In Paul Valéry’s Eupalinos ou l’architecte, Socrates and Phaedrus encounter each other in the afterlife where their conversation takes them to the subject of architecture and a certain Eupalinos, a master architect whom Phaedrus had known. Phaedrus shares with Socrates the contents of his discussions with Eupalinos regarding the art of architecture, its perfection, and the concern for order that occupied this architect’s mind. This discussion of the architect’s knowledge and skills and his evident love of his art, evoked a vivid memory in Socrates who then recounted to Phaedrus an event from his youth which had a pivotal significance in his life. Socrates had been walking by the sea when a mysterious object that had washed ashore attracted his attention. Upon examination, the partially eroded object left Socrates unsure as to whether it was a product of nature or of human artifice. This uncertainty compelled him to reflect upon a number of themes: the object, the matter and the form; the indivisibility between the maker and the made; the principles that inform construction; can principles and the act of construction be separated? And what of the relation between the necessary and the beautiful? A difficult choice presented itself to the young Socrates who hesitated between becoming a philosopher or an architect, because he hesitated between knowing and building, between the philosopher that he will be and the architect that he never was. Socrates the philosopher confesses that he always held within him an incomplete architect. This fictive dialogue, resonant with verisimilitude, can stand as an analogy to the kind of contemplation that characterizes the mind that reflects on making (Greek poein, Latin facere) in general, and on the specificity of architectural making, namely, construction. For, architecture, Vitruvius tells us, derives from building (fabrica) and reasoning (ratiocinatio). At this point, we are not yet at the level where theory is constructed.

This essay will discuss three main questions regarding architectural theory: the causal relation between building and theory; the necessary mental conditions that precede theory; and a definition of theory in its scope, discourse and nature. Reflection precedes realization, but theory does not necessarily precede practice. Any adumbration of an act of building necessitates a certain understanding of an idea of enclosure, of load-bearing and load-borne; and the result is a physical approximation of this idea. Therefore some kind of reflection (the will to act upon an idea, an image) always precedes building (the activity itself), in view of arriving at the desired end (shelter). Theory, however, is a systemic elaboration of knowledgethat operates based on definitions and concepts, in the sense that definitions build concepts, and concepts in turn build a theory, but not the reverse of the sequence. In other words, a definition does not contain a theory, but a theory comprises many definitions.

Attic Ionic order from the north hall of the Erechteum

Consider the following three examples. To build a beam over two vertical supports pre-supposes an understanding of spanning. Thus, one can define trabeation as the vertical members that support a horizontal member spanning a certain distance that depends on the properties of the wood utilized, and the weight that needs to be carried. To build an architrave that spans two columns, each of which is crowned by an abacus and based on a plinth, presupposes a concept of how the column transfers weight from the architrave, of how it meets the ground, and how other structural elements mediate between the column, the architrave, and the ground in order to reflect this condition. Finally, to build a trabeation of two pieces with internal and external facings over, say, Ionic columns with entasis and where the corner volute inflects inward, pre-supposes a theory of the tectonic transformation of columnar and trabeational types, as well as a way to respond to frontality and the observer’s view of the building’s corner.

Theory, then, comes late, only because it is the synthesis of a content that was already present. It is constructed after a prolonged reflection over many experiences, based on common, comparative, or contrasting sets of criteria. However, before the establishment of theory in the above mentioned sense, and indeed beyond any historicity, there is some element¹

Attic-Ionic order from the north hall of the Erechteum

Now, although the direction of causation is asymmetrical in the sense that the cause² necessitates the effect, it is not sufficient to consider one event to be the cause of another simply because it preceded it. For this reason, it is useful to distinguish between an origin and a beginning. Both are causal, but the first is causal on the level of paradigm³ (e.g., the universal type, the foundational myth, the primitive hut), while the second is causal on the level of an historical sequence (e.g., the particular model, the archaeological precedent). Maintaining such a clear distinction following a long sequence of historical developments proves to be a laborious task because quite a number of causes usually combine to make one effect, one building. Also, the subsequent explanations for architectural forms are not causes. For example, if some architectural forms (the primitive hut, the triglyph, the Corinthian capital) have evoked the various theories that later explained them, note how these theories in turn influenced the making of future architectural forms. This discourse need not necessarily be circular if one keeps in mind the difference between an origin and a beginning, and considers theory and practice to be two parts of a larger tripartite dialectic which includes poetics. We shall return to this point at the end of this essay.

Architects also pursue causality because they seek knowledge for its own sake as well as for the sake of the usefulness or need which produced their art in the first place. This need constitutes the specificity that distinguishes architecture from the other arts. Accordingly, the question arises: what are the irreducible intellectual causes for architecture to occur? Notwithstanding his rejection of Plato’s Forms, which explained the metaphysical (experience beyond the senses) reasons for ideas and their reception and elaboration by the mind, Aristotle’s quartet of causes-the material, formal, efficient, and final-provides a valuable set of criteria.⁴ Wood is the material cause of a house, a matter that is potentially the house, which actually becomes the house when it is given the formal cause. Thinking is the efficient cause for making the house. It is that intentionality from which the act of beginning the house derives, while the purpose for which shelter is made is the final cause toward which all the other causes tend. Hence, the purposeful directionality (telos) of human making⁵ in imitation of Nature’s ways of making. Put differently, although the form of a house has no physical presence independently from the tree, the tree does not cause the house’s form without the efficient cause of the maker. Efficient cause is not simply A causes B; rather, it pertains to momentous constituents of the human character whose external manifestations are making and dwelling.⁶ Efficient cause is a kind of making qualified by a purpose other than itself⁷ and its own processes; it is not self-generated, it is a making based on an idea, an image to which some pre-existing material is then made to conform in sensuous form. It touches the essential nature of architecture for two reasons. First, because it concerns one of the ontological traits of the human character: the need to live, move and have our being in a world constructed within Nature, taking her laws (natura naturans) as models and using her products (natura naturata) as materials. Second, because it originates architectural properties which are necessary and not just circumstantial. In other words, efficient causation assures rational architectural properties whose proven success merits their preservation for posterity, hence the idea of tradition. This way a collection of experiences—and later theory—can anticipate practice. Causality, in the final analysis, concerns the essential nature of architecture (the idea of dwelling individually and collectively), the purpose to which it tends (solid shelter, the common good of cities), the forms that compose it (the various typologies), and the materials out of which these forms are made (wood, stone, brick).

Image and word, type and model, imitation and invention play foundational roles in the formation of architecture, its perfection as an art, and the eventual elaboration of its tenets into a theory. In this section, we will look closely at the three dualities mentioned above, discussing their relationships and their influence on the way we understand architecture.

IMAGE AND WORD

In other words, these Forms stand to the images as poetical metaphors, or as patterns, as intelligible universals, which are actualized or realized when united with matter. Forms can be seen as structural potentials that stand on the level of the artistically true, while the resulting images stand on the level of the artistically factual. Images, or the artistically factual, can be classified into three divisions. First are visual images, which include perceptual data, e.g., sense data, and graphic images which include drawings, paintings, sculptures and architecture. Second are mental images which include ideas and involve memory. Third are verbal images which include metaphors and descriptions.

To reflect on the image, the word and the building implies inquiry about the ends for which the mind constructs architecture, the means used to construct buildings, and the intellectual means used to apprehend this construction. We dwell through the images and the words that we produce, receive, maintain, destroy, restitute, restore and rebuild. Symbolic forms such as myth, language, religion, art, architecture and science order the world of experience through their modes of representation. Here, the image and the word play an active mediatory function. The name as a primary universal ¹¹ precedes the concept with its dual function of denoting and meaning, but both name and concept arise as reflections on language and reflections on logic come together.

The first moment of naming the architectural object during constructional activity is a moment brimming with symbolism, when this object returns the gaze of the maker and the observer, and invites such naming. Architectural naming here operates as the expression of the maker toward this object, and as the expression of the observer of the architectural object. Accordingly, naming participates in constructing the world by recognizing the objective qualities within form (e.g., beauty as an objective property of beautiful things); the subjective attributes to these qualities (e.g., the expression that a subject imputes to a form as part of making it); or the expression imparted to a newly encountered form. Only when the seen form is named does it acquire a distinct identity, intrinsic and extrinsic meaning. Consider, for instance, the following three examples: 1) the cornice, from the Greek korone, the Latin corona, something curved, a luminous ring, a crown; 2) the ovolo from the Italian ovo, from the Latin ovum, or egg; 3) or the cyma for the Greek kuma, the Latin cymatium, or molding. But sight alone does not suffice, and naming alone does not suffice. Knowledge of the same architectural phenomenon can be approached mostly visually, but in part linguistically. It proves difficult to separate both of these approaches, for to suggest that sense data can be ostensibly apprehended without recourse to language leaves it unclear as to what role language fulfills in how and when meaning occurs. Remedying the problem of this “presentational immediacy,” but without negating the possibility of having an experience which does not depend on some form of language, one can easily surmise that language was present initially, accompanying the earliest instances of the architectural experience. These were also the first instances of expression within which elements of form and meaning were already co-present.¹² In this perspective, the approach to knowledge through the image occurs in a world where the word had already been playing a constitutive role. This constitutive role was surely a short experience because of the immediate addition of layers of logic and experience.

Japanese temple, 4th century

The word (name) then contributes to the formation, the representation and the meaning of the image—an essentially aesthetic function. Image and word belong to a symbolic order which can be defined as that which enables a concrete object to acquire a significance beyond its concreteness, its utility. The symbol is to the object what a universal is to a particular. Meaning, to the symbol, is not an arbitrary matter. Rather it establishes analogical constructs between two related parts: the instrumentality of objects, and the truths that these objects instantiate. Consider for example, the multiplicity of meanings associated with the following words. The arch not only holds a wall, transfers weight, encloses, and spans a certain distance using concentrically arranged stones. It also symbolically encloses the scope of an endeavor in a given arc of time. The sickle cuts grass and symbolizes the worker. The trowel spreads and shapes plaster, but it can also stand for the solidarity in a shared guild. The scale weighs somebody or something, but in balancing dualities it can denote soundness of judgment. The axe fells trees, but it can abruptly end someone’s employment. The pen writes with ink, but it is also a particular style of writing. Symbolic thought is synthetic in that it allows external and internal meanings to fuse within the object. Hence representation is a symbolic act.¹³

As a symbol and tool for the aesthetic activity of the mind, the word is propitiously placed as a mediator, establishing relationships between various phenomena, qualia (the subjective qualities of experience) and characters. The word is mediation par excellence. This mediation allows the word to be involved at once in immediate experience, in expression, as well as to be removed from this immediacy to serve other objects of the mind, such as engaging in reflection or perception beyond the level of ordinary experience.¹⁴ Thus, both language (word) and sense data (image) point to the mental existence of meanings which themselves can be subject to, but also independent from the experience of the senses. In such a way, language is also necessary for the imagination, whether in its Kantian form of a unity between sense data and concepts in ordinary perception or aesthetic judgement, or in G. B. Vico’s form of fantasia needed for the retrieval of a theory of origins, a poetic wisdom (sapienza poetica) answering the tragedy of history, in a manner akin to a Platonic understanding of type in architecture.¹⁵ The word then, is a symbol of value because it symbolically connects various forms of expression with concepts. On the one hand, conceptions can originate forms of expression, whether the mind contemplates Platonic Forms or whether it provides the Kantian “transcendental constituent of form.” On the other, conceptions can arise from forms of expression, as in a Herbartian scheme, where the mind will sift, analyze, categorize and combine ideas according to their congruities or differences.¹⁶

In such a manner the mind constructs a world within the world, and then reflects upon its own activity, as well as its own aesthetic appreciation of such activity. Meaning emerges out of the very act of constructing meaning. And so the mind considers its proper symbolic relations with its own constructions, and in comparison to other constructions. Thus, meaning in architecture occurs in four directions: in the architect’s mind prior to building, concurrent with the act of building, its reception by the observing mind, and the mind’s return of the building’s gaze on the level of individual and social views. This is what makes buildings speak to us. Meaning derives in force from efficient causation, and because works of architecture have significance. Consider this passage from Vitruvius’De architectura: “In all matters, but particularly in architecture, there are these two points:—the thing signified (quod significatur, or the factual, the objective presence of a building or a work of art, the image) and that which gives it its significance (quod significat, or the artistically true, what transcends a building or a work of art, the word).”¹⁷ In this perspective, the relationship between Vitruvius’ratiocinatione, or theoretical knowledge, and fabrica, or practice, can be understood respectively as the true naming the factual as the made. Clearly, it is untenable to hold that there is a categorical division between the signifier and the signified, otherwise, one would have to accept the absurd corollary that architectural form stands separate from architectural significance. Architecture, then, thrives in two realms at once: the artistically true or the transcendent, which designates an efficient causation that directs a work of architecture while remaining outside of it; and the factual or the immanent, which designates the contingent aspects of construction, a certain perceived reality.

Symbolic representation, linguistic and visual, results from a synthetic agreement between sense data and the mind. As “ways of life,”¹⁸ the image and the word can theoretically stand for the same meaning. However, the experience of the word in syntax is unlike the experience of the image in visual art. Whereas the word is instrumental in grasping the true and the factual, it does not engender the image. In this sense, language does not comprise within itself the image or other sensory data, although it can evoke them. For this reason, the word and the image do not share the same dialectical structure. If they did, we would find that the visual and the verbal are reducible to each other. The relationship between a writer and a reader or two people communicating in the same language is not the same as that of the architect, and an observer’s perception of the architect’s building. The image and the word cannot be collapsed into each other. They are not phenomena which lead an independent existence until a pre-conceived meaning is later attached to them. From here derives the larger deduction that it is erroneous to consider any carrier of a message as a language.

TYPE AND MODEL