5 pages essay

C h a p t e r Five P r e c e d e n t s a n d T r a n s f o r m a t i o n

Nothing old is ever reborn. But it never completely disappcnrs either. And anything thnt has ever been ala~ays einergcs in a nem forin.

A myriad of structures, landforms and urban organizations have been constructed through- out history. Some are specific to their own culture, such as Stonehenge, or the Treasury of Atreus; some are universal and invariable, such as the circular plan, which embraces the previ- ous examples within its definition. Related to the question of how such a plenitude of forms

5.1 Stone Henge, 2600-1800 B.C., view.

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could be designed is the equally puzzling ques- tion of how so many different forms can mean anything. The greater the range of inventive possibilities, the more diverse the formal, spa- tial, and constructional solution, the more idiosyncratic and unique the project, the less likely it is that anyone other than the author will have access to its meaning. Architecture, like language, is a medium through which culture articulates and conveys its messages. To be suc- cessful in communicating, the architect must find a way to embed decipherable meanings in the architectural project, which is not an easy task.

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5.3 Treasury of Atreus, c. 1350 B.C. interior vieru.

5.4 Treasury ofAtreu plan und sectior~.

One temptation is to ascribe to the cult of novelty and self-expression, resulting in will- fully flamboyant arrangements of form which defy connection with the surrounding world. For all its exuberance, such arbitrary Expres- sionism risks muteness visa vis the culture with which it purports to communicate. Expression- ist fabrications, such as Bruno Taut's design from Aujfosung der Stadte is more intelligible as a botanical study than an architectural pro- posal. Another temptation is to abnegate the task of design altogether and timidly clone forms from an earlier age. Such architecture fails to engage the concerns and aspirations of the present age and the built world may become likewise mute and impoverished.

Neither the fetishism of novelty nor slavish historicism provides a solution for the designer. Invention grounded in tradition, on the other hand, provides a method whereby the architect may exercise originality within a field already saturated with meanings and associations. Tra- ditional sources need not be taken as invariables. The richness of the architectural project may stem from transformation. Trans- formations of elements drawn from tradition may be so extensive that the resultant product no longer resembles the starting point, and the original may be unrecoverable in the end. Yet because of the specificity of its origins, the meaning of a building so generated remains embedded in the culture. The transformation of building types and spatial paradigms makes it possible to vary the form of a building greatly while conserving those aspects of the type which carried important, decipherable cultural messages. For Flato, formless, protean matter makes itself manifest in the physical world only

P R E C E D E N T S A N D T R A N S F O R M A T I O N

through the intercession of the clrora or 'recep- tacle.' So too can architectural ideas make themselves manifest through reference to typo- logical or morphological paradigms.

Type, precedent and their transformation address not only questions of form but also questions of meaning, as illustrated by a brief examination of religious buildings from antiq- uity to the present. We shall begin with the classical Greek temple, although it is possible to find historical precedents for the Greek temple type as well. The Roman architectural theoreti- . . dan Vitruvius connected the origins of classical architecture back to the primitive hut, the mythical first work of architecture. According to the legend, this simple shelter was built by twining together tree trunks and branches. Its organic forms and members were frozen and eternized in the stones of Doric architecture, the language of which is still mimetic of its timber ancestors. The building type 'Greek temple,' best exemplified by the Parthenon in Athens, consists primarily of an inner chamber built on a platform, surrounded by columns and sur- mounted by a pediment, or gable roof. An altar to the cult god was housed in the cella, an inner room entered only by the priests. The same as- sortment of parts: inner sanctum, platform, colonnade, and roof, comprises the circular temple, or tholos, such as the Tholos at Delphi.

Roman civilization borrowed many architec- tural forms from the Greeks, but organized these forms according to different spatial princi- pals. In Rome, sacred complexes w e r e frequently engaged in denser urban settings. Roman temples faced specific courtyards and were organized frontally rather than as figures- in-the-round. The Greek temple type was

5.5 Bruno T ~ i f t , Die Grc$c B l ~ ~ i i r , from Az<ffiisirr?a der Stndte, C . 1920.

5.6 M i m - A ~ l t o i l z L n u ~ ~ e r , sur l'architpcture. Fronfispirce to the Serorld Edition, 1755.

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5.7 Left: Maison Carrie, Nimes, France, A.D. 117-138, plnn.

5.8 Rigltf: Maison Carrk, perspective.

5.9 Maison Carrte, vim.

5.10 Tholos ~t De$hi, Greece.

adequate for the Romans because the function remained the same. The Roman temple Maison CarrQe, borrows the temple type with only mi- nor transformations: the dominance of the front facade is so strongly emphasized that the sur- rounding colonnade is absorbed into the wall on the back and sides of the building. In the case of the Temple of Venus and Rome, a temple dedicated to two gods, a transformation takes place in the organization of interior space. The inner chamber splits down the middle, and the inner sanctum for the cult altar is presented twice, reflected on each side of the dividing line. The binary organization of the temple is well suited to its site, for it does not only address one space, as did the Maison Carree, but two. One portico aligns with the Colosseum and the other terminates the main axis of the Roman Forum. A conceptual extension of the Forum axis is threaded through the temple, and a linkage of the Colosseum to the Forum is established.

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The Pantheon is a circular Roman temple to all the gods. Because the Pantheon needed to house a number of altars rather than one or two, a more radical transformation of the temple type was required. The modest interior space of a Greek cella had to be replaced by something much more capacious. Roman society con- nected specific forms with specific meanings. How could a new kind of building still be un- derstandable as a temple? In the case of the Pantheon, the meaning of temple is conserved through the inclusion of a temple portico, grafted o i ~ t o a cylindrical volume almost as a sign. The new elements in the temple expand the repertoire of meaning. Because the temple honored all gods, it served as a microcosm, or miniature model reflective of the organization and structure of something much larger. The circle and sphere represented the cosmos in Pythagorean and Platonic tradition. In the Pan- theon, those ancient meanings are tapped: a

5.1 1 Left: Temple of Ventis and Rome, Rome, Italy, A.D. 123- 135, elevation and section.

5.12 Right: Teiilple of Venus a n d Rome, plan.

5.13 Pnrthenon, Athens, Greece, Ictiwos and Callicrates, c.438 B.C.

5.14 Acropolis, zrien~, showing Propylaea, Atlzena Nike Temple and Parthenon.

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snuaAjo aldwa~ an 8u!moys

tunroj uaiuox aygjo zlqd

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P R E C E D E N T S A N D T R A N S F O R M A T I O N 73

sphere could fit perfectly within its volume. The oculus, or round opening at the top of the dome, provides yet another meaning. The voided axis mundi runs through the oculus and connects the heavens to the earth, and serves as an eye that allows a gaze from earth to contem- plate the sky, and the reverse.

In its early history, Christianity was a secret religion, practiced at the peril of gladiatorial confrontation. Worship took place in houses, meeting halls, or even in underground cata- combs. When Christianity was finally adopted as the state religion of the Roman Empire and churches were built specifically for Christian worship, the precedent of pagan temple archi- tecture was hardly deemed appropriate. Early Christians favored the basilica, a Roman longi- tudinal building type used originally for public

rtheon.

- .. assenil)ly. In Early Christi,an hnsilicas, such as . ,. .-I:: . ... . , " I , < St. Paul's outside the Walls in IKorne, the A-I$-A .. ..... . ,,. . 5.19 d~.;pobition of tall centrill nave ilar~hetl by lower Tile l~o11i11e.1~1, aisles ac<.~rn~nodatt:li t,lah,,ratc litulj;ical pro- . . ?,.ctiorr cc,.;iotis. S e ~ t i o i ~ a l ,-11.1ng~: i r . m .~islt, r., n.r\,e , . . m.ide i t psssiblr for clerestoty windo~vs above . . .. , , . . . . .

-. . . . . I thr n.xe to intrc>duit. light clirc~ctl\r to the center . . . . - . - , . . of the building. Early <:hnsn,~n basilicas were . . inrrovrrted strllcturei whosc facades wc.re

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5.20 Sairrt Paul's outside the Walls, Rorne, Italy, A.D. 380, section.

screened from the surrounding neighborhoods by modest courtyard walls. The symbolism of the church is more subtly developped: the pro- fane building type of basilica is sanctified through the expression of a cross within the plan, imprinting it with the symbol of Christ.

In A.D. 330 the Emperor Constantine moved the capital of the Roman Empire from Rome to Constantinople, now Istanbul. The site for the new town mediated between the locations of Rome and Jerusalem, signifying a union of the

5.21 Saint Paul's outside the Walls, plarl.

two traditions under a new Holy Roman order. The construction of this 'Second Rome' did not reach full flower until the reign of Justinian and the building of the great church, Hagia Sophia. The Hagia Sophia can be understood as a re- presentation of the Pantheon, although Justinian himself likened it favorably to the Temple of Solomon. Just as the Early Chris- tians transformed and appropriated the profane historical type of basilica through the expres- sion of a cross within the basilican plan, the architects of the Hagia Sophia sought to incor- porate the symbolic and spatial values of the Pantheon, symbol of Rome's grandeur, while transforming the pagan references into some- thing more purely Christian.

The space of the Hagia Sophia results from manipulations on a centralized domed cylinder, similar to that of the Pantheon, which is then split apart to reveal another perfect dome at the center. A longitudinal space emerges. At its center a perfect circle is found, bracketed be- tween the two half domes. The church is at once centralized and longitudinal. As a entral- ized structure, ancient traditions of the circle and the microcosm of the heavens are con- served; as a longitudinal structure, processions

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and pageantry involved in Christian liturgy are accommodated and the memory of Early Chris- tian basilican space evoked. Furthermore, because the Pantheon is free-standing, its closed perimeter makes possible only one spatial read- ing. On the contrary, the main sanctuary of the Hagia Sophia is embedded in a rectilinear wrapper and can be seen as a development of a nine-square grid. The presence of the grid makes possible multiple readings of the space. The flanking subordinate chambers on either side of the main space behave much like the aisles in a true basilica. At the same time, the walls in the opposite direction of the vault ex- tension are perforated, so that space can flow outwards and complete a cruciform reading.

The Hagia Sophia also develops another theme, that of light. While the center of the dome of the Pantheon is open to the sky, the perimeter remains tightly rooted on the sup- porting masonry walls. At the Hagia Sophia, the center of the dome is solid but a ring of windows perforates the base, resulting in an ap- parent dematerialization of the supporting wall. The ability of the vast dome (30 meters wide) to hover effortlessly over the space seemed mi-

5.22 Left: Hugiu Soplzia, Isidorus of Miletus and Athemius of Thralles, Istanbul, Turkey, A.D. 532, section.

5.23 Right: Hagia Sophia,

Sophia,

Sophia,

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5.26 G.B. Piranesi, Engraving of tlze oculus of the Pantheon.

5.27 Pan tlleon, oculusfrom the roof.

5.28 Pantl~eoiz, exterior detail

raculous, as if it were a demonstration of divine glory. Moreover, the construction of the dome relied on the insertion of a circular dome on a square base by means of triangular structural braces called pendentives. The simultaneous presence of the circle, square and triangle seems to manifest the nesting of divine and math- ematical order. In the Pantheon, the spherical space alone sufficed to represent the cosmos. In the Hagia Sophia, the extended domical struc- ture is made possible only through the intercession of triangular pendentives, as if to suggest that the earthly and divine realms can only come together through the power of the Christian Trinity.

Although there were some exceptions, the Romanesque and Gothic periods were charac- terized by increasingly flamboyant developments of the basilican plan and section, each genera- tion trying to outdo their predecessors in the development of vertical space, the dematerial- ization of wall, and the manipulation of light. Centralized plans were reserved for the archi- tecture of baptistries and chapter houses, although divine geometry was used to generate networks of lines or a schemata to determine the location of elements within the cathedral. For cathedral architecture, the most profound expression of center was the crossing of the nave and transept, sometimes surmounted by a tower.

In the Renaissance, a 're-birth' of the classi- cal tradition took place and there was again direct borrowing from ancient sources. How- ever, the Roman basilica as a precedent for sacred architecture was eclipsed by a renewed interest in centralized temples. Through an elaborate literary tradition, the stories of the

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Old Testament and finally all of antiquity were embraced as allegories of Christian themes. Hence reference to pagan gods and pagan temples was not blasphemous, but pious. San- dro Botticelli's Birth of Venus was conceived of as a serious religious painting, an allegory on the life of the Virgin, although it appears to be a sensual representation of the Roman goddess of love. So too could the form of temples originally dedicated to pagan Gods be reappropriated as houses of Christian worshio. Indeed. the Re- naissance theoretician Leonbattista Alberti (1404-72) pronounced the superiority of central-

I ized temples in his treatise. The Renaissance brought not only a re-birth diagram.

of interest in the architecture of antiquity, but a renewed interest in classical ideas as well.

5.31 Right: Anonymous, S.

Among the ideas resurrected from antiquity Mavia dclla were Neo-Platonism and Humanism. The latter Consolazione, was a school of philosophy which emphasized Todi, Italy, c. the centrality of the human being in the divine 1508, plan. scheme of things, as illustrated in Leonardo's drawing of the Vitruvian Man. The former held

I 5.32 that the contemplation of any beautiful creature,

t Santa Maria dclla construction, or idea could provide insight into Consolazione. the beauty of the divine order. Hence, the quest for beauty was neither sensual nor aesthetic, but spiritual. Beautiful form, beautiful color, beau- tiful proportions all served as a microcosm of an eternal, limitless, heavenly beauty too vast to be apprehended by humankind. The contempla- tion of all beautiful things was believed to point to the same truth. The beauty of God was a perfect mirroring of earthly and divine beauty, so that the length of strings required to strike a harmonious chord found its correspondence in the length of measurements in a well-propor- tioned composition, and indeed, the relative

view.

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5.33 Antonio da Snngallo the Elder, San Biagio, Montepulciano, Italy, c. 1518.

5.34 Doizato Brarnunte Tempietto of S. Pietro in Montorio, Rome, Italy, 1502.

lengths of planetary orbits, called the "l~armony nf the spheres." Renaissance architecture aspired to perfection of form and proportion so that its contemplation might provide an intelligible model of the universe. In so doing, it went di- rectly back to antique precedent, namely, the Pantheon.

Perhaps the most famous and most beautiful Renaissance centralized church was Donato Bramante's T e m p i e t t o of S a n Pietro i n Montorio, in Rome. A variation on the tholos temple type, the Tempietto was greatly admired by contemporaries in the Renaissance. In 1537 Sebastiano Serlio included it i n his treatise among the most perfect examples from antiq- uity, blurring the line between precedent and copy. Unfortunately, in spite of the theoreti- cally grounded impetus to build centralized churches, very few were ever constructed. The Tempietto is able to attain its perfect form for several unusual reasons. One, it functions more to mark a spot, that of Saint Peter's crucifixion, than to house any particular ceremony. Two, it was designed to be installed in an ideal, circular courtyard where the thick walls of the court- yard mitigated between the exterior world and the perfect, inviable, round church. Other cen- tralized churches, such as Santa Maria della Consolazione i n Todi and S a n Biagio i n Montepulciano were able to attain their ideal form because they were located in sites remote from the town centers. In cities, where pres- sures from the existing urban fabric were exerted against the ideal symmetries of the churches, more compromised building types were the rule. One example is Bramante's ur- ban church Santa Maria presso San Satiro in Milan. In a n irregular T-shaped space, the ex-

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tension of the fourth arm of a centralized Greek Cross plan is implied in a shallow niche behind the altar through perspectival tricks.

The re-emergence of the classical temple type not only posed theological difficulties, but functional ones as well. In antiquity, the inner sanctum was meant to house only the cult altar and a few priests. In the Renaissance, a sizable congregation needed to be accommodated as well. Even when the churches weren't impossi- bly small, as in the case of the Tempietto, the question of what would occupy the center re- mained unresolved. Placing the altar in the center made a potent link between the micro- cosmic structure of the temple and the point at which worship was celebrated, but made it im- possible for the congregation and priests to position themselves in a way appropriate to the ceremony. Placing the altar in one lobe of a centralized Greek Cross plan made it possible spatially to establish an appropriate hierarchical relationship between the congregation and the priests, but the meaning of the center was di- luted. Lastly, the clear, legible exposition of geometry and proportion, meant to appeal to reason and intellect, implied that the priesthood was no longer necessary as an intermediary be- tween God and man.

Such heretical thinking was espoused by Martin Luther and other founders of Protestant sects. After the power of the Catholic church in Rome reached its nadir with the Sack of Rome in 1527, the Council of Trent convened in 1564 to determine ways to rebuild the institution. Primary among these involved the design of churches. It was mandated that the longitudi- nal form, or Latin Cross plan, of early Christian churches be adapted in eschewal of pagan, hu-

5.35 Donafo Bramante, Santa Maria prrsso Sat? Satiro, Milarz, Italy, 1480-81, plan.

5.36 Santa press0 view.

Ma? Snn

,ia Safiro,

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5.38 Son Cnrlo nlle

5.37 Fraizcesco Borromini, %fi Carlo alle Quattro Fun taize, Rome, rtnly, 1637-41, plan, Albertinn, Vienrm.

Quattro Fontane, dome.

by architects, even though the client churches were calling for a traditional, longitudinal ar- rangement of plan. In a tiny church in Rome, Francesco Borromini (1599-1667) forged a com- promise between centralized and longitudinal church typologies. San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane, 1637-41, is at once centralized and lon- gitudinal. The form of the church evolves around the simultaneous presence of the oval, cross, and octagon, as fully discussed in Leo Steinberg's Borromini's Snn Carlo nlle Quattro Fontnnc: A Study in Multiple Fornr and Arckitec- turd Symbolism. As in Bramante's Santa Maria presso San Satiro, illusionistic devices are at play. Coffers of the niche vault above the altar diminish to create a trompe Z'oeil effect of per- spectival recession in depth, enhancing the apparent longitudinality of the church.

The delicate synthesis of contradictory spa- tial paradigms and multiple geometries implicit in San Carlo is made explicit in Guarino Guarini's (1624-83) Santa Maria della Divina Providenza, Lisbon, c. 1656-59. The undulating perimeter of the church is caused by a progres- sion of domed spaces within the nave of the church. The fusion and distension of domes in

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manistically derived centralized forms. Such churches would allow the true liturgy of the church to be practiced, and lead worshippers towards a mystical, faith-inspired appreciation of God. Through the rhetorical, persuasive power of architecture, it was believed that the power of the catholic c h u r h could be preserved and extended.

In the Baroque era, the message of Renais- sance Humanism and the architecture it sponsored was still too current to be dismissed

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cell division, wherein a centric organism repli- cates itself within a single membrane. The plan of the church is at once a centralized Greek cross, a longitudinal basilica, and a highly de- veloped moment in a grid of ovalized chambers. The sinuous line that emerges from the intersecting domes extends to the ornamen- tal scheme of the church. The undulations of the vault give character to the columns, pilas- ters, and entablature as well.

Balthazar Neumann's (1687-1753) Vierze- hnheiligen takes Guarini's exercise i n synthesized polymorphism even further. In Vierzehnheiligen, as in Santa Maria della Divina Providenza, the vault is comprised of a series of autonomous domes. In Guarini's church, the heavy structural piers which support the vault are configured to define both the space of the nave and the aisle chapels. In Neumann's church, the vault is supported by slender, free- standing columns. These columns are indifferent to the spatial definition of the aisles and are disposed according to the structure of the dome. The serially domed spaces seem to detach from the encircling walls, leaving a vesti- gial plenum of space which evokes the aisles in a basilican plan. The reliance on columns rather than the thick poch6 of walls to accomplish spa- tial differentiation is particularly modem. Like the other examples we studied, the church of Vierzehnheiligen is simultaneously longitudinal and centralized. The center in the Latin Cross plan has slipped from the crossing of nave and transept to the true central body of the church. Instead of expressing the section at the crossing with a tower, as in Gothic examples, or a dome, as in Renaissance and Baroque examples, it is suppressed and residual to the forms which

5.39 Sun Carlo nlle Quattro Fontane, niche above altar.

5.40 Guarino Guarini, Saizta Maria della Diuina Providenza, Lisbon, Portugal, c. 1656-59.

5.41 Balthazar Neumann, Vierzehnheiligcn, Lichtenfels, Germany, 1743-72, section.

5.42 Vierzehnheiligen, plan.

I D E A S O F O R D E R I flank it. The dilemma of how to occupy center in a centralized plan is resolved by the multipli- cation and displacement of center, fusing together the two readings of the church so tightly that they cannot be separated.

The last building we shall examine is Le Corbusiefs Notre-Dame-du-Haut, Ronchamp, France, 1950-55. At Ronchamp, the form of the church appears wholly new, never the same from any vantage point. Indeed, it seems to transfonn before your eyes as you walk around it. With stark, white, heavy walls and an op- pressive roof, Notre-Dame-du-Haut manifests its spirituality not through dematerialization but through a superabundance of material. Light pierces through a thick wall, which then curls in upon itself to form towers, vestries, and chapels. A sliver of light at the joining of roof and wall reveals that the roof is not pushing down on the structure beneath it, but actually hovers very lightly above.

Finally, at Ronchamp it seems that the archi- tect is free from reference to type and precedent which governed so many decisions in the previ- ous examples. However, Notre-Dame-du-Haut too is engaged in a debate with tradition and gains much of its power by manipulating famil- iar themes. Like the earlier examples, the church is simultaneously longitudinal and cen- tralized. Instead of developing these contrary themes along a single axis, Le Corbusier affects the transformation along a constantly changing perimeter. The reflection of half the church yields a centralized plan; the reflection of the other half results in a longitudinal plan. Addi- tional references to traditional ecclesiastic architecture emerge as the perimeter effortlessly transforms from the abstraction of a razor sharp

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line to paired towers, reminiscent of the westworks in a cathedral. The asymmetrical in- version of the plan is signaled by the misplacement of the apsidal wall of the church: instead of serving as a back drop to the altar, it faces the altar. The altar itsell backs against a convex wall which forms the screen for an out- door chapel. It is almost as if the church had been turned inside out, the twist yielding strange distortions which nonetheless harken back to the original type.

There is nothing new under the sun. Archi- tecture does not arise from the creation of the novel forms, but from significant transforma- tion within a tradition. The transformation can be modest, as in the development from the Greek to the Roman temple, or enormous, as in Le Corbusier's design at Ronchamp. In both cases density of significance is created through overlaying the meaning of the original type with the specific, personalized meanings of the architect's transformative act.

5.45 Notre-Daine-du- Haut, plan.

5.46 Notre-Dame-du- Haut as n longitudinal church, and as a centralized

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