Architectural Types

If architecture would express anything at all, what would I want that to be?

As an architect who has not built all that much, my models of ideal architecture are not my own designs (as it seems to be for certain prolific modern practitioners) nor any particular contemporary work but classical buildings, some dating back (like the Greek Amphitheatre in Siracusa and the Pantheon in Rome) millennia. A competent contemporary project would invariably include lessons from these examples.

How can I then make what I appreciate in these classical buildings work for me in the here and now? In a world so conditioned by abstraction, it might even be considered insensitive to start bombarding unprepared minds with freshly carved classical icons (even if these were actually highly edifying) without the necessary revelatory narrative. The dangers of anachronism are always present in any contemporary artistic effort even with the best intentions of wanting to “re-humanise” society. As a catch-cry, letting the old buildings be old and the new be new sounds half-convincing even to someone who would keenly favour the maintenance of cultural traditions. Restore and keep on loving the old but we should move ahead courageously with appropriate innovations – taking as possible models the artistic and engineering ambitions of the Renaissance.

In innovating however, I would reject stylistics because there is something fake about them. I do not understand at all well, for example, the impulse just to show off. Architectural expression may be important for the epoch in which it is created but perhaps it has an even greater role to play into the future. For this reason I don’t see the point of toying with the ephemeral nor with purely nostalgic notions. Permeating a sense of continuity for me is one of the key issues of architectural theory, insomuch as architectonic creations perforce extend their lives into future temporal realms whose moods we cannot presume to imagine. In whatever humble way this may be made evident, some sense of authenticity (thus the ability to ‘plug-in’ to the lineage of broad cultural traditions) must be present in any new work. [The disdaining of frozen styles has already happened inside a lifetime – with the broad-based rejection of the International Style as well as Post Modernism.] A building must not be treated as though it was a car, an aeroplane or a piece of jewellery because architecture has far more important things to do, both symbolically and functionally. Surely there is far more depth evident in our artistic heritage than mere stylistics. Otherwise why bother with the treatises? What is the point of all that study? All those diplomas, degrees and doctorates; of what use are they if knowledge is simply cemented and locked away in the mind and then unable be transmitted as art?

So if I reject much of what is going on around me in the name of architecture, and I can’t feel readily comfortable with simply covering over things with text book classical forms, what do I accept? What am I left with aside from standard gauge floors, walls and roofs? I do believe that I am left with the thing called “type”, and to me it is the study of “type” that calls upon the need to create “paper architecture”. (Please refer to HAR article by that name by David Mayernik for an explanation on the impulse to create architecture as drawings.)

What do I mean by “type”? In a broad sense, or at least it is my opinion that there are only two buildings types: the sacred and the profane. Inside these two categories there are further variant types of buildings ordered in hierarchies of (architectonic) importance. Inside a particular type (such as a Palazzo or a Castle), there are various building forms whose ‘identities’ are created by the composition of parts. In classical architecture, these parts whether spatial or formal may also be called “types” (such as rooms, naves, colonnades, courtyards, stairs, architraves, etc.). So my idea of how these relate could represent itself graphically as a spiral (if a spiral may somehow represent a formal design process), that is, the hierarchy of types is a connected one, a juxtaposition of forms threaded with a definite beginning and an end but not necessarily separated or stratified. The distinction is simple. A type (or an idea of it) exists “a priori” (or already subsumed into the mindset of a consistent cultural milieu) and so pre-eminent whilst identity is something that can be invented through variation. At least in my own mind this is how the creative process structures, thus I am also able to invent (what I think of as) my own definition: architecture is a unity of legible types, the proper treatment of which brings a building alive.

[As an aside, it is my opinion, that this presence or absence of unity in our architectural surroundings has important physiological and psychological consequences. The obsession with individual identity in modern design practice might say something important about our modified spiritual precepts.]

Following through on what might be called a formal approach, the architectural composition of types takes on a definite unifying geometry while the density of ornamentation remains the creative variable, being a matter of judgment related to taste and means. A building to be made in the honour of a Saint begs divine inspiration and so I would say that it has a special place in relation to architectural theory. Its consideration has to proceed from a theological basis and collaboration must necessarily be sought from an ecclesiastic authority. However the profane type offers an infinite variety of possibilities for the mind to freely explore in writing and better indeed as artfully made drawings.

I suspect that in a world still putting its population through a virility test, our colleagues remain somewhat unconvinced that our task is not necessarily to build (because the contracts required for this to happen does not always call upon the need for art), but primarily to draw. Not just pretty lines and shades but tough geometry too, in the relationship of shapes, distribution of loads, the sizing of the supporting members and why not show all the chains and pulleys that put them together? In practice architecture is an inter-play of forms, patterns and proportions. It is a lot of decisions to make but it can also all be explained. There is a lot to draw. Let me get on with it.

Roma, 31 8 2005