Thank you very much for
the introduction, Edith.
And I hope that you will
all find this talk at least
somewhat interesting.
It's a somewhat speculative talk I've
been thinking about this issue or this set
of issues for a couple of years. I
planned on giving you this talk, you know,
a little while ago, even before the
current events that have been shocking,
our nation which, you know,
seem to testify to a common need for
more kindness. I do believe that,
that architecture has
the capacity to be kind,
and I do believe that
classical architecture offers
an incredibly valuable set
of tools in this direction. So I
hope that you'll find the talk,
even if you don't agree with everything
I'm going to say, because again,
it's somewhat speculative.
It's a weird combination of history
and theory to be completely honest.
I hope you'll find it
provocative at least.
So I should probably begin by
telling you how I came to this place,
how I wanted to write a talk and to
explore the problem of kindness. And it,
and it began because I found myself in
a particularly vulnerable psychological
state and,
and was in Barcelona after a
month and a half of being on the
road, traveling, doing research,
spending time with colleagues,
some of whom are wonderful, and
some of them are not so wonderful,
spending a lot of time with
strangers. And then finally,
I was going to go to Barcelona and
meet one of my best friends who's from
another part of Spain.
And I was going to put my luggage aside
and I was just going to spend time with
a dear friend.
When I got to Barcelona after
about nine hours of traveling
and walking, subways, buses,
airplanes, you name it.
I was exhausted.
And then I realized when I got to the
hotel that he had booked that he had
gotten his dates wrong and that he was
coming the next day and that there was no
reservation for me and anybody who's been
to Barcelona knows it's a huge tourist
town. There was no reservation
anywhere. I couldn't find a thing.
So I was sitting there in
Barcelona, looking at the
prospect, already exhausted,
of having no place to
stay. And then people, the,
the people at the hotel
weren't especially nice to me,
the people where I went to get some
food weren't especially nice. It was a,
it was a, it was a hard day. Finally,
I managed to find someplace where I
could throw my luggage and, and sleep.
It wasn't especially nice.
And then the only upside of this place
is that it was very near the Casa Mila.
One of the buildings I wanted to see by
Antoni Gaudi who's a famous expression
architect, as I'm sure all of, you know.
And so I was depleted exhausted and
walking down to, to see this
building. And there was a little,
a little cafe inside.
I didn't even know they had a cafe
and I stepped inside the cafe.
And it wasn't open yet. And I
thought, okay, well, you know,
another little bit of bad luck, but then
the people came to me and they said,
it's okay. It's okay. Don't worry.
You can sit down here. You can relax.
You can you know, take it easy.
And they brought me a beer
and they brought me some
little olives that were the
most delicious olives I've ever
had in my life. And the soft,
wonderful flowing architecture
of Gaudi, this incredible roof.
I felt like I had been swaddled in
a blanket and these little gestures
of kindness made me feel so at home. I
could finally relax after a long, long,
hard day. And many people have had
a lot longer, a lot harder days,
don't get me wrong. I'm not
pretending like it was a,
I'm a huge victim or something, but you
know what it's like, you have a long,
hard day and then somebody is nice
to you. And it just feels so good.
And the building was a huge part
of that, of that experience.
The soft undulating roof,
which is original to Gaudi and,
and then I was sitting on this,
this is the picture I took.
And I finally just kind of
melted into this cushion.
And I was looking up at that column
and I was thinking that I was just,
I was just so so kind of
tuned in to gestures of warmth
and soft nursing kindness. I was looking
at that column and thinking, well,
that's not, doric, that's
not ionic, no Corinthian,
but it's, it's a kind of capital. And
then it just looks like it's being sweet.
It just looks like that column is making
an effort to, to gently expand and,
and, and, and to support to,
to, to kindly engage with that,
with that bit of architecture,
it's supporting, which itself,
because it's Gaudi was soft and fleshlike
almost like the underbelly of a whale
or something and that column
was, was working hard.
It was expanding and,
and doing its best to enter into a kind
of negotiation so that it could support
that architecture with a little
more kindness, a little more warmth,
just like I was being supported by
the warm billow on that cushion.
And I thought, you know,
that's really what all these column
capitals have in common in fact.
That they they're, they, they seem
kind. They're, they're working to,
to negotiate with the other members of
the structure and they're doing so in a
way that's visibly excessive,
visibly above and beyond
the, the need of structure.
Just like the people in this restaurant
are going above and beyond the needs of
commerce. So kindness, I mean,
I should probably define that word since
this whole talk kind of hinges on it.
It is an abstract word. It's a
word that we all take for granted.
I don't usually throw the dictionary
at people, but in this case,
I think it would be
valuable. It's an old word.
It dates back to middle
English for kindenes,
which meant noble deeds or courtesy,
and kindness can refer to
specific acts. You know,
when you offer assistance to somebody
or an expression of affection,
and those are two different
kinds of specific acts.
Kindness is giving somebody a glass of
water when they need a glass of water.
It's giving somebody a
strawberry when they're hungry.
These are basic physical needs. But it's,
but it's also doing things
that are not necessary,
doing things that are not functional
for your biological survival.
It could be simply saying,
good morning, simply saying,
hello doing something in
fact, it is, you know,
when somebody is obligated to
give you water, it doesn't count.
And when somebody is obligated to, to
open their mouth and say words at you,
it doesn't count. But when
somebody willingly goes,
goes a beyond what is required,
what all beyond what is obligated and
they do so in such a way that it makes you
feel taken care of, that
it makes you feel safe,
that it makes you feel well and valued
and important, then that's kindness.
And so it can be a meaningful gesture.
It can be a meaningless gesture in many
ways. It can, and it can be specific,
but it can also be overall. A
person's manner can be kind.
An environment can be kind this
like horrifically sweet Victorian
engraving it's everything
about it is kind,
these two people are being so
sweet to each other. And the,
the flowers all around, it's
a kind nurturing environment.
The little gate back there suggested
this is an accessible place.
Even the butterflies above, are like
giving little kisses up in the sky.
This whole image is all
about mutual affection,
welcome, life, warmth, gentleness.
This is a place of safety and wellbeing.
And the question is, can architect,
does architecture engage in this,
this manner of communication
and this matter of perception?
I think it does. And I agree that
kindness is a metaphor inevitably with
architecture architecture
doesn't have a will,
although some many cultures in
the past have, believed it did.
And we'll talk about some
of those in a moment,
but we know that architecture is probably
not alive and that it doesn't actually
have a spirit inside of it. At least
not in the same way that humans do.
And, and so it's, it's clearly a metaphor.
But I think it's a metaphor
that's very important.
And it's important for
several reasons. And,
and those reasons I'm going to explain
and nurse throughout this entire talk,
but let me, let me explain what I
mean, though, when I use this metaphor.
There are a few different ways that
architecture can express kindness
that architecture can help make people
feel warm and well, and welcome,
can feel that they matter,
and that they are in a healthy and
sympathetic place of peace and stability,
where they belong, where they are safe,
and where their needs as a living,
a dignified, but vulnerable
organic being can be met.
One of them is found in the ways that the
different structural members of a work
of architecture relate to one another.
These members can engage one another with
a visual poetry of mutual negotiation,
engagement, collaboration,
diplomacy, and celebration.
The members of a structure should not be
seen engaging in hostile acts with one
another as dominant members overwhelm
and impose themselves upon passive
members, but rather architectural members,
structural members should reach out to
one another as these two columns embrace
and intertwine creating a visual
language of healthy, safe, stable,
peaceful relationships. You know,
its said that justice and peace are
inextricable from one another in our human
societies. Well,
when different members of a structure
are seen doing justice to one another,
as they collaborate to create
an architectural system,
visual peacefulness is the
result. A structural sympathy,
a systemic kindness seems
to infuse the building.
The second way that buildings can
express kindness is by pulling visitors,
pulling viewers into the structurally
sympathetic system thus created.
And the way that buildings
do this is by visual,
visually blossoming and warm
vitality presenting evidence
that are, that, that the architecture
is itself healthy, welcoming,
and sufficiently tied into
creative forces, however,
defined to sustain visitors.
In other words, once the building
conveys its own internal justice,
its own balance and its own kind
of internal kindness as a balanced
ecosystem of healthy parts,
it then expresses its capacity to welcome
you into that ecosystem and to sustain
you. It greets you, and
it offers nourishment.
And it does this by revealing
its environmental vitality,
presenting organic textures and fabrics
presenting you with visual cues and
signals of life. Chief among
these, I would argue is the flower.
We will speak a lot about flowers
today. When architecture flowers,
when it's seen as a healthy, wholesome
thing, which is stable in and of itself,
and then it flowers to
you, it is being kind,
and it has the capacity for kindness
that it develops internally.
And then it extends that kindness
to you. The Doric column,
And of course, this is the most
primitive state of the Doric,
but I choose to use this example because
they're so-called pillow capitals
convey the key principle of
the Doric with utmost clarity.
These pillow capitals are called
that because they look like pillows.
The column has become soft.
It could have remained
stubbornly rigidly vertical.
It is made out of stone after all,
but instead the column has allowed its
head to bow. It has become squished,
taking a moment to become soft, gentle,
and kind as it intersects with
the other structural member.
The column does not just conduct its
stony business with the lintel above in a
cold matter of fact way, throwing it
into the air, whether it likes it or not.
But rather the column slows down and
stops to say, hello, good morning,
nice to see you lintel.
And then kindly raises it in
a way that takes more effort,
but as clearly much comfier to our
dear friend and colleague the lintel.
Now as subsequent evolutions of the
doric attest, there is a fine line here.
You don't want your columns to look too
squishy because squishy gushy columns
might collapse. And that is very
bad. Column should look strong,
but they should not look like tyrants or
bullies that impose their will on other
architectural members in
a cruel or arbitrary way.
The lintel left to its own devices does
not really want to hang up there in the
air. It wants to come down.
Gravity ensures that the surface of the
earth and the large stones have that
kind of relationship. This
lintel is being held up,
but we cannot read it as a passive victim
that is being kidnapped and carried
off to a lifetime of forced labor because
the columns are going out of their way
to make it nice. They are
being soft and gentle,
transitioning from vertical to horizontal
in and of themselves in their own
bodies.
And thus the interest of the columns and
the interest of the lintel are united
in a gentle and kind way.
So the ionic capital much
like the doric capital.
It is the things that
make it what it is are,
are examples of negotiation and
diplomacy. The column goes vertical of,
I mean, sorry, horizontal with,
with the fluting right before it,
it,
it commits itself to the horizontal lintel
with the column compromising its own
nature in the process providing
a moment of transition.
And of course the flutes are very soft.
Like the idea is that
they look like very soft,
coiled something you can rest
your head on very comfortably.
And therefore the lintel must also
be interpreted subconsciously as,
as being comfortable. Even more so
right with the Corinthian column,
which is the, you know,
the ultimate in softness,
there is I think nothing more
superfluous than the gift of
a flower, right? You know, 99
times out of a million a, well, no,
that's a terrible set of odds. 999,999
times out of a million,
you cannot eat a flower nor
can you drink the flower nor
can you use the flower
to purchase anything.
The flower is hopelessly useless,
except that it's delightful.
And the reason it's delightful, is partly
aesthetic because it looks wonderful,
but it's also delightful when it's given
to you because it's an expression of
sentiment. It's an expression of care.
The only reason they gave you that flower
is because they want you to feel nice
most of the time when flowers are given.
And so this column presents this
wonderful bouquet of acanthus leaves,
which has often includes foliation of
different kinds with flowers and is
giving a gift, a gift of a soft springy
bed that looks visibly comfortable,
but also there's this gift of a bouquet.
Now you know, it's, it's
significant that, that the,
that the lintel itself,
that the entire literature is
also foliated and providing a
sympathetic array of Botanic life.
And it's also significant that the
cornice is engaging in all manner of
mathematical sophistications, because
it's going out of its way to avoid
an abrupt end and indeed even
the pediment roof, right?
It is essentially, you know,
there's a million reasons to have a
pediment roof, to have a Gable. It,
it helps shed water. Of course, we all
know these things, but in addition,
visible visually it's so,
it's so gratifying because the building
essentially just get smaller and smaller
and smaller and smaller as it
goes up until it disappears.
And indeed when those,
as those lines converge in the point
as they compromise indeed with the
sky itself, as the building
blends in with the sky,
usually when they meet together, the
lines don't annihilate each other,
there's usually a little equity,
a little often a little pinnacle,
a little celebration.
And indeed this building almost likely
originally had one on the side where the
cornice flanges out. It,
it also makes the transition to the sky
as it goes from verticality to a gesture
of horizontality. Again, I know
it's also good for shedding water,
but that's not the point. There
are other ways to shed water.
This is a magnificent way of having all
the lines of this building go out of
their way to, to blend
in with the next moment,
whether that next moment
is the goes from the, the,
the base of the column to the shaft,
to the capitol, to, to the lintel to,
to the, to the roof itself.
And then to the sky and the undulating
rhythm of the tiles on the side also
helps the building to kind
of blend in with the sky.
There's an opposite to
all of these transitions,
all of these moments of diplomacy,
and that is abruptness and abruptness,
as we all know is when something
happens suddenly when it's done quickly,
when it's done without any,
any gesture of transition, any,
any extra superfluous word or,
or emotion and abruptness
can hurt. I mean,
it can physically hurt if you have an
abrupt start in an elevator, there's,
there's almost nothing more terrifying
because you get the impression that the
elevator is no longer key to human needs
and that's something terrible could
happen. Yeah.
And an abrupt turn in and an
automobile is also a dangerous
and scary, you know you
know, we need softness,
we are organic beings and
abruptness in a barista or in a,
in another human being is,
is, is scary. You know,
when somebody says, good morning
again, when they say, good afternoon,
how are you doing, that kindness,
even though it's totally useless,
you know,
when people get together to discuss the
distribution of aluminum clips and they
start off the conversation with, Hey,
are you doing Michael, how's Edith,
how's her hand after that
bowling accident? Oh, she's
doing fine. She's doing,
none of that has anything to do with
the distribution of aluminum clips.
But what it does have to do is with,
is the creation of a fabric of a social
and cultural fabric that is dedicated to
more than just transactions,
that is dedicated to something
other than oppression,
something other than
exploitation. It's a place where,
where mutual engagement creates a sense
of wellbeing where care is expressed.
And it's in those places, in those
transitions where care is expressed.
Care is not expressed when you
buy a coffee and you get a coffee.
Cara is expressed when you say hello,
good morning. And then that person says,
good morning back to you
and gives you a smile.
These are the things that help a society
continue to run, and without sympathy,
without,
without kindness it doesn't matter
how wealthy your society might be.
It's not going to last,
which is of course, something
we've been seeing lately.
Oppression, exploitation,
even a simple lack of sympathy
will begin to unravel a whole,
a whole society. You need sympathy,
you need kindness, you need warmth.
And architecture has a great, has a,
has a role in conveying these things.
So abruptness, right? There's the sudden
stop the, the, the lack of regard,
the lack of care the lack
of communication of, for,
for the interest or the, the,
even the existence of the other,
whether it's the other member
of the structure or the
other member of a society,
abruptness is unkind. And, you know, it's,
it's amazing that this building even
has a colonnade, like by doing that,
it has at least initiated a conversation
with, with humans, but it is a,
an abrupt conversation. Not only do
those columns show no interest and, and,
and raising that plinth in
such a way that it has any in a
comfort or softness, or is an equal
partner. In fact, it, impales the thing.
It looks visibly painful.
That that thing is,
has being suspended like a
Turk at the hands of the,
of the barbaric Romanians at the time
of the of the Wars in the Balkans
there. This is, this is barbarism. This
is cruelty. This is, this is meanness.
And you might think it's silly
for me to, to run this far with,
with an office building,
especially one that's regarded as,
as a UNESCO treasure.
But now I'm going to get to the next
point in which I try to argue that this is
not evidence that I have
a psychological problem.
I do have a psychological problem,
but so do you. And so do all of us,
and that's because we're humans,
I don't know how many of you
have seen this image lately,
but it's been making the rounds.
And Facebook, Instagram, Twitter,
all the usual venues as a meme.
And if, if I, if I was
live with you in person,
I would beg you to tell me what
you see, but I have to just say it,
they're hugging. It looks like
they're hugging. And yeah,
that's why people are looking at this
and sharing it all over the world,
because most people look at this and
they say, Oh, it might take a second,
might take two seconds,
but you see the hug.
And if I showed this to my wife and
she didn't just see the hug, she said,
she thought the other building the
one that's not extending its arms.
It looks like it's having
a Me Too moment that, that,
that the building that's doing the
hugging, his hand is a little too low.
And the other building is a little drawn
up and kind of looks like it's a little
uncomfortable. You know,
this, this is something we do.
And it's something that we've always done.
And it's something that people have
been talking about for a long time.
There is a universal tendency amongst
mankind to conceive all beings like
themselves and to transfer to every
object those qualities with which they are
familiarly acquainted, and of which
they are intimately conscious.
So David Hume is not the first,
but he's one of the first
people to not to notice it,
but to theorize this idea that humans
see humanness in inanimate objects,
that we look at everything, whether it's
the lightning or whether it's a rock.
And we have a tendency to project
our own experiences and knowledge,
and even our own being onto these
things, it's a natural thing to do.
Stephen Houseton, a famous Mayanist,
and epigrapher and anthropologist has,
has, you know,
summarized all the scholarship on this
topic by saying the impulse to humanize
the inhuman is an inescapable
part of cognition.
It's just rooted in the
way we think. It occurs,
because if because of
psychological determinants,
including the comforting
attraction of ready knowledge,
the necessity of meeting threat and
seeking advantage and the pull of social
affiliation. You know, just like me,
when I walked into that
cafe in Barcelona, you know,
I was feeling vulnerable. I was a
little, you know, I wouldn't say,
I would say I was a little scared.
You know, I'd had a long day. And,
and and I was looking, you know, my,
my eyes were wide and I
was seeking sympathy and I
found it in the building and
I found it in the people
and I found it in the seat.
And even in the Twilight and one act of
kindness goes a long way to making your
entire environment feel better.
And an architecture can play a
vital role in this. So here's,
I'm gonna get a little heavier now
to try to prove to you that this,
all this kindness talk
is not just silliness.
It's not just like freshmen
speculation in the dorm after 2:00 AM.
Emerging studies in neuroscience,
and these are emerging,
this is really cutting edge stuff,
indicate that humans are hard wired
to seek visual evidence of safe,
flourishing, nurturing environments
indicated by among other things,
rhythmic patterns of foliate growth,
which exhibit a delicate balance of
softness and strength, variety, and order.
They've done studies, they've
measured, people's hormone levels.
They've taken people's blood
pressure. And, and, you know,
sometimes the best science
tells you what you already know.
When we spend time walking in a field
of flowers or under a forest canopy
gazing at the undulating tree lines that
crown hills and mountains soaking up a
sunset contemplating the sea,
or considering a babbling brook.
Our minds and bodies are
restored. We are healthier.
Our bodies do better, our fight,
our fight or flight mech
you know hormones go down
which means our body can then spend
more times convincing it's our immune
system, not to fighting off a
threat, but to maintenance. So say,
you know,
cutting back on the likelihood of cancer
and of Alzheimer's and of a number of
other things that seem to be tied to
stress and to lack of sleep and to
having too many fight or flight
hormones raging in your body,
part of which has cued by environment.
Our environment has, has plays a large
role in our basic sense of wellbeing.
There's a whole theory called Kaplan's
attention restoration theory that helps
explain the aesthetic ingredient in this.
And that is that the soft fascination
of reassuring patterns engages our minds
while allowing us to unwind. It's not
just about being in flowers and trees,
because we like nature or
something as basic, or as,
as like hopelessly large as that I'm
talking very specifically the way these
patterns relate to our brains, the
way flowers relate to our brains,
the way the canopy of a tree relates
to our brains. And there's a,
there's a physiologic, there's a physical
reason, not just a physiological,
but a physical reason for this.
And that is our brain cells are unique
in our body and that they have to
constantly burn oxygen to survive.
Like they cannot stop burning oxygen.
They ha they they're always
active. They're always going,
and it can be a torment. And if
you don't have, if you essential,
you know, sensory deprivation
is a form of torture.
You know solitary confinement is a
form of torture. You know, these,
these are things that, that can
drive you mad, but being able to,
but also being overstimulated,
having too much to process,
having too much to think about can also
can be unhealthy and unpleasant, but,
but a soft undulating pattern
of the kind you might find in,
in in foliate growth the kind
that, you know, we were created to,
or revolve to, or both,
depending on your take on things that
we are keyed into these things at a very
fundamental biological,
genetic evolutionary level.
And our brains can look at
these things can watch see,
the see can watch a fire flickering,
can watch a river go by and they can
occupy it at just the perfect level where
we can actually relax and unwind and
architectural ornament can play a huge
role in this. So humans are
constantly seeking cues from,
from their environment. We respond to
those cues on many levels and many ways,
both ways that we are aware
and ways that we are not aware.
We have a history of investing
architecture with the
visual language of gentle
vitality to create kind environments.
And these are visually kind
environments and psychologically kind.
And of course, there's a link between
those two things. Classical architecture,
breeds and pulses with such
life with such vitality.
So I'm going to very briefly talk
a little bit about this building.
Partly because it doesn't have any columns
and we've already talked about column
capitals and how they express negotiation,
how they convey softness
and gentleness to the,
to the lintels that they support.
If you look at this triumphal
arch, you have these massive piers,
right. To the left or to the right,
and then you have a band above
with a meander in it. Now,
a meander after called a Greek key
is a perfect example of this kind of
undulating rhythm, this kind of swirl,
almost like a gust of a breeze or
the crests of waves or of the foliate
growth of a creeping vine
or even, you know the,
the, the patterns of, of of,
of biological things like seashells.
And so this is exactly the kind of thing
that I love to just kind of gently go
across. And what this does is it crosses
the pier, is it, it takes its time.
It's not just an abrupt
direct line, right?
It takes its sweet little time and it,
it goes around and around and around
and it beckons you on as it does.
And it's also simultaneously summoning
the strength of the pier. It's saying,
come along pier,
come along pier as it goes from right
to there and is approaching the middle,
come along, buddy, come along force
and power. We have a job to do pier.
And summons the full force of that
pier to the center on the arch,
which is then visibly supported.
You see that arch is being visibly
supported by the whole pier because of the
way that that meander works.
And then as the arch springs up,
it has a herald for crying out loud
on that is trumpeting to the arch,
to the pier on the other side, we're
coming, we're ready to do our job.
We're good. Come on, come on team.
We're gonna meet in the middle and we're
going to work together and we're going
to make this magnificent, huge vault
that could be terrifying, frankly.
I mean, it's terrifying to stand
under huge, enormous things,
but with these heralds conveying to
each other. There's this collaboration.
And as the art, these arches,
with the full support of their
piers behind them reach up,
and then they meet in the middle. They,
again, they don't obliterate each other,
but rather they meet with the
celebration, which with an affirmation,
which is the keystone.
And importantly keystones,
there's a million
different ways to do them,
but very often there's a human
head there, or there's a flower,
or there's in this case,
there's a kind of undulating,
scaly textured and there are many better
classicists in the world than I am.
And you might know that that's an
abstract dolphin fish tail or something.
I don't know what it is, but it's
a little scroll bracket. And it's,
it's the softness, the organic
nature of that is important.
You can also have a big, strong,
powerful keystone, but in this case,
this soft one it, it conveys
that there's like extra vitality,
extra life and this whole structural
system, and that one little extra vibe,
that one that soft key it's, you know,
summons the full force of those piers
to support the entablature above.
And of course the cornice goes
the extra mile, no abruptness.
It's all pleases and thank yous and good
morning ma'ams and good afternoon sirs
and, and constant negotiation as a,
as it works its way up the triumphal arch.
And then you get to the top
and you have this, you know,
it could have ended frankly,
with the top of the corners,
but it would have looked a little
squat according to human proportions.
So we have, in addition to a
body and legs, we need a head.
And so we have this crowning
band around, across the top,
which has a perfect blending of
the horizontal and the vertical.
This whole thing is about the vertical
becoming horizontal. And then at the top,
the vertical and the horizontal
are seen imperfect units. And,
and then of course, we had this
undulating, biological crown,
this parapet at the very top,
which helps it blend into the sky.
This whole thing is a series of
negotiations and interactions that,
that in which no piece is seen
taking advantage of the other piece,
they are all working together
and they all kind of triumphing.
You see a lot of these
same basic principles,
not just in Western classicism but
also in many different architectural
traditions. And we're going to
look at this tiny little building,
and ended up looking at a bigger
building in the Maya tradition.
So as you just saw, this is
a kind of gate, it's a gate,
not for a military parades,
but rather it's a gate for the sun
and it's a tiny little building,
but it does a lot of things that
Western classicism does is perfectly
symmetrical. It's got a clear
human scale and the door, the,
the two little windows on either side,
it's perfectly scaled to a human head.
And then we have a big
cornice along the top.
There's a masks in that,
in that frieze that are
positioned above the door
like a keystone. And indeed it's,
it's the mask suggests life and
vitality exactly where you need it.
And the keystones, the building
is healthy and vibrant,
and it's not going to collapse
and rot and die and kill you.
And then we also have masks on the
corners, another key structural place.
And then of course it doesn't just end,
but it has this, this tower at the top,
which tapers until it,
until it ends in the sky.
So that that's just the tiny
little building that's w
with its symmetry and it's
human scale and its corners, and it's
keystones, and it's coining, if you will,
and it's tapering roof,
it does a lot of these same transitions
and engages in a lot of these
superfluous. You might say
you know kind of psychological
ingredients that convey a sense
of, of not only intentionality, but,
but of harmony and of unity and of,
of stability. This is a,
is a much larger building.
I want to talk about a couple of
these. But before I go into it,
since the Maya aren't especially well
known I want to tell you a couple
of basic things about them so that we,
these buildings have become a
little more clear. So this stuff,
it looks a little chaotic to us
because we're not used to it, but,
but rest assured that notions of beauty
existed. This is Stephen Houston,
again of that, which was good,
better, best, and most pleasing,
inappropriate to the Maya, right?
These notions foster thought fit with
orderly principle and displayed systematic
patterns. They were extremely
good at creating meaningful,
repetitive patterns that
keyed into multiple visions
of how the universe worked
in their, and their estimation.
The classic Maya believed that animate
matter and things might associate with
humans. Energized by spirits and energies,
stones had the capacity to see
smell vocalize and breathe.
In some cases, a God live within their
Stony frames, sensitive to this vitality.
Humans took charge and forced these
substances to obey. People are frail,
but the lesson it seems is that they are
neither helpless nor completely mortal.
So I'd been talking about architecture
metaphorically as if it has this
is as if it's capable of being
kind to itself and to us,
but the Maya believed it could be,
that it was alive and
that it engaged with you.
And that's one of the reasons why we
see these same ingredients in their
buildings. So you'll see again,
we had these masks the masks
are on the cornice, right?
And then you have a stack of masks
in the middle above the doorway.
These masks are also a hieroglyph.
They mean wheats, which is to say,
they mean living stone. The Maya
saw stone as a living material,
a lot like plant material. It
it's alive. It's very slow.
And its spirits are hard,
it's it's personhood harder to access
than say the personhood of animals or even
plants, but it is alive.
And the Hills are,
are what happens when the
earth wants to meet the sky.
And it very slowly rises to meet the
sky and would lightning strikes from the
sky to the Hills, that's
the sky in reciprocity.
They understood cycles of creation that,
that when they saw mist
emerging from caves, they,
they knew that that led to rain because
they experienced this inside of caves.
They wouldn't with the
dripping roofs. And so they,
they see the stone and the
sky and the and the living
forces that unite all of
these things as being,
as being capable of being called forth
and embodied in their architecture so
that their homes were part of the living
social and spiritual fabric that could
make people feel good and that
could help their society maintain
the bounds of relationships
and courtesy and indeed of
kindness that enable all societies
to, to thrive and survive.
So in addition to having these masks on
the corners and above the main doorway
in this symmetrical building,
which is where the structure
of the building must be
at its most rigorous where
the life is most important.
But if you see these
bands that create these,
these kind of inverted triangular
forms in the upper register those are
double-headed serpents. Those represent
the sky, those represent the heavens.
And so in between these
double-headed serpent bands,
you have a lattice pattern
that there's, there's,
there's a few theories as
to what that represents.
And most of them are probably true.
One of them is that it represents the,
the lattice of, of thatch
and pole and construction,
which you find in humbler
buildings for thousands of years.
So it's a kind of skeuomorph,
a reminder of thatched construction
in this stone building,
which means that it's, it's, it's, the
stone is resembling a living material,
a botanic material. Another theory
is that it represents textiles,
which are also made out of both organic
materials. And that's also true.
Another theory is that it
represents the night sky.
Another theory is that it represents the,
the social fabric and that just
like the night sky is full of stars,
so to are, are are,
are society full of individuals and
indeed the stars, our ancestors. And so,
you know, there's a parity in,
in, in that, that fabric, which,
which by the way,
would have been vibrantly
colored originally that
that whole thing represents
the fabric of, of of
Mayan society, as well as,
as well as the cosmos and the way
that fabric interacts with the lower
register which is where the human bodies
are privileged and given a kind of
blank background creates a vault like
shape that is evocative of the Mayan
interiors. The Maya didn't have two
arches, they had corbeled vaults.
And as you can see, they
also had colonnades,
which are more on that in
a moment. But but this,
this corbeled vaulted space is being
abstractly represented in that,
in that mosaic on the, on the front
of the building of the facade.
Thereby you know, this building
is, is thereby able to,
to summon the full power of
living stone which is alive,
partly because of its engagement with,
with the heavens and with the
cycles of creation and to,
to spatialize it to spatialize it as
a place of discourse and discussion
for, for Maya polities and for,
and for Maya government
and for Maya citizens.
Now I need to be very specific
when I say Maya polities because
you see that temple in the background
that is an example of unkind architecture.
That is a living mountain
and, and, you know,
buildings can not only see and
hear you and, and nurture you and,
and envelop you and bring you
together with the ancestors,
with the cosmos and with each other,
but they can also- next slide.
They can also eat you. You
probably realize that that, that,
that that chamber of the top of
the staircase, that's a face.
They have anthropomorphized this
building to such an extent that it,
it is it is a hungry monster.
And indeed the word for doorway in
Maya "jol" is the same as the word from
mouth.
It's J O L and and terrible things
would happen in this building.
This is an unkind building. This is a
building that consumes and destroys.
The building we just discussed as part
of the other building, the building that,
that uses the arch and uses the sky.
And uses a living stone to create
a living architecture that is
whole,
and that is welcoming as part of the
complex called today we don't know what
they called it, the, the
Quadrangle of the Nunnery,
which was a council area where where
different people from all around the, the,
the polity of Uxmal and probably
from beyond would gather to discuss.
There was kingship here,
but there was also clearly a council
system that allowed different people to,
to participate in government. And so this
architecture is not a hungry ravenous,
cruel architecture,
but an architecture that
emphasizes the importance of, of,
of fabric and of life
and of joint enterprise.
So if you look at the columns, we
have, again, a really great example of,
of a column designed to go
from horizontal to vertical,
back to horizontal supporting an
entablature that goes above and
beyond with you know,
with a sculpted frieze and
a flanged cornice that has,
is decorated by a series of little
flowers. Anytime you see flowers,
not all the time, but
most of the time, you're,
you're looking at something
designed to be delightful.
Those columns are kind of blown
out, but if you look at it better,
columns that survive better elsewhere,
you can see that the car that the capitals
on these columns are also designed to
convey a softness.
It looks like a bundle that has
been tied around its middle and is,
and is being gently squeezed.
And so it is projecting below and above
to convey a sense of, of softness.
I'm amazed by how softness
plays a recurring role and,
and even in stone architecture.
So I talk a lot about those
little colonnaded buildings,
because their, their,
their similarities to Western classicism
are so strong. It's amazing to me,
but but briefly before we leave them,
I want to talk about the
building behind it. Which again,
we have this blank register, which is
where human beings would go. And it's,
it's remains blank,
I think because the pageantry of human
beings and their costumes and their
textiles because there were also flags
and banners that were a part of the
Maya world that is designed to
provide a blank backdrop for that.
Above we see the kinds of patterns that
enrich the human eye. And in this case,
we refer again and again, and again, to
life, the stack of masks masks again,
refers to living stone.
And you'll notice, again,
these are above doorways cute, you know,
hope helping to cue the my audiences and
to seeing this building is strong and
is living and is supportive and vital.
You also see a meander a lot
like a Greek key, in fact,
which is a little strange,
isn't it. Now that meander was,
looks like a couple of
Gs, that one one you know,
upside down and tied to the
other is as most likely an
an expression of breath,
the misty breath, again, of,
of mountains and of living stone.
But it's also something else.
The lattice behind it is full of
flowers. And this is a flower house.
Indeed, it's called the
[inaudible] , which means flower,
which was not only means flower
house. It also means council house.
This is where people of different parts
of Uxmal society would gather to discuss
laws, to pass judgment, to, to
engage in the creation of treaties,
to do all the things that governments
and societies have to do in order to
continue to flourish.
And whenever the Mayan
noble nobles would gather,
they would bring their own textiles
with patterns that represented their
polities. And these would very, very,
very often be covered in flowers.
In addition to that, the Maya used the,
the flower as a metaphor
constantly for for the,
for it's almost like it's too,
it's almost as if that the
flowers is a passageway into,
into another realm.
And that the sweet smell of the flower
is likened to the breadth of your
ancestors. It's also likened
to the breadth of the,
of living people who are engaged in
constructive conversation that helps to
build a society that helps build
that to, to make a place flourish,
to make a place for you might say
flower. And so those Greek keys,
those meanders,
in addition to providing the kind of
undulating rhythm that we all love to see
right next to a lattice
work of flowers of the kind,
we all love to see that Greek key may
also suggest the smell of the flowers,
not just the mist of the mountains,
but also the smell of the flowers
and indeed the sound of discourse
and the, the,
the breadth of a loved one compared
to the scent of flowers and in Maya
inscriptions.
And you'll see that that in between
the scrolls and the lattice work is is
a little house, a little abstract
house that's placed above the door.
And this little house has some thatch.
That is another representation of a
flower house, a place of, of discourse,
a place of discussion. And
it is surrounded by this
lattice work of flowers,
which is the answer to this,
which is the fabric of
citizens and this scrolls,
which represents speech and discourse
and in the memory of ancestors as well.
All in all.
Taken up by this living stone,
which is perfectly symmetrical,
extremely human scaled and full of the
kind of patterns that give our brains
rest whenever we look at them. And I
know no, the first time you look at this,
because there's my, it looks
a little too complicated. But,
but remember also that the color would
have played a large role in making these
more legible. And so here again, you know,
we're about to leave the Maya but we're
looking at buildings that were believed
to be actually literally alive and
that there were rules for making them
beautiful,
and that those rules required you
to strategically use iconography and
decoration, to create patterns,
affirming the presence of life,
affirming that not just the presence
of any life, but of the superfluous,
beauty of flowers and and also of the
tectonic language of keystones
of corners and coining,
of columns and capitals and
of arches that are all figured
into this larger tapestry of
wellbeing and promise that
requires discourse to maintain itself
and requires mutual appreciation
to, to sustain itself. So we're trading
iguanas and stone for deer and wood.
And we're going to go to the
other side of the world to Japan,
which is you know,
Shintoism is another animate religion
and other religion of animal,
of animism that does not assert
necessarily that the buildings actually
live. It doesn't do this
in the way the Maya do,
but it does assert that there
is a spiritual presence in,
in objects and things that
are not human and indeed,
and things that you might not necessarily
think of as alive and wood is one of
these things, which was alive.
That then when used an
architecture maintains some of its
spiritual power. So you're
going to look very quickly at a,
at a small Shinto temple
district in the mountain
town called Takayama.
And these mountain towns are
amazing because they're really,
the wood of Japan is simply better
than almost any other wood be.
And that's not because it's because
they make Nintendo and stuff,
which I love, but it's because
of geo geo geological and,
and climatological reasons.
They have mountainous,
it's a mountainous island
or a group of islands,
as you all know and those mountains
had a lot of volcanoes at one point,
and they produced volcanic soil
which is fantastic for growing trees.
And, and the rain that comes to
Japan is very, very frequent.
And the summers are hot
and the winters are cold,
and you had these
wonderful seasonal cycles.
So you have magnificent timber and for
centuries and centuries of magnificent
timber. So, you know, wood is, is,
is prized celebrated, beloved,
and has been for a long time.
But when you enter this
temple precinct, you have a,
a gate which has a roof, which is
obviously way above and beyond that.
You don't, you don't need a
roof on a gate by the way.
This is almost completely
symbolic. It's it's, it's,
it's there to say, hello, it's there
to say good morning. And then if it is,
if that wasn't obvious enough,
you have a huge flower,
these beautiful golden flowers on the
doors. Now, again, I don't want it to be,
to play too fast and loose with my
generalizations and universalisms.
You know, flowers can mean many
different things you already have heard.
They mean several different things to
the Maya. In Japan, they can refer to,
to Imperial families can
refer to, to noble houses,
they can refer to virtues
and to principles.
But the fact is there are still flowers,
and there's a reason why Imperial
houses choose flowers to represent them.
They're beautiful. They represent
health and bounty and life.
And so when you step into,
when you approach this thing,
that flower is going to cue
several different meanings to you,
if you know how to read it.
But one of them is the
universal meaning of a flower,
which is that you are welcome and that
this is a healthy and, and, and kind,
and warm and friendly place.
This little temple is one of the cutest
little buildings I've seen in a long
time and everywhere you look,
you'll see every time there's a structural
intersection between a column and a
beam. There's a little celebration.
And some of these are structural and
some of these are purely aesthetic,
but most of the time, they're
both. You'll see where the,
where the two beams meet
to create this pediment.
You might say you have a
little crowning moment,
which is of course provides a beautiful
crowning finish and and a little gesture
that prevents the building
from ending too abruptly.
Cause we all know abruptness is rude.
But you also have this beautiful
metal bracket that unifies the beams,
tying them together,
structurally of course,
but also expressing fully at life,
including flowers below that
you have a symbol of a cloud
that descends down, this
comes from actually Buddhist
architectural traditions.
And you have, you know,
the white paint of course helps
preserve the wood and helps protect it.
But in addition to its suggests lightness
and you see the white paint on the
brackets, you see this in Buddhist and
Shinto buildings all over Japan, the,
the, the whiteness on the brackets
suggested it's that they like clouds.
They're lifting up that
they're, that they're,
that this isn't an effortless and gentle
maneuver of holding this building up.
And, and if you look at where the
beams intersect with the columns,
these foliations, it just flow out
from the, you know, you it's, it's,
it's every place that these,
where these two members touch,
life springs forth. It's,
it's almost as if the building itself
was a kind of plant and that it is
not made of dead plants,
but rather many plants have been brought
here and then brought together and the
living wholesome unity. And
they're the result. The result is,
is that you get a sense not only of,
of, of wellbeing from approaching this,
this building, but also a sense of,
of wholesomeness and delight which is the
kind of thing that makes you feel safe
and well. And, and of course these
things are all designed to be seen,
and are gifts, gifts of kindness.
Even the way this building
relates to the square. On one end,
it ends fairly abruptly on
the right, but on the left,
it tapers back slowly in a series of
masses almost as if it's backing away,
but bowing, every few steps,
which is something you're seeing in
many different cultures, not just Japan.
And then it ends, and this little
exclamation point, a little crescendo,
just like a little pinnacle on the roof
or something else to where it doesn't
end abruptly, but rather
it ends with a little,
a smaller little subshrine and
thereby engages with you in this
in a way that is deeply considerate
of every motion of every gaze.
Now,
the roof tiling systems in
Japan are related to those of
Korea and China. And, and you
have these beautiful tiles,
which are made of course, to shed water,
but also to be fireproof and
in Buddhist and Shinto temples,
you see since the time of Buddhism
again and again and again, these swirls,
which is a symbol of water
and but very flower-like,
and one of the reasons it's
flower-like is because historically,
and these are mostly gone now, I'm
sorry to say that they're still around,
but they're not everywhere.
Historically, these were always flowers.
Thousands of these remain, you
know, that there was an art of the,
of the tile that suggested a foliate life,
a beautiful flowery gift to delight
every single person who walked past.
The water symbol is
delightful and is pretty,
but it's also mad to kind of help
the building, not catch on fire.
These play a much more you
might say superfluous role
of simply being elegant and
kind, but also suggesting again,
just like the entire Shinto temple does
that the building is alive and well,
and that it wants you to be
a part of its of its purpose.
These flower tiles were present not
only in Japan, but also are over Korea.
And to a certain extent in Korea,
this tradition lives on
a little more forcefully.
Indeed in Korea you also see bricks
that have, that are given a botanic,
a flourishing life. And when you
walk past a little house like this,
which is in one of the few
historic districts have,
Soeul a Bukchon Hanok village,
every single brick is a gift. Every single
gate brick is, is an act of kindness.
That suggests the house
is alive. And, you know,
in a way that is inherent
to our subconsciousness,
but also just delightful to walk past
just like all the flowers and the plants
outside. I was there in the winter.
So many of them are not
flourishing right now, but,
but these were all designed to
make passersbys feel welcome too.
It's just a smile. It's a good morning.
It's a, it's a, it's a good afternoon.
And some of these things get
extremely elaborate. And once again,
so far we've seen it and France we know
it's in Greece because it's called the
Greek key and we've see it in
the Maya, this undulating line,
this completely superfluous
line that just has no reason to
be other than to delight your
eye and to reward you on that
fundamental psychological level in
which we always want to be a little
stimulated because we want to
our brains to be able to process,
to engage, to, to explore and to discover,
but we also don't want to be
overwhelmed. And so again,
this perfect balance is achieved
by the meander as it goes down.
And indeed between the meander, we have
foliates, we have flowers, essentially.
This whole wall is a gift. It's
just, it's, it's a kindness.
And, and your, your,
your brain is nurtured almost as if you're
walking through a field of flowers or
under a canopy of trees, as you walk
past this thing. So back to Japan,
I was struck by this.
This is a Buddhist temple,
and I was just amazed as I walked around
this thing. And I began to try to,
you know, to try to figure out the
ornament what, what the ornament's doing,
where and why, and, you know,
every time a structural member got
near another structural member,
it gave it a present.
It was like it was like watching a group
of people who know and love each other
work together to achieve
something magnificent,
and invited me to be a part of it. Every
time a piece of wood gets cut, the end,
grain is exposed. You know, this,
you know, this and that's vulnerable.
So it's good to cover it with metal, so
to protect it. But after it's covered,
they put a little flower at the
end, I got like without fail.
And then this column, it has a column
capital, which is itself foliation,
which of course, isn't a pillow.
It's not an ionic scroll.
It's somewhat similar to a Corinthian
column however in that it's a
bouquet, it's a series of flowers,
which looks soft and kind,
and gentle and alive.
And then these beams,
whether the beam is supported by the
column, it brings the column a bouquet.
And indeed the beam that's tied into
the column from behind also brings a
bouquet. And then in the
beam, that's cause halfway up,
it's giving it a bouquet
everywhere you go. It's like these,
these members are all getting married.
There are, there are they're in love.
And, and every, every place something
interacts with another thing. And yes,
I know that these things are tied
to pins that hold it together,
but that makes it even
more beautiful somehow.
But even if it weren't tied to pins,
it's providing a very valuable function,
which is making the building
look happy to be there.
It's making the structure
look polite and gentle,
and this is how our societies
again, have to function.
We also provide different
roles in our society, you know,
at different times of the day, I'm
a consumer or I'm a professional.
Sometimes I'm a, I'm a, a menial laborer.
I can do all manner of things.
But when I interact with
other people it, it,
life is just better when they show me
sympathy and I show them sympathy. And,
and here,
this building is teaching us what it
looks like when a fabric is composed of
negotiation and celebration
and mutual care,
the elaborate brackets of the
Japanese, of Japanese architecture,
those elaborate scrolls, where
the beams tie into the columns,
the magnificent bouquets,
it's all so superfluous.
And it,
it reminds me of course as you can
gather by the slide of the tea ceremony,
which is an essay in the
superfluous used, again,
flowers, you walk in the only decoration.
They're not supposed to be many
decorations in the tea ceremony,
but this is not sensual
deprivation moment. This is
not the kind of thing that,
that you know, the modernist
loved to talk about.
The Japanese architecture is being
hope as being very sparse and simple.
It has moments like that,
but I'm, but I'm telling you,
they know how to do details. I think
you've seen already you walk into the,
into a tea ceremony room and
there is always a flower.
And that flower has been
carefully selected for the moment,
not just the day for the moment and
placed in a vase for the moment.
And it has all the power of,
of hospitality and grace
and affection and respect,
bundled into it into itself. And then
the tea ceremony itself, as many of,
you know, can take hours.
A gesture to the left,
a gesture to the right, the
graceful twist of a wrist.
And you know, the,
the discussions on the flower you
can see her cutting another flower.
You know, the tea hasn't even been
served yet. All they're doing is flowers.
The whole, and I know
there's a history to this,
which is kind of melancholy
that the sumptuary laws
cause some people to have to
take their cultural lives indoors.
But the fact is it's an
exercise in nothing but
super, superfluity for,
of just unnecessary gestures of kindness
so that, you know, the, the,
the cornice, right, the,
the,uthe profile of classical
architecture is,uit's
so complicated. It, why is
it that people, you know,
people have asked this for centuries, why
are there so many lines in this thing?
Why is it so many shapes? Why does
it give and take and give and take,
why does it undulate, why does it go
back and forth? And there is some,
there's been some recent
research published on the
history of people asking this
question,
why a really good article by Michael
Hill and Peter Kohane argues that there's
basically three different dominant
themes in the history of discuss,
discussing how a classical cornices
and entablatures became what they,
what they became. One of
them is anthropomorphic.
One of them is rhetorical and
one of them is structural.
Today we don't care
about the structural one.
We're only gonna talk about the
anthropomorphic and the rhetorical.
So the anthropomorphic suggest that
the proportions of the, of the,
of the entablature are essentially
that of a human and that of the most
important part of the human,
which is the human face, right?
And so in, as you can see from
this, you know, speculative,
less speculative perhaps than my talk,
but also speculative drawing that
the idea is that even though it
doesn't look like a face,
that because it incorporates
the proportions of the face,
that there is a mutual sympathy in this,
you know columns have been
compared to human human bodies.
The capital related to the word
for head, for crying out loud,
but also perhaps the cornice we meant
to see ourselves, but to see that,
but in addition to anthropomorphic,
and we'll look at a couple,
another couple of slides very quickly,
there is another famous
one you may have seen,
this is the base of a capital by
Michelangelo who drawing it couldn't help,
but turn it into a grumpy old man,
just because the gifts and
the tastes looks so organic,
they looked like mouths and noses, and
they're so soft. And famously, right?
There was this idea that
the cornice if it was well,
proportioned would look like
a healthy, handsome person,
but a badly proportioned and tablature
and corners could look like a
look like a monster. So you had to be
very careful and, and you know, the Maya,
if they got ahold of this
idea would say, Oh, well,
the cornice is our ancestors looking
down on us, of course which is,
which is a beautiful concept.
And one that perhaps we could even
incorporate the other angle here.
And this is important that this be
taken alongside the anthropomorphic,
the anthropological, because once
we see ourselves in the cornice,
then we have to ask, what does the
cornice tell us about ourselves?
And if this rhetorical
argument has anything to offer,
then it's along those lines.
The give and take articulation of profiles
was acquainted by Germaine Boffrand
from, to the sort of figures and
devices use to embellish speech.
Now that's very important because
embellish speech not just make speech,
not just, I want a cup of tea.
Tea already as an embellishment.
I want a water. No, it's good morning.
I'm glad to see you. I hope you're
having a nice day. How are the kids?
Well, glad to hear it. Would you mind
if I was to purchase a glass of water?
You don't. Well, thank you
for you have the best water!
And so on and so forth that it's,
it's the speech of negotiation.
It is embellished speech, careful
speech with gives and takes.
You don't simply announce
what you want. Give me that.
And then they transaction is over goodbye
or not even a goodbye I have paid.
And then you leave. This
is about giving and taking,
going and going above and beyond
and engaging in discourse.
And so down into the second paragraph
profiles resembled the linguistic
construction of syllables and words,
as well as the rhetorical
composition of poetic expression.
When you have people who are trying
to negotiate with one another,
because they're part of a social
fabric, they don't just engage.
Certainly they shouldn't
engage in abuse and oppression,
but they also can't just engage in
heartless again, transaction. The,
the job of this is not just
to hold up the roof, right?
The job is not just to exchange
the money for the coffee bean.
That there's also meant
to be an exchange of, of,
of social engage, a social engagement.
That is a mutual acknowledgement
of the other person's,
of the other person's value and, and,
and needs as a human being and
the fullness as a human being.
And so it goes above and
beyond to delight to,
to make comfortable, to make to make
somebody feel that they are important,
that they matter to you and the
cornice is doing nothing but that, yes,
it's shedding water, the structural
one, which we don't care about today.
It's also saying hello in
about eight different ways.
And then it's, it's,
it's carrying you up to the sky and then
it leaves you with the sky by saying
this, by the way, this is
my friend, the sky. And and,
and she'll be taking it from
here. I'll see you later.
And and to me, that's just, that's
very powerful and beautiful.
And the architecture itself is
supporting itself and it's graceful,
and we have little brackets,
and it's just so elegant.
The balancing act of diplomatic
communication, right?
That nothing mean should be said
was something else that, that,
that the cornice should not be degraded
until it becomes mean, but when,
when some of the portions are too small,
it begins to look stingy or malformed.
This is, this is very potent rhetoric,
which takes us to the next slide.
A very famous book, The
Theory of Mouldings,
which the Institute for Classical Art
and Architecture has already printed in
very elegant fashion. If
you don't mind me saying.
It's by a guy named Walker,
no relation published in 1926 and
the language he uses to describe
these, these moldings is it's a lot
like the language that I'm using.
I I've lost some time due
to these technical issues.
So I'll skip through the first part,
but if you go down to
the largest paragraph,
convex moldings are robust
appear sturdy and vigorous,
and rather crude in expression. What? So,
so the pillows are vigorous. They
look strong like bulging muscles,
but that can also look a little crude.
That's interesting to many of them.
And the thing starts to
look kind of like, you know,
like somebody who spent way
too much time at the gym or,
or maybe in the case of that,
maybe it looks a little dad bod,
which I can relate to better. Like it's
got muffin top kinda. If it's got these,
these two much con convex molding.
Concave moldings weaken the surface,
but give powerful shadows and a skillfully
used are delicate in expression and
give an effect of thoroughbred
training. Thoroughbred training?
I'm not entirely sure
what he means by that.
I guess he means somebody who's
fit somebody who knows how to like,
hold themselves up. Good posture, right?
They're not just flopping on the
sofa the way a convex molding does.
They're standing upright
and they are engaged in,
in a kind of attentive.
And I mean, he's really,
anthropologic anthropomorphizing
stuff, and he's not even a Maya.
He doesn't actually believe it's
alive, but it was doing the same thing.
He's saying he's, he's a, he's emoting
this stuff. So the last paragraph,
having these things in mind,
the designer will come to the conclusion
that moldings are honorable things.
They're honorable.
You have to find compromise the convex
and the concave engaging in these
compromises. And all of them are
designed, of course, in unison, again,
to express compromise between the
other members of the building.
They compromise with each
other to create a compromise.
This language is a poetry of
engagement and the superfluity
of kindness. Architecture
can be mean. You know,
we've seen the Maya building that
issue that thirst for blood well,
architecture can be cued
into, to fears. And to, to to,
it can be deprived of moldings. It
can be deprived of, of negotiations.
It can be made cruel. Albert
Speer's architecture for, for,
for Hitler was notoriously devoid
of anything soft, of anything kind,
of anything that negotiates, of anything
that does diplomacy and, you know,
is anyone surprised.
Newgate prison is a really great example
of a building designed to make you feel
awful. Ledoux was a master at buildings
designed to make you feel awful.
Like you are going to be put through a
sausage grinder if you went into that
building for the wrong reasons. That's,
that's the headquarters of the boss.
If you're summoned to that building,
it's because you have disobeyed the the
king and your little industrial village,
which has meant to make
you healthy and happy,
but also to keep your
tightly under control.
The dude was great at making classical
buildings that manipulated the power of,
of moldings and of a structure to,
to create an architecture of unkindness.
And indeed by the time you get to the,
to the 1800s,
political and industrial revolutions of
have made a lot of architects worried
about kindness, worried about social
cohesion, worried about chaos and,
and depravity and all, all the things
that seem lurking around the corner.
You know the brutalities
of the French revolution,
the brutalities of industrial
Manchester. And so you know,
the last couple of people we're going
to talk about are Victorian architects,
who, who looked deep into architecture
and into structure and, and saw,
saw violence and conflict
and wanted to resolve it.
Alexander "Greek" Thomson's one
of my favorites. He's in Glasgow,
which is of course, an industrial city
full of really awful slums at this time.
They demolished their entire medieval
quarter in an attempt to get rid of all
the rookeries and and Thompson was
deeply concerned with social fabric.
He lost a lot of children to cholera
and he was really interested in public
health and he wanted to
make reform tenements.
So the poor could live
in dignity and wellbeing,
and he saw his classical
architecture as a poetry of
social of social
upstanding this, you might
even say. Which, you know,
upbeat borderlines on a
pun, but for him you know,
the post and lintel structure
for him, trabeation was,
was had had the power of,
of social elegance in it. And
when he did his buildings,
he drew he's called Greek Thomson, but
he drew from, from the, from India,
he drew from Assyria, Babylon, Egypt,
any culture even drew on the Maya,
even culture, every culture that,
that engaged in trabeation
had Greek Thompson's heart.
And as you can see from this building,
it's just trabeation after trabeation
after trabeation. And he, you know, he's,
he's, he's, he's borrowing
from the Greeks all day long,
but he's also really pushing
the foliate growth, the organic,
lovely softness of these, of
these piers on their capitals,
and as they flower and as they, and
as they provide gentleness to the,
to the rest of the
architectural structure.
Maybe cause he's surrounded by all
the Gothic ruins that, you know,
Scotland bounds and due to the
intensity of its reformation he had,
he had a lot of hard things to
say about the Gothic, the arch,
he hated the arch.
He says the arch is composed of a number
of wedges driven by the pressure of the
super incumbent parts of the wall.
What are we to think of the
soundness of a mode of construction,
which is based upon an essentially
active principle of destruction.
There is no rest for the arch until it
is prostrated on the earth by its own
suicidal act. He sees the arch and he
describes it again and again, and again,
as a, as a kind of, as an,
almost like a metaphor for a society of
unwilling partners and which people are
pushed into a relationship
in which that they want out.
And that the, you know, it doesn't matter
how beautiful you make your keystone.
He's not going to fall for it.
He knows that the arch is essentially
begging for its own death.
Perhaps this violent
perfect timing Justin,
perhaps there's violent
conflict of forces.
This incessant struggle between stickup
and knockdown may account in some
measure for the favor,
which the style has obtained
with a cockfighting bear
baiting pugilistic people
like the Anglo Saxons yeah,
no affection whatsoever for
the arch or for the Gothic.
He's all about trabeation, which for
him represents peace and kindness.
And you can see in his architecture,
he's adapting the Greeks all the time,
designing new things, including iron,
which he believed could bring the peace
and the beauty of gorgeous classical
trabeated and architecture to the
masses and even into tenements.
Greek Thompson, he sees the arch,
he sees Gothic architecture
as structurally violent
and trabeated architecture
as peaceful and kind.
Louis Sullivan was also concerned
with issues about modernity and how
architecture could be kind as you know,
he draws upon every culture on earth,
but his architecture I would argue is
still nonetheless in keeping with all the
key principles of classicism,
especially it's reverence for nature
and its dedication to kindness and the
poetry of, of diplomacy. He tackled
the, the office, a skyscraper, right?
The corporate skyscraper, which he
described and anthropological terms,
how shall we impart to the
sterile pile, this crude, harsh,
brutal agglomeration, this
stark staring exclamation of,
of eternal strife,
the graciousness of those higher forms
of sensibility and culture that rest on
the lower and fiercer passions.
How shall we proclaim from the
dizzy height of this strange,
weird modern house stop the peaceful
Evangel of sentiment of beauty,
the cult of a larger life,
whether it be the sweeping Eagle in
his fly to the open Apple blossom,
the toiling workhorse, the
blind Swan, the branching Oak,
the winding stream at its base, the
drifting clouds over all the coursing sun.
Form ever follows function. And
this is the law. So, you know,
Mies Van der Rohe and many other
modernists will quote this form follows
function,uand, and,
and destroy it,umisquoting
it brutally, frankly,uto,
to suggest that that there's, that
there's no need for flowers anymore.
There's no need for
column capitals anymore,
that there is no need for
for classicism for, for,
for beauty anymore, because you know,
function means you need a door that
swings. Function means you need a,
an a lintel that sits or a
column that lifts and you know,
function means that I can,
it also means I can just walk into a
restaurant and say food and then throw my
money at them and walk out.
Form follows function. But
Louis Sullivan knew better. The peaceful
Evangel of sentiment, of beauty,
the cult of a higher life, a
sentiment of largeness and freedom,
the charge of sentiment,
the beginnings of true architectural
expression through the addition of a
certain quality and quantity of sentiment,
we must now heed the imperative
voice of emotion. He got it.
He understood that yeah, form
follows function. All right,
but the most crucial function of
architecture in his opinion is sentiment.
That's how the office
skyscraper will be redeemed.
It will be redeemed through a number
of things. Honesty, one of them,
it shouldn't pretend to be a
temple, but but at the same time,
it can't just be a brutal agglomeration
anymore. It has to convey sentiment.
Ornament when created is a perfume,
it is the smile of sentiment.
The last line in the sonnet,
the smile of sentiment,
that's how architecture is kind.
And it's one of the key ways.
And so his column capitals are
clearly superfluous right. They're,
they're terracotta ornamentations,
they're not holding up that skyscraper,
but they're conveying the foliate at
beauty of an architecture that wants to be
healthy and alive and to say
hello to you. So, you know,
we'll leave with Gaudi. Again, who's
architecture, who was obsessed with, with,
with kindness and with social cohesion
and with religion and with all the other
venues that he believed architecture
should and could serve a human being
whose heart was being broken
by industrialism. As he
believed. Everything soft,
everything, organic, everything kind,
but still he uses the architect,
the classical architectural
ingredients of,
of column base capital
indeed of entablature to,
to, to convey an architecture
that is alive. That is whole,
that is whole with itself,
like an organism. It is,
it is imbalanced and it
is stable and unified and,
and welcoming to you healthy to you.
This is I think the only space in
the world in which it looks like the,
that the ceiling is actually the
active member and the column
is the passive member. It
looks like the, you know,
the way that these columns kind of
tuck into their pillows, it's like,
they're a little strained. And the ceiling
has rested on it. This is a grotto.
This is a massive, massive roof. I
mean, it's, it's more than a roof.
It's like a cave. So you
can feel the weight of that.
And it's doing its very best not to
crush those little columns it's in
between them. It's pulling
up, it's billowing,
it's trying to take its weight off.
And the floor is also rising up those
columns and an attempt to support them.
You know, this is a,
an another example of a
poetry of architectural
engagement in which you can see
the different members trying
to be good to each other.
If you go into the Segrada Familia,
you'll see that you enter into a forest.
Like all the things we talked about.
Walking into under a canopy of a forest,
walking in a field of flowers,
this is an architecture which is
designed to look alive. And again,
he's not a Maya, right? He's
not even a Shinto believer.
He doesn't actually infuse
his architecture with spirit,
but he believes that there that there,
the world was made and that
human beings have, are,
are have,
have been created in continuity
with that world and that,
and that we need to be
nourished by that world.
And we need to respect that world and
that when these things come together in a
wholesome and clear way, then,
then not only beauty is the result,
but also a spiritual
enlightenment and illumination.
This is an architecture that is meant
to look like it, it just grew there.
So, you know,
people always talk about the Corinthian
column and Vitruvius's account of its,
of its of its creation.
As a sculptor sees some,
a basket left on the grave of a
young woman who tragically died.
And then some acanthus spontaneously
grew through that basket.
And he, he realized it's beautiful.
And then he goes home and he
invents the Corinthian column.
And this is usually discussed as a kind
of formal exercise where he happens to
see something that's kind of pretty. And
then he goes, as he goes and uses it.
But these are the ancient Greeks.
They believed that the gods made the
world and that the gods made the world in
such a way that there was a fabric of
existence that human beings are a part of.
And so the idea that that, that,
that woman died, that's tragic.
Like that's, that's,
that's awful, that's sad.
And that the basket of flowers
left at her grave is, is,
is a Testament to suffering and to sorrow
and to love that has been ruptured.
But when the acanthus
grows through that basket,
it's an affirmation that she's not alone
and that her death is not meaningless
and that,
and that the suffering and the sorrow
that that was experienced as a result of
that is part of our larger
story of renewal and redemption
that, that, that could provide
hope and to, to everyone.
Earth itself was showing
kindness to that woman.
And that's the thing he captured. And
that's the thing he brings to life in,
in the, in the Corinthian
capital. I'm done bye.
Just kidding, of course,
that's very abrupt and I'm not
going to be abrupt because I'm not,
I'm not a modernist. UI hope
that this talk has been,uagain,
at least somewhat provocative, even if
you don't buy all the things I'm arguing,
but the idea that architecture
can, can go out of its way,
literally,uto take on a
superfluous, unnecessary,
or at least they seem superfluous and
unnecessary forms,uin order to convey a
wholesomeness,uboth,uintegral to itself,
but also as a part of a larger world
in which you are an important part,
and that it can offer you a flower and
the same way that you offer a friend,
a flower, and almost more
importantly, you offer a stranger,
a flower that I hope that
you believe at least that the
classical architecture has the power
to suggest this on a, on a poetic,
on a poetic level. That is a value to,
to a nation into a world that
desperately needs more poetry. Thank you.
