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section. Since becoming Dean of the School of Architecture at Princeton University in 2002,
I have benefited from conversations both within and across disciplines, with Hal Foster, Sarah
Whiting and Iñaki Ábalos, among others. One of the pleasures of being Dean at Princeton is to
be able to learn from a diverse visiting faculty at the School: David Adjaye, Manual Delanda, Peter
Eisenman, Elizabeth Grosz, Juan Herreros, Jeffrey Kipnis, Luis Mansilla, Ryue Nishizawa, John
Rajchman, Kazuyo Sejima, Emilio Tuñón, Alejandro Zaera-Polo, Mirko Zardini and others.

The original publication had a somewhat checkered history. Never very well distributed, it went
out of print relatively quickly. However, there was consistent interest and demand. Used copies
fetched high prices on the Internet, and Xeroxed copies circulated throughout various schools of
architecture — perhaps the best compliment that can be paid to a book of essays like this. It was Caroline
Mallinder who approached me in 2006 with the possibility of “relaunching” the book. At that time, the
publisher was printing on demand from a second-generation scanned copy; the electronic files did not
even exist. That there continues to be interest in these essays—some of them close to twenty years
old—speaks to me of the continued relevance of the issues taken up here: techniques of representation,
and the working insights to be gained from the close reading of specific buildings (all the more relevant
to me, now that I maintain an active building practice). In revising the book, I have added essays that
address my more recent concerns (urbanism and landscape), updated the notation essay to include the
work on diagrams, and included those essays that over time have come to mark my contributions to
the field.

Rosalyne Shieh provided invaluable assistance in unearthing the old material and updating it for the
new edition. Leo Henke and Marc McQuade from SAA/Stan Allen Architect provided logistical and
design support and, along with Rosalyne, served as a sounding board for new ideas. The design and
layout of the book is by Marc McQuade, who stepped up under difficult circumstances with his usual
calm perspective, faultless eye, and incisive design sense. Outside readers Catherine Ingraham and
Deborah Hauptmann made valuable suggestions. Thanks to Caroline Mallinder, and to the editorial and
production teams at Routledge. The afterword by Jeff Kipnis brings another voice and another tone to
the book. It not only speaks very directly to the focus of my own thinking in the present, but it reminds
me that in architecture, ideas live mainly as part of an extended conversation with like-minded friends.

As this over-long and eclectic list would indicate, all of the no doubt numerous errors, omissions
and misreadings are my own, the mark of a speculative intelligence, more concerned with putting
concepts into play than with academic correctness. And thanks, as always, to Polly Apfelbaum
(who understands all this) for her patience, insight, and support.
1998/2008

VIII
light chimineys + el 670.00

roof high pt. + el 663.00

meeting rooms + el 656.50

auditorium foyer + el 649.50

Stan Allen Section Projection, Extension of the Museo del Prado, 1998

IX
Gio Ponti Eleven Meter Structural Test Model, Pirelli Tower, Milan, 1956
 INTRODUCTION:
Practice vs. Project

I must say that what interests me more is to

focus on what the Greeks called techne, that
is to say, a practical rationality governed by a
conscious goal … if one wanted to do a history
of architecture, I think that it should be much
more along the lines of that general history of
the techne, rather than the histories of either the
exact sciences or the inexact ones.
Michel Foucault

Art and architecture are practices, not sciences.

The constructions of science aspire to univer-

A
sal application. Pictures and buildings need only
work where they are.
Dave Hickey

CONTINGENCIES

lmost unique among creative practices, architecture’s objective is

given from outside. Architects, unlike painters, sculptors, or poets, depend on clients and pa-
trons to execute their work. As a consequence, they are likely to work across a wide array of
scales, building types, climates, economics, and building cultures. Architecture is of necessity
a discipline of circumstance and situation. Even in the most ideal careers, many decisions are
beyond the control of the individual architect. The process of design and construction is char-
acterized by constant tactical adjustments made to the demands of clients, codes, consultants,
budgets, builders, and regulatory agencies, not to mention the complex logistics of construction
itself. Moreover, architects today practice far from home, and each new site presents unfamiliar
conditions. As creative subjects, architects react to these demands, inventing in response to the
occasion of the commission, specifying and particularizing a given set of abstract variables. The
practice of architecture tends to be messy and inconsistent precisely because it has to negotiate
a reality that is itself messy and inconsistent.

XI
Against this landscape of contingency, architectural theory has traditionally served a unifying
function. Without a larger ideological framework, it is argued, the architect runs the risk of reacting
passively to the multiple and often contradictory demands of context, clients, regulating agencies,
media, or economics. Architecture, it is argued, needs a grand narrative in order not to be entirely
consumed by these small narratives of opportunity and constraint. And so, in order to legitimate its
mechanical procedures, practice appeals to a project: an overarching theoretical construct, defined
from someplace other than the studio or the building site, and expressed in a medium other than
buildings and drawings. Detached from the operational sites of technique, theory stakes a claim on a
world of concepts uncontaminated by real world contingencies. Theory needs distance for its reflec-
tions; but as a consequence of that detachment, the possibility of incremental change from within is
held in check. Theory’s promise is to make up for what practice lacks: to confer unity on the wildly
disparate procedures of design and construction.

This tension is only partially offset by the tendency of conventional practice to repeat known
solutions. Too often, contemporary practice oscillates between mechanical repetition and shallow
novelty. Conventional practice renounces theory, but in so doing, it simply reiterates unstated the-
oretical assumptions. It works according to a series of enabling codes, which themselves comprise
a random sampling of the dictates of professional practice and the learned habits of normal design
culture. It is these unexamined codes that give practice a bad name. The protocols of normal practice
may be modified or adapted in response to circumstance, but are rarely challenged. Design is reduced
to the implementation of rules set down elsewhere. If theory imposes regulated ideological criteria
over the undisciplined heterogeneity of the real, the unstated assumptions of conventional practice
enforce known solutions and safe repetitions. In both cases, small differences accumulate, but they
never add up to make a difference.

If conventional practice and theoretically driven critical practices are similarly structured, it
cannot be a question of going beyond theory, or of leaving theory behind. What is proposed
here is instead a notion of practice flexible enough to engage the complexity of the real, yet
sufficiently secure in its own technical and theoretical bases to go beyond the simple reflec-
tion of the real as given. Not a static reflection of concepts defined elsewhere (either the codes
of professional practice or the dictates of ideologically driven theory) but a rigorous forward
movement, capable of producing new concepts out of the hard logic of architecture’s working
procedures. Paradoxically, practice, which is usually assumed to be unproblematically identi-
fied with reality, will discover new uses for theory only as it moves closer to the complex and
problematic character of the real itself. Practice necessarily respects the verifiable laws that
govern matter and forces, but it is also attentive to the fact that these laws operate without
regard to consistency or established conventions of rational expression. This attention to the
gaps and inconsistencies in theory’s fit to reality is, as T. S. Kuhn has pointed out, a tremendous
source of invention and creativity.1 It is precisely when practice and experimentation turn up
inconsistencies in the “normal science” that new theories are produced.

XII
Hence it is of little use to see theory and practice as competing abstractions, and to argue for one
over the other. Theories and practices are both produced in definable spaces, by active, conscious
subjects. Intelligent, creative practices — the writing of theory included — are always more than the
habitual exercise of rules defined elsewhere. Practice is not a static construct, but is defined precise-
ly by its movements and trajectories. There is no theory, there is no practice. There are only practices,
which consist in action and agency. They unfold in time, and their repetitions are never identical. It
is for this reason that the know-how of practice (whether of writing or design) is a continual source
of innovation and change. Tactical improvisations accumulate over time to produce new models for
operation. But these new patterns of operation produced in practice are always provisional. Inas-
much as they derive from experience and data, they are always open to revision on the basis of new
experiences, or new data. Deliberately executed, architecture’s procedures are capable of producing
systematic thought: serial, precise, and clinical; something that resembles theory but will always be
marked by the constructive/creative criteria of practice.

Pragmatism unstiffens all our theories; it limbers

them up and sets each one at work.
William James

MATERIAL PRACTICES: AN ‘EROTICS OF DOUBT’

I
nstead of opposing theory and practice, imagine competing categories of practice: one
primarily textual, bound up with representation and interpretation: a hermeneutic, or
discursive practice; and the other concerned with matter, forces, and material change: a
material practice. The consequence of this would be to say that there is no fixed category called
“practice,” no fixed category called “theory.” There are only practices: practices of writing, which
are primarily critical, discursive, or interpretive, and material practices: activities that trans-
form reality by producing new objects or new organizations of matter.

Discursive practices work in the space between texts, and they produce more texts. Material practices
often involve operations of translation, transposition or trans-coding of multiple media. Although they
work to transform matter, material practices necessarily work through the intermediary of abstract
codes such as projection, notation or calculation. Constantly mixing media in this way, material prac-
tices produce new concepts out of the materials and procedures of work itself. The vector of analysis in
hermeneutic practices always points toward the past, whereas material practices analyze the present in
order to project transformations into the future. Discursive practices look critically at what already ex-
ists (“things made”), while material practices bring new things into being: “things in the making.” 2

XIII
Architecture, I want to say right from the beginning, is a material, and not a discursive practice, and
by being clear about what this means, we can steer around much of the obscurity that character-
izes debates today. If you understand architecture as “built discourse” it becomes very easy to forget
about the specificity of building and begin to compare architecture to other discursive practices such
as writing, film, new media, or graphic design. And if you do so, you begin to notice that, compared
to these other practices, architecture is relatively inert as discourse. It cannot approach the transpar-
ency and speed of these other media. And so, if discursive communication (commentary, critique or
explanation) is your ultimate criterion, there is a great temptation to leave architecture behind, and
to move toward these other practices. It you try to make architecture do something that it does not
fundamentally do very well, you may decide in the end that it’s not worth the trouble. (And practic-
ing architecture is, if nothing else, a troublesome pursuit.) In contrast to this attitude, which sees
architecture’s materiality as an impediment to be overcome — something that is slowing it down in
a world of speed and communication — I have consistently tried to look more openly at the specific
opportunities presented by architecture’s material and instrumental properties. Visual culture and
material practices have their own rules, and those rules are different from those that govern texts.

It is for this reason that architecture has never been particularly effective as a vehicle of criticism. It is,
on the contrary, insistently affirmative and instrumental. Material practices do not comment on the
world, they operate in and on the world. They produce ideas and effects through the volatile medium
of artifacts, short-circuiting the established pathways of theory and discourse. This is architecture’s
attraction: its source of creativity, operational power, and — not the least — pleasure. Today, the most
interesting practitioners no longer ask what architecture is, or what it means, but rather what it can
do. From a theoretical point of view, it is less a matter of arguing in favor of architecture’s instrumen-
tality as it is acknowledging that any theoretical approach that cannot account for architecture’s in-
trinsically instrumental character is going to fall short.

One of the urgent consequences of this more pragmatic approach would be to move us away
from the private world of the architect’s design process, and its preoccupation with questions of
meaning, and the politics of identity, to an open discussion of architecture’s agency in the public
sphere. It would necessarily shift attention away from the architect as the producer of mean-
ing, and pay closer attention instead to the life of buildings in the world. It might help to get
us beyond the fiction that meaning is the result of something that happens in the course of the
design process. Meaning is not something added to architecture; it is a much larger, and a slip-
perier, momentary thing. It is not located in the architecture: it is what happens to and around
architecture as part of a complex social exchange. It happens in the interval, as the result of an
encounter between architecture and its public, in the field.

A material practice, therefore, would have little to do with the easy acquiescence to existing norms and
conventions of agency and instrumentality. It would be instead persistently skeptical and contrary, a
stubborn practice that would hold those generic norms to strict performative criteria, and leave them

XIV
behind when they fall short. When the only certainty is change itself, practice can no longer depend on
stable rules and conventions. Tethered to a fast-moving reality, material practices need to be agile and
responsive, which often requires that they leave behind some of the weighty baggage of received ideas.
This is a more uncertain, but also more optimistic program. Conceived as a material practice, archi-
tecture achieves a practical (and therefore provisional) unity inferred on the basis of its ensemble of
procedures, rather than a theoretical unity conferred from without by ideology or discourse. Such a
notion of practice maintains a deep respect for history, and for architecture’s past. The accumulated
catalog of architecture’s rules and procedures is accepted as a starting point, a common language
that serves as a basis for any conversation. And yet, unlike the conservative project that would see the
structure of the discipline as a limit, historically defined, the pragmatic know-how of technique does
not necessarily respect precedent.3 The criterion of productivity simply bypasses outmoded working
strategies, leaving the discipline open to new techniques, which may in turn be incorporated into the
catalog of architecture’s working procedures.

Material practices unfold in time, with a full awareness of the history of the discipline, but never satis-
fied to simply repeat, or to execute a system of rules defined elsewhere. Architecture’s limits are un-
derstood pragmatically — as a resource and an opportunity — and not a defining boundary. The prac-
titioner looks for performative multiplicities in the interplay between an open catalog of procedures
and a stubbornly indifferent reality. Constraint is not an obstacle to creativity, but an opportunity for
invention, provoking the discovery of new techniques. Under the pragmatics of material practice, the
fixed structure of the discipline is neither rejected nor affirmed. A hardheaded skepticism is applied as
much to the dictates of theory as to the inherited conventions of normal practice. They are subject
not to critical interrogation, but to an “erotics” of doubt:

The space of doubt differs from the space of certainty in that doubt narrows the
distance between theory and the world. If theoretical reflection entails being at
a certain remove from the world, doubt returns thought to openness before the
world; it involves a loss of mastery and control which places thought in a more
vulnerable relation to the world than before.4

Material practices are tools to open architecture to the world; refusing the safety of theory’s disem-
bodied distance, a material practice is marked by the uncertainty of an ever-shifting reference in the
world itself. Not a Cartesian doubt that works by process of elimination to arrive at a core of unshak-
able propositions, but a tactic for dealing with an imperfect reality with a catalog of tools that is itself
always incomplete, imperfect, and inadequate.

XV
 There can be no difference which doesn’t make a
difference — no difference in abstract truth which
does not express itself in a difference of concrete
fact, and of conduct consequent upon the fact,
imposed on somebody, somehow, somewhere,
and somewhen.
William James

TECHNIQUES: DIFFERENCES THAT MAKE A DIFFERENCE

W
hen speaking of techniques of construction, it is important to remember that the archi-
tect is not a builder, but a specifier of construction technique. The architect works with a
knowledge of the methods and materials of construction in both design and implementa-
tion, but the impact of this knowledge is indirect. What is more significant is the way in which the vari-
ables of construction are factored into the calculus of architecture’s procedures. This leads away from
a theory of “truth to materials” toward an examination of consequences and experiential effects. The
claim, for example, that Le Corbusier, in the Carpenter Center (Chapter 6) is able to achieve a sense of
mobility and lightness with a material that is not in itself intrinsically lightweight turns on a detailed dis-
cussion of some of the technical aspects of the building’s reinforced concrete construction. Innovation
and technical constraint are shown to be closely bound up with formal expression.

The design history of the Guggenheim Museum is significant in this regard, and was crucial for me
in defining the notion of practice outlined here. In 1991, I wrote that Frank Lloyd Wright could “de-
ploy multiple structural principles with effective operational freedom precisely because he was com-
mitted to structural rationality as practice, not as project” (Chapter 5). What I meant was something
like this: early models showed the spiral ramp of the museum propped up on thin columns, a solu-
tion clearly at odds with the organic continuity Wright desired. In time, Wright devised an integrat-
ed structural solution that did not distinguish between supporting structure and enclosing enve-
lope. While architecturally compelling, this solution proved impractical from a constructional point
of view. Wright in the end accepted a solution that, while literally inconsistent with the conceptual
unity originally proposed, was itself logical and efficient. What is revealing, and speaks as much to
Wright’s tactical flexibility as to his intimate knowledge of building technique, is that, while literally
segmented, the experience of the building is still one of integrated structure and smooth flow. In
practice, the desired continuity is in no way compromised by the apparent structural expedient.

The difference between practice and project is therefore marked by the pragmatic idea of “differences
that make a difference.” It appeals to concrete differences of performance and behavior and not to
abstract relations between ideas and discourses. For Wright, as for most of the architects that inter-
est me, buildings are always more than individual components of a larger project. They are not ex-

XVI
amples of principles enunciated elsewhere, or cases to be tested against the rule of theory’s law. Par-
ticular instances are met with particular solutions. Consistency and rationality are guaranteed by
the hard logic of structure, and by the indifferent behavior of materials themselves. In the case of
Wright, the rational behavior of structure is not an absolute fact to be given material expression, but
an opportunity and a resource — a point of provisional stability to be freely handled.5 The measure of
Wright’s “mastery” of the terms of building is as much his knowledge of where and when to compro-
mise, as in any mythic appeal to integrity and the “truth to materials.” This is a way of working that
assumes that the ability of architecture to generate perceivable experiences and sensations in the
world — practical consequences and effects — is more important than its conformance or non-con-
formance with some abstract set of theoretical criteria.

To claim that architecture is a material practice, working in and among the world of things—an instru-
mental practice capable of transforming reality—is not to lose sight of architecture’s complicated com-
promise with techniques of representation.6 Inasmuch as architects work at a distance from the material
reality of their discipline, they necessarily work through the mediation of systems of representation. Ar-
chitecture itself is marked by this promiscuous mixture of the real and the abstract: at once a collection of
activities characterized by a high degree of abstraction, and at the same time directed toward the produc-
tion of materials and artifacts that are undeniably real. The techniques of representation are never neu-
tral, and architecture’s abstract means of imagining and realizing form leave their traces on the work. To
understand representation as technique (in Foucault’s broader sense of techne) is therefore to pay atten-
tion to the paradoxical character of a discipline that operates to organize and transform material reality,
but must do so at a distance, and through highly abstract means. To concentrate on the instrumental-
ity of drawing is to pay attention to the complex process of what Robin Evans has called “translations”
between drawing and building. It is this effort to understand the traffic between geometry, imagina-
tion and construction that has motivated the three essays on drawing techniques that open this volume.

The characterization of architecture as a material practice deserves one final qualification. These
translations between drawing and building today take place within a larger flow of images and
information. Architecture’s culture of instrumental representations cannot help but be affected by its
intersection with this dominant media culture. Architecture has always maintained a mechanism of
explanation and normative description alongside material production: treatises, catalogs, journals,
conferences, and texts. In the past this was related to pedagogy, and the dissemination of profes-
sional information. Today there is an accelerated, spiraling motion whereby materials from outside
architecture (most notably, the immaterial effects of film, new media, or graphic design), have been
cycled back through the discipline to enlarge architecture’s catalog of available techniques.

This image culture belongs to the new ways of thinking and seeing that have emerged with
modernity: shifting mental schemas that mark our uncertain position in the modern world, and force
us to see how the practice of architecture has been constantly revised by the complex currents of
twentieth century thought.7 Michael Speaks has proposed that the exercise of what he calls design intel-

XVII
ligence, enables architects to navigate more effectively in this new, information-dense context.8 Speaks’
suggestive formulation plays on two meanings of the word “intelligence.” On the one hand, it recognizes
that architects and other design professionals possess a specific form of expertise, a synthetic and pro-
jective capacity unique to their own discipline. Design intelligence in this sense implies the thoughtful
application of that expertise to problems specific to architecture. On the other hand, just as military in-
telligence is necessarily composed of rumors and fragmented information, from often suspect sources (a
high noise to signal ratio) it implies that architects need to be open to the “chatter” of the world outside of
their own field, and alert to new ways of interpreting, and putting that information to work. As in intelli-
gence work, with immense quantities of information now simultaneously available, it is no longer access
to information that counts, but the ability to process, organize, and visualize information that is crucial.

And so, if I maintain a provisional distinction between the instrumental consequences of representa-
tion within the discipline of architecture, and architecture’s complex interplay with social and cultural
representations, it is not to ignore the moments of intersection and overlap. Material practices must be
robust, information-dense, and open to change and revision. Its practitioners realize that the new real-
ity of technology and the city is one of continual obsolescence, and that the only way to survive change is
to change. Moreover, material practices trust in the intelligence of architecture’s audience, understand-
ing that architecture has many publics, and that the significant work of architecture is one that allows
continual revision and rereading, teasing out new meanings as the context changes. This necessitates a
close attention to the material effects and worldly consequences of all of architecture’s matter—seman-
tic and material—while maintaining a strict indifference as to the origin of those effects.

And indeed, it is easier to walk with music than

without it. Of course, it is just as easy to walk
while talking up a storm, when the act of walking
disappears from our consciousness.
Viktor Shklovsky

TRAJECTORIES

M
ichel de Certeau employs the figure of the walker in the city to describe the errant trajec-
tories of everyday practices among the systematic space of the proper. For de Certeau,
“the geometrical space of urbanists and architects seems to have the status of a ‘proper
meaning’ constructed by the grammarians and linguists in order to have a normal and normative level
to which they can compare the drifting of ‘figurative’ language.” Within his schema, the wandering
course of the pedestrian is compared to the enunciative function in language: “The act of walking is

XVIII
to the urban system what the speech act is to language or to statements uttered.” 9 This free move-
ment that de Certeau describes (“a Brownian variability of directions” in Deleuze and Guattari10) is
guaranteed by the tactical improvisations of multiple individuals. De Certeau understood that there
can never be a perfect correspondence between the regulated geometrical structure of the planned
city and the unruly practices it supports. The city’s inhabitants are always ready to take advantage of
this mismatch between structure and performance. This in turn suggests that the control exercised
by any disciplinary regime can never be total. Resistance will find other pathways around, or under,
or through, the constraints imposed from outside, pathways that lead away from transgression, cata-
strophic overthrow, withdrawal or retreat.11

De Certeau describes a series of “tricky and stubborn procedures that elude discipline without being
outside the field in which it is exercised.” 12 He has confidence that there will always exist fissures and
cracks that provide openings for tactical reworkings. Making opportunistic use of these footholds,
the creativity of everyday practices can often outwit the rigid structures of imposed order, and outma-
neuver the weighty apparatus of institutional control: “The long poem of walking manipulates spatial
organizations, no matter how panoptic they may be: it is neither foreign to them (it can only take
place within them) nor in conformity with them (it does not receive its identity from them). It creates
shadows and ambiguities within them.” 13

What is not immediately obvious in de Certeau’s writings is a subtext that would associate the
geometrical space of the planned city with the systematic constructs of theory. A concept of theory
as regulated space (oblivious to the complex babble of enunciative practices taking place within it)
precedes and undergirds his description of the regulated space of the planned city, indifferent to the
multiple trajectories unfolding in its spaces. The idealized constructions of theory mirror the panoptic
spaces of geometrical urban planning: “Within this ensemble,” de Certeau writes, “I shall try and locate
the practices that are foreign to the ‘geometrical’ or ‘geographic’ space of visual, panoptic or theoretical
constructions.” 14 And so, by analogy, just as the active citizen might manipulate and refigure the space
of the city — which is given to her from without — so too creative intellectual subjects can put into play
the rigid codes of inherited ideological systems.

Two important senses of the word practice intersect here: practice designating the collective and
peripatetic improvisations of multiple inhabitants in the city connects to practice as the creative
exercise of an intellectual discipline by an individual. De Certeau’s cunning optimism suggests a
notion of practice capable of continually reworking the limits of a discipline from within. He offers
a way out of the either/or dilemma of practice seen exclusively as mechanical repetition (agent of
institutional authority), or the neo-avant-garde positions of transgression or critique. His view af-
firms that practices always unfold in time, moving on multiple and undisciplined trajectories. At
the same time it is a realistic vision, recognizing that it is impossible to effectively operate outside of
any discipline’s “field of operations.” Just as the walker in the city produces “scandalous” figures out
of the geometric space of the city, there are tactical practices — nomad practices of writing, thinking

XIX
or acting — that are capable of manipulating and reforming theory’s proscriptive spaces. When de
Certeau speaks, in this context of an “opaque and blind mobility” inserted into the “clear text of the
planned and readable city,” I would suggest that it could also be read as a way to practice theory, a
call for mobile and improper reworkings of the “clear text” of a given theoretical formulation. “Be on
the edge,” Deleuze and Guattari write, “take a walk like Virginia Woolf (never again will I say I am this,
I am that).” 15 The itinerant path of the walker in the city, or the nomad thinker in theory, is precisely
that which resists systematization, and makes room for the tactical improvisations of practice.

These essays have been constructed by following the trajectories of concepts unfolded in the course of
working.16 I wanted to trace the emergence of ideas in and through the materials and procedures of
the architectural work itself, and not as a legitimation from outside, in the form of written codes. Ar-
chitecture works by means of a necessarily mixed assemblage of procedures, and requires multiple
tactics of explanation. The purpose of writing is not so much to explain, or to justify a particular work
or working method, as it is a continual process of clarification. In most cases, practical, experimental
work comes first, and the writing down comes after. The activity of writing for me is part of the prac-
tice of architecture: something that happens alongside of drawing, building and teaching.

But the writing of an architect differs in significant ways from the writing of an historian or
a scholar. In part, it is marked by the technical and instrumental concerns of a working archi-
tect, a kind of “shoptalk:” comparing notes and testing techniques, finding out what works and
what doesn’t work, constantly on the lookout for new techniques. To define these essays as
part of an architectural practice is to recognize and accept the mixed character of architecture’s
procedures. To conceive this work as a practice is to work from examples, and not principles. It
necessitates a continual reference to specific instances of buildings, cities, drawings or texts. But
more significantly, it also means resisting the temptation to generalize the results in the form of a
project. Theory needs a project: a static construct, a persistent template of beliefs against which
individual actions are compared, and tested for conformance. In contrast, practices imply a shift to
performance, paying attention to consequences and effects. Not what a building, a text, or a draw-
ing means, but what it can do: how it operates in — and on — the world.
1998/2008

XX
Stan Allen Aerial View, Extension of the Museo del Prado, 1998

XXI
 NOTES

1. Thomas S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970) 68.
2. William James, A Pluralistic Universe, eds. Frederick H. Burkhardt, Fredson Bowers, and Ignas K. Skrupskelis (Cambridge, MA and London:
Harvard University Press, 1977) 117.
3. There would appear to be two dominant positions today with regard to this question of architecture’s limits, and the regulating
power of the discipline. On the one hand, a conservative position that says that architecture’s fundamental questions of space, struc-
ture, materials, and the rituals of inhabitation change little over time. Issues that cannot be solved by reference to a known reper-
tory of techniques or forms are understood to be outside of, or “beyond,” architecture. The most thoughtful of these “conservative”
positions would appear to be Giorgio Grassi. See his L’architettura come mestiere (Milan: CLUVA, 1980) or the article “Avant-Garde and
Continuity,” Oppositions 21 (Winter 1981): 24–33. On the other hand, there is a neo-avant-garde position that sees the structure of the
discipline as a limit to be interrogated. Working on the basis of ideological criteria, or in response to technological changes, neo-
avant-garde practices set out to transgress disciplinary limits. The opposition of these two positions approaches parody in the issue
of ANY that documents the confrontation of Peter Eisenman—representing the neo-avant-garde—and Andreas Duany and Elizabeth
Plater-Zyberk—representing the neoconservative “New Urbanists” (ANY 1 (July/August 1993)).
Ironically, fifteen years later little has changed. Both of these positions share a similar notion of the fixity of architecture’s limit; they sim-
ply situate themselves on opposite sides of its boundary. By contrast, a radically pragmatic position would maintain indifference with re-
gard to the perceived limits of architecture. It feels itself under no obligation, either to affirm limits from within nor transgress them
from without. Instead it would propose to work opportunistically, operating within the catalog of known solutions if productive tech-
niques could be found there, and outside it as necessary. The dilemma of architecture’s limit is faced by not choosing not to choose.
4. Norman Bryson, “The Erotics of Doubt,” New Observations 74, eds. Jeremy Gilbert Rolfe and John Johnston (1990): 11.
5. What I mean here could also be explained by another reference. Robin Evans, in discussing the supposed “rationality” of Mies van der
Rohe’s Barcelona Pavilion, contrasts the ad hoc structure of the Barcelona Pavilion to Antonio Gaudi’s Güell Chapel: “There are two rea-
sons why we may think the Barcelona Pavilion is a rational structure: Mies said it was, and it looks as if it is. It looks rational because we
know what rationality looks like: precise, flat, regular, abstract, bright, and above all rectilinear. This image of rationality is unreliable,
however. The Güell Chapel has none of these attributes, yet it is consistent and logical in its structure. The entire chapel was to have
been scaled up from an inverted funicular model made of wires draped with paper and fabric … The model was wholly in tension. Turned
upside down, it would produce a structure wholly in compression, thus avoiding persistent tension, against which masonry has little
resistance. This is a rational structure. By contrast, the structure and construction of the Barcelona Pavilion is piecemeal and inchoate,”
Robin Evans, “Mies van der Rohe’s Paradoxical Symmetries,” Translations from Drawings to Building (London: Architectural Association,
1997), 243–244. In Mies, there is a “project” of rational construction, which is given visual expression by means that do not always coincide
with its performative realities.
6. The claim that the practice of architecture has the capacity to transform reality is not a claim lightly extended to the conventional exer-
cise of professional practice. Reality is only changed when something new is created. To build yet another suburban office building, for
example, is not to transform reality. The stock of existing reality may have been added to, but not transformed; a certain piece of real es-
tate may have been rearranged, but materially, nothing new is created. To give a counter-example from the context of these essays, for
example, Frank Lloyd Wright’s Guggenheim Museum innovates at every level—in form, space, program, construction, and context—and
it does so not only in relation to normative practice, but also in relation to Wright’s previous buildings.
7. For an extended argument for the impact of image culture on architectural modernity, see Beatriz Colomina, Privacy and Publicity:
Modern Architecture as Mass Media (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1994). For Colomina, the engagement with mass media is precisely what
defines modern architecture as such. While Colomina’s arguments are convincing (indeed unanswerable at a certain level), at times she
presents her case in extreme either/or terms that are for me less than productive. See, for example, Beatriz Colomina, “Mies Not,” The
Presence of Mies, ed. Detlef Mertins (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1994) 193–222.
8. Michael Speaks, “Design Intelligence: Introduction,” A+U (December 2002): 11–18.
9. Michel de Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life, trans. Steven F. Rendall (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988) 100.
10. See “1914: One or Several Wolves?,” chapter two in Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus (Minneapolis: University of
Minnesota Press, 1987) 33. Deleuze and Guattari’s notions of multiplicity could be read as a useful supplement to de Certeau’s tendency
to idealize individual freedoms against collective disciplines—see for example their discussion of Elias Canetti’s Crowds and Power, trans.
Carol Stewart (New York: Viking, 1963) 33–34.
11. There is also a relationship here to Deleuze and Guattari’s concept of a minor literature. See Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, Kafka:

XXII
 Toward a Minor Literature, trans. Dana Polan (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1986); through the example of Kafka, the Czech
Jew writing in German, Deleuze and Guattari develop the concept of a minor literature, the “deterritorialization” from within the domi-
nant language. A minor practice constructs a line of flight with the materials at hand—the impoverished elements of the dominant
language, rather than resisting by retreat or confrontation: “A minor literature doesn’t come from a minor language; it is rather that
which a minority constructs within a major language” (16).
12. de Certeau 96.
13. de Certeau 101.
14. de Certeau 93.
15. Deleuze and Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus, 29 (emphasis in the original).
16. Writing over the course of eight years (1989 –97), and later revising the essays for the current volume, I have noted some changes in my
thinking. Briefly, the position of the earlier essays, which concern representation, has to some degree been rethought. Today, I would
tend to insist even more rigorously on the instrumentality of representation in architecture, rather than see it as an end in itself. This is
to some degree the result of the speculations advanced over the course of the essays on specific buildings. However, in the final section,
which concerns cities and landscapes, I return to some of these questions of representation, but now within the “expanded” field of the
contemporary city, where questions of media, technique, and representation intersect in new and increasingly improbable patterns.

XXIII
 Constructing with Lines: On Projection I
Postscript: Review of Robin Evans: The Projective Cast

Notations and Diagrams: Mapping the Intangible: II

Terminal Velocities: The Computer in the Design Studio III

Postscript: The Digital Complex

DRAWINGS
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
trabajo que en esto tomares te
será galardonado.
Amintas.—A mí me place de muy
buena voluntad; por aquí
podremos ir mejor, y en bajando
aquel valle hallaréis un camino
abierto y ancho; por él os iréis sin
tomar á una parte ni á otra, que
no lo podréis errar; y porque dexo
el ganado solo no voy hasta allá;
por tanto, perdonadme y Dios
vaya con vosotros os guíe.
Florián.—Ese quede contigo y te
haga bienaventurado.

Finis.
 COLLOQUIO

Que trata de la desorden que en

este tiempo se tiene en el
mundo, y principalmente en la
cristiandad, en el comer y
beber: con los daños que dello
se siguen, y cuán necesario
sería poner remedio en ello.

INTERLOCUTORES

Licenciado Velázquez.—Salazar.
Quiñones.—Ruiz.

Ruiz.—¿A dónde bueno, señor

Quiñones?
Quiñones.—Hacia el monasterio
de San Jerónimo, á gozar un rato
del fresco de la tarde y de la
buena conversación del
licenciado Velázquez; porque él y
Salazar ha poco que iban para
allá cabalgando, y yo mandé
luego aderezar mi caballo para
salir á buscarlos.
Ruiz.—Si vuesa merced me lo
paga, acompañarle he yo, porque
no vaya solo.
Quiñones.—Antes merezco que
se me pague á mí el buen aviso,
que no veo adonde mejor se
pueda pasar el día.
Ruiz.—En fin, lo habré de hacer
aunque pensaba dar una vuelta
por cierta parte que me convenía.
Quiñones.—Tiempo habrá para
todo, que agora no está para
perderse la frescura del campo.
Por este camino creo que iremos
más ciertos de encontrar con
ellos.
Ruiz.—Antes me parece que son
aquéllos que vienen entre las
viñas; aquí podremos esperarlos
si vuesa merced manda.
Quiñones.—Bien será, porque
nos vamos paseando hacia la
ribera del río.
Licenciado.—Paréceme, señor
Quiñones, que por cumplir vuesa
merced mejor su palabra, ha
traído al señor Ruiz en su
compañía.
Quiñones.—De temor lo he
hecho; como vuestras mercedes
eran dos, pudieran estar de
concierto contra mí, y he querido
traer quien me ayude si quisiesen
acometerme.
Salazar.—Sea por lo que fuere,
que á lo menos tendremos una
hora ó dos de buena recreación
paseándonos por este campo,
que la tarde hace aparejada para
ello.
Quiñones.—Y aun es bien
menester para ir á cenar de
buena gana, que yo, como el
conde tuvo huéspedes, quedéme
á comer en palacio, y fueron
tantos los platos que se sirvieron
y de tan buenos manjares, que
traigo el estómago estragado de
lo mucho que he comido.
Licenciado.—El mayor yerro que
pueden hacer los hombres es
comer más de aquello que puede
gastar la virtud y calor natural;
porque, según doctrina de todos
los médicos, la indigestión y
corrución de los manjares que
della se sigue es origen de todas
las enfermedades, y assí dice el
Sabio en el capítulo xxxvii del
Eclesiástico: No quieras ser
deseoso en las comidas que
hicieres, ni comas de todos los
manjares, porque en la
muchedumbre dellos hay siempre
enfermedad.
Salazar.—Pues en verdad que lo
que en nuestros tiempos más se
usa es no tener atención á ningún
daño que del mucho comer puede
seguir, sino al gusto que dello se
recibe.
Licenciado.—¿Y pareceos, señor
Salazar, que es pequeño mal
esse? Yo os digo que si los
hombres que aman su salud y
desean alargar la vida
conociessen y entendiesen los
inconvenientes que del mucho
comer tienen por contrarios, que
por ventura ayunarían muchas
veces, aunque no fuese para
servir á Dios, sino para su solo
provecho.
Salazar.—Yo creo que hay
muchas personas que, aunque lo
entienden, no dexan por eso de
comer á su voluntad, porque el
aparejo les da ocasión á querer
cumplir tanto con el apetito como
con la salud, y si no dígame
vuesa merced ¿qué había de
hacer el señor Quiñones si puesto
á la mesa le servían tantos y tan
diversos platos? ¿No fuera
necedad dexar de comer de
todos, siquiera para saber si eran
buenos ó malos y hacer lo que
todos los otros que allí estaban
hacían?
Licenciado.—Antes fuera muy
gran discreción tener sufrimiento
para que el aparejo de la gula no
le diera causa de vencerse della.
Salazar.—Pues si eso es assí,
¿para qué se hacen y aderezan
tantos y tan diferentes manjares
en las casas de los grandes
señores y aun en las que no lo
son, sino para que los que sientan
á sus mesas los coman y se
harten con ellos, pues que para
este propósito se aparejaron?
Licenciado.—Así es la verdad;
pero lo mejor sería que no los
aparejasen ni los hubiesen.
Ruiz.—Contraria opinión es esta
de la común, porque todos los
hombres generalmente querrían
comer y beber lo mejor que
pudiesen.
Licenciado.—Si comiendo bien,
digo de buenas cosas, no
comiesen más de aquello que les
basta para sustentarse, no es
muy mala opinión la que decís;
pero por la mayor parte nacen
della la desorden y vienen los
hombres con el aparejo á comer
más de lo necesario, sin sentirlo,
y assí sin sentirse se recrece
dello el daño, y cuando ya se
siente, muchas veces no puede
remediarse, y aun algunas cuesta
tan caro, que suele perderse por
ello la vida.
Salazar.—Pues lo que con todas
essas condiciones el día de hoy
más se usa en esta tierra es
comer y beber sin temor, y
después venga lo que viniere.
Licenciado.—También se usa
morirse las gentes muy más
presto de lo que solían en otros
tiempos.
Salazar.—¿Y es por ventura el
comer la causa?
Licenciado.—Sí, por la mayor
parte, y si queréis escuchar la
razón, yo os la diré para que lo
entendáis notoriamente. En los
tiempos antiguos que los hombres
vivían con mayor simplicidad que
agora, y contentándose con lo
que la naturaleza les aparejaba
para su mantenimiento, sin andar
buscando otras nuevas formas de
composiciones en los manjares
que comían, vivían los hombres
muy largos tiempos, como á todos
es notorio la larga vida de Adán,
nuestro primero padre, de
Matusalén y de otros muchos, los
cuales se contentaban con comer
solas las frutas silvestras, y
principalmente debían de ser
bellotas y castañas, y otras desta
manera, porque después del
diluvio de Noé que ya habían
pasado muy largos tiempos, las
gentes comían esto mesmo y se
sustentaban con ello,
principalmente los de la provincia
de Arcadia. Los atenienses su
mantenimiento eran higos secos.
El de los caramanos, dátiles. El
de los meotides, mijo. El de los
persas, mastuerzo. Los de Tirinto
comían peras silvestres, y assí
otras naciones se mantenían de
otras diferentes frutas y raíces, de
las cuales dicen que era la
principal la de una hierba que
llamamos grama, hasta que vino
aquella mujer llamada Ceres, que
andando buscando las simientes
de las hierbas que eran buenas
para comer, halló la simiente del
trigo y la manera que había de
tener para hacerse pan della, y
por esta causa fue adorada por
diosa entre los gentiles. Y cuando
los antiguos comían algunas
carnes no andaban buscando que
fuesen sabrosas ni delicadas, ni
buscaban de darles otro nuevo
sabor con las salsas y aparejos
que agora se les hacen. Y así
cuenta Homero que Alcinoo, rey
de los feaces, teniendo por
huésped á Ulises y por
convidados á todos los principales
de su reino, para el banquete que
les hizo mandó matar doce ovejas
y ocho puercos y dos bueyes, que
estonces debían ser los más
preciados manjares que se
usaban; y en este tiempo también
tenían los hombres muy larga la
vida, y como comenzaron á
inventar manjares nuevos y
compuestos, así comenzaron á
debilitar y enflaquecer con ellos
los estómagos, porque la
diversidad de los sabores que
hallaban en ellos les hacía comer
más de lo que podían gastar los
estómagos. Y así dice Galeno
que del tiempo de Hipócrates
hasta el suyo, la naturaleza
estaba debilitada en los hombres,
y el tiempo de Galeno acá
también lo deben de estar mucho
más, pues siempre vemos que
van en disminución de los años
de la vida, y que viven agora
menos que solían; pero la culpa
que ponemos á la naturaleza no
es suya, sino de nuestra
desorden, porque si tuviéssemos
mayor concierto y templanza en el
comer y beber, nuestra vida
generalmente sería muy más
larga. Y así lo dice Hipócrates en
el libro sexto de Las
enfermedades populares: El
concierto de nuestra salud en
esto consiste que comamos con
tanta templanza que nunca nos
hartemos de los manjares; y si en
algún tiempo hubo desorden y
desconcierto es en el de agora,
que cuando me pongo á pensarlo
de ver las invenciones que las
gentes han procurado, todo en
daño de sus vidas, como si las
tuviesen por enemigas y su
intención no fuese otra sino de
acabarlas muy presto.
Quiñones.—No es mala materia
ni poco provechosa lo que se
trata, si el señor licenciado la lleva
adelante así como la ha
comenzado.
Licenciado.—Si vuestras
mercedes huelgan de oirla, yo me
iré declarando más
particularmente, aunque no
aproveche para más de que
entendamos el yerro que
hacemos, porque
verdaderamente es muy grande, y
tan grande, que yo no he visto
mayor desatino que el que agora
se ha introducido en el mundo, á
lo menos en la christiandad, que
en las otras naciones de gentes
son más templadas y viven más
moderadamente. Solían en
nuestra España comer las
personas ricas y los caballeros un
poco de carnero assado y cocido,
y cuando comían una gallina ó
una perdiz era por muy gran
fiesta. Los señores y grandes
comían una ave cocida y otra
assada, y si querían con esto
comer otras cosas, eran frutas y
manjares simples. Agora ya no se
entiende en sus casas de los
señores sino en hacer provisión
de cosas exquisitas, y si con esto
se contentasen, no habría tanto
de qué maravillarnos; pero es
cosa de ver los platillos, los
potajes, las frutas de sartén, las
tortadas en que van mezcladas
cien cosas tan diferentes las unas
de las otras, que la diversidad y
contrariedad dellas las hace que
en nuestro estómago estén
peleando para la digestión. Y es
tanto lo que en esto se gasta, que
á mi juicio ha encarecido las
especias, la manteca, la miel y la
azúcar, porque todo va cargado
dello, y como comen á la
flamenca, con cada servicio que
llevan va un plato destos para los
hombres golosos, y con no
tocarse algunas veces en ellos,
tienen mayor costa que toda la
comida. Y comer de todos estos
manjares diferentes (aunque cada
uno dellos sea simple) sería muy
dañoso, cuanto más siendo los
más dellos compuestos, que
muchos hay dellos que llevan
encorporadas diez y doce y veinte
cosas juntas, no mirando lo que
Plinio dice contra ello en el
undécimo capítulo de la Natural
Historia, cuyas palabras son: El
manjar simple para los hombres
es muy provechoso, y el
ayuntamiento de manjares es
pestilencia, y más dañoso que
pestilencia cuando los manjares
son adobados. Y lo peor de todo
es que, muchos, cuando se
sientan á la mesa y aun casi
todos, como es cosa natural,
luego procuran satisfacer á la
hambre que llevan y comen hasta
hartarse de lo primero que les
ponen delante, y pudiéndose
levantar y sustentar con ello
conservando su salud y vida,
como después vienen otras cosas
nuevas y que despiertan en la
golosina el apetito, aunque no
hagan sino probar de cada uno un
bocado, hacen tan gran replición
en el estómago, que no pueden
gastarse, y desasosiegan y dan
trabajo al que las ha comido. Y
esto es lo que dice Galeno en el
tercer libro de Régimen: Que la
diversidad de las cosas que se
comen, cuando no son
semejantes en sus virtudes,
hacen en el estómago
desasosiego. Y en otra parte: Las
cosas compuestas de muchas
sustancias son de muy más fácil
corrupción que las simples y
compuestas de pocas; pero todo
esto no basta para que las gentes
se concierten en el comer, porque
con ver los hombres plebeyos la
desorden que los que pueden y
tienen mayores haciendas y más
aparejo hacen, toman argumento
para comer y gastar más de lo
que tienen, y en esto está tan
estragada la razón y tan perdida
la buena regla, que hay muchos
que, no teniendo sino dos reales,
aquello dan por una trucha ó por
una gallina, que comen aquel día
sin mirar á lo de adelante, y todo
cuanto ganan lo echan en comer,
sin guardar un maravedí, y,
después, si caen enfermos ó se
han de morir de hambre ó han de
hacer que pidan por Dios para
ellos, y esto tienen en menos que
dejar de probar todas cuantas
cosas buenas y preciosas vienen
á venderse, cuesten lo que
costaren.
Ruiz.—No se puede negar todo lo
que vuestra merced dice ser assí;
pero muchas cosas hay que,
aunque se conozca en ellas el
yerro, no hay orden para que
pueda remediarse, como es esto
del comer desordenado de la
gente común, porque no se les
puede ir á la mano en ello, sino
que han de hacer lo que
quisieren, como coman de sus
haciendas y no de las ajenas.
Licenciado.—Bien se parece que
no ha leído vuestra merced
algunos autores que tratan de una
ley que los romanos hicieron y se
guardó mucho tiempo en Roma, y
principalmente lo cuenta Macrobio
en el tercero libro de las
Saturnales.
Ruiz.—¿Y qué ley era essa?
Licenciado.—Una ley que
mandaba por ella que todos
comiesen públicamente en los
portales de sus casas y que
hubiesse por los barrios repetidos
veedores que andaban de casa
en casa mirando si alguno comía
más curiosamente ó
suntuosamente de lo que
convenía á su estado, y luego
eran castigados por esto, y si por
acaso lo querían comer en
ascondido, no podían, porque no
osaban comprarlo, temiendo ser
acusados de quien lo viese, y aun
por ventura de quien lo vendía; y
como estonces se cumplía esta
ley, también se podía hacer
agora, y aun en algunas partes se
guarda alguna cosa della, porque
dicen que en Francia los villanos
no pueden comer gallina ninguna,
ni los perniles de los tocinos, si no
fuesse con mucha necesidad.
Quiñones.—Bien lejos estamos
de que en España se hagan
essas leyes ni se guarden
tampoco, y hablar en ello es
predicar en desierto.
Licenciado.—Yo no lo digo
porque se ha de hacer, sino
porque sería justo que se hiciese;
y lo que más principalmente
convendría es que los caballeros
y señores y grandes se
moderasen en sus gastos
excesivos, y que ellos mismos,
juntándose, hiciesen entre sí
mesmos una ley, ó que nuestro
emperador lo hiciese, de que en
ningún banquete ni comida
suntuosa se sirviesen sino tantos
platos tasados; porque después
que un hombre come de cuatro
manjares ó cinco, el estómago
está satisfecho y todo lo lo demás
es superfluo, que no aprovecha
para otra cosa sino para estragar
los estómagos y disminuir la salud
y las haciendas, y tan
disminuídas, que de aquí viene
que solían hacer más los señores
y mantenerse más gentes y
criados con cuatro cuentos de
renta que agora con doce, y
entonces ahorraban dineros para
sus necesidades, y estaban ricos
y prósperos, y agora siempre
andan empeñados y alcanzados,
y todo esto se gasta en comer y
en beber, principalmente si tienen
huéspedes, si andan en corte,
que han de hacer plato, porque
entonces tienen por mayor
grandeza lo que sobra y se pierde
y se gasta bien gastado. Y
verdaderamente esta es la
principal causa de sus
necesidades, que de andar los
señores ó un caballero en la corte
un año ó dos haciendo estos
gastos vienen á ponerse en
necesidad, que con estar otros
cuatro en sus casas ahorrando y
estrechándose no pueden salir
della y muchas veces en su vida.
Y el mayor daño de todos es que
lo mesmo quiere hacer un señor
de dos cuentos de renta que de
quince, y también quiere que
sirvan á su mesa veinte y treinta
platos diferentes, como si no
gastasen en ello dineros.
Quiñones.—Poco es para lo que
agora se usa, que ya en un
banquete no se sufre dar de
ochenta ó cien platos abajo, y aun
averiguado es y notorio que ha
poco tiempo que en un banquete
que hizo un señor eclesiástico se
sirvieron setecientos platos, y si
no fuera tan público, no osara
decirlo por parecer cosa fuera de
término.
Ruiz.—Mal cumple ese y todos
los otros señores eclesiásticos lo
que son obligados conforme
aquel decreto que dice que los
bienes de los clérigos son bienes
de los pobres, porque después de
gastado lo necesario para sí y
para su familia, todo lo demás
tiene obligación de gastarlo con
ellos, so pena de ir al infierno
como quien hurta hacienda ajena,
pues hacen esos banquetes á los
ricos, y sin necesidad, quitándolo
á la gente pobre y necesitada.
Pero todos me parece que van
igualmente desordenados, sin
tener atención ninguna sino á
comer y beber á su voluntad.
Licenciado.—Bien conforma
esso con lo que Valerio Máximo
dice de la costumbre que se solía
tener en el comer antiguamente,
lo cual trata por estas palabras en
el segundo libro de Las
instituciones antiguas: Hubo en
los tiempos pasados, en los
antiguos, grandísima sencilleza y
templanza en el comer, lo cual es
demostración muy cierta de su
moderación y continencia, porque
no comían manjares los cuales
por su demasía hubiesen
vergüenza de que todos los
viesen. Estaban en tanta manera
los hombres de mayor autoridad
en sus pueblos continientes, que
lo que más ordinariamente
comían eran poleadas ó puchas,
y con ellas se contentaban. Y en
el mismo capítulo y libro torna á
decir: La templanza en el comer y
beber era como verdadera madre
de su salud, y enemiga de los
manjares superfinos y apartada
de toda abundancia de vinos y de
todo uso demasiado de
destemplanza. Agora me parece
que todo es ya al contrario de lo
que Valerio ha dicho, como si toda
la bienaventuranza de la vida
consistiese en el comer y beber
destempladamente, y muy pocos
hay que no pecan en este vicio si
no son los que no tienen ni
pueden más, que destos Dios
sabe su buena voluntad. Y deste
comer mucho y beber demasiado
se siguen grandes daños é
inconvenientes que todos ayudan
á destruir y desconcertar la vida,
como lo trata Hipócrates en el
libro De afectionibus, Acaccio
Antiocheno en el tercero libro
Tetrablibii, y esto procede de que
no puede el estómago con los
muchos manjares, ni con la
diversidad ni abundancia dellos
para gastarlos y digirirlos. Y así
dice el filósofo en el quinto
capítulo del tercero libro De
partibus animalium: Es verdad
que el calor natural no gasta ni
digiere lo que se come
demasiado, no porque él sea
pequeño, sino porque comemos
más de lo que es necesario para
sustentarnos; pero nosotros no
tenemos atención á esto, sino á
ser unos epicuros, teniendo este
vicio por suma felicidad; y es la
desorden tan grande, que si hoy
hubiese quien tornase á sustentar
esta opinión epicúrea de nuevo,
no faltaran gentes que con muy
gran afición y voluntad la
siguiessen. Y dejando lo del
comer, qué destemplanza tan
grande es la del vino, que ya que
en muchos no se muestra la
beodez y desatinos que del
demasiado beber proceden, á lo
menos veremos la curiosidad en
buscar vinos de olor y sabor
exquisitos, no teniendo en nada la
costa que se hace por estar
proveídos dellos, aunque éste no
le tengo por gran vicio cuando la
templanza anda de por medio, de
manera que no beban demasiado
ni reciban daño en su salud por lo
que bebieren.
Salazar.—Paréceme que el
señor licenciado de teólogo se ha
vuelto médico; pero bien es que
los hombres sean estudiosos, de
manera que puedan hablar en
todas las materias que se
propusiesen, que quien lo viere
alegar tantas autoridades á su
popósito, parecerle ha que no ha
estudiado más teología que
medicina, y con todo esto no
quiero que se vaya alabando que
no halla contradicción en todos
nosotros para lo que ha dicho,
porque yo quiero agora decir que
no hará poco cuando le hubiera
dado buena salida.
Licenciado.—Haré lo que
pudiere, pues que hasta agora no
me ha obligado á más que á esto.
Salazar.—Ni yo quiero más
tampoco, y para que mejor nos
entendamos, lo principal que
vuesa merced ha dado y sobre lo
que más ha fundado su intención
es la templanza de los antiguos
en el comer y beber, y hay tantas
cosas que alegar contra esto, que
creo que algunas se ofreceran á
mi memoria. Y la primera es la
destemplanza del gran Alejandro
en los convites, que con ella vino
á matar á Clito, su familiar y muy
privado, y después en Babilonia
se estaban haciendo banquetes y
fiestas cuando le dieron la
ponzoña con que le mataron. Sin
esto, á todos es notorio cuán
destemplado fué el emperador
Nerón, que muchas veces
duraban los banquetes desde un
día á la hora que él y sus
convidados se sentaban á la
mesa hasta otro día á la mesma
hora. De Heliogábalo todos saben
los grandes y excesivos gastos
que hacía en procurar manjares
preciosos y delicados y costosos,
tanto que algunos quieren decir
que hacía buscar papagallos que
de los sesos dellos pudiesen
hacer salsa que bastara para
muchos convidados que con él
comían. No es menos lo que se
dice del emperador Galba, y de
Joviniano escribe Bautista Ignacio
que, comió tanto en una cena,
que por no gastarlo se murió. Otro
tanto dice Eufesio de Domicio
Afro, y el banquete que Marco
Antonio hizo á Cleopatra todos lo
saben, y el que ella le tornó á
hacer, que porque fuese más
costoso deshizo en vinagre una