THEORIES AND MANIFESTOES

Of Contemporary Architecture

The last forty years have seen an outburst of theories and manifestoes which explore the possibili-
ties of architecture: its language, evolution and social relevance. With the many 'crises in architec-
ture' and the obvious urban and ecological problems, Modernism has been criticised, questioned,
overthrown, extended, subverted and revivified - not a peaceful time for architectural thought and
production. The result has been a cascade of new theories, justifications and recipes for building.
This anthology, edited by the well-known historian and critic Charles Jencks, and the urbanist
and theorist Karl Kropf, collects the main texts which define these changes. Essential for the student
and practitioner alike, it presents over 120 of the key arguments of today's major architectural
philosophers and gurus. These show that the Modern architecture of the early part of this century
has mutated into three main traditions: a critical and ecological Post-Modernism; a High-Tech and
sculptural Late Modernism; and a deconstructive, subversive New Modernism.
Here are the seminal texts of James Stirling, Robert Venturi, Colin Rowe, Christopher Alexander,
Frank Gehry, Reyner Ban ham, Bernard Tschumi, Rem Koolhaas and many others who have changed
the discourse of architecture. Here also are the anti-Modern texts of the traditionalists - Leon Krier,
Demetri Porphyrios, Quinlan Terry, Prince Charles and others. Many of these texts are concise,
• edited versions of influential books.
Highly informative and richly illustrated with over forty drawings and photographs, this volume
is a vital learning and teaching tool for all those interested in the philosophies of contemporary
architecture.

Charles Jencks was the first to demonstrate that Modern architecture in the 1960s and 1970s had
undergone a profound mutation into three major approaches - Post-Modernism, Late Modernism
and New Modernism. He has shown how our pluralist age has oscillated between these and tradi-
tional approaches in his key books: The Language of Post-Modern Architecture(sixth edition, 1991),
Architecture Today(third edition, 1994), and The New Modems (1990), all published by Academy.

Karl Kropf is an urbanist engaged in both theoretical research and practice, focusing on the
morphogenesis and dynamics of urban form. With a background in the sciences, history and design,
he is a member of the Urban Morphology Research Group and a founder member of the International
Seminar on Urban Form. He has worked for anumber of firrT)s, including Skidmore Owings and Merrill
in San Francisco, and as a consultant in France and the UK,
ISBN 0 - 471-97687 -3

.l.L, ltJ L
ACADEMY EDITIONS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS CONTENTS

Every attempt has been made to locate the sources of all material used in lNTRODUCTION
this publication to obtain full reproduction rights but in the very few cases CHARLES JENCKS The Volcano and the Tablet 6
where this process has failed to find the copyright holder, apologies are
offered. POST-MODERN 13
1955 JAMES STIRLING From Garches to Jaoul: Le Corbusier
Individual copyright clauses are noted at the end of each section of text. as Domestic Architect in 1927 and 1953 14
1956 JAMES STIRLING Ronchamp: Le Corbusier's Chapel
Picture credits: all images are courtesy of the individual editors, authors and and the Crisis of Rationalism 16
architects unless otherwise stated: Charles Jencks: pp 12, 13, 29, 39, 46, 5 I, 1960 KEVIN LYNCH The Image of the City 18
58, 64, 87, 120, 132, 195, 206, 238, 253, 284; Paul Raftery p300 1961 N JOHN HABRAKEN Supports: An Alternative to Mass Housing 22
1961 JANE JACOBS The Death and Life of Great American Cities 24
1962 ALDO VAN EYCK Team 10 Primer 27
1965 CHRISTOPHER ALEXANDER A City is not a Tree 30
1965 CHRISTIAN NORBERG-SCHULZ Intentions in Architecture 33
1966 ALDO ROSSI The Architecture of the City 36
1966 ROBERT VENTURI Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture 40
1969 CHARLES JENCKS Semiology and Architecture 43
1970 GIANCARLO DE CARLO Architecture's Public 47
1972 CHARLES JENCKS AND NATHAN SILVER Adhocism 49
1972 ROBERT VENTURI, DENISE SCOTT BROWN AND STEVEN IZENOUR
Learning from Las Vegas 52
1975 CHARLES JENCKS The Rise of Post Modern Architecture 57
1975 ROB KRIER Urban Space 59
1975 COLIN ROWE AND FRED KOETTER Collage City 61
197 5 JOSEPH RYKWERT Ornament is no Crime 65
First published in Great Britain in 1997 by
1976 ALDO ROSSI An Analogical Architecture 66
ACADEMY EDITIONS
1977 KISHO KUROKAWA M etabolism in Architecture 68
a division of John Wiley & Sons,
1977 KENT c BLOOMER AND CHARLES w MOORE Body, M emory and Architecture 71
Baffins Lane, Chichester.
1978 LEON KRIER Rational Architecture: The Reconstruction of the City 75
West Sussex PO 19 IUD
1978 ANTHONY VIDLER The Third Typology 77
1979 CHRISTOPHER ALEXANDER The Timeless Way of Building 80
Copyright © 1997 Academy Group Ltd. All Rights Reserved. No part of this
1980 DOLORES HAYDEN What Would a Non-sexist City Be Like?
publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in
Speculations on Housing, Urban Design and Human Work 84
any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording,
1980 CHARLES JENCKS Towards a Radical Eclecticism 86
scanning or otherwise, except under the terms of the Copyright, Designs and
1980 PAOLO PORTOGHESI The End of Prohibitionism 88
Patents Act 1988 or under the terms of a licence issued by the Copyright
1980 sm Notes on the Philosophy of SITE 90
Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London, UK WIP 9HE, without
1982 MICHAEL GRAVES A Case for Figurative Architecture 93
the permission in writing of the publisher and the copyright holders.
1982 OSWALD MATHIAS UNGERS Architecture as Theme 94
1983 KENNETH FRAMPTON Towards a Critical Regionalism:
Other Wiley Editorial Offices
Six Points for an Architecture of Resistance 97
N ew York • Weinheim • Brisbane • Singapore • Toronto
1983 LUCIEN KROLL The Architecture of Complexity I0 1
1984 MEMPHIS The Memphis Idea I 04
1987 KISHO KUROKAWA The Philosophy of Symbiosis 106
1989 STEVEN HOLL Anchoring 109
1991 FRANK o GEHRY On his own House 11 I
1991 ITSUKO HASEGAWA Architecture as Another Nature 113
ISBN 0-471-97687-3
1991 ERIC OWEN MOSS Which Truth do You Want to Tell 115
1993 FRANK o GEHRY On The American Center, Paris: An Interview 118
Printed and bound in the UK by Bookcraft (Bath) Ltd, Midsomer Norton
1993 JEFFREY KIPNIS Towards a New Architecture: Folding 12 1
1993 GREG LYNN Architecturai Curvilinearity: 1962 ALISON AND PETER SMITHSON Team 10 Primer 218
The Folded, the Pliant and the Supple 125 1964 CHRISTOPHER ALEXANDER Notes on the Synthesis of Form 220
1996 ARATA 1sozAKI The Island Nation Aesthetic 128 1964 ARCHIGRAM Universal Structure 224
1996 CHARLES JENCKS 13 Propositions of Post-Modern Architecture 131 1964 JOHN HEJDUK Statement 226
1964 FUMIHIKO MAKI The M egastructure 227
POST-MODERN ECOLOGY 133 1966 SUPERSTUDIO Description of the Microevent/Microenvironment 229
1969 IAN MCHARG Design with Nature 134 1968 PETER COOK The M etamorphosis of an English Town (drawing) 232
1979 SIM VAN DER RYN AND STERLING BUNNELL Integral Design 136 1969 REYNER BANHAM The Architecture of the Well-Tempered Environment 234
1984 ANNE WHISTON SPIRN The Granite Garden 139 1969 LOUIS I KAHN Silence and Light 236
1984 NANCY JACK TODD AND JOHN TODD Bioshelters, Ocean Arks and City 1969 CEDRIC PRICE Non-Plan 239
Farming: Ecology as the Basis of Design 141 1972 PETER EISENMAN Cardboard Architecture 24 1
1986 HASSAN FATHY Natural Energy and Vernacular Architecture 144 1973 MANFREDO TAFURI Architecture and Utopia 244
1987 KENNETH YEANG Tropical Urban Regionalism 146 1975 PHILIP JOHNSON What M akes Me Tick 246
1990 CHRISTOPHER DAY Places of the Soul 149 1975 PIANO+ROGERS Statement 248
1990 JAMES WINES Architect 's Statement 152 19 76 LIONEL MARCH The Logic of Design and the Question of Value 250
1991 TEAM ZOO/ATELIER zo Principles of Design 154 1985 RICHARD ROGERS Observations on Architecture 252
1991 BRENDA AND ROBERT VALE Green Architecture 157 1990 KENNETH FRAMPTON Rappel a l'Ordre, the Case for the Tectonic 254
1992 WILLIAM McDONOUGH The Hannover Principles 160 1991 TADAO ANDO Beyond Horizons in Architecture 256
1993 PETER CALTHO RPE The Next American Metropolis 161 1994 PETER RICE The Role of the Engineer 259
1994 KENNETH YEANG Bioclimatic Skyscrapers 164 1994 IAN RITCHIE (Well) Connected Architecture 26 1
1996 SIM VAN DER RYN AND STUART COWAN Ecological Design 167
NEW MODERN 265
TRADITIONAL 169 1976 PETER EISENMAN Post-Functionalism 266
1969 HASSAN FATHY Architecture for the Poor 170 1977 BERNARD TSCHUMI The Pleasure of Architecture 268
1976 ROBERT MAGUIRE The Value of Tradition 172 1978 COOP HIMMELBLAU The Future of Splendid Desolation 269
1977 DAVID WATKIN Morality and Architecture 174 1978 REM KOOLHAAS Delirious New York:
1978 THE BRUSSELS DECLARATION Reconstruction of the European City 176 A Retroactive M anifesto for Manhattan 27 1
1980 MAURICE CULOT Reconstructing the City in Stone 178 1979 DANIEL LIBESKIND End Space 274
1983 DEMETRI PORPHYRIOS Classicism is Not a Style 179 1980 COOP HIMMELBLAU Architecture Must Blaze 276
1984 LEON KRI ER Building and Architecture 182 1981 BERNARD TSCHUMI The M anhattan Transcripts 277
1984 ROBERT AM STERN On Style, Classicism and Pedagogy 183 1982 ZAHA HADID Randomness vs Arbitrariness 279
1985 HRH THE PRINCE OF WALES RIBA Gala Speech 185 1983 ZAHA HADID The Eighty-Nine Degrees 280
1986 ALEXANDER TZONIS & LIANE LEFAIVRE Critical Classicism: 1983 DANIEL LIBESKIND Unoriginal Signs 28 1
The Tragic Function 186 1984 PETER EISENMAN The End of the Classical:
1987 HRH THE PRINCE OF WALES M ansion House Speech 189 The End of the End, the End of the Beginning 282
1989 DUANY + PLATER-ZYBERK Traditional Neighbourhood 1986 JOHN HEJDUK Thoughts of an Architect 285
Development Ordinance 19 1 1988 COOP HIMMELBLAU The Dissipation of Our Bodies in the City 286
1989 QUINLAN TERRY Architecture and Theology 193 1988 JEFFREY KIPNIS Forms of Irrationality 288
1989 HRH THE PRINCE OF WALES A Vision of Britain 196 1988 MARK WIGLEY Deconstructivist Architecture 291
1992 THE URBAN VILLAGES GROUP Urban Villages 199 1991 DANIEL LIBESKIND Upside Down X 293
1994 ALLAN GREENBERG Why Classical Architecture is M odern 201 1992 PETER EISENMAN Visions' Unfolding:
1994 ROGER SCRUTON Architectural Principles in an Age of Nihilism 203 Architecture in the Age of Electronic M edia 295
1993 WILL ALSOP Towards an Architecture of Practical Delight 298
LATE MODERN 207 1993 THOM MAYNE Connected Isolation 301
1954 PHILIP JOH NSON The Seven Crutches of M odern Architecture 208 1993 LEBBEUS WOODS Manifesto 304
1955 ALISON AND PETER SMITHSON AND THEO CROSBY The New Brutalism 2 11 1994 REM KOOLHAAS What Ever Happened to Urbanism? 305
1956 PAUL RUDOLPH The Six Determinants of Architectural Form 213 1994 REM KOOLHAAS Bigness: or the Problem of Large 307
1960 REYNER BANHAM Theory and Design in the First Machine Age 216
1962 CEDRIC PRICE Activity and Change 217 EDITORS' NOTE 312
 CHARLES JENCKS are inscribed the rules against representatio n. 'Thou shalt not make unto thee a ny
graven image, or any like ness of a ny thing that is in heaven above, o r that is in
The Volcano and the Tablet earth beneath ... ' Why this injunction against icons and images? Because 'Tho u
shalt have no other gods before me. Thou shalt not bow down thyself to the m, nor
serve them : for I the Lord thy God a m a j ealous God ... ' Just to prove the point
Why do politicians a nd architects write manifestoes? Whe n Karl M arx wrote The He destroys the a rchitecture and cities of those who fall into idolatry, even those
Communist Manifesto he was not trying to produce a piece of literature - nor of the Israelites.
interpret the world, as he said, but c hange it. Our century, as Ulrich Conrads has Enforcing purity and orthodoxy, we will see, is still a tactic of Mode rnists,
shown in his book Programmes and Manifestoes on Twentieth-Century Architec- Late Moderni sts and Prince C harl es, with his Decalogue of Ten Principles. These
ture (1964) has turned the architectural manifesto into a predictable event. Un- were deli vered, as a religio us leader might do, in a ma ni festo called A Vision of
able or unwilling to advertise, an architect must become well known in other Britain. Those who write manifestoes are j ealo us prophets who call the class to
media besides buildings. Other professionals use the ma nifesto for the same rea- order by da mning othe r teachers. If God first a ppears to Moses in fire and thunder
son and the surprising thing is that, although politicians, theologia ns and artists as He lays down the great moral code of 'thou shalt and shalt not', then his final
all write them - constantly - they do not give the genre muc h thought. It is a presence in architecture is equally th reatening . Moses gives the la ws a monumen-
c urious art form, like the haiku, with its own rules of brevity, wit and le mot j uste. tal setting and puts the tablets in 'the ark o f the covenant'. The n, ' When Moses
The first a rc hitectura l ma nifesto, o r rules for decorum, was G od 's Te n had finished his work, the c lo ud covered the Tent of Meeting, and the Presence of
Commandments. Plato called God 'the architect of all things', and architects play the Lord filled the Tabernacle . .. O ver the Tabernacle a cloud o f the Lord rested
God when they make arbitrary decisions and adopt one theory rather than anothe r. by day, and fire would appear in it by night, in the vie w o f all the house of Israel
In the Bible the ultimate c reator had several distinct personalities which He used throughout their j ourney'.
effectively, in opposition to each other: abstract creator, warrior-Lord, law-g iver The image of God is arresting. What is a cloud by day and fire by night? A
and personal friend. As Jack Miles shows in his psycho-history, God, A Biography volcano. It is this irresistible di splay of vio lence and strength whic h makes the
( 1995), the warrior type, the Lord, inspires fear and awe, like a cosmic force, a manifesto memorable and psychologically impressive. The re is one more important
hurricane or flood . He does this as a prelude, just before he shows compassion aspect to the genre: the personal ele ment. 'The Lord used to speak to Moses face to
and tells people what kind of buildings they should construct. The good manifesto face, as o ne speaks to a frie nd', and there are ma ny other passages which person-
mi xes a bit o f terror, runaway emotion and c harisma with a lot of common sense. alise the message, to both Moses and the chosen people. T he most effective ma ni-
In Exodus, whe n Moses is leading the Israelites out of Egypt, He is full of festoes, such as Le Corbusier's Towards a New Architecture ( 1923) constantly address
genocidal declarations whic h are meant to frighten followers into monotheism. 'I the reader as 'you' and reiterates the joint 'we' until an implied pact is built up bet-
will utterly blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven', He predicts, and ween author and convert. A mani festo must mani fest its message to you, personally.
also announces a scorched earth po lic y against the unfo rtunate Canaanites, who The volcano (the explosion o f e motion), the tablet (the laws a nd theories) and
worship other gods. As Nietzsche and then Le Corbusier quoting Nietzsche were the personal voice; to these three tropes and strategies have been added a few
later to proclaim in their manifes toes: ' burn what you love, love what you burn'. more. AWN Pug in, in the beginning of the nineteenth century, gave architecture
The genre demands blood - although you will find that Robert Venturi writes 'a the good/ bad compara ti ve drawings in his Contrasts and, ever s ince the lecture
gentle manifesto' . with two slide proj ectors caught o n in the 1920s, it has been the stock-in-trade of
The motives for destruction - to inspire fear in o rder to create unity and ortho- pole micists. All four strategies are evident in Coop Himmelblau's Architecture Must
doxy - are fairly transparent and they lead to the first declaration of architectural Blaze, a New Modern mani fes to of 1980. Here we find The Bad - Biedermeie r -
Minimalism in the famous Decalogue of Commandme nts. Moses, bra ving much versus The Good - an a rc hitecture that ' lights up' - and the two are di stinguished
cosmic terror of lightening and thunder, takes his tablets up M ount Sinai, on which in the first person plural (' We are tired of seeing Palladio and other historical

6 Theories and Manifestoes Charles Jencks 7

masks' ) . Here is the Tablet of Virtues - architecture that is 'fiery, smooth, hard, Late Modernism, with his wri tings on tectonics in 1989. From the seventies to the
angular ' etc. And the volcanic violence - 'architecture must blaze' and 'bleed, eighties, Robert Stern moved from Post-Modernism to Traditional, C hristopher
whirl, even break'. Alexander from Late to Post-Modernism, and so it goes. There are interesting
Violence and the irrational are haUmarks o f the New Modern manifesto, as reasons for these jumps which may tell us something important about the period.
o ne can see with the writings of Tschumi, Kipnis, Wigley, Woods and others. First of all, the protean creator, like Michelangelo, may go through four periods
Often critical of Modernist humanism as too anthropomorphic, it proffers a type simply because he is so creative - in his case from Early to Hig h Renaissance and
of anti-humanism. T his was Peter Eisenman's reading of Foucault and the new then from Mannerism to Baroque. Eisenman is an example of this restless self-
paradig m coming out of France, and in 1976 he ushered in the break fro m Late transformation. Secondly, the maverick, like Philip Johnson, may jump back and
Modernism. His article ' Post-Functionalism' was also opposed to the incipient forth because, as Jo hnson says, he and his audience get bored. Third, and most
Post-Modernism. So, again, polemical positions have to be jealously asserted in impo rtant, a change may signify a shift in culture and the development of an
opposition to each other, in order to keep the tribe pure, and it is no accident that architect. It often represents a response to new pressures, ex plosive non-architec-
Eisenman - the master theorist and po lemicist - inscribed his tablets in the pages tural growths: in short, the second type of volcano.
o f his magazine, called significantly, Oppositions. The fact that most architects stay loyal to one approach is quite obvious and it
Eisenman is the Le Corbusier of the late twentieth century, at least with respect allows traditio ns to grow in opposition to each other - dialecticall y - and thus
to fo rmulating new theories. Theory is a kind of congealed manifesto, its violence produce a varied environment, a maxi mum cho ice for society. Yet there are a few
subtracted to become acceptable in the groves of academe. Since there are more architects who not only cut across categories in time but do not fi t happil y into
academic architects alive than ever before, there is mo re theory produced, much any tradition. With these, the more unclassifiable ones, there is always the temp-
of it written in a turgid and impenetrable style. Still, as Le Corbusier and Eisenman tatio n, as with those such as Frank Gehry and Eric Moss, to invent sui generis
prove, theory is an engi ne of architecture and, like the concetto in the sixteenth labels. Here the strategy would become unw ieldy and lead to confusion. Hence
century, the machine which invents new types of building, new responses to the we have limited ourselves to fo ur majo r approaches, classified by the most preva-
city. Ours is an age of theories responding to a changing world, to the global lent definer, and placed the fifth , the ecologists, within the expansive Post-Mod-
economy, ecological crises and cultural confusions. In effect, these are a second ern tradi tio n. Why? Because their attacks on overdevelopment, the mechanistic
type of volcano and they disrupt normal architecture and provoke the response of paradigm and economism are all critical of Late Modernism.
Rem Koo lhaas, Ian McHarg and C hristian Norberg-Schulz, to mention only three
of the theorists reprinted here. Eisenman, with his 'Cardboard Architecture ' of Capsule Definitions
1972, and his work, also shows that theory can keep architecture honest as well as It is always reducti ve to defi ne growing, complex movements, always foolhardy
inventive. T his is no small matter in a period which has seen most architects suc- because it can never be done satisfac torily, and always necessary - in order to
cumb to the comfort industry. clari fy the issues at stake. Thus the following four:
The fact that Eisenman should write a Late Modern manifesto in 1972, defending Traditional architecture, whose greatest exponents here are Leon Krier, Demetri
the autonomy of form, and then four years later jump to a New Modernism that Porphyrios and Prince C harles. This movement backwards quite obviously builds
' displaces man away from the centre of his world' brings out a surprising aspect on past models, o ften classical, which are modified piecemeal with an attention to
of contemporary architecture. At least it surprised me, after Karl Kropf and I forced context and the elaboration of construction and the vernacular. The ideals of tradi-
the contributors into the fo ur main pigeonho les you will fi nd. The classification tional architecture are a classical propo rtion that reflects an ordered cosmos, har-
system we used reveals that a few architects jump between traditions. For instance, mony, a seamless integration of past and present and the use of timeless, Platonic
sometime after 1980, Leon Krier slid from Post-Modern to Traditional; Kenneth forms. Traditi onal architecture, although it never completely died, reasserted it-
Frampton, usually attack ing Post-Modernism, produced his highly influential self in the mid-seventies as it, like Post-Modernism, reacted to urban dissolution
essay supporting it - 'Critical Regionalism' - in 1983, before jumping back to and the ho using failures of Modernism.

8 Theories and Manifestoes Charles Jencks 9

 Late Modern architecture is pragmatic or technocratic in its social ideology Post-Modern is paradox - After Now, Post-Present
and, from about 1960, takes inany of the stylistic ideas and values of Modernism Post-Modern is 'posteriority', after all time
to an extreme in order to resuscitate a dull (or cliched) language. A pronounced Post-Modern is the desire to live outside, beyond, after
emphasis on technology and the autonomy of form, the exaggeration of a previ- Post-Modern is time-binding of past, present, future
ous rhetoric, characterises the architecture, as often happens in 'Late' periods. Post-Modern is the continuation of Modernism and its transcendence.
Late Modern architecture, also facing the popular rejection of the 'dumb box', If they scanned and rhymed, such verses could be set to music and be more memo-
developed after 1965 in a sculptural direction - the articulated box - and towards rable. At best, the propositions of a manifesto verge on self-parody and are
an elaboration of structure, services and joints: High Tech. funnier when serious.
New Modern architecture is deconstructive of Modern forms and ideas, her- Post-Modernism is crossing boundaries, crossing species
metic in coding, often fragmented and dissonant in form, self-contradictory by in- Post-Modernism is operating in the gap between art and life
tention, anti-humanist and, spatially, explosive. Often the intention is to weave Post-Modernism is Cambozola Cheese (illicit hybrid with the best genes
opposites together and deconstruct traditions from the inside, in order to high- of Mrs Camembert and Mr Gorgonzola)
light difference, otherness and our alienation from the cosmos. Beginning in the Post-Modernism is the rabbi 's advice to his son: 'Whenever faced with
late 1970s as a reaction to both Modernism and Post-Modernism, it has been in- two extremes, always pick a third'.
fluenced by the philosophy of Derrida and the formal language of the Constructivists Post-Modernism revisits the past - with quotation marks
- hence its most visible manifestation, Deconstructivism. Post-Modernism revisits the future - with irony
Post-Modern architecture is doubly-coded - the combination of modern tech- Post-Modernism is acknowledging the already said, as Eco has already
niques and methods with something else (often traditional building) in order for said, in an age of lost innocence.
architecture to communicate with both the public and a concerned minority, usu- Manifestoes use any rhetorical tools available - rhymes, bad jokes, puns, outra-
ally other architects. Since post-modernists wish to restitch the fragmenting city, geous untruths (think of Baudrillard) - and they always mint new metaphors, in
without being traditionaJ, and communicate across the classes and professional an attempt to persuade. When the Cathedrals were White, Le Corbusier's po-
divides, they adopt a hybrid language - even foreground architecture as a lan- lemical book of the 1930s, was meant to instil the new white spirit into the 'land
guage itself. Post-Modern ecologists also adopt a double-agenda which criticises of the timid' , that is, Americans, New Yorkers- but a moment's cogitation would
Modernism and Traditionalism while, at the same time, selecting elements from have revealed that the cathedrals were never white. Like the Parthenon, and
both of them. Post-Modernism as a rainbow coalition of those who resist or criti- Greek temples which always looked white to the purist's wishful gaze, they
cise Modernism started in the 1960s; as a movement it only came together in the were, originally, painted (which does not sound right to the Minimalists and the
mid- l 970s with my article, reprinted herein. jealous God).
Manifestoes are poetry written by someone on the run (like Trotsky's polemic
Manifesto Logic after the Revolution written while fighting the Whites, jumping on and off his
Those definitions, however, are academic, theoretical, bloodless - not something to militarised train). They have an hysterical, telegraphic quality (or today an Internet
leave home for (the ultimate aim of a good manifesto). They are necessary for cool truncation) as if the sender did not want to pay for extra syllables. Architects,
ratiocination and comparison, which is why they are included, but I defy you to such as Aldo van Eyck, are adept at these gnomic utterances, wordtruncks that
repeat them verbatim, without looking. Manifestoes, however, are jack-hammered collapse space-time into neologisms such as 'builtform'. These are directed at
into the mind, like a painful experience (and only recently have neurologists found other architects, to hypnotise them. The general public would stop reading - but
the painful mechanisms that cement old horrors into our brains). They are repeti- that does not deter the polemicist, who is looking to tantalise a sect. To read a
tive, incantatory, responding to the imperatives of history, hoping to ward off catas- polemic, you already have to want the expected outcome since the manifesto is
trophe with magic or logic. They are like first grade recitation, responses in church: made more to keep an audience united than to convert the heathen.
'
10 Theories and Manifestoes Charles Jencks 11
 As you read the following manifestoes and theories, note this logic and the POST-MODERN
way ideas unfold in time, as if there were a Zeitgeist at work. The section on Post-
Modernism reveals an impending sense of crisis within Modernism, or within the
environment due to Modernism, and each of the following traditions also shows a
similar mood. Crisis, or the feeling of imminent catastrophe, is one more reason
why the ' volcano' is as deep a metaphor as the 'tablet' - pure theory - for without
the motive to change the world the manifesto would not be written. In our time,
we might reflect with irony, as opposed to the Christian or Modernist time, that a
collection of manifestoes and theories must show difference: ie, show the plural-
ism and dialectic between manifestoes which each one denies. This is why a puri-
fied, Modernist collection, such as that of Ulrich Conrads, mentioned at the outset,
is no longer possible.

Made/on Vriesendorp, St Jerome reading Rem Koolhaas, S,M, L, X-L, 1997 James Stirling and Michael Wilford, Neue Staatsgalerie, Stut1Sart, 1977-84

12 Theories and Manifestoes 13

1955 JAMES STIRLING according to an exact geometrical hierarchy. In fact, Garches must be considered
the masterpiece of Neo-Palladianism in modern architecture ...
From Garches to }aoul: Le Corbusier Garches is an excellent example of Le Corbusier's particular interpretatio n of
as Domestic Architect in 1927 and 1953 the machine aesthetic ...
There is no reference to any aspect of the machine at Jaoul either in construc-
The two following reviews by James Stirling (b I 926, Glasgow, d 1992) tion or aesthetic. These houses, total cost £30,000, are being built by Algerian
show both the reverence Le Corbusier commanded and the confusion labourers equipped with ladders, hammers and nails, and with the exceptio n of
he inspired with his later buildings. By apparently repudiating his ear- glass no synthetic materials are being used; technologically, they make no advance
lier work. Le Corbusier seemed to throw into question the entire pro- on medieval building ...
gramme of Rationalist and Functionalist Modernism. Yet, as Stirling To imply that these houses wi ll be anything less than magnificent art would be
and Gowan 's Leicester Engineering Building ( 1964) demonstrates, incorrect. Their sheer plastic virtuosity is beyond emu lation. Nevertheless, on
the doubts led to a new kind of functionalism, one that openly repre- analysis, it is disturbing to find little refere nce to the rational principles which are
sented function and used simple, industrial materials in a straight- the basis of the modern movement, and it is difficult to avoid assessing these
forward way. Stirling carried the notion ofrepresentation - the expression buildings except in terms of 'art for art's sake' . . .
of function and symbolic forms - into his later and essentially Post- As homes the Jaoul houses are almost cosy and could be inhabited by any
Modern work such as the Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart ( 1983) and the civilized fami ly, urban or rural. They are built by and intended for the status quo.
Clore Gallery, London ( 1985). Conversely, it is difficult to imagine Garches being li ved in spontaneously except
by such as the S itwe lls, with never less than half a dozen brilliant, and permanent,
Villa Garches, recently reoccupied, and the houses for Mr Jaoul and his son, now guests. Utopian, it anticipates, and participates in, the progress of twentieth-century
nearing completion, are possibly the most significant buildings by Le Corbusier emancipation. A monument, not to an age which is dead, but to a way of life
to be seen in Paris to-day, for they represent the extremes of his vocabulary: the which has not generally arrived, and a continuous reminder of the quality to which
former, rational, urbane, programmatic, the latter personal and anti-mechanistic. all architects must aspire if modern architecture is to retain its vitality. (pp 145-151)
If style is the crystallization of an attitude, then these buildings, so different even
at the most superficial level of comparison, may, on examination, reveal some- Extracts. Source: The Architectural Review, vol I 18; no 705, September 1955. © Lady Mory Stirling.
thing of a philosophical change of attitude on the part of their author.
Garches, built at the culmination of Cubism and canonizing the theories in
'Towards a New Architecture', has since its inception been a standard by which
Le Corbusier's genius is measured against that of the other great architects of
this century ...
If Garches appears urban, sophisticated and essentially in keeping with the
' !'esprit Parisian', the Jaoul houses seem primitive in character, recalling the
Provenyal farmhouse community; they seem out of tune with their Parisian envi-
ronment ...
Maison Jaoul is no doubt dimensioned according to 'Le Modulor' , a develop-
ment from the application of the golden section by regulating lines as at Garches,
where it is possible to read off the inter-relations of squares and sections as the
eye traverses the fayade and where, internally, every e lement is positioned

14 Theories and Manifestoes Post-Modern 15

1956 JAMES STIRLING form, but only recentl y has regional building become a primary source of plastic
incident. There seems to be no doubt that le Corbusier 's incredibl e powers o f
Ronchamp: Le Corbusier's Chapel and the observation are lessening the necessity for invention, and his travels round the
Crisis of Rationalism world have stockpiled his vocabulary with plastic elements and objets trouves o f
considerable picturesqueness. If folk architecture is to re-vitalise the movement,
it wi ll first be necessary to determine what it is that is modern in modern architec-
ture. The scattered openings o n the chapel walls may recall de Stijl but a similar
With the simultaneous appearance of Lever House in New York and the Unite in expressio n is also commonplace in the farm buildings of Provence ...
Marseilles, it had become obvious that the stylistic schism between Europe and Since the Bauhaus, the fusion of art and technology has been the lifelong mis-
the New World had entered a decisive phase.The issue of art or technology had sion of.Gropius, and yet it is this aspect which denotes his least achievement. The
divided the ideological basis of the modern movement, and the diverging styles Dessau building itself presents a series of elevations each of which is biased towards
apparent since Constructivism probably have their origin in the attempt to fuse either art or techno logy. The suggestio n that architecture has become so complex
Art Nouveau and late 19th-century engineering. In the USA, functionali sm now that it needs to be conceived by a team representing the composite mind may
means the adaptation to building of industrial processes and products, but in Europe partly account for the ambiguity wh ich is felt with buildings generated in this
it remains the essentially humanist method of designing to a specific use. The manner. On the other hand, Maillart, who evolved his aesthetic as the result of
post-war architecture of America may appear brittle to Europeans and, by obviating in venti ng theories of reinforcing to exploit the concrete ribbon, achieved in his
the hierarchical disposition of elements, anonymous; however, this academic method bridges an integration of technique and expression which has rarely been sur-
of criticism may no longer be adequate in considering techno logical products of passed. The exaggerated supremacy of 'Art' in European Architecture probably
the 20th century. Yet this method would still appear valid in critic izing recent Euro- denotes a hesitant attitude towards technology, whi ch itself has possibly been
pean architecture where the elaboration of space and form has continued without retarded by our deris ive attitude towards the myth of progress, the recent belief
abatement; and the chapel by Le Corbusier may possibly be the most plastic building that true progress lies in charity, welfare, and personal happiness, having replaced
ever erected in the name of modern architecture ... the Victorian idea o f progress as the inventio n and perfection o f man's tools and
It may be considered that the Ronchamp chapel, being a ' pure expression of equipment .. .
poetry ' and the symbol of an ancient ritual, should not therefore be criticised by The desire to deride the schematic basis of modern architecture and the ability
the rationale of the modern movement. Remembering, however, that this is a product to turn a design upside down and make it architecture are symptomatic of a state
of Europe's greatest architect, it is important to consider whether this building when the vocabulary is not being extended, and a parallel can be drawn with the
should influence the course of modern architecture. The sensational impact of the Mannerist period of the Renaissance. Certainl y, the forms which have developed
chapel on the visitor is significantly not sustained fo r any great length of time and from the rationa le and the initial ideology o f the modern movement are being
when the emotions subside there is little to appea l to the intellect, and nothing to mannerized and changed into a conscious imperfection ism ... (pp 155- J 6 1)
analyze or stimulate curiosity. This entire ly visual appeal and the lack of intellec-
tual participation demanded from the public may partly account for its easy ac- Extracts. Source: The Architectural Review, vol I 19; no 71 I , March 1956. © Lady Mary Stirling.
ceptance by the local population ...
With the loss of direction in modern painting, European architects have been
looking to popular art and folk architecture, mainly of an indigenous character,
fro m which to extend their vocabulary. An appreciation of regional building, par-
ticularly of the Mediterranean, has frequently appeared in Le Corbusier's books,
principally as examples of integrated social units ex pressing themselves through

16 Theories and Manifestoes Post-Modern 17

1960 KEVIN LYNCH People observe the city while moving through it, and along these paths the
other environmental elements are arranged and related.
The Image of the City
2 Edges. Edges are the linear elements not used or considered as paths to the
The Image of the City was published at a time when the aridity of observer. They are boundaries between two phases, linear breaks in continuity:
Modernist theories of urbanism hod reached on extreme. In that shores, railroad cuts, edges of development, walls. They are lateral references
environment, Kevin Lynch's (b 1918, d 1989) pragmatic, perceptu- rather than coordinate axes. Such edges may be barriers, more or less penetra-
ally based approach to urban form was all the more readily absorbed. ble, which close one region off from another; or they may be seams, lines
His concern for the legibility of cities countered the abstract rational- along which two regions are related and joined together. These edge elements,
ism of C/AM as well as the unavoidable reality of suburban sprawl. aithough probably not as dominant as paths, are for many people important
Lynch taught planning and urban design at the Massachusetts Insti- organizing features, particularly in the role of holding together generalized
tute ofTechnology and published extensively, including What Time is areas, as in the outline of a city by water or wall.
This Place? ( 1972), Managing the Sense of a Region ( 1976) and A
Theory of Good City Form ( 1981 ). 3 Districts. Districts are the medium-to-large sections of the city, conceived of
as having two-dimensional extent, which the observer mentally enters 'inside
The City Image and its Elements of', and which are recognizable as having some common, identifying charac-
There seems to be a public image of any given city which is the overlap of many ter. Always identifiable from the inside, they are also used for exterior refer-
individual images. Or perhaps there is a series of images, each held by some ence if visible from the outside. Most people structure their city to some extent
significant number of citizens. Such group images are necessary if an individual in this way, with individual differences as to whether paths or districts are the
is to operate successfully within his environment and cooperate with his fellows. dominant elements. It seems to depend not only upon the individual but also
Each individual picture is unique, with some content that is rarely or never com- upon the given city.
municated, yet it approximates the public image, which, in different environments,
is more or less compelling, more or less embracing. 4 Nodes. Nodes are points, the strategic spots in a city into which an observer
This analysis limits itself to the effects of physical, perceptible objects. There can enter, and which are the intensive foci to and from which he is travelling.
are other influences on imageability, such as the social meaning of an area, its They may be primarily junctions, places of a break in transportation, a cross-
function , its history, or even its name. These will be g lossed over, since the objec- ing or convergence of paths, moments of shift from one structure to another.
tive here is to uncover the role of form itself. It is taken for granted that in actual Or nodes may be simply concentrations, which gain their importance from
design form should be used to reinforce meaning, and not to negate it. being the condensation of some use or physical character, as a street-corner
The contents of the city images so far studied, which are referable to physical hangout or an enclosed square. Some of these concentration nodes are the
forms, can conveniently be classified into five types of elements: paths, edges, focus and epitome of a district, over which their influence radiates and of
districts, nodes, and landmarks. Indeed, these elements may be of more general which they stand as symbol ...
application, since they seem to reappear in many types of environmental images
... These elements may be defined as follows: 5 Landmarks. Landmarks are another type of point reference, but in this case
the observer does not enter within them, they are external. They are usually a
Paths. Paths are the channels along which the observer customarily, occasion- rather simply defined physical object: building, sign, store, or mountain. Their
ally, or potentially moves. They may be streets, walkways, transit lines, canals, use involves the singling out of one element from a host of possibilities ...
railroads. For many people, these are the predominant elements in their image. (pp46-48)

18 Theories and Manifestoes Post-Modern 19

City Form 1 Singularity of Figure-Ground Clarity: sharpness of boundary ...
We have the opportunity of forming our new city world into an imageable 2 Form Simplicity: clarity and simplicity of visible form in the geometrical sense,
landscape: visible, coherent, and clear. It will require a new attitude on the part of limitation of parts ...
the city dweller, and a physical reshaping of his domain into forms which entrance 3 Continuity: continuance of edge or surface (as in street, cha nnel, skyline,
the eye, which organize themselves from level to level in time and space, which can or setback) ...
stand as symbols for urban life.The present study yields some clues in this respect. 4 Dominance: dominance of one part over others by means of size, intensity, or
Most objects which we are accustomed to call beautiful, such as a painting or interest, resulting in the reading of the whole as a principle feature with an
a tree, are single-purpose things, in which, through long de velopment of the im- associated cluster ...
press of one will, there is an intimate, visible linkage from fine detail to total 5 Clarity of Joint: high visibility of joints and seams (as at major intersection, or
structure.A city is a multi-purpose, shifting organization, a tent for many func- on a sea front) ...
tions, raised by many hands and with relative speed. Complete specialization, 6 Directional Differentiation: asymmetries, gradients, and radial references which
final meshing, is improbable and undesirable. The form must be somewhat non- differentiate one end from another ...
committal, plastic to the purposes and perceptions of its citizens. 7 Visual Scope: qualities which inc rease the range and pe ne tration of vision,
Yet there are fundame ntal functions of whic h the city forms may be expres- either actually of symboli cally. These include transparenc ies ... overlaps ...
sive: circulation, major land-uses, key focal points.The common hopes and pleas- v istas and panoramas ...
ures, the sense of community may be made flesh. Above all, if the environment 8 Motion Awareness: the qualities which make sensible to the observer, through
is visibly organized a nd sharply identified, then the c iti zen can inform it with both the visual and the kinesthetic senses his own actual or potential motion ...
his own meanings and connections. The n it will become a true place, remark- 9 Times Series: series which are sensed over time, including both simple item-
able and unmistakable ... by-item linkages ... a nd also series which are truly structured in time and
As an artificial world, the city should be so in the best sense: made by art, thus melodic in nature ...
shaped for human purposes. It is our ancient habit to adjust to our environment, to 10 Names and Meanings: non-physical characteristics which may enhance the
discriminate and organi ze perceptually whatever is present to our senses. Sur- imageability of an element ... (pp 105- 108)
vival and dominance based themselves on this sensuous adaptabi li ty, yet now we
may go on to a new phase of interaction. On home grounds, we may begin to Extracts. Source: Kevin l ynch, The Image of the City, MIT Press (Cambridge, Mass), 1960.
adapt the environment itself to the perceptual pattern and symbolic process of the © 1960 by The Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the President and Fellows of
human being ... Harvard College.
To heighten the imageability of the urban environment is to facilitate its visual
identification and structuring. The elements isolated above - the paths, edges,
landmarks, nodes and reg ions - are the building blocks in the process of making
firm , diffe rentiated structures at the urban scale ... (pp91-95)

Form Qualities
These clues for urban design can be summarized in another way, since there are
common themes that run through the whole set: the repeated references to certain
general physical characteristics. These are the categories of direct interest in design,
since they describe qualities that a designer may operate upon. They might be
summarized as follows:

20 Theories and Manifestoes Post-Modern 21

1961 N JOHN HABRAKEN such a point that a serious study of the notion of support structures is feasible.
The impoverishment of human society in mass housing towns is becoming gener-
Supports: An Alternative to Mass Housing ally recognised. Like a caterpillar in a cocoon, we have surrounded ourselves
with a technical potential which, as yet, has not found its proper purpose. The
Largely on the strength of Suppo rts, N John Habraken (b I 928, time has come to free ourselves and regain the initiative.
Bandung, Indonesia, of Dutch parents) was Director of the Stichting The continuing development of the present situation will inevitably lead to
Architecten Research (SAR) from 1965 until I 975. SAR was a working some kind of support-structure system. There is no question of invention here,
party of Dutch architects created to explore the possibilities of sup- but rather of a certain insight. That is why it is necessary to discuss it. We must
port structures and infill building as an alternative to mass housing. not allow new forms to overcome us in the way mass housing came upon us like
Working primarily through research, writing and teaching, Habraken a natural disaster. Our task is to try and understand what we are doing as clearly
has maintained the view that the built environment is a living thing as possible, and not to explain and interpret it only after it is done. We must see
and that change within a durable pattern is one of its primary char- what the future holds so that we may judge it, come to terms with it, or fight it.
acteristics. He was Head of Department and Professor of Architec- If new forms of human housing offer new opportunities, we must be able to
ture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology from 1975 until say why they are preferable to old ones. To do that a clear insight is needed into
1995 and continues to work in private practice. what dwelling really means. Once we agree that it is necessary to introduce the
inhabitant or active force into the housing process, we can face the future with
.. . The new landscape we survey is still shrouded in mist, but clear orientation confidence. Building has always been a matter of confidence and to make this a
points can be discerned. Support structures make a new orientation possible. reality we must be clear and unequivocal about the nature of man 's housing needs.
- They enable the occupants to be involved via the independent dwelling. (pp 92-93)
- They distinguish between industrial production and site labour.
- They distinguish between the general and the particular, thus allowing indus- Extracts. Source: N John Habraken, Supports:An A/temative to Mass Housing, t ranslation by B
trial development to take place, but at the same time they gather both together Valkenburg, The Architectural Press (Lo ndon), 1972. © N John Habraken. O rigina lly pub-

by an all-embracing industrial apparatus. lished as De Drogers en de Mensen, Scheltema and Holkema NV (Amsterdam), 196 1.

- They make possible the li ving, evolving town. © Schelterma and Holkema NV.
- They offer, as the framework of a town, great opportunities in town planning terms.
- They bring to an end artificial aspects of the way in which society is housed.
- They distinguish between the field of the architect and that of the town planner.
- They encourage the growth of a new society.
The idea of support structures and support towns is the idea of a world based upon
the realities of human relationships. No thoughts directed toward a better future
can be fruitful unless they couple confidence in human nature with a full exploita-
tion of all useful means.
If in housing we wish to restore human relationships, but mean to exclude
today's technical possibilities, we are following a road to the past, a road we
cannot follow. If we wish only to develop the technological pote ntial without touching
human relationships, we end up with something like mass housing. Support towns
are to some extent inherent in today 's activities. Technology has developed to

22 Theories and Manifestoes Post-Modern 23

1961 JANE JACOBS The Uses of Sidewalks: Contact
Lowly, unpurposeful and random as they may appear, sidewalk contacts are the
The Death and Life of Great American Cities small change from which a city's wealth of public life may grow ... (p72)
A sidewalk life ... arises only when the concrete, tangible facilities it requires
The simmering discontent with Modernist urbanism that began a~er are present. These happen to be the same facilities, in the same abundance and
the Second World War came to a boil around I 960. Jane Jacobs ubiquity, that are required for cultivating sidewalk safety ... (p70)
(b 1916), a journalist and activist, stoked the (,re with The Death
and Life of Great American Cities, one of the first books to take The Uses of City Neighborhoods
the issue out of the closed world of the professionals and expose it The lack of either economic or social self-containment is natural and necessary to
to the general, public. Most if not all of the principles she set out are city neighborhoods - simply because they are parts of cities ...
still relevant and are only now being applied in actual planning and But neighborhoods in cities do need to supply some means for civilized self-
urban design. Jacobs has written extensively on urban issues, her government. This is the problem.
other works including, The Economy of Cities ( 1969) and Systems Looking at city neighborhoods as organs of self-government, I can see evi-
of Survival ( 199 2). dence that only three kinds of neighborhoods are useful: (1) the city as a whole;
(2) street neighborhoods; and (3) districts of large, subcity size, composed of
This book is an attack on current city planning and rebuilding. It is also, and mostly, I00,000 people or more in the cases of the largest cities ... (p 117)
an attempt to introduce new principles of city planning and rebuilding, different
and even opposite from those now taught in everything from schools of architecture The Conditions for City Diversity
and planning to the Sunday supplements and women's magazines ... (p3) The Generators of Diversity
To understand cities, we have to deal outright with combinations or mixtures of
The Peculiar Nature of Cities uses, not separate uses, as the essential phenomena . . . (p 144)
The Uses of Sidewalks: Safety
Streets in cities serve many purposes besides carrying vehicles, and city sidewalks - The Need for Primary Mixed Uses
the pedestrian parts of the streets - serve many purposes besides carrying pedes- Condition 1: The district, and indeed as many internal parts as possible, must serve
trians. These uses are bound up with circulation but are not identical to it and in more than one primary function , preferably more than two. These must insure the
their own right they are at least as basic as circulation to the proper working of presence of people who go outdoors on different schedules and are in the place for
cities ... (p29) different reasons, but who are able to use many facilities in common ... (pl52)
A city equipped to handle strangers, and to make a safety asset, in itself, out of
the presence of strangers, as the streets of successful neighborhoods do, must The Need for Small Blocks
have three main qualities: Condition 2: Most blocks must be short; that is, streets and opportunities to turn
- First, there must be a clear demarcation between what is public space and corners must be frequent ... (p 178)
what is private space . . .
- Second, there must be eyes upon the street, eyes belonging to those we might The Need for Aged Buildings
call the natural proprietors of the street . .. Condition 3: The district must mingle buildings that vary in age and condition,
- Third: the sidewalk must have users on it fairly continuously ... (p35) including a good proportion of old ones ... (p l 87)

24 Theories and Manifestoes Post-Modern 25

The Need fo r Concentration 1962 ALDO VANEYCK
Condition 4: The district must have a sufficiently dense concentration of people, for what-
ever purpose they may be there. This includes people there because of residence ... (p200)
Team 10 Primer

When we deal with cities we a re dealing with life at its most complex and intense. Team I O was originally formed as a working group of younger archi-
Because this is so , there is a basic esthetic limitation on what can be done with tects to prepare for CIAM X, the tenth and lost meeting of the Congres
cities : A city cannot be a work of art ... (p372) lnternotionoux d'Architecture Moderne, held in Dubrovnik in I 956.
Of the members, Aldo van Eyck (b I 918, Driebergen, The Nether-
The Kind of a Problem a City is . .. lands) was perhaps the most poetic yet articulate in suggesting ways
Cities happe n to be proble ms in organi zed complexity, like the life sciences. They post the dull, hygienic emptiness of Functionalism and the Athens
present 'situations in which a half-dozen or even several dozen qua ntities are all Charter. More concerned with architecture than urbanism, his work
varying simultaneously and in subtly interconnected ways'. C ities, again like the combines Modernist idealism with a sense of multivalent reading and
life sc iences, do not ex hibit one proble m in organized complexity, which if under- surprise more characteristic ofPost-Modernism. His buildings include the
stood explains all. T hey can be analyzed into many such proble ms or segments Children's Home.Amsterdam ( 1960), Sculpture Povilion,Arnhem ( 1966)
which, as in the case o f the life sciences, are also re lated with one another. The and Housing, Zwolle ( I 977).
vari ables are many, but they are not helter-skelter; they a re ' inte rre lated into an
organic who le' ... (p433) Space has no room, time not a moment fo r man. He is excluded .
Why have cities not, long since, bee n identified , understood and treated as In o rder to ' include' him - he lp his ho mecoming - he must be gathered into
problems of o rganized complexity? If the people concerned w ith the life scie nces the ir meaning. (Man is the subject as well as the object of arc hitecture.)
were able to identify the ir di fficult proble ms as proble ms of organized complex- Whate ver space a nd time mean, place and occasion mean more.
ity, why have people professionally concerned with c ities not ide ntified the kind For space in the image of man is place, and time in the image o f man is occasion.
of problem they had ? .. . Today space and what it should coincide with in orde r to become 'space' - man
The theorists of conventio nal city planning have consistently mista ke n cities at home with himse lf - are lost. Both search for the same place, but cannot find it.
as proble ms of simplicity and of disorgani zed complex ity ... Provide that space, artic ulate the in-between .
These misapplications stand in our way; they have to be hauled out in the light, Is man able to pe netrate the mate rial he orga ni zes into hard shape between one
recognized as inappropriate strategies of thought and discarded . .. (pp434-4 35) m an a nd another, between what is here a nd what is there, betwee n this and a
Because the life sciences a nd cities happe n to pose the same kinds of proble ms following moment? Is he able to find the right place for the ri ght occasion?
does not mean they are the same proble ms . .. No - So start with this : make a welcome o f each door and a counte nance of
In the case of unde rstandin g c ities , I think the most impo rta nt habits o f each window.
tho ug ht a re these: M a ke of each place a bunc h o f places o f each house and each city, for a
1 To thin k about processes; ho use is a tin y city, a city a huge ho use. Get c loser to the shiftin g centre o f
2 To work ind uctively, reasoning fro m partic ula rs to the general; human reality a nd build its counte rform - for each ma n a nd all me n, since they
3 To seek fo r ' unaverage' cl ues in vo lving very s mall quantities, whic h reveal no lo nger do it themse lves.
the way la rger and more 'average' quantities are operating. (pp439-440) Whoever atte mpts to solve the riddle of space in the abstract, will construct
the outline of e mptiness and call it space.
Extracts. Source: Jane Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, Jonathan Cape Whoever atte mpts to meet man in the abstract will speak with his echo and
(London), 1962. © 1961 by Jane Jacobs. Repr inted by per mission of Random House, Inc. call this dialogue.

26 Theories and Manifestoes Post-Modern 2 7

 Man still breathes both in and out. When is architecture going to do the particular kind of clarity neither house nor city can do without; a kind which
same? . .. (p l0I ) never quite relinquishes its full meaning.
Take off your shoes and walk along a beach through the ocean's last thin sheet
of water gliding landwards and seawards. Call it Labyrinthian Clarity
You feel reconciled in a way you wouldn't feel if there were a forced dialogue Such clarity (ally of significant ambiguity) softens the edges of time and space
between you and either one or the other of these great phenomena. For here, in- and transcends visibility (allows spaces to enter each other and occasions to en-
between land and ocean - in this in-between realm, something happens to you counter each other in the mind's interior).
that is quite different from the sailor's nostalgia. No landward yearning from the It is kaleidoscopic.
sea, no seaward yearning from the land. No yearning for the alternative - no The In-between Realm is never without it ... (p4 1)
escape from one into the other.
Architecture must extend 'the narrow borderline', persuade it to loop into a
realm - an articulated in-between realm. Its job is to provide this in-between realm Extracts. Source: Alison Smithson ( ed),Team I O Primer, Studio Vista (London), 1968.
by means of construction, ie to provide, from house to city scale, a bunch of real © Aldo Van Eyck. Originally published in magazine form in Architectural Design, December
places for real people and real things (places that sustain instead of counteract the 1962. Reprinted in August 1965 in square paperback format by the Whitefriars Press.
identity of their specific meaning) ... (p99)
Awareness of this in-between (in-between awareness) is essential. The abi lity
to detect associative meanings simultaneously does not yet belong to our mental
equipment. Since, however, the meaning of every real articulated in-between place
is essentially a multiple one, we shall have to see to it that it does.
Our target is multiple meaning in equipoise ...
Awareness of the in-between creeps into the technology of construction. It
will transform not only our ideas as to what we should make, but also as to how
we shall make it - including our technological approach. It will be there in the
body, the members and the joints of whatever we make ... (pl03)
Space and time must be opened - interiorized - so that they can be entered;
persuaded to gather man into their meaning - include him.
By virtue of what memory and anticipation signify, place acquires temporal
meaning and occasion spatial meaning. Thus space and time, identified recipro-
caJiy (in the image of man) emerge humanized, as place and occasion.
Places remembered and places anticipated dovetail in the temporal span of the
present. Memory and anticipation, in fact, constitute the real perspective of space;
give it depth.
What matters is not space but the interior of space - and the inner horizon of
the interior.
Aldo van Eyck and Theo Bosch, Z wol/e Housing, 1975-77
The large house-little city statement (the one that says: a house is a tiny c ity, a
city a huge house) is ambiguous and consciously so. In fact its ambiguity is of a
kind I should like to see transposed to architecture. It points, moreover, towards a

2 8 Theories and Manifestoes Post-Modern 29

1965 CHRISTOPHER ALEXANDER The semi-lattice axiom goes like this: A collection of sets forms a semi-lattice
if and only if, two overlapping sets belong to the collection, then the set of ele-
A City is not a Tree
ments common to both also belongs to the collection ...
The tree axiom states: A collection of sets fo rms a tree if and only if, for any
At a time of increasing concern over the adequacy of design methods, two sets that belong to the collection, either one is wholly contained in the other,
'A City is not a Tree' broke open and reoriented the debate. It also or else they are wholly disjoint ...
represented a fundamental change in Christopher Alexander's (b 1936, Since this ax iom excludes the possibility of overlapping sets, there is no way in
Vienna of British parents) thinking. While retaining the mathematical which the semi-lattice axiom can be violated, so that every tree is a trivially sim-
foundation underlying his Notes on the Synthesis of Form, 'A City is ple semi-lattice.
not a Tree' takes it in a very different direction. Where the one seeks However, in this pa pe r we a re not so muc h concerned with the fact that a
a crystalline logic to arrive at the notion of'f,tness' between form and tree happens to be a semi-lattice, but with the difference between trees a nd
programme, the other points to a fundamental ambiguity and over- those more gene ral semi-la tti ces which are not trees because they do conta in
lap in the relation of form to its uses. The one is an extreme exten- ove rlapping units ...
sion of Modernist rationalism, the other a reaction against it. It is not me rely the overlap which makes the di stinctio n between the two im-
portant. Still more important is the fact that the semi-lattice is potentially a much
The tree of my title is not a green tree with leaves. It is the name for a pattern more complex and subtle structure than a tree .. .
of thought. The semi-lattice is the name for another, more complex patte rn of Whe never we have a tree structure, it means that within this structure no piece
thought. of any unit is ever connected to other units, except through the medium of that
In order to relate these abstract patterns to the nature of the city, I must first unit as a whole.
make a simple distinction. I want to call those cities .which have arisen more or The e normity of this restriction is difficult to grasp. It is a little as though the
less spontaneously over many, many years natural cities. And I shall call those me mbers of a family were not free to make fri ends outside the fami ly, except
cities and parts of cities which have been deliberate ly c reated by designers and when the family as a whole made a friendship ...
planners artificial cities. Siena, Liverpoo l, Kyoto, M a nhattan are examples of When we think in terms of trees we are trading the humanity and ric hness of
natural cities. Levittown, Chandigarh, and the British New Towns are examples the living city for the conceptual simplicity whi ch benefits only des igne rs, plan-
of artificial cities ... ners, administrators and developers. Eve ry time a piece of a ci ty is torn o ut, and a
Too many designers today seem to be yearning for the physical characteristics tree made to re place the semi-lattice that was the re before, the city takes a further
of the past, instead of searching for the abstract ordering principle which the towns step toward dissociation.
of the past happened to have, and which our modern conceptions of the city have In any organized object, extreme compartmentalization and the dissociation of
not yet found. internal ele me nts are the first signs of coming destruction. In a society, dissociation
What is the inner nature, the ordering principle, which distinguishes the artificial is anarchy. In a person, di ssociation is the mark of schizophrenia and impending
city from the natural city? suicide. An ominous example of a city-w ide dissociation is the separation of retired
You will have guessed from my title what I believe this ordering principle to people from the rest of urban life, caused by the growth of desert cities for the old
be. I believe that a natural city has the organization of a semi-lattice; but that suc h as Sun C ity, Arizona. This separation is possible o nly under the influe nce of
when we organi ze a city artificiall y, we organize it as a tree. tree-like thought.
Both the tree a nd the semi-lattice are ways of th inking about how a large col- It not onl y takes fro m the young the company of those who have lived long,
lection of many small syste ms goes to make up a large complex syste m. More but worse, causes the same rift inside each indi vidual life. As you wi ll pass into
generally, they are both na mes for structures or sets ... Sun City, and into o ld age, your ties with your own past wi ll be unacknowledged,
I IOTEL:A DE ARQUI T CTUR) . l.

30 Theories and Manifestoes ___ Nrtidadci 4kt 4-~•mhra Post-Modern 3 1

lost, and therefore broken. Your youth will no longer be ali ve and in your o ld age 1965 CHRISTIAN NORBERG-SCHULZ
the two will be dissociated, your own life will be cut in two.
For the human mind, the tree is the easiest vehicle for complex thoughts. But
Intentions in Architecture
the city is not, cannot and must not be a tree. The city is a receptacle for life. If the
receptacle severs the overlap of the strands of life within it, because it is a tree, it Published within a few years ofAldo Rossi's Architecture of the City
will be like a bowl full of razor blades on edge, ready to cut up whatever is and Robert Venturi's Complexity and Cont radiction, Christion Norberg-
entrusted to it. In such a receptacle life will be cut to pieces. If we make cities Schulz' (b 1926) Int entions in A rchitecture is equally a reaction against
which are trees, they will cut our life within to pieces. Modernism, in particular as realised o~er the War. Norberg-Schulz
begins the book with on extended argument suggesting that the per-
Extracts. Source: Architectural Forum, vol 122; no I , A pril 1965. © Christopher A lexander. ception of form hos a cultural basis and meaning in architecture is
the result of cultural intentions. The task of the architect is then to
work within the network of those intentions.

We are here faced with bas ic problems which involve a revision of the aesthetic
dimension of architecture. How can architecture again become a sensitive medium,
able to register relevant variatio ns in the building tasks, and at the same time
maintain a certain visual order? A new aesthetic orientation transcending the
arbitrary play with forms is surely needed, although it is not claimed that the
result should resemble the styles of the past. Undoubted ly we need a formal dif-
ferentiation of the buildings corresponding to the functional differences of the
building tasks. But so far we have not found any answer to the question of whether
the differentiation should also acq uire a symbolizing aspect by the assignment of
particular forms to particular functio ns with the purpose of ' representing' a cul-
tural structure. So far modern architecture has had the character of a ' belief' rather
than a worked-out method based on a clear analysis of functional, socio logical,
and cultural prob lems ... (p 18)
1 2 13 4 J 5 6 2

The Problem
What we need is a conscious c larification of our problems, that is, the definition
of our building tasks and the means to their solution ... What purpose has archi-
tecture as a human product? ... How does architecture (the environment) influ-
Christopher A lexander, Semi -Lattice Versus a Tree
ence us? ...
To give the questions about the purpose and effects of arch itecture a basis, it is
necessary to inquire whether particular forms ought to be correlated with particu-
lar tasks. We thus have to ask: Why has a building f rom a particular period a
particular form? This is the centra l problem in architectural history as well as in
architectural theory. We do not intend that the study of history should lead to a

32 Theories and Manifestoes Post-Modern 33

new historic ism based on a copy ing of the forms of the past. The information
given by history should above all illustrate the re lations between problems and
solution, and thu s furnish an e mpirical basis for further work. If we take our way
of putting the problem as a point of de parture for an investigation of architecture's
Jlllllll j 11111111111111 (

(changing) role in society, a new and rich field of study is laid open ... ~
On a purely theoretical level we gain knowledge about the relation between
task and solution. But this knowledge may also be incorporated into a method
which helps us in solving concrete proble ms, and which might facilitate the his-
torical analysis going from the solution back to the task. The historical analys is
orders our experi e nce and makes the judgement of solutions possible. All in all

I
we arrive at a theory treating architectural proble ms ... (pp2 1-24)
Architecture is explicitl y a synthetic activity which has to adapt itself to the
form of li fe as a whole. This adaptation does not request that every work should be
related to the total whole. The individual work concretizes secondary wholes, but l11111111111I11111l11111
because it be longs to a n a rchitectural syste m, it partic ipates in a comple te
concretization. New concretizations can neither imitate the past, nor break com-
pletely with tradition. They are dependent upon the existence of symbol-syste ms
which are capable of deve lopment. This implies that we should conserve the struc-
tural principles of tradition rather than its motives ... (p 188)
The modern move me nt is the only true tradition of the present because it under-
stands that historical continuity does not mean borrowed motives and ideals, but
human values which have to be conque red in always new ways ...
Modern forms have developed through experimentatio n and the fi ght against
borrowed moti ves. But they have never been ordered, they have never become a
real forma l language. This is the basic proble m that the present generati on of
modern architects has to face, and it can only be so lved through the fo rmation of
types. The types must be inte rre lated in suc h a way that they form a hierarc hy
corresponding to the task-structure. (pp206-207)
C!J
Extracts. Source: Christian N orberg-Schulz, Intentions in Architecture, MIT Press (Cambridge,
Mass), 1977. © 1977 by The Massachusetts Institute ofTechnology Fir st published in 1965
simult aneously in Oslo, N orway, for Scandinavian University Books by Universitet sforlaget,
in t he United Kingdom by George Allen & Unwin Ltd, London, and in the United Stat es by
T he Massachusetts Instit ute ofTechnology, Cambridge, Mass.

C/1ristian Norberg-Schulz, Visual Forces Inherent to Form

34 Theories and Manifestoes Post-Modern 35

1966 ALDO ROSSI The changes in housing and in the land on which houses leave their imprint
become signs of this daily life. One need only look at the layers of the city that
The Architecture of the City archaeologists show us; they appear as a primordial and eternal fabric of life, an
immutable pattern. Anyone who remembers European cities after the bombings
The notion of typology was taken up generally in Italy a~er the Second of the last war retains an image of disembowelled houses where amid the rubble,
World War, in large part as a critical response to Modernist urban- fragments of familiar places remained standing, with their colors of faded wall
ism. In the highly polarised realm of Italian architecture, however, it paper, laundry hanging suspended in the air, barking dogs - the untidy intimacy
became a source ofcontention.Carlo Aymonino and Aldo Rossi (b 1931, of places. And always we could see the house of our childhood, strangely aged,
Milan) saw type more as a subjective tool, as opposed to the objec- present in the flux of the city.
tive view developed by Saverio Muratori and his followers. If both Images, engravings, and photographs of these disembowelled cities, record
camps recognised the connection between the building and the city, this vision. Destruction and demolition, expropriation and rapid changes in use
Rossi's view became the more well known. The Architecture of t he and [sic] as a result of speculation and obsolescence, are the most recognizable
City proved immensely popular, its compelling imagery and evoca- signs of urban dynamics. But beyond all else, the images suggest the interrupted
tion ofthe richness of the urban environment making up for its lack of destiny of the collective. This vision in its entirety seems to be reflected with a
a clear methodology. quality of permanence in urban monuments. Monuments, signs of the collective
will as expressed through the princ iples of architecture, offer themselves as pri-
Urban Artifacts and a Theory of the City mary elements, fixed points in the urban dynamic ... (p22)
The city, which is the subject of this book, is to be understood here as architec- I believe that the importance of ritual in its collective nature and its essential
ture. By architecture I mean not only the visible image of the city and the sum of character as an element for preserving myth constitutes a key to understanding the
its different architectures, but architecture as construction, the construction of the meaning of monuments and, moreover, the implications of the founding of the
city over time. I believe that this point of view, objectively speaking, constitutes city and of the transmission of ideas in an urban context. I attribute an especial
the most comprehensive way of analysing the city; it addresses the ultimate and importance to monuments, although their significance in the urban dynamic may
definitive fact in the life of the collective, the creation of the environment in at times be elusive . .. (p24)
which it lives .. . Generally, the most difficult historical problems of the city are resolved by di-
Architecture came into being along with the first traces of the city; it is deeply viding history into periods and hence ignoring or misunderstanding the universal
rooted in the formation of civilization and is a permanent, universal, and neces- and permanent character of the forces of the urban dynamic; and here the impor-
sary arti fact. tance of comparative method becomes evident .. . (p27)
Aesthetic intention and the creation of better surroundings for life are the There are people who do not like a place because it is associated with some
two permanent characteristics of architecture. These aspects emerge from any ominous moment in their lives; others attribute an auspicious character to a place.
significant attempt to explain the city as a human creation. But because archi- All these experiences, their sum, constitute the city. It is in this sense that we must
tecture gives concrete form to society and is intimately connected with it and judge the quality of a space - a notion that may be extremely difficult for our
with nature, it differs fundamentally from every other art and science. This is modern sensibility. This was the sense in which the ancients consecrated a place,
the basis for an empirical study of the city as it has evolved from the earliest and it presupposes a type of analysis far more profound than the simplistic sort
settlements. With time, the city grows upon itself; it acquires a consciousness offered by certain psychological interpretations that rely only on the legibility of
and memory. In the course of its construction, its original themes persist, but at form ... (p32)
the same time it modifies and renders these themes of its own development
more spec ific . . . (p2l)

36 Theories and Manifestoes Post-Modern 3 7

Typological Questions Monuments and the Theory of Permanences
T he fi rst houses she ltered their inhabitants from the exte rnal e nvironme nt and Clearly, to think of urban scie nce as a historical science is a mistake, for in this
furnished a climate that ma n could begin to control; the development of an urban case we wou ld be obliged to speak onl y of urban history. W hat I mean to suggest,
nucleus expanded this type of control to the creation and exte nsion of a microcli mate. however, is that fro m the poi nt of view of urban structure, urban history seems
Neolithic villages already offered the first transformations of the world according more useful tha n any othe r form of researc h o n the city . ..
to man's needs. The 'artificial home land ' is as o ld as man. In precisely this sense One must reme mber that the differe nce between past and futu re, from the point
of transformation the fi rst forms and types o f habitation, as well as te mples a nd of view of the theory of knowledge, in large measure re flects the fac t that the past
more complex build ings, were constituted . The type developed accord ing to both is partly be ing experi e nced now, a nd this may be the meaning of perma nences:
needs and aspirations to beauty; a particul ar type was associated with a form and they are a past that we are still experie ncing ... T he most meaningful perma nences
a way of life, although its specific shape varied wide ly fro m society to society. are those provided by the street and the plan ... (pp57-59)
T he concept of type thus became the basis of arc hitecture, a fact a ttested to both The complex structure of the city e merges from a discourse whose terms of
by practice and by the treatises ... reference are sti ll somewhat fragmentary. Perhaps the laws of the city are exactly
I would define the concept of type as something that is permane nt and com- like those that regu late the life and destiny of individual men. Every biography has
plex, a logical principle that is prior to form and that constitutes it ... its own interest, even though it is circumscribed by birth and death. Certainly the
As a constant, this princ iple, whic h we can call the typical e leme nt, o r simpl y architecture o f the city, the human thing par excelle nce, is the physical sign o f th is
the type, is to be found in all architectural artifacts. It is also the n a c ultural e le- biography, beyond the meanings and the feelings with which we recognise it. (pl 63)
ment and as such can be investi gated in different arc hitectural artifac ts; typology
becomes in this way the analytical mo ment of architecture, a nd it becomes read- Extracts. Source: Aldo Rossi, The Architecture of the City, translated by Diane Ghirardo and
ily identifi able at the level of urban artifacts . . . Joan Okman, MIT Press (Cambridge, Mass), 1982. © 1982 by The Institute of Architecture and
U ltimate ly we can say that the type is the very idea of a rchitecture, that whic h Urban Studies andThe Massachusetts Institute ofTechnology. Originally published as L'architetturo

is c losest to its essence. In spi te of changes, it has always imposed itself on the de/la citta, Marsilio Editori, Padua, 1966.
'feelings of reason' as the principle of architecture and of the city .. . (pp35-4 I)

Critique of Naive Functionalism

We have ind icated the principle questio ns that arise in relation to an urban artifact
- a mo ng the m, indi viduality, locus, me mory, design itself. Function was not me n-
tioned . I be lieve that a ny explanation of urba n art ifacts in te rms of function must
be rej ected if the issue is to e lucidate the ir structure a nd fo rmation. We will later
..
ff

ff 1!1 111
give some examples of important urba n artifacts whose function has c ha nged over .. n
91 9\ . .
time or for which a specific function does not even exist. Thus, one thesis of this 1111 n ei ei u
study, in its effort to affirm the value of arc hitecture in the analysis of the city, is
lfPI n ei ei II■
the denial of the explanation of urban artifacts in terms of fu nction. I maintain, on
the contrary, that far fro m be ing illuminating, this explanation is regressive because
...
ff
il1 HI
it impedes us from studying forms and knowing the world of architecture accord-
ing to its true laws ... (p46)

Aldo Rossi /with G Braghieri/, /BA Social /1ousing, Berlin, 1981-88

38 Theories and Manifestoes Post-Modern 39

1966 ROBERT VENTURI innovating, inconsistent and equivocal rather than direct and clear. I am for
messy vitality over obvious unity. I include the non sequitur and proclaim the
Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture duality.
I am for richness of meaning rather than clarity of meaning; for the implicit
While most o~en glibly cited for his inversion of Mies van der Rohe's function as well as the explicit function. I prefer ' both-and' to 'either-or' , black
declaration 'fess is more', Robert Venturi (b I 925, Philadelphia) made and white and sometimes gray, to black and white. A valid architecture evokes
an indelible impression on Western architectural thinking with Com- many levels of meaning and combinations of focus: its space and its elements
plexity and Contradiction in Architecture. Stimulated in part by a become readable and workable in several ways at once.
stay in Rome as a Fellow of the American Academy in 1956-57, But an architecture of complexity and contradiction has a special obligation
Venturi's polemic presented one of the most compelling arguments toward the whole: its truth must be in its totality or its implications of totality. It
against Modernist functionalism at the time and paved the way for must embody the difficult unity of inclusion rather than the easy unity of exclu-
the development of Post-Modernism. sion. More is not less.

Non-Straightforward Architecture: A Gentle Manifesto Complexity and Contradiction vs Simplification or Picturesqueness

I like complexity and contradiction in architecture. I do not like the incoher- Orthodox Modern architects have tended to recognise complexity insufficiently
ence or arbitrariness of incompetent architecture nor the precious intricacies or inconsistently. In their attempt to break with tradition and start all over again,
of picturesqueness or expressionism. Instead, I speak of complex and contra- they idealized the primitive and elementary at the expense of the diverse and
dictory architecture based on the richness and ambiguity of modern experi- sophisticated ...
ence, including experience which is inherent in art. Everywhere, except in But now our position is different: ' At the same time that the problems in-
architecture, complexity and contradiction have been acknow ledged, from crease in quantity, complexity, and difficulty they also change faster than before.'
Godel's proof of ultimate inconsistency in mathematics to TS Eliot's analysis
of 'difficult' poetry and Joseph Albers' definition of the paradoxical quality Ambiguity
of painting. ... indeed complexity of meaning, with its resultant ambiguity and tension, has
But architecture is necessarily complex and contradictory in its very inclu- been characteristic of painting and amply recogni zed in art criticism ...
sion of the traditiona l Vitruvian elements of commodity, firmness, and delight. In li terature, too, critics have been willing to accept complexity and contra-
And today the wants of program, structure, mechanical equipment, and expres- diction in their medium ... and some, indeed for a long time, have emphasized
sion, even in single buildings in simple contexts, are divers and conflicting in the quali ties of contradiction, paradox, and ambiguity as bas ic to the medium of
ways previously unimaginable. The increasing dimension and scale of architec- poetry, just as Albers does with painting.
ture in urban and regional planning adds to the difficulties. I welcome the prob-
lems and exploit the uncertainties. By embracing contradictio n as well as Contradictory Levels
complexity, I aim for vitality as well as validity. The Phenomenon of 'Both-And' in Architecture
Architects can no longer afford to be intimidated by the puritanically moral Contradictory levels of meaning and use in architecture involve the paradoxical
language of orthodox Modern architecture. I like elements which are hybrid contrast implied by the conjunctive 'yet'. They may be more or less ambiguous.
rather than ' pure', compromising rather than 'clean', distorted rather than 'straight- Le Corbusier's Shodhan House is closed yet open - a cube, precisely closed at
forward', ambiguous rather than 'articulated', perverse as well as impersonal, the corners, yet randomly opened on its surfaces ...
boring as well as ' interesting' , conventional rather than ' designed', accommo- Cleanth Brooks refers to Donne's art as ' having it both ways' but, he says, 'most
dating rather than excluding, redundant rather than simple, vestigial as well as of us in this latter day, cannot. We are disciplined in the tradition either-or, and

40 Theories and Manifestoes Post-Modern 4 7