Architecture, Mentalities and Meaning

Patrick Malone

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• eBook ISBN:
  9781351675352
• Topic: Architecture
• Subtopic: Architecture General

In order to function, architectural theory and practice must be shaped to suit current cultural, economic, and political forces. Thus, architecture embodies reductive logic that conditions the treatment of human and social processes – which raises the question of how to define objectivity for architectural mentalities that must conform to a set of immediate conditions.

This book focuses on meaning, and on the physical and mental processes that define life in built environments. The potential to draw knowledge from aesthetics, psychology, political economy, philosophy, geography, and sociology is offset by the fact that architectural logic is inevitably reductive, cultural, socio-economic, and political. However, despite the duty to conform, it is argued that the treatment of human processes, and the understanding of architectural mentalities, can benefit from interdisciplinary linkages, small freedoms, and cracks in a system of imperatives that can yield the means of greater objectivity.

This is valuable reading for students and researchers interested in architectural theory as a working reality, and in the relationships between architecture and other fields.

1The rhetorical tradition

The rhetorical and the elemental

Mentalities within architecture, urban design, and planning, tend to be primarily rooted within either a rhetorical or an elemental intellectual tradition; albeit that, within architecture, the former might be said to constitute the common, or primary, condition. It is tempting to suggest that the differences between the two traditions express the gap between intuition and knowledge, or art and science, but reality does not easily submit to such dichotomies. Nevertheless, it may be argued that mentalities within the rhetorical tradition are essentially based on relatively closed and idealistic forms of logic. They consist of sets of interrelated and compatible concepts, whose unanimity is generally underwritten by a coherent ideology. Each set of matched concepts is tied to an immediate network of cultural, socio-economic, and political forces, and given that such forces are in a constant state of evolution, architectural mentalities are markedly variable with respect to their intellectual and ideological content. As bounded networks of complementary ideas, individual mentalities provide the basis for theory and practice at a particular point in space and time – hence the idea that mentalities are rhetorical, or present narratives that are appropriate to specific contexts.

Each context may host a number of narratives, or mentalities that exist within a shared envelope of cultural and other conditions. Those mentalities are likely to adhere to some common principles, and may award primacy to different, but allied, facets of an era; for example, as in the case of an adherence to populism and historicism, or the joint existence of James Stirling and Léon Krier. In every case, however, architectural mentalities appear as identifiable clusters within a wider network of allied forces. If they are dominant, their supremacy reflects their compatibility with respect to those forces, but whether dominant or secondary all mentalities evolve as bounded networks of complimentary principles and values. As discussed below, the task of defining architectural mentalities is akin to that posed by other fields such law or medicine; although architecture may be more ‘multicultural’, or may embody a hierarchy of mentalities that are anchored in different parts of a cultural landscape.

The rhetorical tradition can also be characterized on the basis that individual mentalities are rooted somewhere on a line that runs between unbridled utopianism and blunt opportunism. Moreover, regardless of their ideological character, mentalities are likely to be founded in logic that is centred on the physical nature of buildings and cities. They tend to embody an innate predisposition towards determinism and the notion that built environments play a primary role in the configuration of environmental–human relationships. In that it affords a sense of autonomy, determinism helps to clear an intellectual space in which a narrative may be spun. However, the defining principle of the rhetorical tradition is the tendency to construct relatively closed and self-contained systems of logic, or bounded networks of compatible ideas – which in their most reductive form might be utopian, encapsulated in a manifesto, or offered as a set of organizing mechanisms for urban life and the city.

Differences between the rhetorical and elemental traditions reflect Gaston Bachelard’s proposition that knowledge is dualistic in that it draws on both scientific facts and ‘images’ that are speculative, or even poetic (Bachelard 1964, 1; Macey 2000, 26). As with F.T. Marinetti’s futurist Manifesto (1909), and countless other manifestos and utopias embedded in architectural and urban history, the contrived image is evidently ideological and cultural. Unlike the scientific fact, it is not subject to objective scrutiny or correction. Thus, architectural mentalities are generally less inquisitive than ‘elemental’ intellectual frameworks that are coined, for example, within urban studies, human geography, environmental psychology, or urban sociology. Within those disciplines, theory may be built around an individual issue or a narrow range of concerns; hence, the idea that it is elemental. Logic that is built around specific concerns may be open to expansion and correction, and objectivity is generally assumed to be the ideal, or default, condition. The potential for objectivity is not necessarily fulfilled, especially where that would require absolute knowledge of complex human or social processes. Moreover, although academic rigour may mean a greater capacity to offset influences exerted by underlying ideological and other forces, some distortion may follow from a tendency for elemental theory to fall in line with the cultural, socio-economic, or political status quo (Harvey 1973, 147–52; Paterson 2014, 96–7). As with the rhetorical tradition, elemental logic is generally built in the light of immediate cultural and other conditions, and is appropriate to the context within which it is distilled. Ideas will generally be of their time, and are refracted by contemporary ideologies. On the other hand, academic theory is less likely to be evidently utopian, although it may bear the marks of conservative, liberal, humanist, or Marxist ideologies (Harvey 1973, 151; Fainstein 2010; Cloke et al. 1991). Moreover, whereas the rhetorical tradition is generally rooted in the physicality of buildings and the city, elemental theory may be more finely balanced across both sides of human–environmental equations, or may give more weight to human and social processes as the bases on which environmental conditions can be understood. In short, the elemental strain can be defined on the basis of a fundamental tendency towards objectivity, and although that does not imply the existence of theory that is free of logical and ideological distortions, what matters is the relative strength of an underlying urge for truth. In effect, that urge influences the manner in which logic is constructed, and conditions the relative depth and accuracy of theory that relates to human and social processes, and to meaning.

Whether mentalities are essentially rhetorical or elemental, knowledge and the nature of logic are in a constant state of flux. The evolution of underlying cultural, economic, and political structures is matched to a shifting structure of ideas. Architectural theory of the 1960s–70s moved, for example, from a modernist interest in function, as symbolized by Le Corbusier’s iconic hand, to issues that favoured the humanism of Aldo van Eyck, and the collective memory as promoted by Aldo Rossi. Meanwhile, within the academic ‘urban disciplines’, elemental theory tended to adopt a more direct and comprehensive approach to human and social values; a tendency that offset mid-century affiliations to behaviourism, positivism, and functionalism. That change was led by individual theorists such as Herbert Gans, Amos Rapoport, Kevin Lynch, Donald Appleyard, Jane Jacobs, Edward Relph, Robert Goodman, R.E. Pahl and others whose work was largely aimed at the defence of particular human, social, and urban values. Through their work, a measure of leadership passed within architecture from the heroes of modernism to academics and urban theorists – many of whom operated through American universities, high-end journals, and the academic press. In that a number of theorists focused on issues relating to the city, the new humanism sought to reverse a spirit of ‘anti-urbanism’, and to promote satisfactory urban environments and the reunion of architecture and urban design. The work of figures such as Lynch and Jacobs was paralleled by the emergence of relatively critical and incisive architectural theory generated, for example, by Anthony Vidler and Kenneth Frampton. In exposing the philosophical roots of French modernism, Vidler (1968) provided a basis on which its principles might be consciously understood, admired, or rejected. A more balanced approach to architectural theory was also underpinned by the importation of ideas from aesthetics, philosophy, human geography, psychology, and sociology, and by a general shift towards ‘methodology’ as demonstrated, for example, by Christopher Alexander’s Notes on the Synthesis of Form (1964) (Baird 2003, 156). Thus, an architectural culture of hermetically closed and bounded systems of logic was at least partly, and temporarily, counterbalanced by the importation of relatively objective concepts that related to different areas of concern. Obviously, ideas drawn from external sources might be subject to corruption, or engineered to feed a resilient tendency towards determinism and the primacy of the object (Broady 2009, 170). Within architecture, shifts in the nature of logic that favour elemental theory do not necessarily result in the dissolution of the intellectual tendencies that characterize rhetorical mentalities. Whereas architectural theory of the 1970s leant towards humanism, phenomenology, urbanism, and the city, and rejected debased definitions of function in favour of place, rootedness, and perception, architects continued to give substantial weight to the determining power of built space as opposed to the real nature of human and social processes. They also retained a lingering interest in behaviour and an attachment to the spirit of science and measurement; for example, in the ‘scientific determinism’ of Christopher Alexander (McLeod 1989, 27). A tendency to favour ‘science’ and the physical nature of environmental–human equations was also evident in ideas promulgated by Team 10 and Alison and Peter Smithson, whose ‘matchstick sociology’ and socio-spatial hierarchies represented the world of the individual, the family, and the community in neat and reductive abstractions (Avermaete 2005). Determinism was abetted by the tendency to match social behaviours to spatial formats, building types, or concepts such as the ‘neighbourhood unit’ (Broady 2009, 174–76). In reality, the rhetorical tradition was diluted rather than overturned. Moreover, architectural mentalities of the 1970s continued to be packaged as reductive systems of logic, and in the form of movements such as Archigram, Brutalism, and Ville Spatiale. Meanwhile, those major architectural ‘presets’ were flanked by elemental interests that emerged within the realm of architecture; for example, as concepts that related to negative or defensible space, alienation and the ills of functionalism, or the perception of spatial structures (Relph 1976).

For a time, those concerns counterbalanced the closed and apostolic mentalities of the 1960s. Elemental theory also gained, and retained, traction within planning and urban design; for instance, through strategic interventions into the physical, economic, and social frameworks of urban areas, and policies that called for the treatment of specific issues. Within architecture of the middle to late 1970s, however, short-lived inclinations towards greater objectivity and elemental theory were offset, as postmodernism reinforced the hermetic nature of the idealistic tradition (Huyssen 1984, 38; McLeod 1989, 47–50). Evolving systems of logic favoured an insistence on aesthetics, or pitched a return to the historicist city against the glorification of advanced technologies. Meanwhile, practice adapted to new forms of pragmatism that embraced globalization, economic neoliberalism, and a market society that was seen by its critics to be characterized by pastiche, imitation, and ‘depthlessness’ (Jameson 1991, 6; Gartman 1998, 120). Architectural mentalities were recast in line with changing cultural and economic contexts that incorporated commodification, increasing inequality, conservatism and elitism in the developed world, and the production of new cities and vast quantities of urban space in the developing world (Adam 2012). The gap between the rhetorical and elemental traditions, and between architecture and academic disciplines, increased under conditions that were characterized by the rejection of the ‘social project’. Hence, Leach laments the failure of post-modern architecture ‘to engage substantively with other disciplines’, and its deficiency in terms of ‘the tools of self-criticism’ (Leach 1997, xiv). Fronted by a disingenuous rejection of grand narratives, architecture is now largely apolitical in temperament (Ellin 1999; Lahiji 2014a). However, although it is the dominant or default condition, the rhetorical tradition does not entirely account for the intellectual and ideological content of architectural theory. As evidenced by the juxtaposition of historicism and ‘elemental’ concepts in the 1970s, architectural cultures are generally heterogeneous and highly complex. Thus, in assessing their rhetorical and elemental tendencies it is important to look to complexities in the intellectual and ideological content of mentalities that reflect the intricate nature of underlying contexts.

Inside the rhetorical tradition

The examination of architectural mentalities is a messy business. Individual systems of logic are not intellectually coherent, or fixed in space and time. Rather, they are ‘cognitive states’ with a relatively flexible intellectual and ideological content. Mentalities exist as clusters of ideas within an overarching culture, and reflect the distribution of power and the organization of prevailing ideological, socio-economic, and political systems. Thus, there may be a number of major mentalities within a common culture, and room for secondary or minor positions, contradictory ideas, and even architectural ‘ideologies of resistance’ (Dijk 1998, 11; Weizman 2014). Moreover, the relationships between a host culture and its architectural mentalities mirror those that exist between that culture and its representative styles or visual languages. A dominant mentality may be allied to a major style, or an aesthetic language that represents its values, which are always those of a ‘parent culture’. Whereas dominant and minor mentalities and their associated styles may coexist within the same culture, secondary styles might be associated with subcultures, or certain social groups. In effect, a dominant style is akin to a major mentality whose meanings are understood by a large number of people with a common ‘cognitive makeup’ (Weber 1991, 114–16). Dominant ideologies and their styles also demonstrate that the values and ideals of the most powerful are automatically those of the majority – a proposition that maintains the possibility of secondary, or opposing, ideologies and styles (Burke 1999).

Many theorists have examined the relationships between social values and architectural style; for example, through analyses of socio-aesthetic equations that are bound together by ideology, class, or socio-economic relations. Theory that covers aesthetics, and what Max Weber (1864–1920) termed the ‘stylization of life’, can encompass the relationships between architectural mentalities, style, and culture. It is also important that similar relationships are seen to exist between a culture and other carriers of style and meaning, such as the arts, literature, film, fashion, and advertising – carriers that operate together to the point that it may be difficult to define the boundaries between art and ‘non-art’ (Steiner 1977, xvii–xviii). The nature of the relationships between culture, style, and architecture is examined below. At this point, it may be enough to establish that an interest in style can be converted into an interest in mentalities, and in architecture as a medium through which style is linked to a social order. In effect, architectural mentalities act as prisms through which cultures and ideologies are refracted, and converted into meanings that are carried by the elements of built space.

Idealism and pragmatism

The idea that individual architectural mentalities embody networks of compatible concepts may be overlaid with another proposition; namely, that architectural cultures combine idealistic and pragmatic tendencies that function as complimentary responses to an immediate context. Theorists have noted, for example, a bilateral division between journals that propagate high theory and those that cater for the pragmatic interests of practitioners and the ‘trade’ (Maudlin and Vellinga 2014, 278–9). Architectural cultures incorporate idealism and logic that is evidently pragmatic. Individual mentalities tend to lean towards the idealistic or the pragmatic elements of a common culture. There is a tendency to gravitate towards the persona of the theorist and visionary architect, or that of the ‘problem-solving professional’ for whom theory is a distant source of support (Fisher 2000, 35–44). As in Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead (1946), the architect may be characterized as an heroic individualist. However, the bulk of the intellectual traffic within architecture may lie within a middle ground; that is, between the extremes of utopianism and naked pragmatism, or high theory and blind adherence to a prevailing creed (Salomon 2012, 441–2). Although coloured by pragmatism and tailored to suit a set of immediate conditions, that traffic may be loosely based on the assumption that built space is beneficial, whether its benefits are assessed in functional, aesthetic, urban, technological, or social terms.

While architecture leans towards relatively closed systems of logic, and ideas that are woven around the physical nature of buildings or cities, individual mentalities can still be distinguished on the basis of how, and where, they are located between the poles of utopianism and philistinism. Whether mentalities are predominantly idealistic or pragmatic, they embody bounded, and coherent, sets of ideas and abstractions. Regardless of their ideological or intellectual content, they reflect how architects or theorists conceive of architecture, or what they imagine it to be. However, a mentality that is tipped in favour of idealism conforms to both the philosophical and common meaning of that term. It is idealistic in that it is made up of ideas, but it is also aspirational in that some of those ideas relate to how architecture should ideally be. It is relatively high-minded, possibly utopian, and incorporates ambitions that may be expressed in social, aesthetic, or other terms. Idealism does not necessarily imply the pursuit of social goals, but of whatever constitutes the values and ideological content of a mentality – which in any given era will indicate how architecture is tied into a determining world.

Whereas that world is serviced by the idealistic and pragmatic elements of architectural cultures, pragmatism implies a relatively unquestioning attitude to power and the demands of external forces. The world is seen for what it is, and ther...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Figures
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1 The rhetorical tradition
• 2 The elemental tradition
• 3 The nature of meaning
• 4 Ideas and sources
• 5 Architecture, idealism, and meaning
• 6 An imperfect future
• Conclusions
• Bibliography
• Index