Human Based Elements Because Classicism is founded on anthropomorphism, human form and personal- iy may be attribut of buildings, and even groups of the parts of a Cl building are mod- ind ankles. The tripartite division of the human form — legs, torso, head ~ parallels the differentiation of walls, columns and whole celled on buman joints like knees (ecture is distinguished from all other kinds of architecture by he sacred importance of each individual and to demo: cratic republics as the ideal form of government, It is a language of architecture that facilitates rational discourse about government an ingredient in a democratic society whose citizens cons participate in public affairs. is basic commitment architecture, an essential tute the government ani Architectural Coexistence ‘The point I wish to make is that Classical architecture is essentially modern. We should adopt a more comprehensive view that includes all of the 20th-century's architectural output. The Bauhaus’s worldview has taught us that there is an unbridgeable chasm between Classical and Modern ideals; the former, irrelevant. Such ideology distorts our view of 20th-century architecture. (Classicism has been present throughout the 20th century, and we need a history that recognises the genius of Arthur Brown, John Russell Pope, Henry Bacon, Charles Platt, Edwin Lutyens, and others, Such a history should also explain the coexistence of their buildings with those of Frank Lloyd Wright, Le Corbusier, Mies van der Rohe, and Alvar Aalto, Let's try to stand Mies on Schinkel’s shou! ders so that we who stand on Mies’s shoulders will be able to see farther. We will learn that Mies’s architecture, as well as that of Wright, Le Corbusier, and Aalto, beco Jes mich more architecture By recognising that studies, that both Classical and Modern architecture have produced masterpieces, that both have deficiencies and strengths, we can understand the best of both. Only then ly modera, and tha, in its noblest ele is essentially Classical. (pp57-63) 1 20th-century architecture is important ai se, vo! 83: no ||, Novernber 1994. © BPI Communicatio 202 Theories and Manifestoes 1994. ROGER SCRUTON Architectural Principles in an Age of Nihilism ‘A professor of philosophy who has written on a wide range of sub- Jects, Roger Scruton has focused on architecture in a number of es: ‘says 05 well os in the book The Aesthetics of Architecture, The tle Jnare ploys on thot of Rudolf Wittkower's wellciown work, Architec- Principles in the Age of Humanism. The play is, of course, that, Scruton offers an ‘ae tine’ of fundarnes nciples as tan antidote to the nibiem, ether than @ means for expressing it ‘The search for some kind of co-ordination of tastes is forced on us by our nature 8. This search may not lead (o a single set of principles; neverthe- less it involves common pursuit of an acceptable solution What was principally wrong with modernism was not is rig ing, its puritanical zeal ~ although these were repulsive enough. Modernism's respect for discipline was its sole redeeming feature: but it was a diseipline about wrong things. Ittold us to be true to funtion, to social utility, to materials, to tical principles. I (old us to be “of our time", while enlisting architecture in .¢ insolent experiments for the re-fashioning of man which have threatened civilisation with such disaster. At the same time, modernism threw away, a8 a less by-product of the past and a symbol ofits oppressive rituals, the aesthetic line embodied in the classic: a Post-modernism is a renction to modernist censoriousness. It ‘plays’ with the lassieal and gothic details which were forbidden it by its stern parent, and so ties them of their last vestiges of meaning. This is not the rediscovery of ory, but its disso Such a practice marks « new departure ofthe nibilistc spirit which is foreshad~ jwed in modernism, and which there takes the belligerent form of a doctrine. In- stead of the unben jes of the moral playground . Nevertheless, all is not lost. It is possible for a civilisation to *mark time’ in ng rectitude of modernism, we are given the self-service absence of the spirit which engendered it Our civilisation continues to produce forms which are acceptable to us, be~ ise if succeeded in enshrining its truth in education. An astonishing effort took lace in nineteenth-century Europe and America to transeribe the values of our Traditional 203\} culture into a secular body of knowledge, and to hand on that knowledge from generation to generation without the benefit of the pulpit or pilgrimage, Nowhere was this process more successful than in the field of architecture wish to record and endorse some of the principles which informed the educa tion of the nineteenth-century architect ... My procedure will be to lay dow leven fundamental principles, and then throw down a challenge to those wl ‘would reject them. Finally, I shall add cleven more specific principles, whos« authority is Tess obvi 1 Architecture is a human gesture in a human world, and, like every human gesture itis judged in terms of its meaning. 2 The human world is governed by the principle of ‘the priority of appearance’ What is hidden fron b the flux of blood which causes it.) To know how to build, therefore, you m. first understand appearances. 3 Architecture is useful only if itis not absorbed in being useful. Human p pposes change [ . . . ] Buildings must therefore obey the law of the ‘mutal of function’. 4 Architecture plays a major part in creating the “publie realm’: the place: which we associate with strangers. Its meaning and posture embody and co tribute toa ‘civic experience’, and itis against the expe: ‘experience that a building must be judged 5 Architecture must respect the constraints which are imposed on it by hur nature. Those constraints are of two kinds ~ the animal and the personal. ‘\ animals, we orient ourselves visually, move and live in an upright pos jury. As persons we live and ful morality, law, religion, learning, commerce and polities 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 endors us has no meaning, (Thus a blush has a mea ons created by t and are vulnerable to ourselves either a recognised public morality, or at least the common pursuit of one. 17 The aestheti nal addition to our mental equi ‘ment, On the contrary, it is the inevitable consequence of qur interest i appearances 8 The aesthetics of everyday life consists in a constant process of adjustme} between the appearances of objects, and the values of the people who cre: and observe them. Since the common pursuit of a public morality is esseot 10 our happiness, we have an overriding reason to engage in the common p) suit of a public taste 204 Theories and Manifestoes 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 humar state of satisfaction ... 10 Taste, judgement, and criticism are therefore immovable components of the aesthetic understanding Alls aiming beyond desite, toa ious architecture must therefore give purchase to the claims of taste, Tt must offer a public language of form, through which people ean criticise and {justify their buildings, come to an agreement over the right and weong appear= ance, and so construct a public realm in the image of their social nature .. 12 The problem of architecture is @ question of manners, not art... Our problem is this: by what discipline can an architect of modest ability learn the aesthetic decencies? The answer is to be found in aesthetic ‘constants’, whose values can he understood by whomsoever should choose to bui 13 The first constant is that of scale, To stand in personal relation to a bul i, I must comprehend it visually, without strain, and without feeling dwarfed or terrorised by its presence 1M Buildings must therefore have fagades, able (0 stand before us as we stand before them. It is in the fagade thatthe aesthetic effect is concentrated 15 I follows thatthe first principles of composition concern the ordering of fagades, But to establish such principles we must break with the tyranny of the plan 16 Composition requires detail, and the principles of composition depend upon the sense of detail 17 The true discipline of style consists, therefore, inthe disposition of details ‘The art of combination relies for its effects on regularity and repetition. The seful details are the ones that can be repeated, the ones which satisfy our «demand for shythms, sameness, and symmetry. To invent su the same time to endow them with character and fife, is not given to every architect at every period. On the contrary, itis here that the great discoveries 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 discipline As the Orders make clear, the true discipline of form emphasises the vertical, rather then the horizon ‘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, itis necessary to use mouldings ... In a nutshell, mouldings are the 10n of decency, and the source of our mastery over light and shade, of a human face in architecture depends not only on details, but Traditional 205 eeCorie arentove. Renouatien 97h: ’ ‘icine vein, tho Atbeneum, Sew Harmen Indians, 1976 206 Theories and Manifestoes