Note. When the text of Aesthetics of built form was submitted as part of a PhD thesis in 1996, the Notes were greatly extended. As the reader may prefer to ignore them, they have been collected into separate web pages of which this is one. They are a mixture of: simple page references; additional examples or quotations to justify generalisations; and some afterthoughts.
[5.1] Concept of 'language' in buildings is not new. Collins (1965 p.174) cites Alberti (1404 - 1472) and the French architect Gabriel Germain Boffrand who used it in 1745.
Current [1990] level of interest: see for example Broadbent (1977), Wright (1978), Gandelsonas (1979), Cohen (1980), Broadbent, Bunt, and Jencks (1980), Broadbent, Bunt, and Llorens (1980), Jencks and Baird (1969), Jencks (1987), Summerson (1980), Norberg-Schultz (1980), Portoghesi (1968), Prak (1968), Pile (1979), Raskin (1966). Von Simson's original paper (1952) The Gothic Cathedral in Jour. Soc. Architectural Historians had the subtitle Design and Meaning.
[5.2] Examples occur in Figs 4.3 and 4.14 of AOBF. Commentators write of the "purposive" air of machines such as jet fighters. Bridges are a symbol of the "conquest of gravity", the freedom of crossing chasms, and the union of previously divided communities. Transmission towers are seen by some as symbolising progress; by others as symbolising the despolation of the countryside by unthinking man. Pit-head frames are a powerful symbol for many people of the travail of the miners and their families. Plowden's photographs of neglected canals, quays, silos and other industrial structures (Plowden 1985) have an especially powerful effect. A lower order of meaning is to be found in comparisons of wheat silos in a flat landscape to the cathedrals of northern France. The water towers in Becher and Becher (1988) suggest similes with polyps (the globular steel tanks on stalks), onions (globular tanks sitting on the ground), flowers (concrete inverted cones on stalks), and mushrooms (a concrete double cone - one upright and one inverted - supported on a stalk). Many are reminiscent of castles (recalling the French term château d'eau) although this impression owes much to the architectural treatment of many of the concrete and masonry tanks.
[5.3] Distinction between meaning and association: e.g. Stanley Abercrombie (1984), p.145.
[5.4] Jencks: unfamiliar buildings attract uncomplimentary similes: (1981), p.40.
[5.5] "Epithets" and Stirling. See Broadbent, Bunt, and Llorens (1980), p.347 and Jencks (1981), p.40.
[5.6] Airport terminal at Kuwait. Seen in Japan Architect, January 1986, p.13.
Tourist resort with the plan-form of a crocodile: the Four Seasons Hotel at Kakadu National Park (Architecture Australia, vol.78, August 1989, pp. 56-7).
[5.7] References to parts of the human body … Jencks (1987), pp. 113-7 and Scruton p.27.
[5.8] Lecture theatres 'expressed' by cantilevering from building. Examples identified at time of writing were: Melnikov's Rusakov Workers' Club, Moscow (Curtis 1987, p.137; or Reid 1980, p.395; or Sharp 1972, p.101), and Stirling and Gowan's Leicester Engineering Faculty Building (Sharp 1972, p.254).
[5.9] … suspecting that the designer has "deceived" them or been "impolite". Edward Lacy Garbett (1850) cited in de Zurko (1957), p.140. See also Scruton on "appropriateness" in life and in architecture (1979, pp.227-9).
[5.10] Rudolph Arnheim: "a motel or a hospital cannot look like a fire-station …" (1977), p.205.
[5.11] Jencks on confusion for the observer at IIT and quotation (1987), p.19.
[5.12] Arnheim quotation: "As a useful contribution …" (1977), p.206.
[5.13] Jencks has objected that Philip Johnson's historicism remains on the level of "spotting the source" (Jencks 1984, p.86, concerning the AT&T Building).
Examples of direct quotation are to be found in the following :
The courtyard of the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, New York (Fig. 11.5, p.167 TAISD) which is a reference to the Campidoglio, Rome (Fig. 11.6, p.168 TAISD).
The Tsukuba Civic Centre, Japan. See the note below.
The AT&T Building, New York. (See Notes to Chapter 4 of AOBF.) For the AT&T Building itself, see Architectural Review, August 1984 pp.22-9 or Architectural Record October 1980, pp.106-11.
The Stuttgart Art Gallery. See Fig. 11.7, p.168 TAISD and Sudjic (1986), p.174 for blocks supposedly 'fallen' from the perimeter wall, and Sudjic pp.162-3 and p.169 for grass growing on top of the circular wall enclosing the courtyard (a reference to the ruins of Rome) and a 'sunken' portal of Doric columns and lintel reminiscent of archaeological remains around which the level of the surface has risen over time.
[5.14] Jencks re the message "this man is a modern Hadrian".
I have been unable to trace source of this quotation.
[5.15] Prince Charles gives Terry a complimentary mention and a colour photograph of his Richmond development. (Charles, Prince of Wales. A vision of Britain. Doubleday, London, 1989, p.123.) Charles Jencks is less complimentary (Jencks 1984, p.92, and Jencks and Chaitkin 1982, pp.143-4).
[5.16] Jencks on the Doric style in the nineteenth century: (1984), p.69.
[5.17] Andrew Derbyshire quotation: Jencks (1984), p.98.
[5.18] "This approach … has been condemned as simplistic …" Jencks attacks the notion that a single, guaranteed message can be transmitted. (Jencks 1984, p.99.)
[5.19] Improved public relations in post-modern police stations. Private communication from Richard Allen, a Melbourne architect who was involved in the design of police stations in Victoria.
[5.20] Sheffield Town Hall. Smith (1979), p.139-141.
[5.21] "Tent structures carry associations of impermanence." Comment during address by Robert Pentecost at the Conference on Lightweight Structures in Architecture, University of New South Wales, Sydney, 1986.
[5.22] Michael Graves's design for the Fargo-Moorehead Cultural Centre … See Fig. 5.6, p.139 of AOBF and Jencks and Chaitkin (1988), pp.140-1.
[5.23] Mental associations of 'column'. This comment was inspired by Jencks (1984), pp.52-3. Vitruvius discusses the alleged feminine and masculine qualities of the Greek orders in the following terms: "Thus in the invention of the two different kinds of columns [Doric, Ionic], they borrowed manly beauty, naked and unadorned, for the one, and for the other the delicacy, adornment, and proportions characteristic of women … The third order, called Corinthian, is an imitation of the slenderness of a maiden …" (trans. Morgan 1914, p.104). Gombrich suggests that such perceptions are not absolutes as is often supposed, but rather that one Order looks "feminine" only in relation to the other. Cited in Jencks,C.A. 'Rhetoric and architecture', AA Quarterly, vol.4, no.3, Summer 1972, pp.4-17. The relevant section appears in Gombrich (1960). See the fifth edition, 1970, pp.316-7. Tzonis and Lefaivre (1986, p.274) note, that before the French Revolution, the Classical column "lived happily in the bosom of the private boudoirs of … the old regime", but was then taken up to advance the cause of political assassination of tyrants (as in David's painting 'Brutus') or private sacrifice for the public good (as in his 'Socrates').
[5.24] Perceived 'messages' or inferences vary from one person to another. See Ligo's Chapter 6, entitled 'Social Function'.
[5.25] Discussing Gordon Bunschaft's Hirschhorn Museum, Jencks writes: "… it symbolises … a concrete bunker, a Normandy pillbox … Bunschaft is inadvertently saying 'keep modern art from the public in this fortified stronghold and shoot 'em down if they dare approach.' " (Jencks 1984, p.20). It is possible to see even the Centre Pompidou in this way. The editor of the Architectural Review, May 1977, p.271 comments "But to come into its full physical presence is a daunting experience. For it is a menacing building which stands like a man in full armour in a room full of civilians …"
[5.26] Perceptions of the Pompidou (or Beaubourg) Centre as open, modern, and adaptable.
As open, modern and adaptable:
The general secretary of the Centre Pompidou, Claude Mollard stated "Beaubourg … is a 'house for everyone' which will be open to all forms of cultural expression, whatever their origin." (Architectural Review, May 1977, 286-7.) See also the critique by Colquhoun in Architectural Design, February 1977, pp.87-133, especially pp.87 'General Concept' and p.98, column 3, "What evidently appealed to the jury was the uncompromising way in which the building interpreted the centre as a supermarket of culture …"
As an attack … on the old, mellow, and much-loved Paris:
Jean Paris, Le Monde, 21 January 1977 - "As if they were of no importance, those unfortunate enough to live in the area of the plateau Beaubourg have succumbed, powerless, to a brutal violation of their existence. What future Balzac will tell the tale of their miserable fate? … While millions have been wasted on this act of vandalism, the local traders have watched their businesses take a dizzy plunge." (Reported, with conflicting opinions, in Architectural Review, May 77, p.287-8.)
Watkin sees it as a huge joke: (1986), p.571.
[5.27] Jencks on "the problem of turning the corner": (1984), p.16.
[5.28] Jencks on the "harmonious, well proportioned pure volume of the Architect" and the "glorified shoe box" of the person in the street: (1984), p.42.
[5.29] Jencks on "the new language of lattice structures" etc: Jencks (1984), p.28.
For "the open girders of Eiffel" see e.g. Loyrette,H. (1985). Gustave Eiffel. Rizzoli, New York.
For the geometric domes of Buckminster Fuller, see e.g. the 'Climatron', St. Louis, Missouri (Banham 1975, p.130); the dome of the Union Tank Car Co. at Baton Rouge (Sharp 1972, p.216); and the US Pavilion at Expo. '67, Montreal (Sharp 1972, p.280).
For "the soaring tents of Frei Otto", see e.g. Drew,P. (1976). Frei Otto: form and structure. Granada, London.
[5.30] Jencks on Quinlan Terry: (1984), p.92.
[5.31] Isozaki's Civic Centre at Tsukuba. A good coverage is provided in Japan Architect, January 1984, pp. 14-32. The art-historical references are especially evident in Suzuki et al (1985) pp.202-5 (Fig.92-1 for the Ville de Chaux reference and Fig.92-3 for the metal tree reference). Fig. 92-1 of Suzuki may be compared with the figure on p.10 of Christ (1961).
[5.32] Jencks quotation "We learn from the beginning …" (1984), p.24.
[5.33] Jencks: "slow-changing, traditional, full of clichés, and liable to lapse into kitsch": (1984), p.130.
Jencks on professional codes: "modern, quick-changing, full of neologisms, and are rooted in technology, art, fashion, and avant-garde ideas". This is my paraphrase, based on Jencks (1984), p.130.
Jencks: "The danger here is, perhaps, of a lapse into mystification." Based on Jencks (1984), p.130.
[5.34] Renzo Piano's comments. Talk delivered at the Conference on Lightweight Structures in Architecture, University of New South Wales, Sydney, 1986.
[5.35] Norberg-Schultz references:
Norberg-Schultz (1980). His treatment of ancient Egypt - his Chapter 1. Influence of topography and flooding - p.7. Influence of a high degree of order and discipline and a desire to maintain and consolidate the social order - p.19. Influence of the Egyptian view of life and the importance of the after-life - pp.9 and 19. The axial geography of Egypt reflected in layout of buildings and complexes - p.7. Reference to the sun, stability of the pyramid, etc., and quotation regarding the natural character of stone - all p.6. The quotation: "Egypt's simple geographical structure …" - p.7. The quotation "… the Egyptians had a preference …" - p.19.
[5.36] ".. only through established sets of rules can expression be achieved."
Examples are Summerson (1980): "the use of one or more of the orders …" (p.8) and "the designer can establish a particular mood …" (p.15) and the discussion of style and detail in Scruton (1979), especially pp.223.
[5.37] Summerson references and quotations: "repose" and "harmony … built in", and harmony achieved by "the use of one or more of the orders …" All Summerson (1980), p.8.
[5.38] Summerson on the Roman use of columns: (1980), p.20.
Analysis of the Colosseum: (1980), p.21.
[5.39] Paul Marsh on architectural language and materials: (1974), p.22.
[5.40] Messages about the way in which a building is 'put together'. Jencks discusses the importance of this consideration to the precursors of modernism and to the early modern movement (Jencks 1984, p.64).
[5.41] Richard Rogers designs his buildings to be "legible". Interview in the BBC television series Architecture at the Cross-roads, written and produced by Peter Adam, transmitted in Australia in 1988, Episode 2.
[5.42] Panofsky: "the flying buttress learned to talk". (1951) p.57-8.
[5.43] Jencks quotation: "call attention to the language itself …" (1984) p.64.
[5.44] References to Summerson and quotations concerning the Palazzo del Tè: All (1980), p.46.
[5.45] Summerson on Michelangelo: "power of seeing through the dead, accepted forms …" (1980), p.48.
[5.46] Summerson on Mannerism having "coloured the language and enriched its vocabulary": (1980), p.64.
[5.47] Jencks's use of "oxymoron". Examples occur in Jencks and Chaitkin (1988), pp.50 and 66. See also "sfumato", pp.50 and 57, and "synecdoche", p.57.
Jencks and "hard softness". Jencks and Chaitkin (1988), p.50, but he actually uses the term "soft/hardness".
Jencks on the "personalities" of buildings in London, and quotation: "To look at the environment …" (1984), p.39. See his illustration on the same page.
[5.48] Saussure's general ideas are expressed in a book called Course in General Linguistics based on notes prepared by former students and colleagues. A recent English edition, translated and annotated by R.Harris, was published by Duckworth, London, in 1983.
[5.49] These insights are not new, going back in literature as far as Plato. Scott (1924, p.132) notes that moralistic criticism of the arts also goes back to Plato.
[5.50] Saussure emphasised two characteristics of language which flow from these facts … (1983), Part One 'General Principles' pp.65-98, or (1960), pp.97-140.
[5.51] Saussure quotation: "keep one another in a state of equilibrium …" (1983), p.109 and (1960), p.154
Saussure quotation: "a language is a system …" (1983), p.113 and (1960), p.159.
[5.52] The word 'bright'. This is not my example. I think I obtained it from one of Broadbent's publications, but cannot trace it.
[5.53] Saussure's analogy with architecture: (1983), p.122 and (1960), p.171.
[5.54] Saussure: the history of a language is a closed book for the vast majority of its users. (1983), p.81 and (1960), p.117.
Saussure's insistence that the study of how a language has changed over time should be rigidly separated from the study of its structure at any 'instant' of time. (1983), p.82 and (1960), p.117-9.
[5.55] Structuralism. The main source used for this section was Hawkes (1977).
[5.56] Reference to the work of Claude Lévi-Strauss. The main source used was Sturrock (1979).
[5.57] Louis Kahn and "what the building wants to be …" Cited by Jencks (1973, p.43) who refers back to Conrads (1970), pp.169-70. Scully also mentions this phrase, but provides no source (1974, p.39).
[5.58] Roland Barthes on difference between technicians and true artists: cited in Sturrock (1979), p.67.
[5.59] Barthes quotations: "a work carries several meanings simultaneously …" (1966), p.50.
Barthes: "a work is 'everlasting' …" (1966), p. 51-2. Cited by Benoist (1978), p.13.
[5.60] Barthes on the need for readers to cease to be passive "consumers". Cited in Sturrock (1979), in the segment commencing with the discussion of Finnegan's Wake, pp.69-71.
[5.61] The author, or designer, having launched a work onto the world …
This is explained succinctly by Benoist: "As Granger points out, the elements of the system are open. The consequence of this admission is a significant change in … literary or philosophical criticism … instead of referring the works under consideration to the probable or problematic intentions of the author, the critic directs his analysis to the text in its various levels of meaning … What comes to the fore is the possibility of multiple meanings … Again, what the text means does not coincide with what the author empirically and actually meant: we can … never know for sure what precisely he did mean … Every period, like every culture, has its own way of reading or interpreting works." (Benoist, 1975 p.10.) Elsewhere, he writes: "Proust was one of the first to emphasise the necessity of considering the work as an autonomous entity. Proust pioneers a new method of criticism in which it is implicit that a part of the text escapes the writer's control, even at the actual time of writing." (Benoist 1975, p.11.)
[5.62] Rudolph Arnheim on the basic form of the cylinder. (1977), p.211.
[5.63] Gombrich on gender of classical orders: (1960), pp.316-7 in the fifth edition, 1970.
[5.64] To paraphrase Charles Jencks (1981, p.54), modernist architects thought that the use of signs whose meaning was set by convention indicated insincerity and a lack of creativity, integrity, or character. The classical orders were seen as "a kind of pretentious Latin, unsuitable for industrial building and sober utility". It was hoped that from these tasks would evolve a universal language of forms which directly indicated their use. "The problem was that the most potent and persuasive architectural signs are those which are learned and conventional. There was thus a devastating theoretical mistake at the very base of the modern language."
[5.65] Charles Jencks's description of neo-baroque: (1984), p.71.
Jencks on the changeability of conventional meanings: (1984), p.69.
Jencks sees today's architects as guided by aesthetic and technical issues … (1984), p.72.
[5.66] Jencks: yesterday's "creative metaphor" becomes today's "tired usage" … (1984), p.52.
Jencks on the symbolism of the column … "the word has become a phrase, a sentence and finally a whole novel". (1984), p.52.
[5.67] Culler quotations: "difficult to establish …" (1976), p.100.
"[Works of art] question, parody and generally undermine …" (1976), p.101.
[5.68] … the fast food shop shaped in the form of a duck which has become a cliché … Jencks (1977), p.45 (including Fig. 65 and caption) and p.46. A photograph of the duck-shaped fast-food building appears in Broadbent, Bunt and Llorens (1980), p.329.
[5.69] Jencks quotation: "the more the metaphors …" (1984), p.45.
[5.70] Arnheim: the use of clearly identifiable subject matter may actually interfere with symbolism. Here Arnheim is mainly interested in his concept of visual dynamic symbolism.
Reference to the TWA terminal building at Kennedy Airport: Arnheim (1977), p.211.
[5.71] Geoffrey Scott on "the first fallacy of Romanticism …" (1924), pp.51-52.
[5.72] Arnheim on "spontaneous symbolism": (1977), p.210.
[5.73] Scott, Jencks, and Broadbent, agree that architectural signs are by no means as universally shared or as static as linguistic signs.
Scott (1924), p.61, and Jencks (1984), p.52. In preparing my thesis I could not trace the reference to Broadbent.
[5.74] Difficulty of defining the nature of the architectural sign. See Preziosi (1979a), pp.1-2.
[5.75] Saussure asked "… in what other science is it so difficult to define one's concrete units?"
This appears to be a paraphrase to which I have added quotation marks in the course of editing. In °4 'Conclusion' (p.149) Saussure (1965) is quoted as saying that in zoology and astronomy the individual units (animals, heavenly bodies) are clearly defined. In some sciences the unit is less clearly defined (in history it could be an individual, an epoch, a nation) but this poses no real problem for the scholar. However "Language has the strange and striking quality that it does not offer entities which are perceptible at first glance, although one could not doubt that they exist and that their interplay forms its substance. This is a characteristic which distinguishes it from all other semiological systems."
"La langue présente … ce caractère étrange et frappant de ne pas offrir d'entités perceptibles de prime abord, sans qu'on puisse douter cependant qu'elles existent et que c'est leur jeu qui la constitue. C'est là sans doute un trait qui la distingue de toutes les autres institutions sémiologiques."
[5.76] Saussure on flag signals. (1965), p.103:
"Unlike visual signals, for example ship's flags, which exploit more than one dimension simultaneously, auditory signals have available to them only the linearity of time … they form a chain …"
"Par opposition aux signifiants visuels (signaux maritimes, etc.). qui peuvent offrir des complications simultanées sur plusieurs dimensions, les signifiants acoustiques ne disposent que de la ligne du temps; … ils forment une chaîne."
See also Saussure (1983), p.69-70.
[5.77] My comments on Charles Sanders Peirce were based on Broadbent's brief summary (1977, p.480) and relevant sections of Gallie, W. B. Peirce and pragmatism, Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1952. The density of Peirce's original writings can be seen by a glance at Peirce on signs, a collection of his writings on semiotic assembled and edited by James Hooper, University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, 1991.
[5.78] Scully's description of the Robie House: (1960), p.21. (Cited in Ligo 1984, p.83.)
[5.79] It is probably fair to say that engineers spend most of their time working in the latter mode …
See Fazlur Khan's comment in BCSA (1970) (p.177) and Armstrong and Jack (1969) in the same publication (p.169).
[5.80] Symbolism of colours. These examples are based on comments made by French coloriste consultante M. Jean Cler of Atelier Cler, Paris, during a lecture at the Dept of Architecture, University of Melbourne, c.1986. He had provided advice on colour for a housing estate in the West Indies and found that blue houses were unsaleable. He mentioned that in the south-east of France certain colours are considered "Italian" and are avoided by French home owners. For the Japanese, red is an auspicious colour which is much used for temples.
[5.81] Panofsky quotations: "synthetic intuition" and "the more subjective and irrational this source of interpretation …" (1939), p.15 and (1951), pp.1-2.
Panofsky quotation: "must needs try to discover intrinsic analogies …"
Panofsky (1951), pp.1-2. "To grasp these principles we need a mental faculty comparable to that of a diagnostician, - a faculty which I cannot describe better than by the rather discredited term 'synthetic intuition', and which may be better developed in a talented layman than in an erudite scholar. However, the more subjective and irrational this source of interpretation (for every intuitive approach will be conditioned by the interpreter's psychology and Weltanschauung), the more necessary the application of those correctives and controls which proved indispensable where only an iconographical analysis in the narrower sense, or even a mere pre-iconographical description was concerned." [Panofsky's emphases.]
[5.82] See for example Zevi (1974 pp.274-5). However, the more one reads these broad-sweeping analyses, the more plausible they become. As Bonta points out, a well-articulated text is by tradition an artefact in which form and content are perfectly adapted to each other. If the author has integrated the text properly, anything that destroys its unity will appear to be unworthy of mention. (Bonta 1979, p.122.)
[5.83] Norberg-Schultz: the densely-packed columns of the Ionic order " …appear as holy groves, symbolised by a forest of columns …" (1974), p.27.
[5.84] Norberg-Schultz on Gothic architecture as a manifestation of the ordered Christian cosmos. (1974), p.111.
[5.85] Panofsky on articulation in thirteenth century texts and Gothic architecture. (1951), pp.7-8, 45-9, 68-9.
[5.86] References to Preziosi and March and Steadman.
Preziosi (1979b), especially pp.22-25, and March and Steadman (1971), pp.27, 28. Relevant figures appear in Broadbent, Bunt and Jencks (1980), p.315.
[5.87] The Crystal Palace, London. Norberg-Schultz (1974) mentions this building on his p.178 (figures p.179). Further accounts located were: Chadwick (1961); Bird (1976); Beaver (1970); and Thorne, R. 'Paxton and prefabrication.' pp.52-69 in Walker (1987).
The structural frame of a modern airliner. see e.g. Green,W. & Swanborough,G. (1978). The illustrated encyclopaedia of the world's commercial aircraft. Salamander, London, p.54.
[5.88] Perception of the modern movement as meaning-free and functional, and the Beaux-Arts style as the antithesis of this. Bonta (1979), p.21.
[5.89] … a desire to replace the irrationality of the Romantic movement by a supposedly rational and value-free classicism: Tzonis and Lefaivre (1975), cited in Bonta 1979, p.21. "… the Beaux-Arts philosophy had itself originated in an almost equally restrained, 'value free', anti-romantic attitude. Guadet and his colleagues at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts were trying to bring architecture back to the best tradition of rationality and scientific basis in design which they believed had originated in the seventeenth century".
[5.90] Jencks on attempts to produce a 'value-free' architecture: (1984), p.20.
[5.91] Bonta on attempts to produce a 'value-free' architecture: (1979), p.22.
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