VIDI project 'The quest for the legitimacy of architecture in Europe, 1750-1850'

The NWO-funded research project started in September 2010

• Summary
• Project coordinator
• The project - Introduction
• Outline of the questions, hypotheses and aims
• Outline of the three research projects and synthesis
• Bibliopraphy

Summary

Architecture emerged as an autonomous discipline in the Renaissance with the publication of theories of design: treatises defining the architect’s knowledge, and the principles and models for designing buildings. These principles were founded on the conviction that to become works of art, buildings need to acquire meanings that, transcending the structural, spatial and functional aspects of architecture, are cultural in the broadest sense of the word.

Design theories substantiated this claim by invoking the authorities of Vitrivius’ treatise on architecture and the ruins of antiquity, examples of good design incorporating the values of an exemplary civilisation. At the end of the 17^th century, however, the authority of antiquity was eroded, while developments in science and technology changed building practice and design.

As a result, over the period 1750-1850 new design theories emerged. Whereas the majority of these texts are well known, it has rarely been noted that they aimed at repositioning architectural design within culture writ large. After all, the architectural profession still required design principles which promised to produce buildings of cultural relevance. Moreover, after antiquity had lost its authority, architectural theory sought new intellectual foundations in emerging discourses such as primitivism. Finally, in search of cultural legitimacy, the reflection on architectural design expanded outside the realm of the treatise.

By examining this process, the programme aims to redefine the body of architectural theory of the period in Europe, and to consider in detail how at a time when attitudes towards the past fundamentally changed, architectural theory sought new ways of explaining how buildings acquire wider cultural meanings by turning to new theories of the origins of society. Thus, the programme aims to identify the intellectual contexts that were of importance for the architectural theory of the period, and especially to clarify the relation of architectural theory to primitivism.

Project coordinator

The project - Introduction

The emergence of architecture as an autonomous discipline in the early Renaissance was subtended by a new body of theory aiming to define architecture as an intellectual endeavour, excercized by means of drawing (as opposed to building) and guided by rules of design prescribing the use of proportion, the orders and ornament. This new theory was modeled on Vitruvius’ De architectura (ca. 20BC), the only remaining architecture treatise from antiquity. If Vitruvius’s text had been known throughout the Middle Ages, in the early 15^th century its status shifted from a compendium of practical knowledge to the blueprint of architectural theory. Vitruvian or classicist theory is a theory of design, proposing principles regarding proportion, the orders and building types.

Besides the aura conferred by antiquity, key to the attraction of Vitruvius was not only his treatment of design problems, but also his apparent conviction that to become works of art, buildings need to acquire meanings that, transcending the structural, spatial and functional aspects of architecture, are cultural in the widest sense of the word. This conviction transpires from his dedication to Augustus, where architecture becomes a keystone of the Empire; from the multiple myths of origin situating the birth of architecture at the beginning of civilisation; and Vitruvius’ very definition of architecture, where the notion decorum (appropriateness) regulates architecture’s relation to tradition, use and context.

Vitruvius’s tenet that well-designed architecture attained inherent cultural meaning was adopted in Renaissance architectural theory. In his De Re aedificatoria (ca. 1452/86), the first exhaustive reworking of Vitruvius, Leon Battista Alberti saw a fundamental parentage between rules of design and the composition of society as a whole, thus associating architecture with ethics and politics. Alberti’s contemporary Filarete identified the birth of classicist architecture with Adam’s expulsion from paradise and the beginning of human history. The first illustrated edition of Vitruvius, by Fra Giocondo (1511), heralded pope Julius II as a new Augustus, the herald of a Golden Age. Raphael argued that architectural design reflects the course of history, because the conditions of the times dictate the quality of architecture. In 1570 Andrea Palladio located architecture’s origin in the private house, casting his own villas as fundamental contributions to the virtù (essence) of society.

Design theories substantiated the claim to the cultural relevance of design principles by invoking the authority of antiquity: Vitrivius’ treatise and ancient ruins served as examples of good design that corporated the values of an exemplary civilisation. At the end of the 17^th century, however, the authority of antiquity was eroded. New research into ancient ruins disavowed the notion of a homogeneous body of exemplary buildings incorporating imperial values. Historiography recognized the diversity of antiquity, and identified different competing ‘original’ civilisations. Giambattista Vico explored primitivism and challenged the superiority of classical origins. Claude Perrault’s comments on Vitruvius in the Préface to his treatise on the orders (1683) eliminated the entire mythological body subtending the vitruvian endeavour to incorporate design principles into culture. Contemporary developments in science and technology transformed building practice and its principles.

As a consequence, the period 1750-1850 saw the emergence of design theories that discarded much of the vitruvian theoretical apparatus. Conspicuous among these are the works by Boffrand, Laugier, Piranesi, Lodoli, Quatremère de Quincy, texts produced in the context of Empire competitions, Vaudoyer, Reynaud, culminating in Semper’s 19^th-century endeavour to deduct architectural representation from the four primitive crafts underlying all human artifacts. These texts have in common that they, unlike the much better studied treatises by Jean-François Blondel, Leroy, Stuart & Revett, or Percier & Fontaine, no longer see classical Greece and Rome as the prime authority for architectural design and cultural meanings, but look for other origins. Some of these theories are well known in the historiography of architecture, but considered as a step towards a modern conception of architecture unfettered by the weight of tradition and obsolete symbolism, or as an attempt to incorporate emerging aesthetic notions such as taste, or as the reflection of shifting esthetic preferences from classical to gothic. It has rarely been noted, however, that if the face of architectural theory fundamentally changed, it still aimed at positioning architectural design within culture writ large. After all, the architectural discipline still required design principles that promised to produce buildings of cultural relevance.

After antiquity had lost its authority, in 1750-1850 architectural theory sought fresh intellectual foundations in new discourses. Also, in its search for cultural legitimacy architectural theory assumed new forms, in literature and criticism. According to a shared consensus among architectural historians, in the decades around 1800 history replaced theory as the main source of authority for architectural design. But present-day architectural history has not yet dealt with the resulting scope and variety of architectural discourse, nor with the new relation between architectural theory and other discourses on origins, civilisation and culture, because it has rarely recognized the theoretical problem underlying this intellectual production, namely the quest for the legitimacy of architecture by ensuring the cultural meaning of design principles. This programme sets out to show that the various appeals to history made in this period to legitimate architecture as an art possessed of cultural meanings were in fact deeply problematic and contradictory, but that precisely these contradictions, rifts and paradoxes tells us much about the ways in which architectural design claims cultural meaning for built form.

Existing studies

In general terms, this problem is situated between the history of architectural design and research into the cultural significance of architecture. The history of architectural design is a specialized field that has yielded important results about the production, application and transmission of design principles. However, historians of architectural design tend to take at face value the assumptions on the cultural meaning of design principles espoused in the sources they study, and sometimes adopt these themselves. This research project into the cultural significance of architecture branches from architectural history and theory into art history, cultural studies, sociology, anthropology and other disciplines. By formulating the problem how built form acquires cultural meaning in terms of the position of architecture vis à vis the past and its relation to other cultural realms and disciplines, it contributes to an interdisciplinary study of architecture as a cultural agent.

The history of architectural theory from the Renaissance until the 20^th century is still mostly written as the transformation of vitruvian theory. Recent contributions have stressed the dependency of Renaissance architectural theory on a larger variety of discourses than the architectural or artistic treatise. The work of Richard Witmann is a crucial point of reference, as the first to scrutinize the interaction between architectural theory, public discourse and forms of sociability in the period under consideration.

If these studies indicate that architectural theory is embedded within intellectual culture writ large, the conceptual problem identified here has received little attention. Nonetheless, the question how architectural design can give cultural meaning to built form acquires urgency during the period under consideration: new building materials, such as iron and steel, generated new ornaments and challenged the idea that stone architecture imitates primitive wooden buildings; classical elements (the orders, the pediment or the dome) were applied in other contexts than those suggested by antiquity; industrialisation and urbanisation generated new building types, such as the railway station. As a consequence, the conceptual apparatus of vitruvianism proved inadequate to describe how to endow old and new architectural forms with cultural meaning.

Although some work has been done, mainly by literary historians, to widen the scope of inquiry into architectural discourse in the years 1750-1850, one crucial phenomenon has been largely ignored: the rise of primitivism in the early 18^th century as a mode of thought about the origins, meaning and legitimacy of society and cultural practices. In architectural history, its impact has been studied mainly in a limited way, for instance by tracing the impact on design of the rediscovery of the early Greek temples at Paestum near Naples. But the wider impact of primitivist texts by well-known authors such as Vico or Piranesi, but also Volney, Constant or Dulaure has not been taken into account. Most importantly, primitivism has not yet been considered as a unique perspective on the problem of how to endow architectural forms with cultural meaning: by advocating a return to first origins, primitivism attempts to replace the historical tradition as the storehouse of architectural form and meaning. This operation, however, is highly problematic. Coming at the end of almost a century of search for architectural meaning through historical investigations of origins, the prominent Prussian architect Schinkel noted in 1835 that the immense richness of forms this search had delivered gave no clue as to their meaning or use for design problems in his own day.

Outline of the questions, hypotheses and aims

The main questions this project wants to answer are:

1. What are the substitutes for Vitruvius and antiquity to serve as the foundation for architectural design’s ambition to give wider cultural meaning to built forms in the period 1750-1850?
2. How does architectural design endow built forms with meaning, what are these meanings, and in what manners do buildings signify according to the sources studied here?
3. What are the intellectual contexts in which the sources studied here developed in the years 1750-1850, and how do these contexts help to shape the answers to questions 1. and 2.?

Two hypotheses are used to answer these questions:

1. Architectural theory transforms profoundly over the period 1750-1850 because the foundations of earlier design theories, Vitruvius and antiquity, had become problematic.
2. Primitivism plays a crucial role in the transformation of architectural theory of the period, because it becomes a pervasive model of thought in the entire field of humanities, and connects with an important kernel of architectural theory, the myth of origin.

The aims of the programme are:

1. To redefine the body of architectural theory of the period in Europe.
2. To consider in detail how at a period of fundamental change in attitudes towards the past, architectural theory sought new ways of explaining how buildings acquire wider cultural meanings by turning to new theories of the origins of society.
3. To identify the intellectual contexts that were of importance for the architectural theory of the period, and esp. to clarify the relation of architectural theory to primitivism.
4. And thereby to address an issue fundamental to all architectural design and theory, viz. to define how built forms acquire cultural meanings that transcend the material, structural and functional aspects of building, and transform building from an utilitarian practice into an art.

The programme consists of research projects that examine three different answers to the erosion of classical antiquity and in particular Vitruvius as a design authority, in order to gauge their impact on design theory and to understand how they reshaped the nature of architectural discourse: new ideas on the primitive hut and its status as a design model; the substitution of the primitive hut as the first building by the building considered as a book; primitivism as a new foundation of design theory. Thus, the first project studies architectural theory in the conventional sense of the word, the second the discourse on architecture writ large, while the third gauges the impact of an emerging discourse on architecture and its theory. A synthesis will relate these historical research projects to the contemporary debate.

Outline of the three research projects and synthesis

The case studies are organized in a similar way and depart from a shared corpus of texts to facilitate supervision and exchange between the participants. They will:

1. Expand this initial corpus in order to redefine the body of writings on architectural theory in period under consideration.

2. Investigate when, how, why and by whom new approaches to architectural theory were developed.

3. Analyse which discourses and intellectual disciplines were involved in this endeavour.

4. Apply a close reading of the source material in order to locate and understand the critical junctures in the discourse of architectural theory. 


Reconfiguring the primitive hut as a design model in architectural discourse 1750-1850 (PhD diss, four years, 1fte)

In 1753 the abbé Laugier published his Essai sur l’architecture, to discover the true principles of architecture. To Laugier, these are embodied in “la petite cabane rustique,” man’s first house, consisting of four poles, four beams and a roof. All architecture imitates this primitive construction, and conversely buildings are good architecture insofar they resemble the “cabane”. Laugier’s “cabane” has a long pedigree in architectural theory. To Vitruvius, architecture originated in man’s imitation of animal shelters, and the development of architecture ran parallel with the history of civilisation. This conception of the origin and history of architecture is adopted in all early modern treatises.

As a consequence, these treatises contend that contemporary architecture stands in a historical relation to architecture’s origin: all buildings are descendants from the first hut. Laugier’s “cabane”, however, is an a-historical point of reference. It is the result not of archaeological investigation or speculation, but of a typical Enlightenment thought experiment. All buildings therefore always refer back to this first model, which embodies suprahistorical design principles. If Laugier vaunts ancient Greek temples as the prime historical example of architecture, it is not because Greek society represents the pinnacle of civilisation, but because the Greek temple most closely resembles the “cabane.”

Laugier is an example of a tendency in architectural theory over the period 1750-1850: the primitive hut is transformed from a historical point of origin into the embodiment of a-historical design principles; at the same time, because of its status as the origin of architecture, the cabane serves as the foundation of architecture’s wider cultural meaning. But how this is achieved, is left very implicit. The history of the transformation of the hut has not yet been written. More importantly, as an a-historical reference, the “cabane” and other reconfigurations of the hut establish a different relation between design principles and civilisation than the primitive hut of Vitruvius and followers; with the “cabane” these principles need to derive their cultural relevance from other sources or figures of thought. How this is done, by means of which figures of thought or frames of reference, has not yet been studied, even if the principles proposed by Laugier and contemporaries caused considerable (and well-studied) controversy.

This project will therefore:
1. Trace the notion of the primitive hut over the period 1750-1850 by studying the architectural theory of the period, including the writings of Laugier; Quatremère de Quincy; the so-called Romantic Pensionnaires Vaudoyer, Labrouste, Duc and Duban; Bötticher and Semper.

2. Analyse by means of a close reading of those texts how this transformation impacts on design theory and its claims that buildings acquire meanings that, transcending the structural, spatial and functional aspects of architecture, are cultural.

3. Trace the motives underlying this transformation by reconstructing the intellectual and cultural contexts of these texts.

4. The building as book as a new origin of architecture (applicant)
The best-know assertion that man invented architecture in order to retain memories and communicate his ideas, rather than to provide shelter, is found in the chapter “Ceci tuera cela” of Victor Hugo’s Notre Dame de Paris (1831/32). Hugo argues that a building is like a book, reversing a fundamentel tenet of vitruvianism: if to Vitruvius architecture acquires cultural meaning because the construction of the primitive hut occurs at the beginning of human society, to Hugo man starts to build in his urge to retain and communicate cultural meaning, regardless of his need for shelter. As a result, Hugo sees architecture as part of a larger group of cultural artefacts that are mimetic, performative or representative; the comparison embeds architecture within civilisation by treating it as a medium, not as a design problem.

Richard Wittman has begun to trace Hugo’s sources, and historians of literature have collected examples of the comparison between the building and the book, also from well before and after the period under consideration. The topic occurs for instance in Quatremère de Quincy and Viollet-le-Duc; in the 18^th-century controversies on Roman versus Greek architecture, in authors like Mariette and Piranesi by way of Montesquieu; in Balzac, Nodier and Nerval; and in Modernist writings of Sullivan, Wright, Le Corbusier, Muthesius or Taut. Nonetheless, there is no exhaustive overview of this trope in architectural theory.

More importantly, little attention has been paid to its implications for design theory. Hugo wrote against the background of 19^th-century discussions regarding the gothic that would feed into the European neo-gothic movement. At the same time, in Hugo’s close intellectual vicinity architects like Henri Labrouste critically examined the classicist vocabulary because they found it unable to express the political and scientific culture of their times.

Finally, if it is established that Hugo’s “ceci tuera cela” influenced architectural theory but also the budding discourse on historical preservation, so far nobody has studied whether Hugo’s new legitimation for architecture made possible a reallignment of architectural theory with the disciplines of archeology, art history and the history of civilisations.

This project will therefore:
1. Trace the occurence of the comparison book-building in the different discourses that are concerned with the cultural meaning of architecture for the period under consideration: architectural theory, archaeology and history, but also literature and criticism, and finally texts on public buildings.

2. Interpret the comparison within the context of these different discourses.

3. Analyse the impact of the comparison on design theory, i.e. whether adoption of the comparison leads to particular views on design principles. 


Primitivism and architectural theory, 1750-1850 (post doc, 3 years, 0,9fte)

Architectural theory identifies the birth of architecture with the emergence of civilisation, thus providing a justification of architecture’s existence and importance. Conversely, since antiquity general accounts of the origins of civilisation often include architecture. If the first two research projects analyse how alternate views of the origins of architecture affect design theory, the third examines the impact of changing views about the origin of civilisation on architectural theory, and particularly the emergence of primitivism.

This problem has not yet been studied in detail, even if the period under consideration sees the emergence of primitivism in many branches of the humanities; various fields employ primitivism in order to explain the role and position of their object in society; and architectural theory has systematically situated its origins in a primitive society.

The project will therefore:
1. Examine views on the role and place of architecture and its origin in primitivist debates as they developed over the period 1750-1850.

2. Examine primitivist elements in architectural discourse of the same period.

3. Analyse the role of primitivism in the claim that through their design, buildings acquire meanings that are cultural in the widest sense of the word. 


Synthesis (team)

In a book aimed at a professional readership, the applicant will synthesize the results of the three research projects and test their relevance for the present-day critical debate (see the following section).

A general problem
This programme is a historical case-study into a theoretical problem inherent to the discipline of architecture. Since it emerged in the early Renaissance, architecture has had to justify its cultural relevance. As design is architecture’s field of action, architects and theorists attempt to argue that built forms acquire cultural meanings that transcend the material, structural and functional aspects of building.
Today this issue is urgent for two reasons.
First, the very question whether and how built forms can acquire cultural meaning through design has stood at the centre of architectural debate and practise since the mid1970s. Post-modernist classicism, a tendency represented by a.o. Michael Graves, Leon and Rob Krier which had an enormous impact on the architecture of housing projects and public buildings in the Netherlands and abroad, argues that vitruvian design principles carry intrinsic meanings. Rem Koolhaas, on the other hand, has argued that the cultural meaning of buildings entirely depends on cultural context, not on their form.As a result, the question of whether design principles can lay claim on producing cultural meaning has received much attention in architectural practice and criticism of recent years. For instance, an important group of young architects, such as Office Kersten Geers David van Severen, Baukunst, Gonçalo Byrne and Aires Mateus vindicate the right and ability of architecture to operate according to principles that are independent of cultural context and references, e.g. by using grid systems, proportions and materials that claim to adhere to no other law than an internal design system. This vindication influences present-day research into notions such as monumentality, referentiality and performativity in architecture.
Second, the last decade has seen an arguably unprecedented production of highly visible, expensive architecture designed by architects who have acquired superstar status, like Rem Koolhaas, Zaha Hadid, Herzog and de Meuron, Jean Nouvel, or Daniel Libeskind. This tendency seems to bear witness of a renewed confidence in the ability of architecture to express culturally important meanings by means of design. However, as for instance the debate about the role of superstar architecture in showcasting the 2008 Olympics has demonstrated, the exact role and status of architecture within contemporary culture is vague and ill-defined. Part of the question is indeed whether and how contemporary buildings can lay claim on cultural meaning through their form. 

The programme and the general problem
The programme may contribute to a clarification of this general problem in three ways:
1. By clarifying the problem. As pointed out above, it is inherent to architectural theory to claim cultural meaning for design principles. Architecture criticism but also architectural history often assimilate that assumption. By analysing such arguments in one very rich case, which carries in it practically all elements of present-day versions of this problem, the proposed programme will help to clarify the more general problem of the relation of design principles and cultural meaning in architecture.

2. By building a conceptual framework to discuss the problem. The programme will trace the prehistory of contemporary discussions, and uncover and define the key concepts that have served to address the issue of how design claims to produce meaning inherent to buildings. This conceptual framework could be a valuable contribution to present-day criticism and theory.

3. By indicating possible points of contact between design reasearch and the theory and history of architecture. The programme examines the close relation between design theory and theories about the cultural meaning of artifacts, and thus might offer new perspectives on that relation today.


The impact of the programme on the problem
The programme will interact with the discussions outlined in the first point not only by means of the projected academic output, but also by:

1. an active participation in architecture criticism. The current activities of the applicant in national and international architecture criticism have established a network that will help the members of the programme to contribute to the critical debate, and thus produce an additional output in publications addressed to the professional milieu. As pointed out above, the applicant, with the assistance and eventual co-authorship of the PhD students will produce a monograph summarizing the research results and testing their relevance for the critical debate.

2. setting up seminars and design studios on Master’s level at the host institution in close collaboration with architecture programmes such as those at Ghent University and the TU Delft. These studios and seminars would combine historical research and architectural design, in order to explore how historical and theoretical knowledge about assumptions with regard to the cultural signification of design principles could affect contemporary design practise and theory.

Bibliopraphy

Bibliography Primary sources

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-  Alberti, L.B., On Painting and Sculpture. The Latin Texts of De pictura and De statua. Edited with translations, introduction and notes by Cecil Grayson. London, 1972.
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-  Volney, C.-F., Les ruines, ou méditations sur les révolutions des empires, nouvelle édition, Paris, 1833.

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