Fundamentals of Architectural Theory of the 20th Century

The book under review is Architectural Theory, authored by David Smith Capon, published by John Wiley & Sons. Each of the two volumes, in addition to the general title “Architectural Theory,” has a specific subtitle: Volume One, “The Vitruvian Fallacy: A History of the Categories in the Philosophy of Architecture”; Volume Two, “Le Corbusier's Legacy: The Principles of Twentieth-Century Architectural Theory Categorised.”

In the preface to the first volume, the author states: “The main purpose of this book was to research and discover the principles and doctrines that have governed twentieth-century architectural theory in the Western world.” He adds: “In order to construct the subject matter in a logical manner, it was necessary to examine the concept of categories itself in the same order as it has been realised in both architectural theory and Western philosophy.”

Capon distinguishes two methods for defining architectural theory. In the first, the basis is what people have said or written about the subject; the appropriate methodology consists of collecting and examining texts, interpreting various statements within their written context, and drawing conclusions according to the relative value of the statements made — a historical approach. In the second, the basis is the manner in which different principles and doctrines converge; the methodology consists of conducting rational discussions within each particular theoretical structure and constructing a hierarchy of concepts — a philosophical approach. A book about architectural theory, he argues, need not be entirely one or the other: the two approaches reflect two sides of one subject — as if they are the form and content of one thing — and the book resolves to employ them in constant cooperation.

The author then emphasises three points. First, this is not a chronological history of architectural theory; it is a book about the principles themselves and how they have emerged and expanded, such that the absence of a concept is more regrettable than the absence of an author's name. Second, no personal preference will be given to any of the concepts and their resulting doctrines; the distinguishing characteristic of the book is the ordering and organising of concepts. Third, there is a significant difference between classification and categorisation: the book classifies only primary concepts and the doctrines arising from them, and opposes simply placing architects and their buildings into the boxes of a table.

Diagrams play an important role. Each diagram consists of a centre, a circle around the centre, and radii drawn from the centre to the circumference. The centre represents the case or thing under discussion (a specific building, or the subject of architecture itself). The circle represents the totality of possible knowledge about that thing. The radii represent types of relationships — each pertaining to a spectrum or category of concepts.

The author's aim in the first volume, subtitled “The Vitruvian Fallacy,” is to argue that interpreting Vitruvius's three famous principles — firmitas (durability), utilitas (utility), and venustas (beauty) — as construction, function and form (respectively) has given rise to three major tendencies in the modern era: functionalism, formalism and constructivism. Because these three are not equal principles upon which the whole weight of architecture can be placed equally — dispensing with any other principle — this interpretation is fallacious.

Using the centre-circle-radius diagram, with architecture placed at the centre and the circle conceived as architectural knowledge, Capon considers the three categories derived from Vitruvius's three principles as three radii that cannot divide the circumference — the totality of architectural knowledge — equally among themselves. To resolve this, he draws upon higher philosophical categories, dividing them into primary and secondary categories. From their combination a six-category diagram is obtained, in which two of Vitruvius's three principles — function and form — fall within the group of primary categories, and the principle of construction falls within the group of secondary categories.

After examining interpretations and theories related to Vitruvius's principles, Capon selects form, function and meaning as the primary categories, and construction, context and will as the secondary categories:

Primary Categories

• Form, derived from the Vitruvian category of venustas, representing not only geometry but also those aspects of beauty related to symmetry and proportion.
• Function, derived from utilitas, translated also as commodity or comfort, with the strong social dimension intended by Schinkel; Durand's concept of economy is also considered within it.
• Meaning, also derived from venustas, but representing those aspects of beauty related to taste, propriety and ornament; Schinkel's historical dimension is added here.

Secondary Categories

• Construction, derived from firmitas, variously translated as solidity, durability and integrity. Vitruvius's placing it at the top of his list may stem from its affinity with form, or from the obvious fact that its primary relevance is to the building itself.
• Context, a complex category that Fermín alludes to with the term surroundings, but which also encompasses the poetic quality intended by Schinkel — such as the two concepts of place and sensation that come together in the doctrine of the picturesque.
• Will, a category that grew in importance during the nineteenth century.

Capon has prepared a small thesaurus of synonyms for these six categories, containing the types of categorisable concepts used in architectural literature, which is repeated in the introduction to both volumes as a guide for the reader. Under form: mannerism, structuralism. Under function: functionalism, utilitarianism, systems theory. Under meaning: historicism, culturalism, postmodernism, symbolism, semantics, surrealism. Under direction (chosen in place of construction): constructivism, arts and crafts, organic theory, neo-Gothic, metabolism, high-tech. Under context: contextualism, regionalism, neo-vernacular, the picturesque. Under will: modernism, futurism, utopianism, fundamentalism and avant-garde.

Volume One is written in three parts — categories in architecture, categories in philosophy and literature, and categories in architecture and philosophy. The conclusion: behind Vitruvius's apparently conventional principles, natural principles exist, and these natural principles are embedded in the same logical categories of ancient Greece that later attracted the attention of all philosophers. These categories are so general that they can explain not only architecture itself but also aesthetics and ethics.

Using the relationship between elements, causes and principles in Aristotle, after defining the elements of architecture and finding the causes that in some way constitute goodness, the principles of good architecture can be derived from combining the two. The number of categories in Aristotle was ten, but by the end of the Classical period it was reduced to six: substance, relation, quantity, quality, action, and passion. These categories correspond to six constitutive elements of architecture: substance with construction and materials; relation with context; quantity with form; quality with meaning. Plotinus reduced action and passion to one, but — in light of Kant and Hegel — it is better to use two separate categories: function (relating to the building's operation) and agency (relating to the will or spirit that creates the motivating force toward the subject).

The most philosophical part of the discussion concerns value. Following Aristotle's approach to human goodness, the author endeavours — using the ethics of Greek philosophers and the professional ethics in today's architecture (citing the professional regulations of the RIBA) — to establish a correspondence between moral virtues and professional values, and to tabulate them, like the correspondence table between logical categories and architectural categories, in six primary and secondary categories.

Volume Two, approximately one and a half times the size of the first, has no divisions and is written in ten chapters: introduction; primary and secondary categories; form and formalism; function and functionalism; meaning and historicism; construction and constructivism; context and contextualism; will and modernism; general and synthetic theories; and principles of architecture.

The bibliography shows that the author, in addition to examining a vast body of architectural writings, has also consulted and quoted from extensive sources in ancient and modern philosophy. In order to familiarise readers with the evolution of theoretical concepts in twentieth-century architecture, the index at the end of Volume Two is summarised below. The Vitruvian categories, codified more than 2,000 years ago, have dominated architectural theory; originally stated as firmitas, utilitas and venustas, they were later re-ordered by Alberti and interpreted by Henry Wotton as commodity, firmness and delight. The following examples are arranged chronologically:

Index — Vitruvian Categories in 20th-Century Theory

1. Geoffrey Scott (1914): “Criticism must be based on three separate models: the first based on construction, the second on comfort, the third on aesthetics.”
2. Le Corbusier (1923): “Plan, tradition, construction, and adaptation to utilitarian needs are not at work.”
3. Le Corbusier (1923): “Use: comfort and practical convenience.”
4. Le Corbusier (1922): “We must create the spirit of mass production: the spirit of building mass-production houses, the spirit of living in mass-production houses, the spirit of accepting mass-production houses.”
5. Le Corbusier (1923): “Perhaps for the first time, the accumulated problems of architecture were solved with a modern spirit. Economics, sociology, aesthetics: a new solution using a new method.”
6. Auguste Perret (1933): “Living architecture is that which is a faithful representative of its own time. In all domains of construction, we seek it, and from among them we select those works that have strictly followed expected use, have been built wisely with materials, and have achieved beauty through the harmonious composition of essential elements.”
7. Walter Gropius (1924): “Fundamental reforms are needed. Simultaneously, the subject must be viewed from three angles: economy, technology and form; all three are interdependent.”
8. Walter Gropius (1924): “… simultaneously integrating design, construction and economy … regarding the three elements of design as technical, economic and aesthetic.”
9. Walter Gropius (1928): Technical, economic, aesthetic.
10. Walter Gropius (1935): “The aesthetic satisfaction of the human spirit is just as important as materials. Both elements find their complement in that unity which is life itself. More important than structural economy and its functional emphasis is the intellectual achievement that has made a new spatial vision possible.”
11. Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (1928): “The economic, technical and cultural conditions have changed fundamentally.”
12. Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (1938): “We must guide our students … from materials to function and from function to creative work … We must know the forces and impulses of our time and analyse their structure from three viewpoints: material, functional and spiritual.”
13. Ludwig Mies van der Rohe: “The problem of modern housing, in terms of its technical and economic aspects, is primarily an architectural matter.”
14. ASNOVA (1931): Ladovsky's ideology about Soviet constructivism: architecture should be a combination of three factors — technical correctness, economic feasibility and artistic expression.
15. Nikolaus Pevsner (1936): “One should not think that the evolution of architecture resulted from function and construction. Artistic style belongs to the world of mind, not the world of matter.”
16. Reyner Banham (1960): “The roots of all these tendencies go back to the nineteenth century, which can roughly be summarised in three headings … first, the architect's sense of responsibility toward the society to which he belongs … second, the rationalist or structural approach to architecture … and third, the academic tradition.”
17. Sigfried Giedion (1960): “Modern architecture was born from the technical, social and cultural changes resulting from the Industrial Revolution.”
18. Christian Norberg-Schulz (1963): “Most authors have used the traditional distinctions between functional, technical and aesthetic.”
19. Christian Norberg-Schulz: “Our criteria for comparison are physical, social and cultural.”
20. Christian Norberg-Schulz: “The quality of architectural perfection depends on three basic criteria: the building's role, form and techniques … Style also belongs to the criterion of form.”
21. Robert Venturi (1966): “Architecture, by virtue of its inclusion of the traditional Vitruvian elements of commodity, firmness and delight, is necessarily complex and contradictory. And today, the demands of program, structure, mechanical systems and architectural expression, even in simple individual buildings, are so conflicting and in tension that no one in the past could have imagined.”
22. N. L. Prak (1968): “Each of the three aspects [function, construction, aesthetics] is a world unto itself … which, if confined to itself, has no relationship anywhere. It is in the work of architecture that they intersect.”
23. N. L. Prak (1968): “Discussions have arisen to distinguish at least three types of space — physical, behavioural and conceptual.”
24. Charles Jencks (1969): discusses technique, function and form in which architecture takes shape.
25. L. Ligo (1973): On the first page of his book Functionalism, Ligo translates Vitruvius's three terms as form, function and technique.
26. David Canter (1977): “Each place is the product of the correlations among actions, concepts and physical characteristics. One cannot fully define a place unless one knows (a) what type of behaviour will be associated with it; (b) what the physical characteristics of the environment are; and (c) what descriptions or concepts people ascribe to that behaviour in that physical environment.”
27. R. Krier (1978): “Function, construction and form have equal value and together create architecture.”
28. M. Foster (1983): In Principles of Architecture: Program, Construction and Design, Foster wrote about the Vitruvian categories: “To this day, no one has come up with a better rule.”