Theories Without Foundations

...Theories Without Foundations Modern Movements in Architecture By Charles Jencks Doubleday 432 pp $10 00 (cloth), $4 95 (paper) Reviewed by Howard Darmstadter Assistant Professor of Philosophy, University of Massachusetts, Boston Charles Jencks attempts to demonstrate in a systematic way the connections among the diverse schools that keep uneasy company under the banner "Modern Architecture " Much of what he has to say in the course of performing this delicate task of disentanglement and categorization is informative, yet his book as a whole is seriously misconceived The problems begin almost immediately Sketching his esthetic theory, Jencks argues that the value of a piece of architecture depends upon the multiplicity of meanings it conveys Superior works exhibit not only the ideas of a building's individual parts but also those expressed by the relations between its various elements These works he terms "multivalent," while those that lack richness because their separate parts do not sufficiently modify each other are termed univalent " A great deal can be said for looking at architecture in this manner--indeed, it is analogous to the way linguists treat language--but a critical step is missing Before one can analyze the meanings of the interrelations, one must first define the meanings of the individual parts along with the rules governing then interconnections Jencks, however, merely presents examples of a multivalent and a univalent building, hoping these will suffice to make his distinction convincing They don't...

...Jencks chooses Le Corbusier's Marseilles apartment block as his multivalent work, and shows that the criticisms leveled against different features of the structure can be countered by pointing out their advantages The darkness of the block's internal "streets," for instance, is explained in terms of the building's low cost and the brilliant views it offers from its apartments Why these defenses make the building multivalent, though, is unclear, particularly since Jencks later describes Walter Gropius' Pan Am Building in a similar fashion without suggesting that it, too, is multivalent Things get worse when Jencks discusses a window ledge in the Marseilles block, deemed multivalent because we are uncertain whether it is a table or a seat An accompanying photo shows the reason for this uncertainty--the ledge is too high for a seat and too narrow for a table One might as well claim that a stick of wood can be called a work of art because it is both a bad hammer and a bad screwdriver All these tailings might be of little account if Jencks' overall conception of architectural meaning were sound But it is in no way reassuring to read "The skeptic and the pietist could enter [Le Corbusier's Ronchamp chapel] side by side between the towers of the north door, which in their most reverent light were two children looking to the morning and evening sun while the parent watches over them from the south, and which was most carnally a forceful penetration between two muscular curves " Obviously, Jencks' underdeveloped ideas offer opportunities for whimsical interpretation that he cannot always resist Apart from its theoretical shortcomings, Jencks' book is flawed by his decision to group the architectural movements of the century according to the political ideas that form the background of each movement " Looking at the political and social statements of prominent architects, he discerns six ideological categories Unfortunately, the result of this arrangement is to make the history of modern architecture seem less a history of buildings and styles than one of manifestoes And it means hard going for those readers not particularly enamored of manifesto prose--with its piling on of overblown rhetoric, its invocation of crises, its forced dichotomies, and its pervasive calls to combat Moreover, Jencks simply assumes a connection between an architect's political views and his buildings, although it is a commonplace of social science that a person's politics may provide only the most meager of explanations for his work Nor does it seem to have occurred to Jencks that an architect might give a political explanation for his style as part of a post hoc rationalization or to win a commission from an ideological patron The inadequacy of this organization becomes most apparent when Jencks has to deal with architects who eschew political theories altogether To handle such cases, he simply grafts on a political stance that he regards as appropriate and evaluates the buildings' "social meaning' accordingly Thus in his chapter on Mies van der Rohe, after asserting that an appreciation of Mies' work "demands an absolute commitment to the Platonic world-view,' and citing Karl Popper to the effect that "a belief in Platonic essences is one of the prime convictions of those who support a Closed Society,' Jencks proceeds to condemn certain of Mies' architectural theories as "dangerous ' In tact, Jencks has completely missed the point of Mies' work He denigrates Crown Hall because the structural system is different than it appears to be, neglecting to observe that virtually none of Mies' buildings is quite what it appeals to be In all of the architect's protects, we are presented with a dream vision of machined perfection, even when such a machined look can only be sustained by careful hand crafting, one cannot even move the furniture without compromising the architectural intention Mies' architecture is important because it gave expression to a vision of the machine age's potentialities But it must to some degree be misleading, since the vision itself was somewhat unrealistic The appeals to industrial logic and order made no mention of the limitations of machinery--the noise of metal parts, the dirt of fuels and lubricants--or of the immense variety of human situations and desires Criticizing the deceptive structural logic of Mies' buildings, therefore, is really irrelevant Jencks does no better with, contemporary American architecture Confronted with schools that have until recently been relatively free of political ideology, he can only complain of a lack of "integrated, serious works," a condition he characterizes as "camp" (The notion of camp is not the only faddish thought bubble that Jencks introduces, structuralism, generative grammar, information theory, and a host of less serious concepts are all briefly floated before the readily eyes ) After stressing the resemblance of many modern American buildings to Fascist structures of the '30s, Jencks finally admits to admiring the "integrity' of Philip Johnson--one of the leading culprits For Johnson, he suggests, is honest in revealing his affinities with Nazism, other American architects, presumably, hide theirs Jencks concludes his book with a little manifesto of his own, and it is more restrained than most of the declarations he cites, it yields them nothing in political naivete Excellence is held to depend on the architect's faith in his profession's social function, and the most significant social trend of our day is said to be the development of a participatory decentralized democracy This system, Jencks asserts, will further the realization of human potential by allowing the individual to give vent to his love of open debate, rhetoric and other aspects of public theatricality Until participatory democracy exists, "all the architect can do is clarify the situation theoretically, design dissenting buildings for the system, provide alternative models and wait for the propitious moment" I do not know what compels architects to produce such documents, but anyone who could write a book explaining this lamentable tendency might be entitled to call it Modern Movements in Architecture...