Western Archtecture

Western Architecture, by R.Furneaux Jordan, attempts to condense the history of architecture in western culture into a book of 359 pages. It's a good book, good as an introduction to the general timeline of architecture, and is well illustrated for a small paperback, however it is a little rushed, with significant architects often only getting brief mentions. This is not a book review however, I only want to convey a few of the things the book has shown me.

The first significant point is that, contrary to what I assumed before, the four basic original styles, which were to be recycled again and again: Greek, Roman, Gothic, and Byzantine; are all based on specific and significant innovations.

Greece architecture was no more structurally innovative than stonehenge, however they did perfect this language of columns and slabs. The Roman innovation was the arch, which gave birth to both the basic dome and the basilica (a long vaulted building or structure). The Gothic Innovation was the pointed arch, which when combined in a cross, allowed for flexible, rectangular vaults; This is why the architecture of England, France and Germany expanded both lengthways and skyward. The architecture that evolved eastward, into the lands of Greece and Turkey, and later Russia and the Middle East, was based on an entirely different principle, the Byzantine innovation was the pendentive, a way of efficiently combining a dome with a square section; this is why early architecture in these lands was based on grand, blocky domed spaces.

What this drives home is that, besides the obvious decoration added by artisan builders, these buildings were essentially structurally logical. This is something perhaps the early modernists forgot, as they panicked to adopt steel, concrete and glass as the language of the future. As nowadays we see the concrete buildings of only 60 years ago crumble and deteriorate, and as the buildings of relevance, homes and community places, fail to adopt the modernist standard; stone and brick deserves not to be forgotten by contemporary architecture, and with this should come an appreciation of the structural language of these historic forms.

The second point of interest is that over time, we see a narrative of the war between Romanticism and Rationalism. From decorated gothic to plain Renaissance, from Baroque extravagance to the formalism of Neo-Classical.

This is of extreme importance, as it shows modernism not as something as revolutionary was first thought. It seems just to be part of an endless rinse-and-repeat cycle: people get bored of rational design, then they feel suffocated by excess. I believe that this teaches that designers and architects genuinely interested in benefiting humankind, must be more considerate when proposing radical change: as we have learned from Le Corbusier, radical change will meet radical reaction, missing out on the real question of who should benefit from the power of design.

I have grown up as an avid admirer of modernist Architecture and Design, visiting Mies Van Der Rohe's Barcelona Pavilion last year was a numinous experience, to me it was a better proposal for the future than the admittedly impressive Sagrada Familia. But it is important for us as Designers to consider the history, meaning  and intentions behind what has preceded us. I am not suggesting we adopt the pastiche, excess and extravagance of the generations before us, but it would be harmful for us to treat them as philistines.