What is Architecture?

Edited by Andrew Ballantyne

NA
;JSoD
,,"41
MOr+
Art
First published 2002
by Routledge
11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE

Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada

by Routledge
29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group

© 2002 Editorial matter and selection: Andrew Ballantyne; individual chapters:

the contributors

The right of Andrew Ballantyne to be identified as the Editor of this Work has been
asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

Typeset in Frutiger Light by wee-set ltd, Boldon, T yne and Wear

Printed and bound in Great Britain by TJ. International. Padstow, Cornwall
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.
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

What is architecture? Iedited by Andrew Ballantyne,
p. ern
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Architecture-Philosophy. I. Ballantyne, Andrew.
NA2500 .w47 2001
72Q-dc21

ISBN 0-415-25626_7 (hbk) 2001040812

ISBN 0-415-25627_5 (pbk)
Contents

Contributors tx
Acknowledgements xi
Introduction

Commentary: Andrew Ballantyne, The Nest and the Pillar of Fire 7

Architectural Principles in an Age of Nihilism 53

Roger Scruton

2 The Architecture of Deceit 63

Diane Ghirardo

3 Spatial Stories 72
Michel de Certeau

4 The Dark Side of the Domus 88

Neil Leach

5 The Metaphysics of Housework: Patricia Gruben's

The Central Character 102
Kathleen Anne McHugh

6 'Hi Honey, I'm Home' Weary (Neurasthenic) Businessmen and

the Formulation of a Serenely Modern Aesthetic 112
Joyce Henri Robinson

7 From Techne to Tectonics 129

Demetri Porphyrios

8 Botticher. Semper and the Tectonic Core Form and Art Form 138
Kenneth Frampton

vii 0
 Chapter 1: Architectural Principles In an
Age of Nihilism

Roger Scruton

The search for objective canons of taste has often proved to be the enemy of
aesthetic Judgement. By pretending to an authority which cannot reasonably be
claimed, this search provokes an original rebellion against the Father Repudiat-
ing the dictatorship of one law, the rebellious offspring refuses to accept the
advice of any other and opts for an aesthetic anarchy, rather than submit once
again to a discipline which had become intolerable to him At the same time he
stands more in need of this discipline than ever: and the greater the rebellion,
the more implacable the need.
The tale is familiar, and its lesson is one that man is destined not to learn, or
to learn only when the price of disobedience has been paid But let us, for all that,
draw the lesson, since debates about modern architecture are futile otherwise,
Just as we should not look for more objectivity in any study than can be obtained
from it. so should we not be content with less The substance of aesthetic judge-
ment lies in feeling, imagination and taste, But this subjective matter IS objectively
formed: it is brought to the forum of discussion, and given the status and the
structure of a rational preference, Hence there is both the possibility, and the
necessity, of aesthetic education. The disaster of modern architecture stems from
a misunderstanding of this education, and a disposition to discard the true disci-
plines of the eye and the heart in favour of a false discipline of the intellect.
Of course, the aesthetic preference, like any human faculty, may remain
infantile and unexamined, In architecture, however, there is special reason to
resist the pleasure principle, The person who builds imposes himself on others,
and the sight of what he does is as legitimate an object of criticism as are his
morals and his manners. It is not enough for an architect to say: !Iike it. or even:
I and my educated colleagues like it. He has to justify its eastence. and the ques-
tion is whether he and his colleagues are right.
As I have argued elsewhere, the search for some kind of co-ordination
of tastes is forced on us by our nature as social beings This search may not lead
to a single set of principles; nevertheless it involves a common pursuit of an

530
 Roger Scruton •

Figure 1 1
A street in Autun,
Burgundy, looking
towards the basilica,
Photo: Andrew
Ballantyne.

acceptable solution, It may seem strange to describe aesthetic values as solutions

to a 'cO-ordination problem' In architecture, however, they are that, and more
besides, Through aesthetic reflection we endeavour to create a world in which
we are at home with others and with ourselves. That is Why we care about aes-
thetic values, and live wretchedly in places Where they have been brushed aside
or trampled on Man's 'estrangement' in the modern city is due to many causes
besides modern architecture, But Who can deny that modern architecture has
played its OWnspecial part in producing it. by Wilfully imposing forms, masses
and proportions Which bear no relation to Our aesthetic expectations and which
arrogantly defy the Wisdom and achievement of the past?

What was primarily wrong With modernism was not its rigiditv, its moral is-
ing, it, pccita"cal zeal - althoogh these wece cepclsi" enocgh Modem'Sm's
respect for discipline was its sale redeeming feature: but it was a discipline about
the weang things It told", to be true to fcnctiGO, to Social C@ty, to rnatenars.
to pohlical pcineipl" It told us to be 'of our time', While enl'Sting acehitectme in
tho" inSOlentexpecimen, foe the ce-fash,oning of man which nave thc""ned
our ci,ilisation with 'ceh disastec At the same t,me, modem ism thcew away, as a
woohles; bY-PlOduct of the past and a symbol of .ts 0PPCessi'e Cltoals, the aes-
thetic di"iphne embodted to the claSSICaltreoitron It had no use foe that kind of
diScipline,
only and that
discipline co palience
COUnts, tow"ds the few bca" Gities Who defended rt as the

POstmodemi,m is a ceaCllOnto modemi;! censociousne;s It 'play,' w'th the

classical and goth" details which Wete focb'dden it by its stem parent, and '0
emplie; them of their last 'e;lige; of meaning This is not the redisco",y of
histo,y, but," dissolulion. Modemism had the decency to stanu condemned by

540
 Chapter 1. Architectural Principles in an Age of Nihilism.

Figure 1.2
Simla, Northern India
Pholo Hulton-Getty.

Figure 1.3
Montenegro, which was
in Yugoslavia when the
photo was taken in 1938,
Photo: Hulton-Getty

history. oostmooemlsm wishes to stand condemned by nothing, and also to

condemn nothing The details with which it plays are not the ornaments it takes
them for: their significance is that of an order which lies crystallised within them.
and to use them in defiance of that order is to undo the work of centuries. Such
a practice marks a new departure of the nihilistic spirit which is foreshadowed in
modernism, and which there takes the belligerent form of a doctrine Instead of
the unbending rectitude of modernism, we are given the self-service lifestyles of
the moral playground But the effect of this transgression is no less destructive
than the paternal interdiction which inspired it. We are now even further from
the discipline-in-freedom that we need
Where, then, should we look' In what laws or principles should the
aesthetic choice be grounded. and how can those laws and principles be justified

550
------------ Roger Scruton •

Figure 1.4
Buildings in the market
square, Richmond,
Yorkshire.
Photo, AndrEW
Ballantyne,

to the person who does not share them) I have argued in favour of certain
traditional principles of design. However, the practice of good architecture
depends upon the presence of a motive, and that motive is not given by the
philosophy which recommends it. It comes to us through culture _ in other
words, through a habit of discourse, submission and agreement which is more
easily lost than won, and which is not detachable, in the last analysis, from piety.
If Ruskin is to be esteemed above all other critics of architecture it is not for his
judgements (many of which were wrong, and all of which were eccentric), but
for his elaboration of that truth, It is partly the failure to read Ruskin which
explains the widespread conviction that the materials, the forms and the work of
the builder can be understood by anyone, whatever the condition of his soul.
Nevertheless, all is not lost. It is possible for a civilisation to 'mark time' in
the absence of the spirit which engendered it. It is by learning to 'mark time' that
Western civilisation has endured so successfully since the Enlightenment, and
reproduced that agreeable simulacrum of itself in which the life of the mind goes
on, Our civilisation continues to produce forms which are acceptable to us,
because it succeeded in enshrining its truth in education, An astonishing effort
took place in nineteenth-century Europe and America to transcribe the values of
our culture into a secular body of knowledge, and to hand on that knOWledge
from generation to generation without the benefit of the pulpit or the pilgrimage.
Nowhere was this process more successful than in the field of architecture.
All the busy treatises of the aeeux-Arts. of the Gothic, Greek and Classical
revivalists, of the critics and disciplinarians of the syncretic styles, had one over-
riding and urgent concern to ensure that a precious body of knOWledge is not
lost. that meaning is handed down and perpetuated by generations who have
been severed from the inner impulse of a justifying faith. And, looking at the

560
 Chapter 1 Architectural Principlesin an Age of Nihilism.

nineteenth-century architecture of Europe and America, who can doubt the

success of their endeavour?
The most important change initiated by the modern movement was to wage
unconditional war on this educational tradition, Certain things were no longer to be
studied, not because they had been examined and found wanting, but because the
knowledge contained in them was too great a rebuke to the impatient ignorance of
the day. Architects were deliberately diseducated, with the result that most who
have risen to fame or notoriety since the Second World War have been without the
knowledge necessary to their trade. Architects now emerge from schools of 'archi-
tecture' unable to draw (either the human figure, on the perception of which all
sense of visual order depends, or even the forms of building); they are, as a rule,
ignorant of the Orders of classical architecture, with no conception of light and
shade, or of the function of mouldings in articulating them, and without any idea of
a building as something other than an engineering solution to a problem stated in a
plan. That result is a natural consequence of the programme of 're-education' insti-
tuted by Le Corbusier and the Bauhaus, We should not be surprised, therefore, if
the efforts of the re-educated architect are so seldom attended with success.
I wish to record and endorse some of the principles which informed the
education of the nineteenth-century architect, and which I have defended else-
where, in the course of which they have acquired more nuances than I need here
repeat. My procedure will be to lay down eleven fundamental principles, and
then to throw down a challenge to those who would reject them. Finally, I shall
add eleven more specific principles, whose authority is less obvious.

Architecture is a human gesture in a human world, and, like every human

gesture it is Judged in terms of its meaning
2 The human world is governed by the principle of 'the priority of appear-
ance' What is hidden from us has no meaning (Thus a blush has a
meaning, but not the flux. of blood which causes it.) To know how to build,
therefore, you must first understand appearances.
3 Architecture is useful only if it is not absorbed in being useful. Human pur-
poses change tram epoch to epoch, from decade to decade, from year to
year. Buildings must therefore obey the law of the 'mutability of function'
If they cannot change their use - from warehouse to garage, to church, to
apartment block - then they make room for other buildings which can The
capacity of a building to survive such changes is one proof of its merit: one
proof that it answers to something deeper in us than the transient function
which required it. (This idea gives grounds for hope, for it implies a 'natural
selection of the beautiful")
4. Architecture plays a major part in creating the 'public realm': the place in
which we associate with strangers Its meaning and posture embody and
contribute to a 'civic experience', and it is against the expectations created
by that experience that a building must be judged, Of all architectural
ensembles, therefore, it is the street that is the most important.

570
 Roger Scruton •

5, Architecture must respect the constraints which are imposed on it by

human nature. Those constraints are of two kinds _ the animal and the
personal. As animals, we orient ourselves visually, move and live in an
upright position, and are vulnerable to injury, As persons we live and fulfil
ourselves through morality, law, religion, learning, commerce and politics,
The reality and validity of those personal concerns can be either affirmed or
denied by the architecture that surrounds us, just as our animal needs may
be either fulfilled or thwarted. Buildings must respect both the animal and
the personal sides of our nature, They must be 'persons Suited to the public
realm' If not, they define no place for our habitation
6. The primary need of the person is for values, and for a world in which his
values are publicly recognised. The public realm must permit and endorse
either a recognised public morality, or at least the Common pursuit of one.
7, The aesthetic experience is not an optional addition to our mental equip-
ment. On the contrary, it is the inevitable consequence of our interest in
appearances. I see things, but I also see the meaning of things, and the
meaning may saturate the experience. Hence appearance becomes the
resting place of contemplation and self-discovery.
8. The aesthetics of everyday life consists in a constant process of adjustment.
between the appearances of objects, and the values of the people who create
and observe them, Since the common pursuit of a public morality is essential
to our happiness, we have an overriding reason to engage in the COmmon
pursuit of a public taste. The aesthetic understanding ought to act as a
shaping hand in all our public endeavours, adapting the world to our emo-
tions and our emotions to the world, so as to overcome what is savage,
beyond us, unheim/ich. We must never cease, therefore, to seek for the forms
that display, as a visible meaning, the moral co-ordination of the community.
9. A beautiful object is not beautiful in relation to this or that desire It pleases
us because it reminds us of the fullness of human life, aiming beyond
desire, to a state of satisfaction. It accompanies us, so to speak, on Our
spiritual Journey, and we are united with it by the same sense of Commun-
ity that is implied in the moral life

10. Taste, Judgement and criticism are therefore immovable components of the
aesthetic understanding. To look at the world in this way, so as to find
meaning in appearance itself, is at the same time to demand public recoq-
rufion for what we see It is to stand in the forum of rational argument,
demanding the acceptance and the sympathy of our kind.
11 All serious architecture must therefore give purchase to the claims of taste.
It must offer a public language of form, through which people can criticise
and justify their buildings, come to an agreement over the right and the
wrong appearance, and so construct a public realm in the image of their
social nature

Here I shall pause to take stock, There have been many opponents of aesthetic

580
 Chapter t Architectural Principlesin an Age of Nihilism.

value in architecture - utilitarians, constructivists, marxisants, philistines. I have

aFfirmed that the aesthetic understanding cannot in fact be eliminated from our
lives. But my eleven points constitute no proof of such a view. Moreover, what I
have said can be defended only by defending a whole culture, and the way of
life that has grown within it To those who despise that culture, or who have lost
all sense of its validity, I can make no appeal. Yet, If they have lost the culture of
their forefathers, the onus is on them to replace it. and not on me to persuade
them that they are wrong It is an onus that the critics of civilisation have never
discharged The great discourses of architecture - from Alberti, Serlio. Palladia,
Ruskin - were written from a standpoint within the culture to which we are
heirs. The discourses of the iconoclasts - Le Corbusfer. Hannes Meyer, Gropius-
express not some other culture, or some higher set of values, but a disorienta-
tion, a 'decultivation' which - however it may be fortified by theory - has no
authority against the tradition which it strives to disestablish, The same is true of
those styles of criticism which try to undermine our certainties, by calling on
some 'science' which 'explains' them The Marxist theory, which allocates taste
to ideology, may undermine my self-confidence. But it is not, for all that an
argument against my tastes, Taste is necessary to the rational being, and its
assessments are - like the assessments of morality - internal to itself, neither
confirmed nor denied by the 'science' which explains them. The arguments of
the structuralists, post-structuralists, deconstructionists, post-deconstructionists,
post-post-structuralist-deconstructionists etc, are worthless for a similar reason,
Even if true they are of no aesthetic consequence: they constitute a massive
ignoratio elenchi whose charm is that they promise power over a given study
without the price of understanding it But it is a spurious power: the power of
the magician, whose spell is broken just as soon as you cease to believe in it.
With that I shall move from my eleven abstract principles 10 the eleven
derivative principles which would form the basis of a pattern book in the
Kingdom of Ends

12 The problem of architecture is a question of manners, not art. In no way

does it resemble the problem which confronted Wagner in composing
Tristan, or that which confronted Manet and Courbet when they endeav-
oured to paint the modern world as it really seems, Such artistic problems
faced by people of genius demand upheavals, overthrowmqs, a repudiation
or reworking of traditional forms, For this very reason the resulting stylistic
ventures should not be taken as orescnptions by those lesser mortals
whose role is simply to decorate and humanise the world
The problem of architecture is addressed to those lesser mortals - among
whom we must count the majority of architects. For such people to model
their actions on an idea of 'creativity' taken from the great triumphs of
modern an is not only a supreme arrogance: it constitutes a public danger
against which we should be prepared to legislate, Our problem is this: by
what discipline can an architect of modest ability learn the aesthetic

590
 Roger Scruton •

decencies? The answer is to be found in aesthetic 'constants', whose value

can be understood by whomsoever should choose to build.
13, The first constant is that of scale. To stand in a personal relation to a build-
ing, I must comprehend it visually, without strain, and without feeling
dwarfed or terrorised by its presence, Only in special circumstances do we
take pleasure in buildings of vast undifferentiated mass (like the pyramids of
Egypt), or of surpassing height. The spires of a Gothic cathedral, the compet-
ing towers of Manhattan: these clusters of stone and glass in flight, which
start away from us like enormous birds, are rare achievements, in one case
designed, in the other arising by an inVisible hand from the pursuit of com-
merce, They delight us by defying our normal expectations. If the cathedral
does not frighten us, it is because it is an act of worship: an offering to God,
and an attempt to reach up to him with incorruptible fingers of stone, But
that which thrills us in Manhattan also disturbs us: the sense of man over-
reaching himself, of recklessly extending his resources and his aims, And the
massive weight of the pyramids strikes us with awe: time stands still in these
blocks of stone, trapped in an amess coffin beneath a terrifying monolith,
Such constructions cannot serve as models for the ordinary builder, in
the circumstances of daily life. His first concern must be the viewpoint of
the man in the street. A bUilding must face the passer-by, who should not
be forced to look up in awe, or to cringe in humility, beset by a sense of his
own littleness.

14 Buildings must therefore have tacedes. able to stand before us as we stand

before them. It is in the tecaces that the aesthetic effect is concentrated, In
addition to destroying old-fashioned decencies of scale, modernism also
abolished the very concept of the 'face' in building. The modernist bUilding
has no orientation, no privileged approach, no induction into its ambit. It
faces nothing, welcomes nothing, smiles and nods to no-cno. Is it surpris-
ing that we are alienated?

15 It follows that the first principles of composition concern the ordering of

teceoes But to establish such principles we must break with the tyranny of
the plan,

The 'diseducated' architect is not. as a rUle, sent out into the world to
study its appearance. He is put before a draWing board and told to plan. By
the use ofaxonometrics he can then project his plans into three dimen-
sions The result is the 'horizontal style'; the style, or lack of it. which
emerges from composing in two-dimensional layers. This style has gener-
ated the major building types of modernism.

Its bad manners can be attributed to four causes, all of them resulting
from the tyranny exerted by the ground-plan First, an unnatural regularity of
outline. Second, and consequently, the need for a site that will fit the plan,
and therefore for a barbarous work of clearance. Third, the absence of an
intelligible tacace. Fourth, the denial (implicit in those foregoing qualities) of
the street. Such buildings either stand behind a little clearing, refusing to align

600
 Chapter 1 Architectural Principles in an Age of Nihilism.

themselves; or else they shuffle forwards and stare blankly and meaninglessly
into space. They appear in our ancient towns like expressionless psychopaths,
hungry for power, and careless of all the decencies that would merit it
16, Composition requires detail, and the principles of composition depend
upon the sense of detail. Here, too, matters have not been unaffected by
modernist diseducation. The hostility to 'ornament' led to a corresponding
neglect of detail, and to an emphasis on line and form as the main vari-
ables of composition. It came to seem as if architecture could be under-
stood simply through the study of geometry; buildings were conceived as
though cast in moulds out of some pliable fluid, (And, in due course, this is
exactly how modernist buildings were rnaoe.)
The fact is, however, that words like 'form', 'proportion', 'order', and
'harmony' can be applied to buildings only if they have significant parts,
Harmony is a harmony among parts; proportion is a relation between per-
ceivable divisions, and so on. The form of a building is perceivable only
where there are details which divide and articulate its walls.
17 The true discipline of style consists, therefore, in the disposition of details,
Hence the basis of everyday construction must lie in the pattern book the
catalogue of details which can be readily conjured, so as to form Intelligible
unities. All serious systems of architecture have produced such books (even
if they have existed in the heads and hands of builders, rather than on the
printed page). They offer us detachable parts, rules of composition, and a
vocabulary of form. By means of them, an architect can negotiate corners,
build in confined spaces, match wall to window, and window to door, and
in general ensure an effect of harmony, in all the varying circumstances
imposed on him by the site and the street which borders it.
18, The art of combination relies for its effect on regularity and repetition. The
useful details are the ones that can be repeated, the ones which satisfy our
demand for rhythm, sameness and symmetry, To invent such details, and at
the same time to endow them with character and hfe. is not given to every
architect at every period. On the contrary, it is here that the great discover-
ies of architecture reside The value of the classical tradition is crystallised in
the theory of the Orders, in which beauty is transfigured into a daily discip-
line, and the discoveries of true artists made available to those ordinary
mortals for whom work and application must take the place of genius
19, As the Orders make clear, the true discipline of form emphasises the verti-
cal, rather than the horizontal line. The art of deSign is the art of vertical
accumulation, of placing one thing above another, so as to create an order
which can be spread rhythmically from side to side, It is by virtue of such an
order that buildings come to stand before us as we before them, and to
wear the human face that pleases us
20 To endow a facade with vertical order, it is necessary to exploit light, shade
and climate, to divide the wall space, and to emphasise apertures, In other
words, it is necessary to use mouldings

61 D
 Roger Scruton •

The abolition of mOUldings was a visual calamity, the effects of which

can be clearly witnessed in the modern American city. The real ugliness
came not with the skyscraper, but when the skyscraper was stripped of all
those lines, shadows and curlicues which were the source of its life and
gaiety. Without mouldings, no space is articulate. Edges become blades;
buildings lose their crOwns; and walls their direction (since movement side.
ways has the same visual emphasis as movement up and down), Windows
and doors cease to be aedicules and become mere holes in the wall.
Nothing 'fits', no part is framed, marked off. emphasised or softened,
Everything is sheer, stark, uncompromising, cold. In a nutshell, mouldings
are the sine qua non of decency, and the source of Our mastery over light
and shade.

21. The bUilding of a human face in architecture depends not only on details,
but also on materials, These should be pleasant to the tOUCh,welcoming to
the eye and accommodating to Our movements. They should also take a
patina, so that their permanence has the appearance of softening and age.
The duration of a bUilding must, like the bUilding itself, be marked by life. It
must show itself as mortality, finitUde, sadness, experience and decay
Hence concrete, even if it lends itself to massive aesthetic effects like the
dome of the Pantheon, is not a suitable material for the ordinary bUilder
22. The d"ciplme of such, buitdec consists in the ,bitity to Peccei", to d"w,
to compare and to criticise details; and thereafter to Combine those details
in regular and harmonious forms, whatever the shape of the site in which
he works, and without doing violence to the surrounding order,

Those twenty-two points do not didate a style, but only the form 01 a style. But
of couese, they "e in keeping with the t"d,tion of We;tecn "chit"tuce as it
existed until the First World War, and they are enacted in the Classical and
Goth" pattern boob of the nioeteeeth centucy But it is not enough to study,
pattern book. Education is needed before you can apply it, and the question
remains What form that education should take, I am inclined to say that the
aspiring architect should go into the world and Use his eyes He should stUdy the
great treatises of architecture and learn to see with the eyes of others, He should
1,,'0 to d"w the sheoow, that f,1I 0' a COlinthi" orcer. CO" by the 1m",
mouldings and ornaments of a whole vertical crass-section. Then, perhaps, he
will be ready for his first project: to design a far;;ade between two existing bUild-
ings, In Such a way that nobody will be forCed against hiS will to notice it.
But such an education requires mental effort, and spiritual humility. And
Whatever thmgs are taught m schools of architecture, those two qualities are not
among them,

620