Hoc in volumine continentur infrascripta opera Aristotelis videlicet: in principio. Vita eiusdem. Epistola eiusdem ad Alexandrum … (Venezia: Gregorius de Gregoriis expensis Benedicti Fontanæ, 1496), fol.172r sg.; esp. fol.100r-100v. [cited here: Argyropoulos 1496]. – Commentary by Jacques Lef èvre d’Étaples: “Opus Aristotelis de Moribus Nicomachum: Johanne Argyropilo Byzantino traducto, adiecto familiari Jacobi Stapulensis commentario”, in: Decem librorum Moralium Aristotelis, tres conversiones: Prima Argyropili Byzantij, secunda Leonardi Aretini, teria vero Antiqua … (Paris: Henricus Stephanus, 1505), here esp.: fol.(h 8r)–(i 1v), [cited here: d’Étaples 1505]. 1141b. 1141a. 1140b. Book Six, Chapter One: 1138b. 1141b: “Atqui civilis facultas, et prudentia idem est habitus; esse tamen ipsarum non idem est.” – This sentence is – in contrast to modern editions – placed at the beginning of the chapter by Argyropoulos and d’Étaples and thus emphasized: Argyropoulos (1496), fol.100r (Capitulum sextum); d’Étaples (1505), fol. h 8r (Cap. VIII.). Both concepts nomothetic/legislative (ȞȠȝȠșİIJȚțȒ); and as legislative next to economics and politics: (ȞȠȝȠșİıȓĮ) as well as architectonic/guiding (ĮȡȤȚIJİțIJȠȞȚțȒ) are related to prudence (ijȡȩȞȘıȚȢ) for Aristotle. Cf. Argyropoulos (1496), fol.100v. Cf. D’Étaples (1505), fol. i 1r. Cf. Argyropoulos (1496), fol. 100v. 1142a–1142b (Chapter Eight); d’Étaples (1505), fol. i 1r – i 1v: at the end of the commentary, the “bona consultatio” is followed by the “vera, rectaque existimatio”, treated as equivalent to “prudentia”. Cf. Bernardo Segni, L’Ethica d’Aristotele tradotta in lingua vulgare Fiorentina et comentata (Firenze: Lorenzo Torrentino, 1550), p. 305. Argyropoulos (1496), fol. 100r. Segni, op. cit., p. 306. Ibidem. Id., p. 307. Id., p. 308. Id., p. 309. Herwarth Walden, Einblick in Kunst: Expressionismus, Futurismus, Kubismus (Berlin: Der Sturm, 1917), p. 9. “The people and the child see. The cultivated person

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sees only the ideal, which cannot be seen.” Hermann Helmholtz, Die Thatsachen in der Wahrnehmung, Rede gehalten zur Stiftungsfeier der the Friedrich-Wilhelm-Universität zu Berlin am 3. August 1878 (Berlin: August Hirschwald, 1879), p. 26. “On further deliberation we come across many cases which show that certainty and swiftness in the appearance of particular ideas of certain impressions can also be acquired even where nothing of such a connection is given by nature.” Cf. [ Julius Langbehn] Rembrandt als Erzieher. Von einem Deutschen (Leipzig: C.L. Hirschfeld, 1890), p. 1. Ibidem. Cf. Walden, op. cit., p. 9. – Compare here; Werner Oechslin, “‘Quantum homini licet’: ‘Aesthetik’ zu heilsgeschichtlichen Bedingungen”, in: Sebastian Schütze (ed.), Estetica Barocca (Roma: Campisano, 2004), pp. 61–87: here: p. 82 ff. Cf. Hermann Muthesius, “ Wo stehen wir? Vortrag, gehalten auf der Jahresversammlung des Deutschen Werkbundes in Dresden 1911”, in: Die Durchgeistigung der deutschen Arbeit. Jahrbuch des Deutschen Werkbundes 1912 ( Jena: Eugen Diederichs, 1912), pp. 11–26: esp. 14. Ibidem. Cf. Helmholtz, op. cit., p. 25. Compare here: Werner Oechslin, “Auf einen Blick”, in: Heike Gfrereis and Marcel Lepper (eds.), Deixis: Vom Denken mit dem Zeigefinger (Göttingen: Wallstein, 2007), pp. 62–80. Cf. J. F. Herbart, Pestalozzi’s Idee eines ABC der Anschauung als ein Cyklus von Vorübungen im Auffassen der Gestalten wissenschaftlich ausgeführt (Göttingen: Johann Friedrich Röwer, 1804), p. 8. Cf. Johann Christoph Friedrich GutsMuths, Gymnastik für die Jugend, enthaltend eine praktische Anweisung zu Leibesübungen [1793] (Schnepfenthal: Buchhandlung der Erziehungsanstalt, 1804), p. 404. Cf. GutsMuths, ibid.; here cited from: Heinrich Eduard Kühn, De Educatione Sensuum externorum inprimis medicis necessaria, Dissertatio inauguralis medica (Leipzig: Staritz, 1829), p. 11. Cf. J. H. Pestalozzi, Anschauungslehre der Zahlenverhältnisse, 1 (Zurich and Bern: Heinrich Geßner; Tübingen: Cotta 1803), p. xvii. Cf. Jo. Georgii Eccardi, Programma De Historia Universali contemptum sui vindicante, publicis Prælectionibus historicis præmissum (Helmstedt: Georg Wolfgang Hamm, 1706), n. p. Cf. Johannes Georgius Vilmar [submittet], Jo. Adolph Hartmann [præside], Dissertatio Philosophica de Officio Judicis circa famæ aut testium asertionem … (Marburg: Philipp Casimir Müller, 1733), p. 12. Cf. Jo. Philippus Treuner, Programma, quo Philosophiam a miseria philosophorum Commilitonibus commendat … ( Jena: Müller, 1699), n. p. Ibidem.

307

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37

38

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40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55

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Johann Friedrich Herbart, Ueber die Möglichkeit und Nothwendigkeit, Mathematik auf Psychologie anzuwenden (Königsberg: Gebrüder Bornträger, 1822), p. 13. “This is then the greatest blessing of mathematics: that long before one is sufficiently endowed with certain experiences, one can oversee the possibilities somewhere in those areas where reality must be: in this way one can make use of very imperfect clues of experience to free oneself at least of the biggest errors.” Vincent Huidobro, “La Création pure: Propos d’Esthétique”, in: L’Esprit Nouveau, 7 (1923), p. 775. “Man begins by seeing, then he listens, thereafter he speaks and finally he thinks.” Compare here for example the discussion and references in: Ignaz Weitenauer, Lexicon Biblicum, in quo explicantur Vulgatæ Vocabula et Phrases (Augsburg and Freibug i. Br.: Ignaz & Anton Wagner, 1758), p. 435 f.: “Puer. Sicut Latinis & Græcis, ita Hebræis nequaquam semper eam ætatem significat, quæ inter infantiam & adolescentiam intercedit: sed & filium, & servum seu famulum indicat.” Cf. Huidobro, op. cit., pp. 769–776. Id., p. 770. Schematically represented: Id., p. 774. Id., p. 775. Ibidem: “L’Homme, dans ce cas, a créé et non pas en imitant la Nature dans ses apparences, mais en obéissant à ses lois intérieures …”. Id., p. 772. Cf. Le Corbusier, Une maison – un palais. À la recherche d’une unité architecturale (Paris: G. Crès [1928]), p. 2. Cf. Huidobro, op. cit., p. 775. Cf. G. F. Hartlaub, Der Genius im Kinde. Zeichnungen und Malversuche begabter Kinder (Breslau: Ferdinand Hirt, 1922), p. 11. Id., p. 17. Id., p. 11. Cf. E. W. Beth and Jean Piaget, Epistémologie mathématique et Psychologie (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1961), p. 115. Cf. Herbart, op. cit., p. 13. Id., p. 10. Cf. E. W. Beth and J. Piaget op. cit., p.257 (Chapter: “La pensée ‘pure’”). Johann Gottlieb Rhode, “Ueber den Begriff der Mythologie und die richtigste Methode dieselbe wissenschaftlich zu fördern”, in: J. G. Rhode (ed.), Beiträge zur Alterthumskunde, mit besonderer Rücksicht auf das Morgenland, 1 (Berlin: Duncker und Humblot, 1819), pp. 1–34: esp. 17. Used here, the German edition with an introduction by Hans Aebli: Jean Piaget and Alina Szeminska, Die Entwicklung des Zahlbegriffs beim Kinde (Stuttgart: Klett, 1972), p. 11. Thus the title of the posthumously published work by H. Rickert, Unmittelbarkeit und Sinndeutung: Aufsätze zur Ausgestaltung des Systems der Philosophie

Endnotes to pp. 49–55

58

59 60

61 62

63

64 65 66

67

68 69

(Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1939). Quoted here from the third edition: Edmund Husserl, Logische Untersuchungen, II, 1 (Halle: Max Niemeyer, 1922), p. 166 ff. – This chapter is followed by the one about Hume and modern “Humeanism”, of which the last sentence (id., p. 215) reads: “Wir werden uns nicht zu der Überzeugung entschliessen, es sei psychologisch möglich, was logisch und geometrisch widersinnig ist”. Id., p. 216. Cf. Edmund Husserl, “Phantasie und Bildbewusstsein (aus den Vorlesungen Wintersemester 1904/05)”, in: Eduard Marbach (ed.), Edmund Husserl, Phantasie, Bildbewusstsein, Erinnerung: Zur Phänomenologie der anschaulichen Vergegenwärtigung: Texte aus dem Nachlass (1898–1925), Husserliana XXIII (The Hague, Boston and London: Martinus Nijhoff, 1980), p. 15. Id., p. 15; this classification is qualified here as “evidence” and also “in the sense of ideal possibilities”. Daniele Barbaro, “Proemio”, in: I Dieci Libri Dell’Architettura die Vitruvio Tradutti et Commentati da Monsignor Barbaro … (Venezia: Marcolini, 1556), p. 6. “Every art is born of experience. … and yet Vitruvius wants experience to be accompanied by cognition. The birth of the arts in principle is weak, but in time acquires strength and vigour.” Cf. Octavianus Canis, Dedication to Alessandro Farnese, in: Pomponius Gauricus, Super Arte Poetica Horatii (Roma: Valerius Doricus & Aloysius Frater Brixiani, 1541), n. p. [A ii recto]; compare Werner Oechslin, “Die universale Zeichnung (‘disegno’) des Künstlers und/versus die ‘graphidis scientia’ des Architekten”, in: Piet Lombaerde (ed.), The Notion of the Painter-Architect in Italy and the Southern Low Countries (Turnhout: Brepols, 2014), pp. 9–38: esp. 34 f. (Here erroneously Pomponius Gauricus himself is cited as the author of the dedication to Alessandro Farnese, which is hereby corrected.) Cf. Daniele Barbaro, I Dieci Libri dell’Architettura di M. Vitruvio Tradutti et Commentati … (Venezia: Francesco Marcolini, 1556), pp. 6–7. Ibidem: “… & però Vitr. Vuole che la Isperienza sia con la cognitione accompagnata”. Francesco Barozzi, “Quæstio de Medietate Mathematicarum”, in: Id., Opusculum, in quo una Oration, & duæ Quæstiones … (Padova: Gratiosus Perchacinus, 1560), fol. 38r. “Neither should it happen to us what befalls those that are vexed into leaving the hottest place into the freezing cold, without first deserving a small amount of that which is temperate.” Cf. Alessandro Piccolomini, “Commentarium de Certitudine Mathematicarum disciplinarum”, in: Id., In Mechanicas Quæstiones Aristotelis (Venezia: Traianus Curtius, 1565), fol. 69r sg. (The author had use of the second edition only, not the one of 1547/Rome.) Id., fol. 69r. Id., fol. 71v.

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70 71 72

73 74

75 76

77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88

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Id., fol. 70v. Id., fol. 69r. Id., fol. 94v [=96v]. – Piccolomini here refers to the discussion of point, line, plane, and their impossible ‘correct’ and properly defined representation. This corresponds to the known discussions by Sextus Empiricus’ (cf. Sextus Empiricus, Adversus Mathematicos … (Antwerpen: Christoph Plantin, 1569), p. 76 f.). However, in the part of the second book of his commentary on Euclid which Piccolomini quotes (Cf. Francesco Barozzi, Procli Diadochi Lycii Philosophi Platonici Ac Mathematici Probatissimi in Primum Euclidis Elementorum librum Commentariorum ad Universam Mathematicam Disciplinam Principium Eruditionis Tradentium Libri IIII. A Francisco Barocio Patritio Veneto summa opera, cura, ac diligentia cunctis mendis expurgati: Scholiis, & Figuris, quæ in græco codice omnes desiderabantur aucti: primum iam Romanæ linguæ venustate donati, & nunc recens editi (Padua: Gratiosus Perchacinus, 1560, p. 28 f.), Proclus pursues the matter of the “figuræ de quibus Geometra disserit in sensibilibus sunt, nec ab ipsa separari possunt materia” by other arguments, nota bene the middle/intermediate position of mathematics, v. infra. Id., fol. 106r. Id., fol. 106v: “Res autem mathematicæ, cum ex abstractione sint, seipsas penitus, & medullitus sensui nostro præbent, seque totas patefaciunt, nec solum passiones suas, sed subiecta etiam ipsorumque formas sensui nostro manifestissimos tradunt, cum hæc omnia quantitates sunt”. Id., fol. 108r. Cf. Francesco Barozzi, Opusculum in quo una Oratio, & duæ Quæstiones: altera de certitudine, & altera de medietate Mathematicarum continentur (Padua: E. G. P. (=Excudebat Gratiosus Perchacinus), 1560), fol. 2v. Cf. Barozzi, Opusculum (1560), op. cit.; Id., Procli Diadochi Lycii Philosophi Platonici … in Primum Euclidis … (1560), op. cit. Cf. Barozzi, “Quæstio de Certitudine Mathematicarum”, in: Opusculum, op. cit., fol. 33v. Cf. Joseph Scaliger, Cyclometrica Elementa duo (Leyden: Plantin and Raphelengius, 1594), n. p. (dedication). Cf. Barozzi, Opusculum, op. cit., fol. 11r – 11v. Cf. F. Barozzi, “Quæstio de Medietate Mathematicarum”, in: Opusculum, op. cit., fol. 34r sg. Id., fol. 34r – 34v. Id., fol. 40r. Id., fol. 38r. N (marginal note: “Plotini opinio, & eius fundamentum, quæ laudatur”.) Id., fol. 38r – 38v. Id., fol. 38v. Id., fol. 38v. Cf. Max Steck, Proklus Diadochus 410–485: Euklid-Kommentar (Halle: Deutsche

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89 90 91

92 93

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95 96 97 98

99 100 101

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Akademie der Naturforscher, 1945), p. 28: Steck here speaks explicitly of Proclus’s commentary on Euclid as a “sogar weitgehend geglückter – Versuch einer ersten, wenn auch bescheidenen‚ Gestaltlehre der Mathematik”. Cf. Max Steck, “Proklus Diadochus und seine Gestaltlehre der Mathematik”, in: Nova Acta Leopoldina, Neue Folge Bd. 13, no. 93 (Halle, 1943), pp. 131–149: p. 134 f. Cf. Barozzi, Procli in Primum Euclidis librum Commentariorum Libri IIII., op. cit., p. 24 f. We cannot engage here with the fact that Plato critically deals with dialectics at this point and excludes it from the education of the young, as it distracts us from the argument. Cf. Barozzi, Procli …, op. cit., p. 28 f. Immanuel Kant, Critik der practischen Vernunft (Riga: Johann Friedrich Hartknoch, 1788), p. 3. “For if pure reason as such is really practical, it proves itself and its concepts’ reality by means of the deed; and all strict reasoning against the possibility that this is so, is in vain.” Karl Friedrich Schinkel, “Gedanken, Bemerkungen und Notizen über Baukunst mit specieller Rücksicht auf die Bearbeitung eines architektonischen Lehrbuches”, in: Alfred Freiherr von Wolzogen, Aus Schinkel’s Nachlaß, III. (Berlin: Königliche Geheime Ober-Hofbuchdruckerei, 1863), p. 373 ff.: esp. 374. “Very soon I came to the mistake of pure radical abstraction, where I developed the whole concept of a particular work of architecture from its trivial purpose and its construction alone; in this case what arose was something dry and rigid, lacking in freedom and which totally excluded two essential elements, the historic and the poetic.” Cf. Barozzi, Procli …, op. cit., p. 15. Id., p. 33 (II, cap. II: “Quæ scientia, Geometria sit”.) Cf. Barbaro, Vitruvius (1556), p. 7. Cf. J. F. Herbart, Pestalozzi’s Idee eines ABC der Anschauung als ein Cyklus von Vorübungen im Auffassen der Gestalten wissenschaftlich ausgeführt (Göttingen: Johann Friedrich Röwer, 1804), pp. 1 and 16. Id., p. 17. For this reason the title of: Werner Oechslin, “Architektur, Perspektive und die hilfreiche Geste der Geometrie”, in: DAIDALOS, 11 (1984), pp. 38–54. Cf. [Pedro Ciruelo], Cursus quatuor Mathematicarum Artium Liberalium, quas recollegit atque correxit magister Petrus Ciruelus Darocensis Theologus simul et philosophus (Alcalá: Miguel de Eguia, 1526), n. p. Cf. “Raphaelis Volaterrani in librum Sextum Politicorum ad Nicomachum, Argumentum”, in: Aristotelis Stagiritæ Politicorum ... Raphaelis Volaterrano Argumenta in eosdem (Venezia: Hieronymus Scotus, 1542), fol. 141r; Id., Commentariorum Urbanorum Volaterrani, Octo & triginta libri, 1506 (Basel: Froben, 1530), fol. 422r. (Lib. XXXVI. Aristotelica) Cf. Dalibor Vesely, “Architecture, and the Limits of Modern Theory”, in: Sylvia Claus et. al. (eds.), Architektur weiterdenken. Werner Oechslin zum 60. Geburtstag (Zurich: gta-Verlag, 2004), pp. 57–69: p. 57.

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Joseph Rykwert Model, Type, and the Great Church (pp. 67–80) 1

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This is an edited version of an essay which first appeared in RES 59/60 (Spring/ Autumn 2011). I would like to thank Prof. Robin Cormack for reading the essay and suggesting corrections. The most reliable and accessible edition is that of Wanda Wolska-Conus: Cosmas Indicopleustès, Topographie Chrétienne, Paris 1968–1973 (Sources Chrétiennes, vols 141, 159, 197). I have relied on this edition, but there have been several earlier printed versions: The first one is by the great Maurist Benedictine scholar, Bernard de Montfaucon, in 1706; this was the version reprinted by Migne (PG LXXXVIII, cols 51 ff.); it is based entirely on the Laurentian MS (see note 2). The name Kosmas may just have been a nickname imposed on the author because of his cosmic subject – much as Johannes Klimakus was called that from the spiritual ladder, klimax, which was his theme. It was translated into Old Slavonic, Russian, Bulgarian, and Serb, though there are no reliable editions of these versions. It had no equivalent circulation in the West. The conversion of Russia was a long and complex process, which does not concern me here. It has been much discussed since the first account of it in the Chronicle of Nestor. A digest of the various chronicle accounts in A. N. Mouravieff, A History of the Church in Russia (London, 1842), pp. 9 ff. On the presence of Cosmas in Kievian Russia, see Francis Dvornik, The Slavs: Their Early History and Civilization (Boston, 1956), pp. 248 f. N. Kondakoff, Histoire de l’Art Byzantin consideré principalment dans les Miniatures (Pris, 1891), vol I, pp. 136 ff. Although Kondakoff was concentrating on miniatures, it is notable that he only discusses figural ones and is not interested in the cosmo-topographical images. But see Charles Diehl’s classic Manuel de l’Art Byzantin (Paris, 1910), pp. 224 f., 244 f., which is typical of the earlier treatment of the manuscripts; or D. V. Ainalov, The Hellenistic Origin of Byzantine Art (New Brunswick, 1961), pp. 24 ff., who bases himself only on the Vatican manuscript. In fact, there are three complete codices: the one in the Vatican (Constantinople, ninth century – about contemporary with Photius); a second one in St Catherine’s Monastery on Mount Sinai (perhaps Cappadocian, eleventh century); and finally the one in the Laurentian Library in Florence (probably Athonite, eleventh century; it is the one inscribed kosmai monachou). All of them were known to Kondakoff. There are many manuscripts with partial quotations and references to the text. One exception is the brief discussion by E. Balwin Smith in The Dome (Princeton, 1971) pp. 87 f. Photius was ‘appointed’ in 858, deposed in 867; re-appointed 878, deposed again in 886; the “Christian’s Book” is his no. 36. Photius text is quoted by W. Wolska-Conus (1968) vol. I., pp. 116 ff.

Endnotes to pp. 68–69

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The spherical form of the earth seems to have been known among the Pythagoreans and was affirmed by Aristotle. The size of the earth had been calculated by Eratosthenes of Alexandria and by Poseidonius, while a heliocentric world was hypothesized by Aristarchus of Samos about the same time. Such scientific theory and speculation did not always impinge on the persistent and ‘common-sense’ notion of a flat earth. S. Sambursky, The Physical World of the Greeks (London, 1956), pp. 74 ff; Stephen Toulmin and June Goodfield, The Fabric of the Heavens (London, 1961), pp. 52 ff. On the heliocentric view, see Sir Thomas L. Heath, Greek Astronomy (London, 1932), pp. xxvi ff., 105 ff. It might just be worth noting that as late as the sixteenth century the great Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe fitted his observation to a geocentric world. Though Kosmas does not seem at all interested in the passages in the Book of Kings (or their summary in the Book of Chronicles), which deal with Solomon’s Temple. G. W. Bowersock, The Throne of Adulis (Oxford, 2013), pp. 16 ff. The inscriptions are not perfectly preserved; on the throne it was probably that of an earlier – perhaps third century AD – Negus; the black basalt stele behind it is an inscription of Ptolemy III (250–40 BC); Kosmas thought they were part of a single text. In the Laurentian manuscript, the colophon appears as a title – and that is how it was presumably known to Photius; however, in the same Laurentian manuscript, a later hand has written of “Kosmas the monk” (kosmai monachou) according to W. Wolka-Conus (1968) vol. I, pp. 59, 61. His Greek name was Patrikios (as Kosmas recalls in II, 2); he became the Katholikos of the Persian Nestorians in 540. W. Wolska-Conus in Cosmas (1968) I, pp. 40 f; 125. There are a number of modern editions of his works, but no collected one. He also offers the Table of Shewbreads (2.0 by 1.0 by 1.5; first mentioned in II, 48) and the Ark itself (2.5 by 1.5 by 1.5) as well as the seven-branched candlestick as cosmograms; the dimensions of the double-cube sanctuary and the third cube of the Holy of Holies are set out in his V, 30 ff. ʺʩʰʡʺ from the radical ʺʰʡ – “to build”, “to construct”: There is no implication of abstraction to the word. However, the Septuagint translate it as paradeigma – which carries both the meaning of model and pattern; Ex 25, 8; though elsewhere (Ps 143, 12; Ezek 8, 3) it is translated by omoioma, “likeness”. Kosmas interpolates that it was to be tou pantos tou kosmou to ekmagageion and kata ton typon ton deixthenta soi en to orei according to the world-model that God had shown Moses on Mount Sinai; the text does not say that, however. In the drawing to illustrate the Ark of the Covenant (V 36), he shows, in spite of the text, the top of the ark as a half-cylinder. This ‘vaulted’ shape is repeated in the miniatures of the crossing of the Jordan in both the Laurentian and the Sinai manuscripts, illustrating Kosmas’ V, 65 f.; W. Wolska-Conus (1968) I, p. 196, II, 101, while the world-model is shown in elevation illustrating VII, 86, and also in projection (from the Sinaiticus), though he attaches more importance to the cosmic symbolism

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of the cloths of the tent and the details of the furniture than to its overall shape. In any case, the tabernacle was a ‘first’ temple, set aside for the new alliance as Kosmas says repeatedly, appealing to Heb 8. Nor is he concerned with the four super-commented passages in scripture, which set out: firstly, Solomon’s Temple and its reconstruction, or in Ezechiel’s vision. (I Kings 7, 9 ff and Ezek 40, 3 ff and 41) , whose Temple shrine (40 by 20 for the hall, Hechal, plus 20 by 20 for the Holy of Holies) do have the same plan proportions, though the angel does not specify the height of buildings, only that of the furnishings. Ex 25, 20 f. The dimensions are specified in the command: 1.5 cubits high and wide, 2.5 cubits long (i.e. 5:3). The golden “mercy-seat” (kipporath zahav; the English term was coined by William Tyndale) is by implication flat – or so most commentators and restorers assume. “The testimony” are the tablets of the Law that Moses broke and/or their replacement. While Kosmas had some difficulty in extracting the exact measurements from the text, the three-cube formula is quite explicit for Solomon’s Temple (I Kings 6, 16-20). If there is a microcosmic reference here, it is – as many commentators have noted – through the human body. See, most recently, M. Douglas, Leviticus as Literature (Oxford, 1999), pp. 14, 79 f., 177, 190. Such basilical halls may well have been of Hellenistic origin – a (royal) judgement hall (whence the name, basilike stoa) – was adapted by the Romans for meeting and market halls. On the obscure origin of the type, see Roland Martin, Recherches sur l’Agora Grecque (Paris, 1951), pp. 494, n and 515 ff., Jean-Michel David, “Le Tribunal dans la basilique”, in: Pierre Gros (ed.), Architecture et Société (Paris and Rome, 1983), pp. 219 ff. The magistrates’ tribune with its pagan incense altar – precedents of the Christian bema – seems to have been a relatively late innovation in the type, but came to transform the diffuse columnar space by focussing it on the dominant tribune/altar. In the second century BC, the Roman Forum was outlined by three basilicæ of which little is known: Porcia, Sempronia, Opimia, which were later amalgamated into two larger ones: Iulia and Æmilia. Much later, Trajan built about the most splendid one (the Ulpia) on the north side of his own forum, and the greatest, that of Maxentius on the Roman one, was built just before Constantine moved the capital. On the Byzantine use of the term, see Glanville Downey, “The Architectural Significance of the use of the Words Stoa and Basilike in Classical Literature”, AJA 41 (1937), pp. 204 ff. For the most recent reconstruction (model in the Tower of David Museum, Jerusalem by H. R. Allen and Sheila Gibson), see Martin Biddle, The Tomb of Christ (Stroud, Glos., 1999), pp. 65 ff. The word martyrion signified bearing witness and had no implication of violent death or torture. The early martyria were therefore all places of witness. The book which made the first extended study of the relationship between assembly in the basilica and the centralized place of witness is André Grabar’s Martyrium (Paris, 1946). On the great variety of Constantinian churches,

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see Richard Krautheimer (1965), p. 42. Yet the vast prestige of the Anastasis made emulations of it throughout the Middle Ages one of the most fecund types of the time, on which see Richard Krautheimer, “Introduction to an Iconography of Medieval Architecture”, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 5 (1942), pp. 1 ff (esp. pp. 10 ff ); on the specific problem of polygonal or circular baptistries and the Anastasis, see pp. 30 ff. It is one of the few buildings where the names of its designers are given – by a later writer, Prosper Tiro of Aquitaine, as Zenobius and the Presbyter Eustathius of Constantinople – about neither of whom anything else is known. Krautheimer suggests that Zenobius’ name was Syrian and that he was the ‘site architect’ while Eustathius provided the ‘concept’ ((1965), p. 39 and p. 319, n. 45). The other church in Jerusalem was on the Mount of Olives. That the Emperor’s mother, Helena, was active in this matter, and the Emperor himself intervened on many occasions, is witnessed by Eusebius in his life of the Emperor (Vita Const., III, 42 ff.) Walter Oakeshott, I Mosaici di Roma (Milan, 1967), pp. 48 ff. The mosaics are dated, on the basis of inscriptions, to somewhere between 384 and 417. Nothing is very sure about the chronology or the authorship of the building, and it has been suggested that this small church – now known as Küçük (little) Aia Sofia Çami – was earlier than the Great Church. The arguments are set out by Jonathan Bardill, in “The Church of Sts. Sergius and Bacchus in Constantinople and the Monophysite Refugees”, Dumbarton Oaks Papers, 54 (2000), pp. 1 ff. Anthemius was reputed to be an original and ingenious mathematician (who recorded a method of drawing an ellipse from two centres) and an expert on optics and mechanics (skills he used to persecute an inconvenient neighbour). A summary (out of Procopius and Agathias of Mirene) in E. Gibbon, A History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (London, 1994), vol. II, pp. 592 ff. Much less is known about Isidore: He seems to have acted as the site architect, while the outline design was Anthemius’. If the panegyrics are to be believed, the Emperor himself played an active part in both design and building. Procopius names another Alexandrian mechanopoios, Chryses – who was consulted on the fortification and river damming of a frontier town Dara (now in Eastern Turkey, but then on the Persian border) and who saw the solution of the town’s problems in a dream-vision which he communicated to the Emperor, who had arrived at a similar solution himself, on which he consulted Anthemius and Isidore. Procopius, The Histories (ed. and tr. H. B. Dewing and Glanville Downey; vol. VII), The Buildings II, 3. But see Judith McKenzie, The Architecture of Alexandrian Egypt, 300 BC–700 AD (New Haven and London, 2007), pp. 339, 348 ff. Nothing else is known about Chryses. This was also glossed on by his pupil Menelaos of Alexandria; in his Sphærica, he concerned himself with various shapes projected on to spherical surfaces, so Judith McKenzie (2007), pp. 233 ff., 322 ff., 421; McKenzie suggests that the very earliest surviving dome on pendentives is a thermal building in Petra

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(p. 234). The passage from a hemisphere to a polygon could be fudged, and the transition resolved with more or less discreet squinches or niches – but it became acute – structurally and geometrically – when the shape to cover was rendered to a square. Such domes were built throughout the Levant in the earliest Christian times. They reappear much later in Seljuk mosques and in the ‘tent-domed’ churches of Russia. A great deal of learned discussion has been occupied with the passage from squinch to pendentive, and the relative merits of a Levantine against a Roman origin of the form; much of it has been set out by E. Baldwin Smith, The Dome, A Study in the History of Ideas (Princeton, 1950 and 1971), passim., an argument whose resolution has not been achieved, and I suspect that neither further speculations nor excavations will bring resolution any closer. Procopius, VII, 1 i 47; quoting Homer’s Iliad, VIII, 19, where Zeus calls “to let down our golden chains . . . to draw me from the earth to heaven” according to Chapman. Not a true dome, but a cloistered vault on squinches, constructed of hollow pots. Nothing is known of its original surfacing, nor is anything known about the designers of the churches or the mosaicists. Frank E. Brown, Roman Architecture (New York and London, 1961), p. 45. On its context William M. L. MacDonald, The Architecture of the Roman Empire (New Haven and London, 1986), II, p. 244, and Richard Krautheimer, Early Christian and Byzantine Architecture (Harmondsworth, 1965), pp. 53 f., 166 f. The building had been popularly identified as the Temple of Minerva Medica as reported sceptically by Famiano Nardini, Roma Antica (Rome, 1669 and 2nd ed. 1704), pp. 161 f.), but the identification was rejected by the end of the eighteenth century; so Antonio Nibby, Roma nell’Anno MDCCCXXXVIII (Rome, 1839), Pars Antica, vol. II, pp. 331 f ). More soberly, Rodolfo Lanciani, The Ruins and Excavations of Ancient Rome (London, 1897), pp. 402 f. Andrea Palladio, L’Architettura (Venezia, 1570), IV, 73. There were several smaller but impressive imperial pierced domes – like the octagon of Nero’s Golden House; circular temples were also built in Imperial times, though their roofing is not always known and they did not seem to have conformed to a definite type. The late medieval identification of the octagonal domed Mosque of Omar/Dome of the Rock as a ‘type’ of the temple (since it occupied part of the Temple site and was therefore known as Templum Domini during the Latin Crusader Kingdom) led to another confusion, which does not concern me here. The boast is only recorded in that form by a late (eighth or ninth century) chronicle, Narratio de Structura Templi Sta Sophia, quoted by Roland J. Mainstone, Hagia Sophia (London, 1988), p. 10. A Salomonic invocation appears in an inscription in the courtyard of the Church of St Polyeuktes in Constantinople, built a few years earlier by a very patrician lady, Julia Anicia, to the south of where the Fatih Çami now stands. It was probably vaulted and domed somewhat like

Endnotes to pp. 74–77

28

29

30

31 32 33

34 35 36

37

St Irene, though it is rarely mentioned. The inscription “at the entrance, outside the narthex, towards the apse” (its text preserved in the Greek Anthology, tr. W. R. Paton (Cambridge, MA and London, 1916), vol. I, pp. 6 ff., fr. 10 and 11) extols Juliana, “who alone did violence to time and surpassed the wisdom of aeidomenon Salomon raising a house for God, whose glittering, intricate beauty the ages cannot celebrate enough …” Quoted by André Grabar, L’Iconoclasme Byzantin (Paris, 1957), pp. 183 f.; translated and commentated by Cyril Mango, in The Homilies of Photius, Patriarch of Constantinople (Cambridge, MA, 1958); preached in 864 or later; Photius has “the throng of angels … pictured escorting our common Lord”; he quotes both Tabernacle and the Jerusalem temple as its prototypes: “But as a shadow and a figure (skia kai typos) are below truth and reality, so are those inferior to the temple which has now been built … not only because this one is of Grace and Spirit, while those were of the Law and the Letter, but also because in point of beauty and execution they are inferior …”, p. 188. These were sometimes variegated; alternate layers of stone and brick made complex patterns; reliefs (occasionally spolia) or glazed tiles might also be set in them. See Robert Ousterhout, Master Builders of Byzantium (Philadelphia, 2008), pp. 169 ff. Early Syrian centres (such as Kalat Sim’un) offer monumental exterior counter-examples – as do Armenian ones – but that is outside my province. Though some remains of them were found during the excavations just before and after World War II; Roland J. Mainstone, Hagia Sophia (London, 1988), pp. 135 ff. Procopius of Caesarea, Histories (ed. and tr. H. B. Dewing and Glanville Downey); vol. VII, The Buildings, I, 1, 27 f. Could the diminution of 2 per cent be an eurhythmic contraction? There is no evidence either way. The apse and the space before it were, from the fifth century, separated from the nave by an ikonostasis, which was rarely (until much later) high enough to obscure the interior volume. The western cruciform basilica, often with a lantern over the crossing, has quite different typological implications. Mikhail Vladomirovich Alyatov, The Dormition Cathedral in the Moscow Kremlin (Moscow, 1971). Doğan Kuban and Ahmet Ertu, Sinan, an Architectural Genius (Bern, 1999), pp. 23 ff., on the complex relation between Hagia Sophia and Ottoman mosques. Dictionnaire Historique d’Architecture (Paris, 1832). This ‘definitive’ version is in fact a heavy revision of his earlier, 1788, dictionary, a three-volume contribution to the Encyclopédie Méthodique. “Le modèle rendu dans l’exécution pratique de l’art, est un objet qu’on doit répéter tel qu’il est; le type est, au contraire, un objet d’après lequel chacun peut concevoir des ouvrages qui ne se ressembloierent pas entre eux. Tout est précis et donné dans le modèle; tout est plus ou moins vague dans le type.” – A.-C.

317

Endnotes to pp. 77–80

38

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Quatremère de Quincy (1832) s. v. “Type”. Perhaps it is worth noting here that the words have quite different origins and histories: “type” from Greek *typto, “I strike” (hence, a sinking, a relief ), “I sound”; “model” from Latin modellus, a diminutive of modulus, itself a diminutive of *modus, a measure (Greek equivalent metron). The importance of Quatremère’s formulation was pointed out by G. C. Argan in his essay “Sul Concetto di Tipologia in Architettura”, which first appeared in the Festschrift für Hans Sedlmayr, ed. K. Oettinger and M. Rassem (Munich, 1962); a useful summary of subsequent discussion – mostly in Italian and English – was Mika Bandini’s “Typology as a form of communication”, AA Files 6 (May 1984); but see a recent summary of some of the arguments in I. Samuels, P. Panerai, J. Castex, Urban Forms (London, 2004). An interesting but quite different view of ‘type’ is offered by the ‘systematic’ designers of the period, who wanted to examine the form of every object from first principles and for whom ‘type’ referred to some irreducible historical nugget which resisted all the solvents which the method provided, but which the designer needed to purge so as to reach the true form of the object. See A. Colquhoun “Typology and Design Method”, in: Collected Essays in Architectural Criticism (London, 2009), pp. 45 ff. “En confondant l’idée du type, modèle imaginatif, avec l’idée matérielle de modèle positif, qui lui ôteroit toute sa valeur s’accorderoient … à dénaturer toute l’architecture.”, ibid. Procopius, The Histories, tr. and ed. H. B. Dewing and Glanville Downey (London and Cambridge, 1954), VII, pp. 18/9, “as if they were yielding to one another in a choral dance”. Michael W. Meister, “Symbology and Architectural Practice in India”, in: Emily Lyle (ed.), Sacred Architecture (Edinburgh, 1992), pp. 5 ff; quoting the Brhat Samhita, the best-known text on the subject, which was written about the same time as Kosmas’ Topography. “Aussi voyons-nous que l’imitation des types n’a rien que le sentiment et l’esprit ne puissent reconnoître, et rien qui ne puisse être contesté par la prevention et l’ignorance.” – A.-C. Quatremère de Quincy (1832), ibid. Even if the mosaic in Justinian’s dome was uniconic, of stars surrounding a cross on a cerulean ground – if that is what Paul the Silentiary (l.493) meant by stavron yper koriphis; see Paul Friedländer, Johannes von Gaza und Paulus Silentiarius (Leipzig and Berlin, 1912), p. 290. For more than a century, a district for Russian merchants existed in Constantinople; and in 907 the Kievian Prince Oleg sailed a fleet down the Bosphorus to defeat Leo IV and force him to pay tribute. In any case, Vladimir’s grandmother, Olga, had met the Emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitos and was a professing Christian.

Endnotes to pp. 81–90

Mari Hvattum Goethe Blindfolded (pp. 81–92) 1

2

3

4 5

6 7 8 9 10

11 12 13 14 15

“Goethe verlangt von einem schönen Gebäude, daß es nicht bloß auf das Auge berechnet sei, sondern auch einem Menschen, der mit verbundenen Augen hindurchgeführt würde, noch empfindbar sein und ihm gefallen müsse.” – Friedrich Schiller in a letter to Wilhelm von Humboldt written between the 6th and the 9th of November 1795, in: Woldemar Freiherr von Biedermann, Goethes Gespräche (Leipzig: F.W. von Biedermann, 1909), vol. 1, p. 179. “Hammers gaardtz thorn vaar muhrit lige jeffn höytt ved det störste thorn paa domkierchen, saa at de kunde staa oc tale med huer andre vdi thornene, naar som de talede noget höytt” – Hamarkrøniken (1553), in: Gustav Storm (ed.), Historisk-topografiske Skrifter om Norge og norske Landsdele, forfattede i Norge i det 16de Aarhundrede (Christiania: Brøgger, 1895), p. 122. For more on the history of the building, see Ragnar Pedersen, Storhamarlåven (Hamar: Hedemarksmuseet, 2004), and Hans Henrik Egede-Nissen, Sverre Fehns utstillingsarkitektur (Oslo: University of Oslo, 1995). Egede-Nissen, Sverre Fehns utstillingsarkitektur, pp. 12-15. “… en presisjon som er diktert av menneskets rytme, landskapets formasjoner, solens gang, vind og regn”, Sverre Fehn, “Museum i Storhamarlåven”, Byggekunst (1975), p. 64. Sverre Fehn, “Museum i Storhamarlåven”, p. 64. Richard Weston, “Nordic Light”, Architect’s Journal, September 30, 1987, pp. 25–29. Fehn in an interview with Ragnar Pedersen, quoted in Pedersen Storhamarlåven, p. 45. Egede-Nissen, Sverre Fehns utstillingsarkitektur, p. 38. In conversations with Egede-Nissen, Fehn confirmed that he used the Apostolic Creed as his point of departure for this display. Egede-Nissen, Fehns utstillingsarkitektur, p. 39. Maurice Merleau-Ponty, “Eye and Mind”, in Merleau-Ponty, The Primacy of Perception and other essays, (Illinois: Northwestern University Press, 1964), p. 162. Gernot Böhme, Aisthetik: Vorlesungen über Ästhetik als allgemeine Wahrnehmungslehre (Munich: Fink, 2003). David Howes (ed.), Empire of the Senses: The Sensual Culture Reader (Oxford: Berg, 2005). Juhani Pallasmaa, The Eyes of the Skin: Architecture and the Senses (London: Academy, 1996). Schmarsow’s theory of architectural space is presented in the essay “The Essence of Architectural Creation” (1893), in H. F. Mallgrave and E. Ikonomou (eds.), Empathy, Form and Space. Problems in German Aesthetics 1873–1893 (Santa Monica: Getty, 1994), and in Grundbegriffe der Kunstwissenschaft: am Übergang vom Altertum zum Mittelalter kritisch erörtert und in systematischem Zusammenhange dargestellt (Leibzig: Teubner, 1905).

319

Endnotes to pp. 90–101

16 17 18

Schmarsow, “The Essence of Architectural Creation”, p. 291. Gottfried Semper, “Prolegomenon” to Der Stil in den technischen und tektonischen Künsten, vol. 1 (Frankfurt a. M.: Verlage für Kunst und Wissenschaft, 1860). Schmarsow, “The Essence of Architectural Creation”, p. 286.

Karsten Harries Beauty, Nostalgia, Hope (pp. 93–117) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

9 10 11 12 13 14

15 16

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Immanuel Kant, Critique of Judgment, trans. Werner S. Pluhar (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1987), par. 41, p. 163. Ibid., par. 41, p. 164. Ibid., par. 41, p. 165. Ibid., par. 5, p. 53. Ibid., par. 59, p. 228. Ibid., par. 42, p. 165. Ibid., par. 42, pp. 165–166. Edmund Burke, A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful, ed. and introd. J. T. Boulton (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1958), Part One, Section VIII, p. 40. Walter Benjamin, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction”, in: Illuminations, trans. Harry Zohn (New York: Schocken, 1968), pp. 222-223. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Introductory Lectures on Aesthetics, trans. Bernard Bosanquet, ed. and introd. Michael Inwood (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1993), p. 4. Kant, Critique of Judgment, par. 42, p. 169. Ibid., par. 42, p. 169. Ibid. Alfred Brendel likened it to a Haydn piano sonata: Video Interview, Alfred Brendel, Ausgerechnet ich – Gespräche mit Martin Meyer (Munich: Carl HanserVerlag, 2001), pp. 114 ff.: “Dann noch etwas: Haydn ist in gewissen späten Werken der Rokoko-Komponist par excellence und nicht Mozart. Mozart ist immer der Klassizist. In einem Stück wie der letzten dreisätzigen C-Dur-Sonate Haydns oder der anderen Es-Dur-Sonate Hob. XVI/49 ist das Rokoko geradezu greifbar. Manchmal so, als ob in einer Landkirche plötzlich eine ungeheuer elegante Rokoko-Kanzel stünde. Ich denke da an eine besondere bayrische Kirche, die zu den Kirchen im Umkreis von Erding gehört. Es lohnt sich, hinzufahren und um den Schlüssel zu bitten: da ist von einem lokalen Maurermeister in Oppolding eine Kirche errichtet worden, und darin schwebt eine Kanzel, die man kaum zu betreten wagt.” Keith Christiansen, “The Capricci”, in: Giambattista Tiepolo, 1696–1770, ed. Keith Christiansen (The Metropolitan Museum of Art), p. 349. Heinrich Hübsch, In welchem Style sollen wir bauen? (Karlsruhe: Müller, 1828).

Endnotes to pp. 101–109

17

18 19 20

21

22 23

24 25 26 27 28

29

30 31

32 33 34 35 36

See Karsten Harries, The Bavarian Rococo Church: Between Faith and Aestheticism (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1983) and the reworked German version, Die Bayerische Rokokokirche. Das Irrationale und das Sakrale (Dorfen: Hawel, 2009). Arthur Rümann, Schlüssel zur unbekannten Heimat (München: Süddeutscher Verlag, 1962), p. 168. Hugo Schnell and Uta Schedler, Lexikon der Wessobrunner (München-Zürich: Schnell und Steiner, 1980), pp. 74–75. United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Catechism of the Catholic Church for the United States of America. (Washington, D. C.: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1994), p. 197. I have developed that connection more fully in The Bavarian Rococo Church: Between Faith and Aestheticism and in the revised and expanded German version, Die Bayerische Rokokokirche. Das Irrationale und das Sakrale (Dorfen: Hawel, 2009). See Helmut Illbruck, Nostalgia: Origins and Ends of an Unenlightened Disease (Evanston: Northwestern U. Press, 2012). Martin Heidegger, “Der Ursprung des Kunstwerkes”, in: Holzwege (Frankfurt: Klostermann, 1950), p. 30. Trans. Albert Hofstadter, Poetry, Language, Thought (New York: Harper & Row, 1979), p. 41. Heidegger, “Gelassenheit”, in: Gelassenheit (Pfullingen: Neske, 1959), p. 17. Ibid., p. 17. Ibid., p. 26. Ibid., p. 22. Heidegger, “Dankansprache am 26. September 1969 in Messkirch”, Reden und andere Zeugnisse eines Lebensweges 1910–1976, Gesamtausgabe, vol. 16 (Frankfurt am Main: Klostermann, 2000), p. 711. Cf. Heidegger, “Andenken”, Erläuterungen zu Hölderlins Dichtung (Frankfurt am Main: Klostermann, 1971), pp. 85–89; Hölderlins Hymne “Andenken”, Gesamtausgabe, vol. 52 (Frankfurt am Main: Klosterman, 1982), pp. 189–191; Hölderlins Hymne “Der Ister”, Gesamtausgabe, vol. 54 (Frankfurt am Main: Klosterman, 1984), pp. 156–170. Heidegger, Hölderlins Hymne “Der Ister”, p. 166. Ortega y Gasset, “Der Mythus des Menschen hinter der Technik”, in: Darmstädter Gespräch Mensch und Raum, ed. Otto Bartning (Darmstadt: Neue Darmstädter Verlagsanstalt, 1952), pp. 116–117. Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten, Reflections on Poetry, trans. Karl Aschenbrenner and William B. Holther (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California, 1954). Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Discourse on Metaphysics, XXIV, trans. Montgomery (La Salle, Illinois: Open Court, 1953). Baumgarten, Metaphysica (Halle: Hemmerden, 1779), par. 73. Baumgarten, Reflections on Poetry, par. 66. Ibid., par. 68.

321

Endnotes to pp. 111–125

37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46

47

48 49 50

See Helmut Illbruck, Nostalgia: Origins and Ends of an Unenlightened Disease (Evanston: Northwestern, 2012), p. 5. Ibid., p. 79. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, “Dictionary of Music“, cited Illbruck, p. 88. Immanuel Kant, Anthropologie in pragmatischer Hinsicht, A85/B86. Frederic Jameson, “Introduction”, in: Henri Arvon, Marxist Esthetics (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1973), p. xvii. Karl Marx, Grundrisse: Foundations of the Critique of Political Economy, trans. Martin Nicolaus (New York: Vintage, 1973), “Introduction”, p. 111. Karsten Harries, Infinity and Perspective (Cambridge, M.A.: MIT Press, 2001). Johannes Hoff, Analogical Turn: Rethinking Modernity with Nicholas of Cusa (Grand Rapids / Cambridge, England: Eerdmans, 2013). Michael Fried, “Art and Objecthood”, in: Minimal Art: A Critical Anthology, ed. Gregory Battcock (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1968), p. 147. Friedrich Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy, “Attempt at a Self-Criticism” 7, in: The Birth of Tragedy and The Case of Wagner, trans. Walter Kaufmann (New York: Vintage Books, 1967), p. 25. Nietzsche, Morgenröthe, III, 159, Sämtliche Werke, Kritische Studienaugabe, ed. Giorgio Colli and Mazzino Montionari (Berlin/New York: Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag / de Guyter, 1980), vol. 1, p. 145. I am thinking here of Gottfried Benn, quite aware of what separates my appropriation of the term from what he had in mind. Critique of Judgment, par. 87, p. 339. Ibid.

Robin Middleton Ideas on Movement in Architecture (pp. 119–145) 1

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Christof Thoenes has detailed the movement and frenzy observed in the architecture of Borromini and some of his contemporaries in “‘Die Formen sind in bewegung geraten’: Zum Verständnis der Architektur Borrominis”, in: Joseph Imorde, Fritz Neumeyer, and Tristan Weddigen (eds.), Barocke Inszenierung (Zurich: Edition Imorde, 1999), pp. 126–135. I thank Fabio Barry for this reference. Pierre-Louis-Moreau de Maupertuis, Systême de la nature, in: Œuvres (Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1965–1974), 2, p. 139. William Chambers, A Treatise on Civil Architecture (London: Printed for the author, 1759), p. 18. Henry Home, Lord Kames, Elements of Criticism (Edinburgh: A. Kincaid and J. Bell, and London: A. Millar, 1762), I, p. 280. Ibid., III, pp. 341–342. Ibid., I, p. 211.

Endnotes to pp. 125–133

7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17

18 19

20

21 22 23 24

Ibid., I, p. 215. Alexander Carlyle, Autobiography (Boston: 1861), p. 296; quoted by John Fleming, Robert Adam and his Circle (London: John Murray, 1962), pp. 252–253. See note 8, Fleming, pp. 315–316. James Adam’s essay is printed in entirety here, pp. 315– 319. See note 8, Fleming, p. 315. Robert Adam, Ruins of the Palace of the Emperor Diocletian at Spalatro in Dalmatia (London: Printed for the author, 1764), p. 8. Quoted in Arthur T. Bolton, The Architecture of Robert and James Adam (London: Country Life, 1922), I, p. 50. Johann Joachim Winckelmann, Schriften und Nachlass, vol. 3: Schriften zur antiken Baukunst (Mainz: Philipp von Zabern: 2001), p. 52. Winckelmann, Remarques sur l’architecture des anciens (Paris: Barrois l’ainé, 1773), p. 78. Robert and James Adam, The Works in Architecture of Robert and James Adam, Esquires … (London: Printed for the authors, 1778 [1779]), first preface, 1773. Thomas Whately, Observations on Modern Gardening (London: T. Payne, 1770), p. 2. Jean-Baptiste Dubos, Réflexions critiques sur la poesie et sur la peinture, 2 vols. (Paris: Jean Mariette, 1719), vol. 2, p. 308 – “Le cœur s’agite de lui même et par un mouvement qui précéde toute deliberation, quand l’objet qu’on lui presente est réellement un objet touchant, soit que l’objet ait une existence réelle, soit qu’il est un objet imité. Le cœur est fait, il est organisé pour cela. Son operation previent donc tous les raisonements, ainsi que l’operation de l’œil et celle de l’oreille les devancent dans leurs sensations”. In English, Critical Reflections on Poetry, Painting and Music, 3 vols. (London: J. Nourse, 1748), vol. 2, pp. 239–240. Ibid., 1719, vol. 2, p. 307 – “Raisonne-t-on, pour sçavoir si le ragoût est bon ou s’il est mauvais”. In English, ibid., vol. 2, p. 238. Ibid., 1719, vol. 1, p. 625 – “Alors l’esprit se livre sans distraction à ce qui le touché. Un curieux d’architecture n’examine une colonne et ne s’arreste sur aucune partie d’un palais qu’après avoir donné le coup d’œil à toute la masse du bâtiment, qu’après avoir bien placé dans son imagination l’idée distincte de ce palais.” In English, ibid., vol.1, p. 353. Marc-Antoine Laugier, Essai sur l’architecture, nouvelle edition (Paris: Duchesne, 1755), pp. 174–175. [This editor’s translation.] Also translated in English by Wolfgang and Anni Herrmann, An Essay on Architecture (Los Angeles: Hennessey and Ingalls, 1977), p. 101. Quoted from La Font de Saint-Yenne, Œuvre critique, ed. E. Jollet (Paris: École nationale supérieure des beaux-arts, 2001), pp. 359–360. Julien-David Leroy, Histoire de la disposition et des formes differentes que les Chrétiens ont données à leurs temples (Paris: Desaint & Saillant, 1764), p. 50. Ibid., p. 55. Ibid., pp. 56–57.

323

Endnotes to pp. 134–143

25 26 27 28 29 30 31

32 33

34 35 36 37 38 39

Ibid., p. 59. Ibid., pp. 61–62. Ibid., pp. 62–63. Ibid., p. 63. Marc-Antoine Laugier, Observations sur l’architecture (Paris: Desaint, 1765), p. 54. Le Corbusier, Vers une architecture, nouvelle édition revue et augmentée (Paris: G. Crès, 1923), p. 16. MS CHA/2/30 Royal Academy, London; quoted by David Watkin, Sir John Soane: Enlightenment thought and the Royal Academy lectures (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), p. 37. Soane Case no. 161, p. 67, 1807, Sir John Soane’s Museum, London. I thank Edward Wendt for this quotation. These are most conveniently to be read, together with the 1810 edition of his first essay, in Uvedale Price’s Essays on the picturesque as compared with the sublime and the beautiful; and, on the use of studying pictures, for the purpose of improving real landscape, 3 vols. (London: J. Mawman, 1810). See note 33, Uvedale Price, 1810, III, p. 145. See note 33, Uvedale Price, 1810, II, pp. 277–279. See note 4, Kames I: 311. Claude-Henri Watelet, Essai sur les jardins (Paris: Preault; Saillant & Nyon; Pissot, 1774), 25. See note 37, Watelet, 62. Claude-Henri Watelet, L’Art de peindre. Poëme. Avec des réflexions sur les différentes parties de la peinture (Paris: H. L. Guerin & L. F. Delatour, 1760), xiii. Watelet takes up the theme in the fourth canto, “l’invention poëtique”. Il y a un movement que rien ne peut suspendre, Facile à démêler, difficile à comprendre. Il vit dans chaque objet: c’est par lui qu’à leur fin, Les êtres entrainées remplissent leur destin. Pour son secours, les corps de diverse nature Reçoivent, en croissant, leur forme, leur structure; Et par l’effet suivi de ses combinaisons, Leur vie a des progrès, des âges, des saisons. C’est de son action, en tous lieux répendue, Le moment bien choisi, l’expression rendue, Qui d’un froid méchanisme, indigne du nom de l’art, Distingue les travaux où l’âme a quelque part. C’est de ce movement la vive et juste image, Qui de l’âme séduite ose exiger l’hommage; Tandis que l’œil content, aux formes arrêté, Approuve des contours l’exacte vérité. (54)

324

Endnotes to pp. 143–145

He goes on to describe how the movement of clouds, winds and storms, or the rushing of waters, can be rendered in painting, and even the movement of time itself, with the depiction of tortured oak trees or an aged face. But he is concerned, rather, in the manner of Lebrun, with the rendering of human gestures and facial expressions, as aspects of movement. Mais quel l’objet plus beau, quel but plus noble encore, Quel spectacle imposant votre art vient d’éclore! L’être le plus parfait, l’homme enfin s’offre à vous; Centres des mouvements, il les réunit tous. Riche de tous les dons, il naît, croît et végéte: L’instinct soumet ses sens par la force secrete; Et d’un feu tout divin, il sent, à chaque instant, L’inexplicable effet, l’immortel movement. (55)

40 41 42 43 44

45

46

In the essays following the poem, Watelet takes up the issue of movement yet again in the section “De l’équilibre ou pondération, et du movement des figures”, which is largely an analysis of the way in which a figure is read about an axis, so that an extended arm or limb requires to be counterbalanced by other parts of the body – “Le movement naît de la rupture du parfait équilibre, et le repos vient du rétablissement de ce même équilibre” (91). He suggested one study dancers, tumblers, and tight-rope walkers. But his aims were yet uncertain, for in the section on beauty and grace he is after something else – “Je crois que la beauté … consiste dans une conformation parfaitement relative aux mouvements qui nous sont propres. La grace consiste dans l’accord de ces mouvements avec ceux de l’âme” (103). Clearly, though Watelet based his thoughts on the ideas of Lebrun, he was fumbling for more. A. N. Duchesne, Sur la formation des jardins (1775), p. 1. R. L. Girardin, De la composition des paysages (1777), p. 79. Carmontelle, Jardin de Monceau, près de Paris (1779), pp. 5–6. Christian Cay Lorenz Hirschfeld, Théorie de l’art des jardins, 5 vols. (Leipzig: successors to M. G. Weidmann and Reich, 1779–1792), vol. 1, pp. 196–199. Linda Parshall, “Motion and emotion in C. C. L. Hirschfeld’s Theory of garden art”, in: Michel Conan (ed.), Landscape design and the experience of motion (Washington: Dumbarton Oaks, 2003), pp. 35–51. William Gilpin, Remarks on forest scenery, and other woodland views (relative chiefly to picturesque beauty) illustrated by scenes of New Forest in Hampshire …, 2 vols. (London: R. Blamire, 1791), II, p. 225. I thank Vittoria Di Palma for this reference. I first discovered this story, many years ago, in Kenneth Clark’s Landscape into art (London: John Murray, 1949), p. 102, but he avoided footnotes; the proper reference now is John Gage, Turner: Rain, steam and speed (London: Allen Lane Penguin Press, 1972), p. 16.

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Endnotes to pp. 148–163

Kenneth Frampton Towards an Ontological Architecture (pp. 148–159) 1 2

3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11

12 13

Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method (New York: Seaburg Press, 1975), pp. 138–139. Edmund Husserl, The Crisis of European Science and Transcendental Philosophy: An introduction to Phenomenological Philosophy (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1970). Martin Heidegger, “The Origin of the Work of Art”, in: Poetry, Language, Thought, trans. A. Hofstadter (New York: Harper Row, 1971), pp. 42, 44–45. Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition (Chicago / London: University of Chicago Press, 1958), p. 7. Ibid., The Human Condition, p. 173. Ibid., The Human Condition. pp. 167–168. Ibid., The Human Condition. pp. 125–126. Ibid., The Human Condition. p. 201. Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenology of Perception, trans. C. Smith (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1962), p. 137. Zygmunt Bauman, Culture as Praxis (London: Sage Publications, 1999), p. xiv. See Jonathan Hale, “Critical Phenomenology: Architecture and the Ambiguities of Embodiment”, in: A Carefully Folded Ham Sandwich, Towards a Critical Phenomenology, The Inaugural Frascari Symposium, ed. Roger Connah (Montreal, Canada: FAD Design House, 2014), pp. 31–49. Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenology of Perception, p. 362. Gadamer. Truth and Method, p. 273.

Gabriele Bryant Modern Aesthetics and the Machine (pp. 160–183) 1 2 3 4 5

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Adolf Behne, Wiederkehr der Kunst (The Return of Art) (1918). Paul Frankl, The Artist and the Machine (1932). Wolfgang Pehnt, Die Architektur des Expressionismus (Ostfildern: Hatje, 1998), p. 291. Quoted in Detlef Mertins, “Introduction”, in: Walter Curt Behrendt, The Victory of the New Building Style (Santa Monica: Getty, 2000), p. 47. Peter Behrens, “Kunst und Technik” (1910), reprinted in Tilmann Buddensieg and Henning Rogge, Industriekultur: Peter Behrens und die AEG 1907–1914 (Berlin: Mann, 1980), pp. D278–D285, p. D285. Peter Behrens, “Zeitloses und Zeitbewegtes”, Zentralblatt der Bauverwaltung, 31 ( July 1932), 361–365, 363. Behrens, “Zeitloses”, p. 365. László Moholy-Nagy, Malerei, Fotographie, Film (1927) (Mainz: Kupferberg,

Endnotes to pp. 163–170

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1967), p. 15. Sigfried Giedion, Building in France, Building in Iron, Building in Ferroconcrete, with an introduction by Sokratis Georgiadis (Santa Monica: Getty, 1995), p. 87. Annemarie Jaeggi, Fagus: Industrial Culture from Werkbund to Bauhaus (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2000), p. 66. Adolf Behne, “Entwürfe und Bauten von Walter Gropius”, Zentralblatt der Bauverwaltung, 42 (1922), 637–646, 638. Julius Posener, Berlin auf dem Wege zu einer neuen Architektur: Das Zeitalter Wilhelms II. (Munich: Prestel, 1995), pp. 564–570. Regarding the modern(ist) debate about the lack of “truthfulness” of Behrens’s Turbine factory, and a discussion about the relation of “poetry” and “truth” in Behrens’s approach to architecture, see Gabriele H. Bryant, “AEG Turbine Factory: Peter Behrens”, in: Harry F. Mallgrave et al. (eds.), Wiley-Blackwell Companion to the History of Architecture, vol. IV (New Jersey: John Wiley and Sons, 2016), forthcoming. Hüter suggests talking about three stages in the development of the notion of artistic synthesis in Gropius’s work. See Karl-Heinz Hüter, “Gesamtkunstwerk, Gesamtwerk, totale Architektur”, Rassegna, 15 (1983), 47–56, 47. Quoted in Horst Claussen, Walter Gropius: Grundzüge seines Denkens (Hildesheim: Olms, 1986), p. 22. Quoted in Claussen, Gropius, pp. 86ff. Marcel Franciscono, Walter Gropius and the Creation of the BAUHAUS in Weimar: The Ideals and Artistic Theories of its Founding Years (Urbana, Ill.: University of Illinois Press, 1971), p. 172. Alan Colquhoun, “Kritik und Selbstkritik in der deutschen Moderne”, in: Vittorio Lampugnani and Romana Schneider (eds.), Moderne Architektur in Deutschland 1900–1950: Expressionismus und Neue Sachlichkeit (Stuttgart: Hatje, 1994), pp. 251–272, pp. 261–262. Adolf Behne, The Modern Functional Building, with an introduction by Rosemarie Haag Bletter (Santa Monica: Getty, 1996), p. 123. Richard Wagner, “Das Kunstwerk der Zukunft”, in: Dichtungen und Schriften: Kommentierte Jubiläumsausgabe in zehn Bänden, ed. by Dieter Borchmeyer (Frankfurt/M.: Insel, 1983), VI, p. 17. Behrendt, Victory, p. 107. Behrendt, Victory, p. 89. Behrendt, Victory, p. 142. Conrad Fiedler, quoted in Werner Hofmann, Grundlagen der modernen Kunst (Stuttgart: Kröner, 1978), p. 233. Hans Blumenberg, “‘Nachahmung der Natur’: Zur Vorgeschichte der Idee des schöpferischen Menschen”, in: Wirklichkeiten, in denen wir leben (Stuttgart: Reclam, 1981), pp. 55–103, p. 93. Behrendt, Victory, p. 107.

327

Endnotes to pp. 170–176

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Reprinted in Hartmut Probst and Christian Schädlich (eds.): Walter Gropius: Werkverzeichnis und Ausgewählte Schriften, 3 vols. (Berlin: Ernst & Sohn, 1986), III, pp. 58–59, p. 59. Behrendt, Victory, p. 109. Behrendt, Victory, p. 107. See Mertins, “Introduction”, pp. 36–40. For Fiedler’s theory of art as “Herstellen von eigenständigen Formwirklichkeiten” (creation of autonomous formal realities), see Hofmann, Grundlagen, pp. 229–242. Quoted in Mertins, “Introduction”, p. 39. Mertins, “Introduction”, pp. 31, 44–48. Quoted in Fritz Neumeyer, Mies van der Rohe: Das kunstlose Wort (Berlin: Siedler, 1986), p. 88. “Diary entry in 1928”, quoted in Neumeyer, Wort, p. 104. Fritz Neumeyer, “A world in itself: Architecture and Technology”, in: Detlef Mertins (ed.), The Presence of Mies (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1994), pp. 71–84, pp. 76, 79. Stanford Owen Anderson, Peter Behrens and a New Architecture for the Twentieth Century (Cambridge/MA: MIT Press, 2000), p. 260. Quoted in Neumeyer, Wort, p. 196. Quoted in Sokratis Georgiadis, “Introduction”, in: Sigfried Giedion, Building in France, Building in Iron, Building in Ferroconcrete (Santa Monica: Getty, 1995), pp. 30–31. Detlef Mertins, “Mies’s Skyscraper ‘Project’: Towards the Redemption of Technical Structure”, in: Mertins (ed.), Presence, pp. 49–70. Quoted in Mertins, “Redemption”, p. 59. Quoted in Neumeyer, Wort, p. 228. Jeffrey Herf, Reactionary Modernism: Technology, Culture, and Politics in Weimar and the Third Reich (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), p. 12. Wolfgang Emmerich and Carl Wege, “Einleitung”, in: Emmerich/Wege (eds.), Der Technikdiskurs in der Hitler-Stalin-Ära (Stuttgart: Metzler, 1995), pp. 1–14, p. 7. See the seminal study by Fritz Stern, The Politics of Cultural Despair: A Study in the Rise of the Germanic Ideology (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1961). Wolfgang Voigt, Atlantropa: Weltbauten am Mittelmeer: Ein Architektentraum der Moderne (Hamburg: Dölling & Galitz, 1998), pp. 7–8. For a detailed discussion of this project and its originator, as well as an illustration of many architectural projects developed in this context, see Voigt, Atlantropa; and Alexander Gall, Das Atlantropa-Projekt: Die Geschichte einer gescheiterten Vision. Herman Sörgel und die Absenkung des Mittelmeers (Frankfurt/M.: Campus, 1998). Quoted in Voigt, Atlantropa, p. 21. Quoted in Voigt, Atlantropa, p. 33.

Endnotes to pp. 176–182

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52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68

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“Weltbauen” becomes the battle-cry for a whole generation of architects, especially after World War I, whose cosmic as well as socio-political aspirations, however, show significant ideological variations. See also “Weltbauen als Mentalität”, in: Voigt, Atlantropa, pp. 29–33. Richard Wagner, “Die Kunst und die Revolution” in: Schriften, V, p. 311. Cf. Gabriele Bryant, “Projecting modern culture: ‘Aesthetic fundamentalism’ and modern architecture”, in: Mari Hvattum and Christian Hermansen (eds.), Tracing Modernity: Manifestations of the Modern in Architecture and the City (London: Routledge, 2004), pp. 68–80. Voigt, Atlantropa, p. 116. Quoted in Voigt, Atlantropa, p. 116. Quoted in Volker Welter, “Herman Sörgel und sein Kontinent Atlantropa”, Bauwelt, 18/19 (May 1991), 958–963, 961. Quoted in Voigt, Atlantropa, p. 34. Voigt also discusses here Mendelsohn’s vision of Atlantropa as a “Vorstufe” (precursor) of a return to Palestine. See pp. 37ff. See Josef Chytry, The Aesthetic State: A Quest in Modern German Thought (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989). Wolfgang Voigt, “Atlantropa: Ein hypertrophes Projekt der Moderne”, Bauwelt 18/19 (May 1991), 939–943. Cf. Carl F. Graumann, Grundlagen einer Phänomenologie und Psychologie der Perspektivität (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1960). Herf, Reactionary Modernism, p. 12. See Eva Hesse, Die Achse Avantgarde-Faschismus: Reflexionen über Filippo Tommaso Marinetti und Ezra Pound (Zurich: Arche, 1991). Quoted in Herf, Reactionary Modernism, pp. 79, 70. Quoted in Herf, Reactionary Modernism, p. 79. Quoted in Herf, Reactionary Modernism, p. 77. Walter Benjamin, Das Kunstwerk im Zeitalter seiner technischen Reproduzierbarkeit (1936) (Frankfurt/M.: Suhrkamp, 2003), p. 44. See Hans-Georg Gadamer, Wahrheit und Methode: Grundzüge einer philosophischen Hermeneutik (Tübingen: Mohr, 1986), p. 93. Modris Eksteins, Rites of Spring: The Great War and the Birth of the Modern Age (London: Bantam, 1989), pp. 111, 133. Ernst Jünger, quoted in Herf, Reactionary Modernism, p. 105. I am basing the following discussion on Herf, Reactionary Modernism, and also Karl-Heinz Ludwig, Technik und Ingenieure im Dritten Reich (Königstein: Athenäum, 1979). Schroter, “Die Philosophie der Technik”, quoted in Herf, Reactionary Modernism, p. 169. Heinrich Hardensett, “Über das Verhältnis von industrieller Technik zur bildenden Kunst”, Technik und Kultur, 16 (1925), 10–13. The heroic image of the architect and his appeal as authentic creator of new values

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72

has been widely popularized in Ayn Rand’s novel The Fountainhead (New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1943), with its popularization/vulgarization of Nietzschean philosophy and the notion of a creative elite in its struggle against a parasitic civilization. Emmerich/Wege (eds.), Technikdiskurs, p. 4.

Alberto Pérez-Gómez Le Corbusier’s La Tourette (pp. 184–199) 1 2

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Le Corbusier, Precisions on the Present State of Architecture and City Planning (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1991), originally published in French in 1930. Friedrich Nietzsche, “Vom Nutzen und Nachteil der Historie für das Leben”, Unzeitgemässe Betrachtungen (Leipzig: Verlag von E. W. Fritsch, 1874). In English: Friedrich Nietzsche, “On the Uses and Disadvantages of History for Life”, in: Untimely Meditations, ed. D. Breazeale, trans. R. J. Hollingdale (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), p. 63. Octavio Paz, El Arco y la Lira (Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1956 and 1967). In English: Octavio Paz, “The Poetic Revelation”, in: The Bow and the Lyre, trans. Ruth Simms (Austin and London: University of Texas, 1973), p. 102 My statements are based on personal interviews during a three-day stay at the convent in 1985. The occasion was an intimate symposium on architecture organized by Juhani Pallasmaa. L’Art sacré, 1954; quoted in Le Corbusier, Architect of the Century, Catalogue for an Exhibition at the Hayward Gallery, London, March – June, 1987 (London: Arts Council of Great Britain, 1987), p. 252. Paul Ricœur, Time and Narrative, (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1984), p. 80. See “The Coat of Whitewash”, in The Decorative Art of Today (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1987), pp. 188 ff. The text was originally published in French in 1925. Ibid., p. 188. Le Corbusier, Precisions, pp. 132–133. Le Corbusier, Towards a New Architecture (London: The Architectural Press, 1927), p. 37. Le Corbusier, New World of Space (New York: Reynal and Hitchcock, 1948), p. 7. Ibid. He calls this “moment of limitless escape” the fourth dimension. His understanding has some resonance with Marcel Duchamp’s in the White Box. Ibid., pp. 7–8. Interview by Alberto Pérez-Gómez, 1985. Arata Isozaki, “Eros or the Sea”, in: Le Couvent de La Tourette, GA 11. Quoted by Richard Moore, Myth and Meta-Architecture (1977), p. 1. Alberto Pérez-Gómez and Louise Pelletier, Architectural Representation and the

Endnotes to pp. 195–203

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Perspective Hinge, (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1997), pp. 340 ff. Le Corbusier, quoted by Christopher Green, “The Architect as Artist”, in: Le Corbusier, Architect of the Century, p. 117. Le Corbusier, New World of Space (New York: Paul Rosenberg Gallery, 1948). Ibid. Cited in Le Corbusier, Architect of the Century, p. 246. In literature, La Tourette is particularly reminiscent of Alain Robbe-Grillet’s In the Labyrinth (New York: Grove Press, 1960), contrasting sharply with the linear narratives of nineteenth-century novelists. While for Jacques Derrida and his followers the very notion of experience is still part of the metaphysics of presence, Le Corbusier’s La Tourette clearly demonstrates the plausibility of a wholly other premise. Derrida interpreted the notion of experience idealistically. Merleau-Ponty’s goal in The Visible and the Invisible was precisely to de-idealize the notion of experience. The ‘denial’ of experience is impossible, philosophical nonsense. Experience presupposes nothing more than an encounter between ‘us’ and ‘what is’. As if in response to Derrida, Merleau-Ponty writes: “Is it not the resolution to ask of experience itself its secret already an idealist commitment?” See Gary B. Madison, “Did Merleau-Ponty have a Theory of Perception?”, in: Thomas W. Busch and Shaun Gallagher (eds.), Merleau-Ponty, Hermeneutics, and Postmodernism (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1992). Bruno Reichlin, “‘Une Petite Maison’ on Lake Leman: The Perret-Corbusier Controversy”, Lotus (1988) no. 4, p. 59–83.

David Leatherbarrow Rule and Law—Architecture and Nature (pp. 200–217) 1 2

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Quoted in Louis I. Kahn, Writings, Lectures, Interviews, introd. and ed. Alessandra Latour (Rizzoli, 1991), p. 221. Le Corbusier, Mise au point (Paris: Éditions Forces-Vives, 1966). In English: Le Corbusier, The Final Testament of Père Corbu: A translation and interpretation of Mise au point by Ivan Žaknić (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, p. 88. Heraclitus, DK 114. Early examples included the anonymous Rule of the Master, Basil of Caesarea’s Rule, John Cassian’s Institutes, and, of course Saint Benedict’s Rule. The rule of life, regula vitae or regula vivificans, was implied in each of these writings, but also of faith, regula fidei, and, with judicial emphasis, regula iuris. Of course these Rules had differences as well as similarities. In the Rules that formed the basis for the later Orders, the differences gave particularity to each way of life. In reverse: the Rules could be seen as manifestations, expressions, or articulations of those ways of life. The Latin eremita was based on the Greek ‫݋‬ȡȘȝȓIJȘȢ, cognate with ‫݋‬ȡȘȝȓĮmeaning desert, and ‫݋‬ȡ߱ȝȠȢwhich referred to any uninhabited, empty or desolate place.

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Shelter, shade, and shadow are cognate words. The idea that the interconnections between these three account for architectural origins has a long history. Although his overall characterization was negative, given his clear preference for “life on the savannah”, Frank Lloyd Wright attested to the archetypal nature of this type of living situation in his “shadows in the wall” story in The Living City. A positive account, describing the cave shadow as architecture’s origin, was offered by Sverre Fehn in “How Our Dimensions are Born”, in: Poetry of the Straight Line. Louis I. Kahn, “Law and Rule in Architecture” [1961 and 1962], in: Robert Twombly (ed.), Louis Kahn Essential Texts (New York: Norton, 2003), pp. 126 and 138. Kahn, “Law and Rule”, p. 138. Leo Spitzer, Classical and Christian Ideas of World Harmony (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 1963). Spitzer, citing Heinrich Gomperz (66) wrote: “the order of nature is based on an equilibrium of rights and obligations”; day has the right to last a certain time, night too; violations will be avenged. Kahn, “Law and Rule”, p. 127. Kahn, “Law and Rule”, p. 146. While the etymology of the word religion is contested, one derivation elaborated this textile metaphor: religāre meant to tie or bind together. The alternative explanation, offered first by Cicero it seems, was not textile but textual: relegere meant to read over again, to re-read or read repeatedly. Legere is not only the source of terms like legend and legacy, but more significantly for us, legal and its derivative law. The Greek source, ȜȑȖİȚȞ, had a range of meanings, including: to collect, gather, speak, or tell. Coenobite or cenobite derives from two Greek words, țȠȚȞȩȢ (koinos), meaning common, and ȕȓȠȢ (bios), meaning life. Kahn, “Law and Rule”, p. 141. The philosopher Eric Voegelin published a text with exactly this title, coincidentally at the same time that Kahn was working on the St Andrew’s project. Voegelin argued that in antiquity (especially in Plato) experiences of the “tension” between time and eternity avoided the objectification of each pole, effectively dissolving what we moderns see as a paradoxical or a difficult conjunction of opposites. See: Eric Voegelin, “Eternal Being in Time” [1964], in: Anamnesis (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame, 1978), pp. 116–142. Kahn, “Law and Rule”, p. 142. I use this last phrase in the sense of Paul Ricœur, whose text “The Function of Fiction in Shaping Reality”, Man and World 12, no. 2 (1979), pp. 123–141, has guided my arguments. My italics. Francis Ponge, “Water”, in: The Voice of Things (New York: McGraw Hill, 1972), p. 50. I cite and elaborate the architectural implications of Ponge’s reflections on water in: David Leatherbarrow, “Horizon of all Horizons”, in: Anuradha Mathur and Dilip da Cunha (eds.), Design in the Terrain of Water (San

Endnotes to pp. 213–217

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Francisco: Applied Research + Design Publishing, 2014), pp. 154–163. The Benedictine monks who established the St Andrew’s Priory had purchased a pre-existing “ranch” as their new location after being expelled from China a few years earlier. The ranch was sited near a small body of water, which appears on Kahn’s site plans. Today the pond is equipped with a Chinese-style tea house. These and other improvements and enlargements accompanied the elevation of the Priory to the status of Abbey in 1992. Although small constructions on Kahn’s site today may be the location of a well head, the valley pond location as the source is also the opinion of Michael Merrill, the author of two wonderful studies of this project, from which I have benefited greatly. The most readily available of the two studies is: Michael Merrill, Louis Kahn on the Thoughtful Making of Spaces: The Dominican Motherhouse and a Modern Culture of Space (Baden, Switzerland: Lars Müller, 2010), pp. 194–204. The relevant chapter in that book is based on an earlier study: Michael Merrill, Louis Kahn and the Dominican Motherhouse: Problems of Space, Ph.D. dissertation, Universität Karlsuhe (2008), pp. 84–94. The author kindly provided me with the web link to his dissertation: http://digbib.ubka. uni-karlsruhe.de/volltexte/1000021240. The term “crowning” was introduced by Michael Merrill in the two texts I have cited. He also introduced a religious metaphor, describing the raised reservoir as a “sacramental cup”. Leon Battista Alberti, On the Art of Building in Ten Books (Cambridge, MA: MIT, 1988), p. 97. The eighteenth century translation reads as follows: “Upon a hill I would make the ground level, and upon a plain I would raise it to an eminence in that part where my city was to be placed.” Leone Battista Alberti, Ten Books on Architecture [1726] (London: Alec Tiranti, 1965), p. 68. Interestingly, this edition was released the year Kahn resumed work on the St Andrew’s project. Alberti, On the Art of Building, p. 100. Alberti, Ten Books on Architecture, p. 69. Fernand Pouillon, The Stones of Le Thoronet [1964] (London: Jonathan Cape, 1970), p. 21. Coincidentally, the French edition of the book appeared when Kahn was at work on St Andrew’s. This observation was made by Michael Merrill. I have in mind his unbuilt Tower of Shadows Le Corbusier designed for Chandigarh. I explain this intention in a forthcoming text: David Leatherbarrow, “Nature and Artifice in the Architecture of Sverre Fehn”, in: Albert Kirchengast (ed.), Nature Modern (Zürich: ETH, 2016). “… in this environment which is so mobile, so fluid, so shifting, descending, flowing, I said: I am not going to establish the [building’s] position from the ground because it flees …. We establish the position from the horizontal at the top of the building, so that it will be composed with the horizon. And we will measure everything from this horizontal at the top and only meet the ground

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at the moment we touch it.” – Le Corbusier, “Interview with the Community”, L’Art sacré 14, nos. 7–8 (March–April 1960), p. 6. Dagmar Motycka Weston ‘The Language of Stones’ (pp. 220–246) 1

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The phenomenological notion of the natural world has been illuminatingly interpreted by Dalibor Vesely, Architecture in the Age of Divided Representation (Cambridge, MA: MIT, 2004), pp. 82–83. See also Jan Patočka, “The Natural World and Phenomenology”, in Erazim Kohák, ed, Jan Patočka. Philosophy and Selected Writings (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989), pp. 246–254. The title of the project was drawn from André Breton’s essay “La Langue des pierres”, in which he celebrates the communicative power of stones. Le Surréalisme, même, no. 3 (Paris, 1957). See Fabio Barry, “Walking on Water: Cosmic Floors in Antiquity and the Middle Ages”, Art Bulletin, Vol. 89, Issue 4, Dec 2007, pp. 627–656, and Richard Foster, Patterns of Thought (London: Cape, 1991). See Le Corbusier, Œuvre complète, Vol 5: 1946–1952, ed. Willy Boesiger (Basel: FLC and Birkhauser, 1995), pp. 24–37. A more contemporary example of the power of the architecture of the cave is Peter Zumthor’s thermal baths at Vals, Switzerland, of 1996. See Mircea Eliade, “Sacred Stones”, in: Patterns in Comparative Religions (London: Sheed and Ward, 1958), pp. 216–238. See Le Corbusier, Precisions on the Present State of Architecture and the City (orig. 1930), ed. E. Schreiber Aujame (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1991), pp. 75–76, and Poème de l’angle droit, Plate C2. Salvador Dalí, “De la beauté terrifiante et comestible de l’architecture style moderne”, Minotaure No 3-4, 1933. This Surrealist fascination is evident in Brassaï’s photographs of crystals, such as his image of salt crystals (c. 1932), which Breton used in his book L’Amour fou with the caption The house where I live, my life, what I write. See Alberto Pérez-Gómez, Architecture and the Crisis of Modern Science (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1985), pp. 227-235. J.-N.-L. Durand, Précis of the Lectures on Architecture (orig. 1802), Getty Texts & Documents, trans. by David Britt (Los Angeles: Getty Research Institute, 2000), pp. 89-93. See David Dernie, The New Stone Architecture (London: Laurence King Publishing, 2003). See for example S. K. Heninger, Jr., The Cosmographical Glass: Renaissance Diagrams of the Universe (San Marino, Calif.: Huntingon Library Press, 1977). James Hutton, “Theory of the Earth”, in: George White (ed.), James Hutton’s System

Endnotes to pp. 236–258

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of the Earth, 1785; Theory of the Earth, 1788; Observations on Granite, 1794; Contributions to the History of Geology, Vol. 5, (Darien, Conn.: Hafner, 1970), see for example p. 215. See Colin Rowe, The Architecture of Good Intentions (London: Academy, 1994), pp. 75-104. Jan Patočka, “The Natural World and Phenomenology”, in op. cit., p. 240. Ibid., p. 242. This is what Martin Heidegger has characterized as the essential “enframing” tendency of modern technology. The Question Concerning Technology and Other Essays, trans. William Lovitt (New York: Harper & Row, 1977), pp. 3-35. In other words, they do not conform to each other. For a description of this geological site, see www.eeo.ed.ac.uk/undergraduate/field/siccarpoint See Dagmar Motycka Weston, “‘Worlds in Miniature’: Some Reflections on Scale and the Microcosmic Meaning of Cabinets of Curiosities”, Architectural Research Quarterly, 2009. See Claudine Frank (ed.), The Edge of Surrealism: A Roger Caillois Reader (Durham, N.C, and London: Duke University Press, 2003), esp. pp. 3-6 and 82-84, and Marina Warner, “The Writing of Stones”, Cabinet, Issue 29, Spring 2008, www.cabinetmagazine.org/issues/29/warner.php Roger Caillois, “Letter to André Breton” (1934), in: Claudine Frank (ed.), The Edge of Surrealism, p. 85. Ibid., p. 12. The guest speakers and critics for this project were scholars, architects and geologists, all of whom have thought deeply about and contributed to the cultural discourse about the meaning and use of stone. I am particularly grateful to Dalibor Vesely, Eric Parry, David Dernie, Richard Murphy, Charlie Sutherland, Michael Browne and Fabio Barry.

Christian Frost Tradition and Historicism in the Remodelling of Tate Britain (pp. 247–263) 1 2 3 4 5

6 7

Adolf Loos, “Architecture” (1910). Louis Sullivan, “Ornament in Architecture”, The Engineering Magazine (August 1892). Karsten Harries, The Ethical Function of Ornament (Boston: MIT Press, 1998), p. 48. Barry Bergdoll, European Architecture 1750–1890 (Oxford: OUP, 2000), p. 187. The expression “historic environment”, with its inbuilt prejudice towards “historicism” rather than an evolving “historicity”, is still used within the heritage movement today. See the Millbank Conservation Area (2005), Westminster City Council, January 2005. John Weeks, “Indeterminate Architecture” (1964), Transactions of the Bartlett Society, no. 2 (1963–1964), pp. 83–106.

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AT 2013. Architecture Today, no. 243, Nov/Dec 2013, p. 62. “Geschichte hat nie frühere Geschichte copirt und wenn sie es gethan hat, so zählt ein solcher Act nicht in der Geschichte, die Geschichte hört gewissermaȕen in ihm ganz auf. Nur das ist ein geschichtlicher Act, der auf irgend eine Weise ein Mehr, ein neues Element in die Welt einführt, aus dem sich eine neue Geschichte erzeugt und fortspinnt.” (Peschken, Schinkels Lehrbuch [Anm. 3], S. 149), 1835.

Patrick Lynch Civic Bodies (pp. 264–285) 1 2 3 4 5

Dalibor Vesely, Architecture in the Age of Divided Representation (MIT Press, 2004), p. 94. Peter Ackroyd, London Under (London: Vintage, 2012), pp. 1-13. Joseph Rykwert, The Dancing Column: On Order in Architecture (MIT, 1996), p. 373. In conversation, David Evans, co-director of Lynch Architects, 2010. Dalibor Vesely, Architecture in the Age of Divided Representation: The Question of Creativity in the Shadow of Production (MIT, 2004), p. 106.

Stephen Witherford “Half of it is not necessarily in ruins” (pp. 286–296) 1 2

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Dalibor Vesely, The Foundations of Architecture in the Deep Structure of the Latent World, unpublished manuscript, kindly loaned by the author. André Breton, Manifestoes of Surrealism (1924); taken from Dalibor Vesely, Surrealist House as Labyrinth and Metaphor of Creativity, unpublished manuscript, kindly loaned by the author. Julian Stanford in an e-mail to Witherford Watson Mann Architects following his stay at Astley Castle. George Butler speaking after his stay at Astley Castle recorded in a BBC interview.

Index

abstract, 34-35, 40, 55, 57, 60, 62, 66, 69, 74, 149, 150, 172-174, 182, 232-233, 235; – descriptions, 57; – numbers, 55; – sculpture, 100; – symbols, 57; abstraction, 30-33, 38-40, 46-47, 49-50, 58, 64, 148, 172-175, 232, 235, 311 (94), 313 (12) aesthetics, 4, 11-12, 15-16, 107-109, 111, 149, 161-183, 297, 319 (15), 320 (10); aesthetic, 43, 96, 101, 106, 108, 110, 115, 138, 155, 190, 234, 249-252, 255, 265, 329 (51), 329 (56); – consciousness, 11, 148; – judgement, 248; – object, 198; aestheticization, 149, 163, 178, 180, 201; aestheticism, 221, 301, 321 (17, 21); nonaesthetic, 264 Alberti, Leon Battista, 114, 120, 214-215, 250, 274-275, 281-282, 333 (23-25) Alexandria, 70-71, 75; Eratosthenes of –, 331 (5); Heron of –, 71; Menelaos of –, 315; Alexandrian, 37, 68-69, 71, 315 (20) Alps, 111 Alte Pinakothek, 256 Anatasis (church of the Holy Sepulchre), 71, 315 (17) Anaxagoras, 31 ancien régime, 10 animation, 1-2; see soul

Annunciation, 103 Anschauung, 38-39, 47, 49, 65, 307 (29, 32) Anthemius of Tralles, 71, 73, 75, 315 (19-20) Anthony the Great, St, 203, 205 Antiquity, 1-2, 4, 10, 48, 55, 74, 332 (15), 334 (3) appearance, 13-14, 31, 50, 153-155, 157, 172, 283, 307 aqueduct, 211 Aquinas, Thomas, St, 13, 35 archaeology, 251-252, 261 archetype, 69, 189, 332 (6) Architectural Association, x, 298, 300-303 architecture, vii-xi, 1-17, 38, 50-51, 53, 55, 61, 63, 66, 77-78, 81, 86, 89-92, 99, 107, 119-145, 148-159, 161, 163-164, 166-167, 170, 173, 186-187, 190-191, 194, 196-198, 201-217, 221-246, 248, 250-253, 255-256, 258, 263-265, 270, 274-277, 281-285, 297-304, 322 (1), 323 (19), 327 (13), 330 (4), 332 (6), 334 (4); architectura, 9, 54; architectonic, 32, 35, 52, 66, 243, 306 (8); Architektonik, 64 Arendt, Hannah, 149-151, 153-155 Argyropoulos, 32, 64, 306 (2, 7) Aristotle, 30-35, 39, 50-52, 54, 57-62, 66, 306 (8), 313 (5); Aristotelian, 31-66, 69, 119 Ark of the Covenant, 68-70, 74-75, 313 (11, 13) art nouveau, 231 art, 11-12, 15-16, 31, 38, 43, 50-55, 59, 65, 77, 94-95, 97, 100-102, 107-111,

337

Index

113-114, 128, 141-144, 148, 150, 152-153, 160-164, 166-176, 179-183, 196, 226, 229-231, 249, 251-252, 255, 258, 262, 274, 309 (62), 317 (37); – history, 38, 90, 102; – of building, 81, 174; – of stonecutting, 234; Bizantine –, 67; Christian –, 2, 87; folk –, 85; Gesamtkunstwerk, 161-183; Kunst der Systeme, 64; modern –, 4, 107, 115, 255; Scandinavian –, 216; state of the –, 269; Western –, 1; will to –, 37; arts, 5, 8, 10-11, 15, 17, 53, 59, 61, 102, 115, 129, 150, 164, 168, 170-171, 183, 229, 250, 257, 264; –s and crafts, 170; artist, viii, 31, 43-45, 102, 112, 115, 128, 132, 142-143, 152-153, 160-162, 166, 168, 170-171, 174, 176, 179-180, 182, 195, 221-222, 229-231, 262, 271, 282-283 Astley Castle, viii, 287-296, 336 (3-4) Athos, Mount, 76 Atlantropa, 175-179 auditorium, 85 Augustine, St, 6 authenticity, 17, 249, 260, 261 Bachelard, Gaston, 239-240 Bader, Johann Anton, 102 baptistry, 74 Barbaro, Daniele, 50-55, 58-59, 61, 63, 65 Baroque, x, 95, 115, 119, 229-230, 248, 257, 283-284 Barozzi, Francesco, 54, 55-61, 62 Basel, 111 basilica, 70-71, 314 (16-17), 317 (33)

338

Bauhaus, 163-164, 166-167 Baumgarten, Alexander Gottlieb, 11, 107-110; see aesthetics Bavaria, ix, 97, 103, 115, 301 beauty, vii, 2, 12, 61-62, 81, 93-117, 127-128, 131, 133, 136, 138, 140-141, 179, 209, 231, 239, 248, 288, 317 (27-28), 325 (39); arbitrary –, 11; the line of –, 141; beautiful, 16, 81, 82-84, 92-94, 96-97, 108-110, 113-115, 126, 139, 155, 178-179 Behrens, Peter, 162-163, 165-167, 169, 171-173, 176 being, 14, 32, 46, 110, 116, 128, 148, 150-151, 155-156, 163, 156, 200, 210; – at home, 105; being-in-the-world, 14, 112; great chain of –, 229; human –, 90, 104-106, 224; mode of –, 96; question of –, 14; beings, 1, 153, 195 Benedict, St, 7, 206-207, 331 (4); Benedictines, 201-204, 333 (20) Benjamin, Walter, 95, 98, 180 Bentley, John Francis, 266, 269, 281 Bernard, St, 207; Bernini, Gian Lorenzo, 120, 230 Bible, 3, 5, 67, 102, 119; biblical, 74, 232, 235; see Scripture Black Forest, 103-106, 107 blood, 2, 179; see flesh Blumenberg, Hans, 182 body, 1-2, 5, 7, 15, 62, 81, 87-89, 92, 106, 111, 120, 151, 156-157, 189, 193-194, 223, 225, 236, 250, 281, 291, 314 (15), 325 (39) Brentano, Franz, 12-13

Index

Breton, André, 231, 238-240, 290, 334 (2, 8) brick, 74, 243, 257-258, 275, 287-292, 294-295, 317 (29) brise soleil, 216, 280 Bruno, Giordano, 197 Bruno, St, 207 Brutalist, 284 building (action), 4, 16, 52, 67, 70, 77, 102-103, 105-106, 152-154, 161, 214, 223, 232, 250; – materials, 223-224, 226, 233-235; – practices, 203; – tradition, 7, 223, 241, 225-226, 241; – types, 2, 77, 153, 245, 274; art of –, 81, 174; church –, 73, 130; building, –s (noun), 16, 67, 71, 73-75, 81, 82-84, 85, 89, 92, 107, 120, 124, 126-127, 129, 131-132, 135-136, 140, 144, 148, 152-153, 164-165, 169, 185, 189-190-191, 194, 197-198, 210, 213, 215, 221-222, 225, 234-235, 243-245, 247-249, 251-252, 253-256, 256-259, 260-263, 265-272, 274-275, 277-278, 280-284, 287, 314 (13), 315 (17, 19, 21), 316 (24), 319 (3), 333 (30); Indian –, 78; outbuildings, 74, 138; rebuilding, 70, 287; sacred –, 70, 78; urban –, 77 Byzantine, ix, 67, 74-77, 80, 226, 314 Caillois, Roger, 238-241 Cairo, 203 capriccio, 99-100 Carthusians, 207 Caruso St John, 259-261, 262, 265 castle, 82-83, 220, 224-224, 227, 288, 290-292, 296; see Astley Castle category, 2, 4, 42-43, 139-140, 179-180;

Kantian –, 90 cathedral, 16, 79, 84, 248; – schools, 7; Bamberg –, 104; Dormition – in Moskow, 76; Hamar –, 82; – of Notre-Dame in Paris, 129; Westminster –, 266, 269, 279, 281; Cathedral of the Future, 166-167 Catholic, 9, 83, 102, 185-186, 192 caves, 223, 227-228, 242 certainty, 11, 51, 55, 57-59, 236, 307 (21) chinoiserie, 283 Chipperfield, David, 256, 261, 265, 267, 271 Chirico, Giorgio de, 230 Christ, 8, 88, 91, 102-103 Christian, 1-3, 5-8, 15, 75, 114, 116, 190, 208, 227, 235, 318 (44); Early –, 73, 316 (21); pre-Christian, 85 Christian Topography, 67, 312 (4), 314 (16) church, ix, 7, 70-71, 73-76, 79-80, 83, 102, 130-131, 136-137, 152, 184, 192-193, 215, 226, 230, 248, 254, 262, 265, 287-288, 314-315 (17) 316 (21, 23); Great Church, 67-80; ‫݋‬țțȜȘıȓĮ70; ecclesia, 193; Anastasis, church of the Holy Sepulchre or, 71, 315 (17); Eastern Church, 79; Hagia Irene, ancient church of Holy Peace or, 70, 75-76; Hagia Sophia, 67-80, 317 (35); Nativity, church of the, 70-71; Pantheon, in Rome, 74, 132; Sainte-Geneviève, (Panthéon) in Paris, 131; Santa Costanza in Rome, 73; Santa Prudenziana in Rome, 71;

339

Index

St Andrew's Priory, church of, 205, 212, 215; St Johannes der Täufer, Oppolding, 93-117; St Mary, abbey church of, Nuneaton, 289, 293; St Peter’s Basilica, 70, 132; St Paul’s Basilica, in Rome, 70; St Polyeuktes, in Constantinople, 316 (27) St Sophia in Kiev, 80; Sts Sergius and Bacchus, (Little Hagia Sophia) in Constantinople, 71-73, 315 (19); La Tourette, church of the convent of, 189, 192-193, 197 Cicero, 41, 332 (12) Cistercians, 207 city, 6-8, 80, 135, 153, 166, 178, 200, 222, 230-232, 235, 265, 270, 272, 274-275, 277, 279-282, 284-285, 333 (23); – of Alexandria, 69; – of Constantinople, 70, 75; – of Edinburgh, 225; – of Jerusalem, 6; – of Kiev, 80; – of Westminster, 265-270, 272, 274-275, 277-279, 281-282; city-states, 155; città, 35; see civic civic, 32, 35, 153, 215, 222, 232, 243, 265-285; civile, 35; civilis facultas, 32, 35, 64, 306 (7); see politics civilization, 3, 93, 153, 157, 160, 173, 175, 330 (71) Clare, St, 207 classical, 1-2, 4-5, 7-10, 12-13, 15, 60, 153, 208-209, 222, 229, 250, 252, 275 Coimbra, 273 collage, x, 195 commandments, 3

340

common ground, 3, 9, 14, 166, 239 common sense, 75, 313 (5) communication, 93, 157, 289; communicative space of culture, 3-4 concept, 2, 9-10, 12-15, 30, 40, 50, 63-65, 77-78, 84, 119, 124-125, 154, 156-158, 163, 166-173, 182-183, 222-223, 232, 236-237, 285, 306 (8), 311 (93-94), 315 (17); see notion consciousness, 11-12, 148, 156-158, 187, 189, 197, 248, 257 Constantine, 70, 73-74, 314 (16), 318 (44) Constantinople, 70, 72, 80, 312 (3), 315 (17, 19), 316 (27), 318 (44); Fifth – Council, 68 construction, 77, 131, 148, 173-174, 215, 223, 226, 234, 237, 247, 250, 254, 257, 292, 311 (94); reconstruction, 116, 287, 314 (13, 17), 333 (21) context, 32, 35, 43, 49, 59, 64-65, 98, 102, 127, 148, 162, 166, 169, 178, 180, 203, 221-223, 232-233, 235, 241, 244-245, 252, 256, 261, 268-269; contextual, 4, 191, 281, 316 (24), 328 (46) continuity, 5, 12, 140, 158, 167, 221, 229, 252, 276, 293, 296 convenience, 61, 251 convent, 8, 185-187, 189, 195, 198, 330 (4) Copernicus, 10 Corbusier, see Le Corbusier cosmos, 120, 226, 228-229, 233, 240, 242, 273, 312 (2), 313 (13), 314 (15), 329 (49); țȩıȝȠȢ6; cosmic conditions, 10, 227, 231; cosmogonic, 153; cosmology, 67, 78; cosmogram, 68, 74, 76, 78-79, 313 (11) crafts, 4, 80, 86, 161, 167-168, 170-171, 198, 209, 223, 233-234, 249

Index

creativity, ix, 2, 5, 36-42, 43, 45, 157-158, 171, 180, 182, 221-222, 228-229 Creator, 74; man as creator, 96, 99-101, 106, 109, 176, 329 (71) crisis, 149, 177, 181, 187 culture, ix-x, 1-4, 36, 47, 67, 83, 89, 93, 114, 153, 157-158, 161-162, 166, 168, 170-171, 173-175, 178, 180-181, 183, 185, 188-190, 194, 198, 201, 206, 223, 225, 226-229, 231-232, 235-236, 238, 248-249, 252, 255, 263, 265, 270, 272-275, 281; cultivation, 3-4, 6 Cusa or Cusanus, Nicolaus of, 61, 114 Cyriacus of Ancona, 79 Daedalus, 197 Dalí, Salvador, 231 dance, 74, 78-79, 90, 208, 318 (40), 325 (39) Daphne, 76; Apollo and –, 230 Darwin, Charles, 236 De Re Ædificatoria, 250 decoration, 133, 144, 250-251, 264 definitions, 33, 54, 59, 78, 108-110, 125, 137, 152, 171, 191, 210 democracy, 66, 154 demonstration, 54-56, 58 depth, 5, 9, 11, 14, 17, 57, 85-86, 191, 198, 269, 276, 280, 283, 289, 292 Descartes, René, 10, 107-108, 114, 119-120; Cartesian, 194, 198 desert, 6, 67-69, 78, 111, 201-206, 211-212, 213, 216-217, 331 (5); Desert Fathers, 203, 205 design, 84, 125, 128, 138, 141, 143-145, 164-165, 169-171, 176, 185, 190, 194, 197, 201, 203, 207, 210-214, 216-217, 221-246, 250, 252, 255, 257-259, 265, 271-272, 277, 282-284, 315 (17, 19), 318 (38)

dialectics, 61-62, 150, 175, 180, 182-183, 250, 311 (91); dialogue, 130, 145, 293 difference, 4, 6, 11-12, 14, 51-52, 58, 78, 95, 108, 120, 127, 140, 167, 171, 194-195, 248, 250, 282, 331 (4) Dilthey, Wilhelm, 17 Diocletian, 73-74 Dionysus, 102; discourse, 1, 8-9, 16-17, 109-110, 250, 253, 335 (22) divide, 2, 10-11, 190 Döllgast, Hans, 256, 261 dome, 71, 73-76, 78-79, 126, 161, 233, 315 (21), 316 (21, 23, 25-27), 318 (43) Dominic, St, 188, 207; Dominicans, 185-186, 188, 191, 207 Dormition Cathedral, 76 Durand, Jean-Nicolas-Louis, 137, 234 Duveen, Sir Joseph, 257-258 dwelling, 2, 16, 103-106, 187, 190, 270 Earth, 68-69, 88, 99, 103-104, 120, 124, 132, 152, 167, 185, 187, 212, 223-224, 226-228, 230, 232, 235-236, 238, 245, 272, 276, 288-289, 291-292, 295, 313 (5), 316 (22); earthly, 31, 88; unearthly, 73-74 Eccard, Johann Georg, 39, 41 eclecticism, 248, 254 economy, 40, 49, 64, 158, 176, 226, 234, 272, 306 (8) edifice, 3, 17, 107, 129, 130-132, 152-153; edify, 110, 153 Edinburgh, 126, 222, 225-226, 235-236, 238; – Castle, 227 education, 7, 39, 65, 183, 221, 311 (91) Egypt, 203; Egyptian, 41, 138 elegance, 251, 253

341

Index

elements, 44, 47, 87, 127, 132, 138-139, 144, 201, 204, 212, 215, 229, 233, 239-240, 242, 244-245, 276, 311 (94); Elements of Criticism, 123, 126, 141 Elijah, 202 Eliot, T. S., 261-263 embodiment, 1-2, 15, 78, 90, 153, 162-164, 171-172, 185, 190, 208, 210, 229, 231, 238, 270, 285 encounter, 5-6, 16, 46, 85, 106, 114, 128, 150, 158, 174, 215, 231, 291, 331 (22) Enlightenment, 83, 99, 103, 107, 111, 115, 178, 223, 225, 235-236, 248 epistemology, 48; epistemological, 89, 234, 236 Eratosthenes of Alexandria, 313 (5) essence, 13-14, 50, 58, 60, 90, 99, 105, 115, 144-145, 169, 173, 273 Étaples, Jacques Lefèvre d’, 32 eternal, 2, 113, 210, 229 ethics, 11, 30-66, 95, 107, 283; Nicomachean Ethics, 30, 31-35, 36, 54, 64, 66 ethnography, 252 Euclid, 58, 61, 310 (72), 311 (88) Europe, 7, 79, 134, 169-170, 175-176, 225, 228-229, 262; European, ix-x, 160, 231-232, 235, 248 everydayness, 17 Exodus, 68, 202 experience, vii-viii, 4-5, 9-10, 13-14, 16, 30, 31-66, 68, 81-82, 86, 89-92, 95-99, 106-109, 113-114, 117, 119-122, 125, 138-139, 144-145, 149, 155-158, 178-180, 182, 189-192, 197-198, 206, 211, 222-224, 226, 231-234, 237, 240, 245, 250, 269, 275-276, 283, 286, 308 (37), 309 (62), 331 (22), 332 (15) Expressionism, 37, 167; Expressionist, 161, 167, 169, 231

342

Fehn, Sverre, 81-89, 91-92, 216, 319 (10), 332 (6) Fergusson, James, 251-252, 261 fin-de-siècle, 248 Finsbury Square, 237 Fioravanti, Aristotele, 76 flesh, viii, 2, 5, 12, 230, 240; see blood Florence, 114, 312 (3) form, –s, vii, 2, 5, 12, 16-17, 57, 61-62, 65, 71, 76, 79, 90-91, 99-103, 113, 120, 123, 126-128, 131, 137-138, 144-145, 148, 153, 155-159, 163, 169-173, 182, 184, 188-189, 206, 210, 212, 214, 221-222, 224-225, 231-232, 248, 251, 253, 255-256, 260-261, 267, 272-273, 281, 284, 287, 313 (5), 316 (21, 27), 318 (38), 324 (39); ȝȠȡijȒ77; formalism, 170, 173, 190, 221, 250; formation, 10, 49, 50, 65, 126, 171, 235; Formgestaltung, 169, 171; urban forms, 266 fragment, –s, 1, 87, 231, 283, 289-290 Francis of Assisi, St, 207; Franconia, 97 freedom, 44, 62-66, 103-104, 112, 116, 143, 174, 194, 210, 311 (94) function, 60, 99, 102, 156, 168, 179, 191, 193, 211, 221-222, 234, 243, 255-256; functionalism, 152, 167, 181 future, ix, 97, 105, 110, 113, 149, 175-176, 180, 192, 251, 254, 258-259, 263, 287; see Cathedral of the Future Futurism, 37, 178 Gadamer, Hans-Georg, 15-16, 148-149, 158 Galileo Galilei, 10, 236 garden, –s, 93, 121-123, 126, 133, 138-139, 141-145, 205, 212-213, 228-229, 243, 245, 277, 283-284, 289, 295; Lycinian Gardens, 73

Index

Gaudí, Antoni, 231 genius loci, 84, 98, 225-226 geography, 7, 68-69, 177 geology, 223, 225, 232, 235-238, 240, 245; geological, 223, 225, 231-232, 236-238, 241-245, 335 (17) geometry, 5, 9, 32, 50, 57, 61-62, 69, 71, 75, 86, 109, 208, 213, 215, 233 Gesamtkunstwerk, 161-183 Gestalt, 61, 171, 181; Gestaltung, 65, 162, 169-172, 179, 182 Gestaltungswille, 173 Giedion, Sigfried, 163, 169 God, 5-6, 69-70, 74, 101-102, 107, 110, 202, 226, 313 (13), 317 (27); god, 45, 102, 109, 195 Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, 81-82, 84, 86, 89, 91-92, 319 (1) good, 31-32, 56, 66, 94, 110, 129, 145, 154, 209-211; – habit, 52; – judgement, 249; heighest –, 64, 113, 116, 155; public –, 35 Gorgias, 250 Gothic, 122, 130, 173, 224, 234, 252, 290-292 Grand Tour, 231 Great Church, 67-80 Greece, Ancient, 5-6, 113-114; Gropius, Walter, 164-166, 170-171, 327 (14) ground, 2, 4, 10, 12, 14, 16, 40, 46, 86, 96, 104, 107, 128, 138-139, 142, 212, 215, 281, 288-289, 291, 333 (30); common –, 3, 9, 14, 239 Guimard, Hector, 231 habit, 32, 35, 51-54, 65, 104, 188-191, 205-206, 210 Hagia Sophia, 70, 75-77, 79-80, 317 (35); see Holy Wisdom Hamar Cathedral, 82 Hamburg, 101

happiness, 58, 62, 103, 112-113, 116, 125 Häring, Hugo, 170 harmony, 109, 116, 198, 208-209, 212 heart, 7-8, 90, 120, 128, 181, 184, 290-291 heaven, 69, 71, 80, 88, 103, 116, 119-120, 180, 190, 212, 226, 316 (22) Hedemark Museum, 83 Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, 12, 95-96, 113 Heidegger, Martin, 14-15, 103-106, 107, 114, 149-150, 155, 187, 335 (16) Helmholtz, Hermann, 36-38, 40 Heraclitus, 200 Herbart, Johann Friedrich, 38, 42, 44, 46-47, 49, 65 Herder, Johann Gottfried von, 65 hermeneutics, 3, 9, 15-16; see interpretation Heron of Alexandria, 71 history, x, 1-5, 12, 14, 34, 41, 86-87, 97, 108-109, 114, 119-120, 132, 156, 158, 192, 210-211, 221-222, 251, 254, 256, 261-263, 275; art –, 38; effective –, 3; fictional –, 215; intellectual –, 15; historicality, 5, 9, 14; historicism, 77, 247-263, 335 (5); historiography, 2-3, 252; philosophy of –, 48; sacred –, 235 Hitchcock, Henry-Russell, 169 Hofer, Johannes, 111 Hoffmann, Josef, 234 Höger, Fritz, 176 Hölderlin, Friedrich, 15, 105 Holy of Holies, 69, 75, 78, 313 (31), 314 (13) Holy Wisdom, 70; see Great Church home, 94-95, 97, 104-106, 110-113, 151-153, 187, 191, 203, 268, 274

343

Index

Homer, 31, 262, 316 (22) horizon, 13-14, 157-158, 184, 190, 217, 229, 256, 277, 289, 333 (30); fusion of –s, 158 Horkheimer, Max, 174, 178 house, 124, 128, 134-135, 138, 143-144, 151, 154, 156, 200, 226, 232, 274, 290-293, 294-295, 317 (27); – of the Muses, 273; farmhouse, 98, 103-106, 107; Golden House, 316 (25); household, 64, 169; Kingsgate House, 278, 280, 282; Portland House, 265, 268, 270-271; Selbourne House, 278; tea house, 333 (20); wash house, 245 Hübsch, Heinrich, 101, 251 Hugo of Laon, bishop, 79 Huidobro, Vincent, 42-45 humanism, 4, 50 humanities, 11-12, 15-17 humanity, 10, 55, 73, 93, 99, 103, 111, 113 Humboldt, Wilhelm von, 81, 319 (1) Husserl, Edmund, 13-14, 49-50, 149-151, 155 Hutton, James, 223, 235-238, 242-243 idea, –s, 1, 36, 38, 43, 48, 50, 61-62, 65, 75, 91, 94, 113, 115-116, 119-145, 157, 165-167, 169, 172, 174-175, 177, 183, 197, 210-211, 222, 233, 235-236, 245, 248, 252, 255, 261-262, 307 (21), 325 (39), 332 (6) ideal, 13, 36-37, 47, 140-141, 162-165, 172-174, 177, 182, 197, 226, 274, 307 (20), 309 (61), 331 (22) Idealism, 162, 167-175, 181-183 illumination, 16, 276 imagination, 38, 50, 61, 110, 112, 129, 132-133, 145, 185-199, 225-226, 229, 238-241, 242, 293, 295, 323 (19)

344

incarnation, 2, 8, 15, 95 industry, 162, 166, 169, 205, 226; industrial, 161-167, 169-171, 177-179, 181-182, 223, 234, 236; pre-industrial, 166, 226 institution, 7-8, 153, 156, 188, 201, 204, 210-211, 213, 215-216, 257, 270, 274-275, 277, 279 instrumental, 4, 10, 183, 186, 221, 233, 248; instrumentality, 194, 198; instrumentalization, 177, 232 intellect, 33, 35, 51; intellectual, 4, 8-9, 11, 15, 43, 45, 61, 71, 82, 108, 187, 194, 275 intellective, 60 intelligence, 43, 49, 94-95, 130, 200 intention, 44, 55, 69, 87, 97, 272, 333 (29); intentional, 149 intentionality, 12, 156 interpretation, vii, 4, 9-14, 49, 88, 105, 115, 121, 173-174, 198, 211, 228, 236, 243, 249, 259, 261, 274, 294; see hermeneutics intuition, 39-40, 43, 47-48, 65 Isidore of Miletus, 71, 73, 75, 315 (19, 20) Jaspers, Karl, 149 Jesus, 103, 202, 227-228; see Christ John Philoponus, 69 John the Baptist, 99, 202 Johnson, Philip, 169 Jordan, river, 202, 313 (13) joy, 103, 113; joyfulness, 97 judgement, 4, 17, 31, 33, 35, 52, 56, 63, 248, 314 justice, 106, 215, 250, 277 Justinian, 71, 73-76, 78, 318 (43) Kahn, Louis I., viii, 200, 201-217, 332 (15), 333 (20, 21, 23, 26)

Index

Kant, Immanuel, 11, 62-64, 94-97, 111-114, 116; Kantian, 90, 93-97; Critik der practischen Vernunft, 63-64; Critik der reinen Vernunft, 64; Kepler, Johannes, 10, 61, 119 Kings Gate, 268, 279, 282-283 Kingsgate House, 278, 280, 282-283 Klenze, Leo von, 256 know-how, 4 knowledge, ix, 4-5, 6-7, 11, 30, 36-42, 43, 52-54, 108, 121, 131, 229, 236-239, 254, 273-274 Kosmas the Deacon, Indikopleustes, 67, 69-70, 74-76, 78-80, 312 (2), 313 (6-9, 13), 314 (13, 15), 318 (41) Kremlin, 76 Kunstwollen, 37, 170-171; see will L’Art sacré, 186 La Tourette, convent of, 185-199, 217, 331 (21-22) labyrinth, 197, 228, 232 landscape, xi, 2-3, 5, 12, 15, 83, 97, 104, 121, 123, 126-128, 135, 138-139, 141, 144-145, 148, 179, 187, 190-191, 198, 216, 238, 243-245, 250, 253, 276, 288-289, 291-294 language, 3-5, 9, 14-16, 89, 99, 129, 150, 158, 168, 177, 185, 188-189, 195, 221-246, 285 largo, 282 latent, 4-5, 240, 279, 284; – memory, 1; – world, 226, 237, 241-242 Lavra, church of the Great, 76 law, –s, 8, 38, 105, 116, 200-201, 206-209, 211, 214-216, 332 (12); canon –, 8; divine –, 210; desert –, 211-212;

Law, 2, 200-217, 314 (14), 317 (28); moral –, 64, 116; natural –, 45, 208, 211-212, 217; physical –, 208-209; planning –, 270; universal –, 184; –s of motion, 10; Le Corbusier, 45, 137, 184-199, 200, 216-217, 225, 228-229, 331 (22), 333 (28) learning, 7, 10, 42-50, 56 legacy, 4, 15-16, 150, 166, 332 legislation, 250 Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm, 41, 61, 107-110, 119 Leipzig, 101, 127 Levantine, 77, 316 (21) Lebenswille, 172; library, viii, 67, 273; Victoria Library, 268-276, 282, 284-285 life, vii, 2-4, 6-8, 11, 16, 39, 52, 64, 84, 88, 102, 105, 107, 110, 113, 134, 148-149, 151-153, 155, 161, 163, 166, 169, 171, 175, 177-178, 180-186, 189, 194-195, 201-206, 209-212, 215, 217, 225, 227, 231, 238, 243, 270, 272, 274, 277, 281, 285, 290, 293-294, 296, 315 (17), 331 (4), 332 (6), 332 (13); Lebensphilosophie, 162, 164, 181; life-world, 149, 151; vita activa, 8, 151; vita contemplativa, 8 light, 2-3, 9, 16, 73, 75, 78-79, 88, 91, 107, 126-127, 131, 135, 137-138, 145, 156, 189-191, 199, 208, 212, 215-216, 225, 245, 276, 286, 289, 292-293, 295-296; body of –, 7; firelight, 293; geometry of – and vision, 5, 9; sunlight, 74, 215, 272, 277, 282-283, 287, 291 liturgy, 79-80

345

Index

logic, 55, 57, 59, 107, 236, 238-241, 294; logical, 9, 48, 191; Logical Investigations, 13 Loos, Adolf, 232, 234, 248-249 Lycinian Gardens, Rome, 73 Maine, 97 Mandylion, 76 Mannerist, 228-229 Marcuse, Herbert, 149 martyrion, 71, 314 (17) Marx, Karl, 113; Marxist, 112 Mary, 103, 227 mathematics, 30, 32-34, 46-47, 50-51, 53-54, 55-61, 62-63, 65, 71, 120, 124, 209, 236, 308 (37), 310 (72, 74), 315 (19) mathesis universalis, 61; universal communicability, 93-94 matter, 52, 60, 88, 95, 120, 167, 172, 224, 226, 231, 233, 235, 240, 276; material, 5, 78, 81, 96, 150, 155-156, 158, 166, 169, 184, 188, 202, 207, 209-210, 215, 223-224, 226, 229-230, 233-235, 242, 245, 249-250, 259, 273, 280, 284; materiality, 193, 224, 245, 286; materialism, 181; immaterial, 73 medieval, 5, 82-87, 97, 103, 112, 226, 233, 248, 282, 288-289, 291-292, 294, 316 (26); Middle Ages, 84, 102, 114, 315 (17) Mediterranean, 175-176, 187, 194 memory, vii, 1, 5, 89-92, 112-113, 149, 155, 222, 225, 231-232, 242, 295 Mendelsohn, Erich, 176, 329 (55) Merleau-Ponty, Maurice, 89, 149, 156-157, 189, 331 (22) metaphor, 9, 14, 43, 88, 101, 179, 194-195, 222, 240-243, 246, 250, 262, 273-274, 281, 332 (12), 333 (22)

346

metaphysics, 5, 9, 14, 30, 61, 107, 109-110, 115, 167, 172-173, 178, 181-182, 331 (22); Discourse on Metaphysics, 108-109 Meyer, Adolf, 164-165 Mies van der Rohe, Ludwig, 170, 172-175 mind, 12, 31, 40, 42, 47-48, 52, 57, 65, 92, 94, 96, 108, 129, 157, 179, 210 Minerva Medica, 78, 316 (24) Minotaur, 228 model, ix, 67-80, 130, 144, 161, 182-183, 202-203, 206, 228, 241, 313 (12), 317-318 (37), 318 (39); divine –, 204; world-model, 313 (13) modern, 1-4, 10-13, 15-16, 36, 44-45, 58, 61, 77, 83-84, 86-87, 89, 95, 98, 104-105, 109-110, 161-183, 184-185, 194, 221-222, 232, 235, 237-239, 255, 258, 274-275, 280, 332 (15), 335 (16); – age, 95; – architect, 201, 205; – architecture, vii, 228; – art, 4, 107, 115, 255; – city, 230; – movement, 78, 163, 169-170, 174, 182, 255; – period, 226, 233; – science, ix, 7-8, 11, 13, 232; – world, 3, 12, 83, 107, 114-115; ancients and moderns, 10; modernity, 1, 3, 17, 89, 95, 112, 114, 164, 168, 170-171, 177-178, 223, 232-235, 236, 248, 252; modernism, 168 -169, 171, 174, 177-178, 180, 182, 188, 195, 265, 287, 327 (13); pre-modern, 1, 222 modus procedendi, 8 Moholy-Nagy, László, 163 Monadology, 110 monastery, 200-201, 204, 207, 211, 213-214, 312 (3);

Index

monastic, 6-8, 201-207, 210, 211-212, 217, 273 moral, 64, 94, 116, 236; amoral, 179; morality, 95, 116, 151; see ethics Morris, William, 253-256, 260, 262 movement, x, 16, 73, 78, 81-82, 84, 88-91, 99, 102, 119-145, 156, 212, 240, 245, 276, 280, 283, 289, 294, 322 (1), 324 (39), 325 (39) mundane, 6, 8, 103, 270; intramundane, 183; see world museum, 82-84, 86-88, 91-92, 223, 241, 243-245, 273; Hedemark Museum, 83; Metropolitan Museum of Art, 106; Neues Museum, 256; Storhamarlåven Museum, 84-89 music, 115; musical, 99, 190, 198 Muthesius, Hermann, 37-38, 167, 171 mystery, 1-2, 5, 8-9, 15, 108, 187, 196, 198, 239 narrative, 3, 6, 11, 58, 60, 188, 190, 222, 235, 236, 260, 331 (21) narthex, 74-75, 317 (27) National Gallery, 256-257 Nativity, church of the, 70 nature, 12, 14, 31, 38, 41, 55, 94-97, 120, 128, 132-133, 142-144, 151, 154, 169-171, 173, 177, 182, 191, 201-217, 226, 229, 231, 233, 236, 237-238, 273, 281-282, 289, 307 (21), 308 (44), 332 (9); human –, 12, 46, 116; Naturerlebnis, 179 natural, ix, 9, 33, 38, 45, 58-60, 65, 93, 95, 124-125, 141, 144, 151, 154, 177, 206, 208-209, 211-212, 217, 223, 225, 228-231, 239-240;

– philosophy, 7, 30, 33, 120; – science, 109; – world, 183, 187, 201-202, 224, 237, 264, 271-274, 277, 281, 334 (1) Neoplatonic, 61, 174 Neues Bauen, 166-168, 173 Neues Museum, 256 Newton, Sir Isaac, 10, 120, 236 Nietzsche, Friedrich, 114-116, 162, 180, 184, 187, 330 (71) Nika, 70, 75 Nile, 203 nostalgia, vii, 93-117 notion, 1-4, 9, 12, 31, 37, 40, 48, 77-78, 81, 90, 119, 125, 161-162, 166-168, 171-173, 180, 197, 236, 270, 313 (5), 327 (14), 330 (71), 331 (22), 334 (1); see concept Nymphaeum, 73, 216 objective, 11, 44, 61, 116, 157, 181, 236-237, 239; see subjective observation, 38, 57, 235, 237, 313 (5) ontology, modern, 16; ontological, 11, 17, 89, 149-159, 183, 264 Oppolding, ix, 93-117, 320 (14) optics, 9, 81, 89, 130, 315 (19) order, 43, 59-61, 110, 173, 177, 187, 197, 204, 207, 208-209, 210, 212-213, 226, 235-236, 262-264, 273, 276, 332; – of architecture, 277; – of water, 204, 212; ethical and political –, 66; first – of certainty, 55; natural –, ix, 229; religious –, 7, 11, 188, 207, 210, 212, 331 (4); visual –, 266; ordering, 148, 208, 216 orientation, 14, 17, 32, 36, 52, 64, 174, 206, 212-213, 227, 276-277;

347

Index

existential –, 222; spatial –, 214 ornament, 16, 99-101, 103, 140, 248-251, 255-256, 261-263, 264, 282, 284; ornamental, 141, 224, 252-253, 283 Ortega y Gasset, José, 105-106 orthodoxy, 68, 80 Ovid, 230 painting, 9-10, 76, 128, 132-133, 139, 142, 194-195, 325 (39) palace, 73-74, 82-86, 126, 129, 152, 232, 248, 262, 266, 270, 275, 277; Blenheim Palace, 135 Pantheon, Rome, 74, 132 Panthéon (Sainte-Geneviève), Paris, 131 Pantokrator, 74, 76 particular, –s, 16, 30, 35, 108-109; see universal Pasch, Moritz, 46 passions, 94-95, 128, 139, 195, 238, 310 past, ix, 1-4, 7, 10, 16-17, 84, 86, 91, 103, 111, 149, 157, 192, 248, 251-255, 259, 261-263, 274, 276 pattern, 69, 71, 77, 143, 202, 206, 211, 216, 283, 313 (12), 317 (29) Paul the Silentiary, 75, 318 pearl, 103 Pelli, César, 268 perception, 9, 11-12, 50, 60, 81, 89, 92, 108-109, 125, 130, 134, 149, 155-157, 187, 191, 197-198, 225; sense –, 38, 40, 43, 59, 64, 108; Wahrnehmung, 12 Pericles, 31 perspective, 9, 65, 108, 114, 124, 177, 197-198, 283 Pestalozzi, Johan Heinrich, 38, 40, 49, 65 Pevsner, Nikolaus, 169 Phaedrus, 8 phenomenon, -a, 13, 112, 131, 162, 183, 196, 223, 226, 232, 237-241, 248, 261;

348

– of body, 1, 15; – of mind, 12; – of perspective, 108; – of play, 16; mental –, 12; phenomenal realm, 9-10, 13-14; phenomenology, 149, 155-157, 334 (1); phenomenological method, 13; phenomenological reduction, 13 Phidias, 31 philosophy, x, 8, 11, 13, 15, 17, 31, 41, 43, 57, 59, 61, 65, 89, 107, 109-110, 120, 149-150, 157, 162, 167, 172, 174, 176, 187, 229-230, 236, 238, 330 (71), 331 (22), 332 (15); – of fine art, 12; – of history, 48; Lebensphilosophie, 162, 164, 181; natural –, 7, 30, 120; the aim of –, 15 Piaget, Jean, 46-48 piazza, 270, 282 Piccolomini, Alessandro, 55-61, 62, 310 Piranesi, Giovanni Battista, 231 place, ix, 7, 60, 83-84, 86, 98-99, 102-104, 108, 112, 138, 142, 148, 152, 186, 190-193, 197-198, 203, 205, 212-213, 221, 223, 225-228, 230, 232, 238, 245, 255-256, 270, 274, 290, 309 (66), 314 (17), 331 (5), 333 (23); see genius loci Plato, 15, 59, 61-62, 174, 250, 254, 311 (91), 332 (15); Platonic, 59, 60, 172, 194; Neoplatonic, 61, 174 play, phenomenon of, 16, 200, 210, 277, 294 ; playfulness, 45 Plotinus, 60 Poème de l’angle droit, 199, 230 poetry, 14, 50, 107, 119, 128, 132-133, 184, 198, 231, 239, 254, 262, 276, 327 (13);

Index

poem, 107-110, 139, 142, 184, 212, 325 (39); poet, 43, 81, 96, 105, 109, 152, 195, 212, 262; poetic, viii, 62, 64, 132-133, 188, 194, 198, 208, 225, 232, 238, 240-241, 243, 245, 311 (94) politics, 64, 66, 155-157, 175-177, 180, 182, 250, 277, 306 (8), 329 (49); polity, 66 Polykleitos, 31 Ponti, Gio, 265 Poor Clares, 207 Posener, Julius, 165 Pound, Ezra, 178 practice, 16, 77, 79, 84, 100, 190, 194, 202-203, 206, 221, 233, 247-248, 251-253, 256 practica, 8 practical, 64, 213, 216, 311 (93); – activity, 52, 65-66; – knowledge, 4-5; – nihilism, 115; – reason, 31, 40, 64; – wisdom, 5; – use, 15; praxis, 32, 66 presence, 9, 76, 79, 110, 187, 191, 231-232, 262, 266, 269, 271-272, 275, 279-281, 292, 294-295, 331 (22); divine –, 69, 71, 74-76, 79; ontic –, 149; ontological –, 155 present, ix, 4, 16, 84, 97, 110-112, 115, 149-150, 154, 158, 160, 189-190, 192, 198, 248, 251, 253, 263, 295 primary, 2-3, 8, 12-13, 14-15, 65, 156, 187, 189, 201-202, 206, 226, 271-272 Proclus, 55-61, 62, 310 (72), 311 (88) production, vii, 52, 65, 151, 162, 167, 169, 171, 173, 194, 235, 248; mass –, 161, 223

Protestant, 9, 12, 15, 88 prototype, 76, 80, 166, 317 (28) prudence, 30-66, 306 (8); prudentia, 31-32, 36, 63-64, 306 (7, 12); prudenza, 35, 52, 65; see civic Ptolemy, 10 Pugin, Augustus Welby Northmore, 248 pulpit, ix, 93, 97-103, 104, 106-107, 115, 117 Quatremère de Quincy, Antoine-Chrysostome, 77-78, 318 (37, 38) querelle, 10, 36 Ravenna, 73 reality, 1-2, 31, 42-50, 65, 107-109, 111-112, 115-117, 125, 140, 148, 168-169, 172, 177, 182-183, 185, 208, 211, 231, 236, 238, 253, 308 (37), 311 (93), 317 (28) reason, 31, 44, 52-54, 61, 64, 107, 109-110, 112, 114, 116, 129, 177-178, 184, 200, 239, 286; practical –, 31, 40, 64; pure –, 64, 311 (93); sufficient –, 109; rational, 54, 116, 178, 186, 196, 236, 239, 252; rationalism, 167, 227, 234 reform, 7-8, 83, 167, 205, 211, 252; Catholic – movement, 186; reformation, 7, 9; Reformation, 115; reformist, 162; Counter-Reformation, 115 regionalism, 221 religion, 2, 12, 16-17, 79, 174, 184, 209, 211, 227, 332 (12) Renaissance, 74, 115, 214, 248-249, 252, 257, 262, 275 representation, 5, 9, 50, 90, 99, 103, 109, 116, 150, 153, 155, 195, 210, 226, 256, 263-264, 274, 310 (72);

349

Index

divided –, 190 Republic, 61 revolution, 11, 73, 169, 190; Revolution, 10; industrial –, 236; scientific –, 234-235 rhythm, x, 78, 83, 90, 203, 206, 277, 281-282, 284-285, 291-292, 294 Ricœur, Paul, 188, 332 (17) rocaille / rococo, ix, 99-100, 103, 115, 230, 262 Rhode, Johan Gottlieb, 47-48 Romaine-Walker, W. H., 257-258 Romanesque, 82 Romantic, 115-116, 161-162, 167-168, 175, 178, 187, 231, 238; Romanticism, 115, 170, 178, 221, 248 Rome, 70-71, 73, 125, 127, 132; Roman, 6, 69, 73, 158, 229, 231, 249, 314 (16), 316 (21) Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 111 ruin, –s, 3, 74, 82, 85-86, 126, 136-137, 231, 287-296 rule, –s, 8, 99-100, 128, 130, 200, 201-217, 256, 331 (4) Ruskin, John, 248 Sachlichkeit, 161, 166-167, 181 sacred, x, 70, 78, 114-115, 184-187, 228, 231-232, 234-235 Saints Sergius and Bacchus, church of, 71-73 Santa Costanza, church of – in Rome, 73 Santa Prudenziana, church of – in Rome, 71 Sartre, Jean-Paul, 149 Scaliger, Joseph, 58 Schilder, Paul, 157 Schiller, Friedrich, 81, 113, 174 Schinkel, Karl Friedrich, 62, 64, 172, 263 Schleiermacher, Friedrich, 12, 43 Schmarsow, August, 82, 89-91, 319 (15) Scholasticism, 9, 12-13 Schopenhauer, Arthur, 112-113, 115, 117, 162

350

science, –s, 10-12, 31, 33, 35-36, 38, 45, 51, 54, 59-61, 65, 95, 109, 130, 149, 152, 163, 177, 181, 227, 232-233, 235-236, 239, 251, 261; modern –, ix, 7-8, 10-11, 13, 232; natural –, 109; scientia, 31, 33, 36, 54, 59-60; scienza, 53-54 Scripture, 9, 69, 74, 78, 314 (13) see Bible sculpture, 10, 100, 195, 230, 258, 271, 272, 275-276, 283 secular, 1-2, 7, 187-188, 212, 215; secularization, 70, 201; secularism, 12 Segni, Bernardo, 33-35 Semper, Gottfried, 38, 90, 234 sense, –s, 35, 39-40, 48, 50, 57, 59, 61, 65, 86, 89-90, 94, 108, 121, 131; – intuition, –s, 39-40, 47, 65; – perception, 38, 40, 43, 59, 64; sensibility, 12, 231, 236; sensitivity, viii, 43, 91, 141, 150, 223, 242 shell, 103; seashell, 229, Sinai, 202, 312 (3), 313 (13) Sinan, 76 sky, 16, 103-104, 132, 187, 190, 212, 273, 288-289, 291-292, 295; sky-vault, 74 Smith, Sidney J., 257, 259 Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings, 253-256 Solomon, 74, 313 (6), 314 (13, 15) Solon, 41 Sonoma Desert, 202, 204 Sörgel, Herman, 175-178 soul, 2, 8, 12, 37, 60, 62, 94, 111, 119, 132-134, 153, 166, 175, 206, 250; see animation space, 1-3, 14, 71, 79, 81, 85, 88-91, 98, 124-126, 133, 136, 153-156, 187,

Index

190-191, 193-198, 213, 222, 245, 253, 258-260, 264, 276, 281-284, 295, 314, 317, 319; spatiality, 1, 14, 227 specialization, 10, 36 Spengler, Oswald, 175-176 spirit, 5, 8, 12, 65, 88, 95, 97-98, 104-106, 127, 144, 153, 162-163, 167-168, 172-174, 178, 188, 196-197, 231, 238, 254, 317 (28); – of the Law, 2; Holy Spirit, 99, 101-103; spiritual, 1, 6, 48, 63-64, 97, 99, 103, 162, 169, 173-174, 179, 182, 186, 194, 202-203, 205-207, 312 (2); spirituality, 6, 187-188, 197, 199 St Andrew’s Priory, 200-217, 332 (15), 333 (20, 23, 26) St Gall, 273 St Mary Magdalene, sanctuary of – in Provence, 228 St Sophia in Kiev, church of, 80 Steck, Max, 61, 311 (88) Stirling, Sir James, 258 stone, x, 3, 7, 74, 78, 86, 150, 195, 204, 215, 221-246, 257-260, 270-271, 274-275, 277, 280, 283, 288-294, 296, 317 (29), 334 (2), 335 (22); cobblestones, 86, 91; Portland stone, 257; sandstone, 87, 288, 290, 292, 294; standing stones, 243; stonecutting, 234; stonework, 71 Storhamarlåven, 81-84, 84-89, 91-92 street, –s, 84, 209, 225, 232, 235, 244, 280-281; streetscape, 270, 276; Abbey Street, 287; Allington Street, 272; Atterbury Street, 258-259; Victoria Street, 265-285

stucco, 99, 102, 229-230 Stüler, Friedrich August, 256 style, 4-5, 17, 90, 101, 162, 166, 168-172, 181, 197, 250-252, 255, 257-258; history of –s, 2; In welchem Style sollen wir bauen?, 101, 251; international style, 169 subjective, 11, 44, 97, 116, 157, 181, 197, 286; see objective sublime, 97, 139, 179, 231 substance, 1, 14, 120, 174 Suger, abbot of Saint-Denis, 79 Sullivan, Louis, 249 surrealism, 187 symbol, 43, 57, 62, 94, 102, 173; symbolic, 116, 165-166, 182, 202, 226, 229; symbolism, 102-103, 313 (13) tabernacle, 67-69, 74-75, 78, 80, 232, 314 (13), 317 (28) task, viii, 2, 4, 14-17, 45, 83, 102, 158, 162, 187-188, 201, 211, 265 taste, 4, 17, 93-94, 109, 137, 139, 143, 252 Tate Britain, 247-263 Tate Modern, 261 Tate, Sir Henry, 257 technology, ix, 10, 104-106, 160-183, 185-186, 237, 265, 335 (16) temple, 73, 78, 103, 106, 131, 135-136, 150, 172, 232, 316 (25, 26); Jerusalem Temple, 69, 74, 78, 313 (5), 314 (13, 15), 317 (28) Thales, 31 theology, 8, 69, 75, 190, 208; theologia more geometrico, 9 theophany, 114 thought, 1-2, 4, 6, 10, 12-13, 16-17, 33, 43, 47-48, 51, 58, 60, 75, 78, 89, 94, 101, 103, 105-106, 108-110, 113-114, 117, 123, 132, 137, 139, 141-142, 145, 149-150, 162, 166-167, 171, 181, 183, 201, 208, 210, 211, 233, 235, 237, 253;

351

Index

ancient –, 9; contemporary, 11; Enlightenment –, 178; instrumental –, 248; mathematical –, 46; modern –, 10-11, 13; philosophical –, 11; traditional –, 1, 10; Western –, 2-3, 7, 9-10 time, concept of, 9, 14, 107, 110, 112, 124-125, 151-152, 168-169, 172, 189, 192, 196-198, 211, 241, 292-294, 317 (27), 325 (39), 332 (15); – in experience, 35, 53, 57; – in the arts, 50, 53, 309 (62); – required by reflection, 33-35; cosmic –, 240, 242; eternal being in –, 210; geological –, 223, 231-232, 236; modern –s, 36, 58, 61; our –, vii, 1-2, 10, 14, 16, 65, 168, 171, 181; timely and timeless, 163-164, 173, 254, 262; untimeliness, 114 topography, 67-68, 78, 104, 205-207, 215, 217, 223, 245, 257, 279, 285, 312 (3) tower, –s, 73, 79, 82, 213-215, 217, 223, 232, 244-245, 268, 271, 281, 289; bell-tower, 104; fly-tower, 272; office –, 277; Panropa-Tower, 176; Pirelli Tower, 265; Tower of David Museum, 314 (17); Tower of Shadows, 333 (28) tradition, 1-4, 6-7, 9-10, 16-17, 92, 104, 113, 150, 157-158, 182, 188, 189-194, 201, 206, 222-223, 226-227, 238, 245-246, 247-263, 265; – of Proclus, 55-61; – of Western thought, 9;

352

–s of thought, 1; –al aim of philosophy, 12; –al categories, 2; –al communicative role of architecture, 221; –al craft, –s, 4, 223 –al ethical function of architecture, 221; –al setting, 10; –al representations, 103, 226, 234; –al rule, 8; –al understanding, 8-10, 12, 14, 161, 232, 236, 238, 270; Aristotelian –, 54, 59; building –, 7, 223, 225-226, 241, 244-245, 276; Christian –s, 1-3, 6, 8; Classical –, 10, 153, 222, 229, 252; Jewish –, 5; history of –, 3; liberal –, 178; living –, vii, 1-17; modern –, 89; monastic –, 202, 205; primary –, 12; Protestant –, 15; Romantic –, 179, 187; secularization of the –, 201; spiritual –s, 6; urban –, 221; transmission, 5-6, 188 Trent, Council of, 7 trivium, quadrivium, 7, 274 truth, 6, 14, 30-31, 41, 43, 63, 96, 108, 110, 113, 115, 171-172, 317 (28), 327 (13); Truth and Method, 15, 148, 158; true, 37, 51-52, 56, 59, 67, 74, 96, 110, 112-113, 115-116, 140, 143, 148, 165, 263, 318 (38) type, –s, ix, 67-80, 189, 201, 202-203, 210, 234, 274, 276, 314 (16), 315 (17), 316 (25), 316 (26), 317-318 (37, 38, 39, 42), 332 (6);

Index

archetype, 69, 189, 332 (6); building –s, 2, 77, 153, 245, 274; objets-type, 197; prototype, 76, 80, 166, 317 (28) typology, 75, 77, 318 (38) understanding, 2-6, 8-10, 12-13, 40, 42-43, 46-47, 51-52, 57-58, 60, 77, 81, 89, 91, 96-97, 109, 112, 114-116, 119-121, 131, 144, 187, 189, 195, 197, 208, 223, 226-227, 223, 234, 236, 238, 250, 252, 263-264, 273, 286; Aristotelian –, 119; – in Dilthey, 17; – in Kant, land of pure, 114 Locke on human –, 120-121, 124; ontological –, 264 universal, 16, 35, 136, 163, 185, 189, 290; – communicability, 93-94; – history, 39, 41; – law, 184; – method, 234; – propositions, 52; mathesis universalis, 61; see particular utility, 141, 152, 248, 252-253, 255-256; utilitarian, 173, 236, 251-252 utterance, 3; – of Creation, 5; living – of God, 102 Vattimo, Gianni, 150 Velde, Henry van de, 170 Vesely, Dalibor, vii, ix-x, 19, 66, 92, 119-120, 264, 285-286, 334-336 Victoria Street, 265-285 Viollet-le-Duc, Eugène-Emmanuel, 234 virtue, –s, 31, 51. 113, 181, 249 vision, 5, 9, 62, 82, 91-92, 125, 144-145, 177, 314 (13), 315 (20); visible, 2, 4, 8-9, 64, 89, 114, 166, 211, 273, 276, 283, 294, 331 (22)

visibility, viii, 5, 9 see light vita, 52; – activa, 8, 151; – contemplativa, 8 Vitruvius, 51, 53-54, 65, 309 (62) voice, 2, 5, 86, 202, 285 Wagner, Otto, 234 Wagner, Richard, 168, 176 war, 82, 103, 106, 161, 177-178, 180, 317 (30), 329 (49); pre–, 162, 166; post–, 168, 186; warfare, 84, 179, 182 water, 99, 102-103, 138-139, 142, 201, 204-205, 208, 211-212, 212-214, 216-217, 225, 231, 280, 289, 325 (39), 332 (19), 333 (20); architecture of –, 211, 214, 216; law of –, 208-209, 211-212; order of –, 204, 212 Webb, Philip, 253-256, 262 Werkbund, 37, 162, 169 will, 51, 115, 178-179, 182, 184, 296; – to art, 37, 170-171; – to form, 170; – to power, 168, 180, 182-183 Winckelmann, Johann Joachim, 113, 127 wisdom, 31, 41, 51, 317 (27); divine –, 7; practical –, 5; see Hagia Sophia Wolff, Christian, 108-110 word, 2, 105, 107, 119, 121, 126, 138-139, 141-142, 150, 153, 171, 200, 203, 208, 261, 314 (16, 17), 332 (12); Word, 5, 8, 102; ȜȩȖȠȢ6, 14-15, 31; verbum, 15; spoken –, 8, 150; words, 2, 120, 254, 262, 332 (13)

353

Index

work, –s, 8, 42, 44, 52, 74, 77, 97, 103-104, 106-107, 109, 150-152, 196-197, 205, 229, 261, 263; – of architecture, 17, 148, 156, 230, 311 (94); – of art, 15-16, 45, 77, 109-110, 128, 148, 150, 175, 179-180, 216, 226, 230-231, 282-283; opus, 206; opera, 8 world, 1-10, 12, 14, 38, 44, 47, 50, 55, 57, 60-65, 68-69, 74-76, 78, 83-84, 87, 90-91, 95, 98-99, 104-107, 109-110, 112-116, 121, 136, 150-158, 162, 166, 169-170, 174, 177, 180, 182, 187, 190-191, 195, 199, 201, 209, 211, 222, 224-227, 229, 231, 233-235, 237-238, 240-242, 250, 263, 271, 273, 281, 286, 313 (5), 313 (13); created –, 12, 69, 229-230; life-world, 149, 151; natural –, 183, 187, 201-202, 224, 237, 264, 271-274, 277, 281, 334 (1); worldly, 6-7, 60, 62, 151, 153-154 Wright, Frank Lloyd, 170, 332 (6) Xenakis, Iannis, 198 Zeitwille, 173 Zig Zag Building, 268-269, 283

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Image credits

Hélène Binet, Photography for the cover; Plates 2, 3, 5, 6, 9, 10, 11, 12; 260. Daniel Libeskind, 21, 23, 25, 27. Stiftung Bibliothek Werner Oechslin, 34, 37, 39, 44, 46, 48, 49, 53, 54, 56, 63. Wolska-Conus (1968-73), 70. Bridgeman Images, Pl. 1; 72. Karsten Harries, Pl. 4; 98, 100, 101. © By Courtesy of the Trustees of Sir John Soane’s Museum, 122. Getty Images, 123. Tony Bryant, 164, 165. Rut Blees Luxemburg, Pl. 7. Angeliki Sioli, 186, 187, 188, 189, 192, 193, 195, 196. Louis I. Kahn Collection, University of Pennsylvania and the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, 204, 205, 206, 207, 209. Dagmar Weston, 224, 227, 228, 233, 237, 239. © ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London 2016, 220, 240. © FLC/ ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London 2016, 230. Fionna MacDonald, 242, 243. Ben Williams, 244. Ben Watson, 245. David Grandorge, 266, 267, 278, 279, 280; Pl. 8. Lynch Architects, 282, 284, 285. Patrick Lynch, 268, 269, 273. Witherford Watson Mann, 288. Oliver Wainwright, 295.

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Pl. 1 Hagia Sophia, Constantinople (Istanbul), 6th century AD, view of the vaulting over the nave and side chapels. The pendentives of the main vault illuminated with cherubim.

Pl. 2 Sverre Fehn, Storhamarlåven, Hedmarksmuseet (Hedmark, Hamar, Norway, 1967-1979), view of the interior.

Pl. 3 Sverre Fehn, Storhamarlåven, view from the exterior.

Pl. 4 Johann Anton Pader, pulpit (1765), St Johannes der Täufer, general view of the stucco work.

Pl. 5 Caruso St John, rehabilitation of Tate Britain (London, 2006-2013), principal level of the Rotunda.

Pl. 6 Caruso St John, rehabilitation of Tate Britain (London, 2006-2013), Millbank entrance.

Pl. 7 Rut Blees Luxemburg, Forest of Shadows (2011), photography.

Pl. 8 Lynch Architects, Kings Gate (London, 2010-2015), East façade looking towards Victoria Street and Westminster Cathedral.

Pl. 9 Witherford Watson Mann, rehabilitation of Astley Castle (Nuneaton, Warwickshire, 2007-2012), view of the ruined fireplace stack prior to new construction.

Pl. 10 Witherford Watson Mann, rehabilitation of Astley Castle, view of external courts and T-shaped concrete lintel.

Pl. 11 Witherford Watson Mann, rehabilitation of Astley Castle, North court fenestration, brick and stone masonry.

Pl. 12 Witherford Watson Mann, rehabilitation of Astley Castle, North court facing fireplace.