Rudolf Wittkower and Architectural Principles in the Age of Modernism Author(s): Alina A.

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Rudolf Wittkower and Architectural Principles in the Age of Modernism

ALINA A. PAYNE University of Toronto

To dateRudolfWittkower's ArchitecturalPrinciples in the Age of Humanism of 1949 remains a fundamental evaluation of Renaissance architectural aesthetics. such Althoughnot unique in having achieved status its simultaneous within its discipline, paradigmatic impactupon It is precisely architectural remains the production unprecedented. fact that thisworkcaptured two distinct at a theimagination of traditionally groups in history moment whenexchanges between thetwoseemed leastlikelyto this occurthatconstitutes the starting Based for point inquiry. upon an examinationof Principles against the Renaissance it so literature art its historical and broader intellectual categorically supplanted, against as well as against architectural theargument context, contemporary theory, a deeper here cultural between thediscourse proposes continuity presented of modernist in the 1940s and 1950s and thereadings architecture of history thatwereconceived at thesametime.In conclusion it is argued thatbeyond affording insightinto the historicity of our constructions of the specific such a patternof exchange betweenhistorywritingand Renaissance, alerts us tothecomplex thatexisted these between criticism/theory symbiosis two reflective activities at thevery modernism heart of itself.
This article is part of a larger investigation on the exchanges between historical narrativesand architecturaltheory in the formative years of modernism. A version of this paperwas read at the 1993 CAA meeting in Seattle. I am most grateful to Mrs. Margot Wittkower who graciously agreed to assist me in my work and answered many of my queries regardingevents and issues raised here. I would also like to thankJoseph Connors, who most generously undertook to find answers to my questions relatedto Rudolf Wittkower'slife. Finally, I would like to thank Hans-Karl Luickeand Rebekah Smick, whose comments on an earlier draftwere most helpful. 1. Sigfried Giedion, Space, Time and Architecture (Cambridge, Mass., 1941), 5. This is a theme that preoccupied Giedion considerablyand one he had alreadyexpounded on in his doctoral dissertation ("Spitbarocker und romantischerKlassizismus" [Munich, 1922]) for W61fflin.That his position had not been the norm for art history writing as it constructed itself into an institution was acknowledgedby Giedion himself: "Historians quite generally distrust absorption into contemporary ways of thinking and feeling as a menace to their scientific detachment, dignity, and breadthof outlook.... The historian must be intimately a partof his own period to know what questions concerning the past are significantto it. ... But it is his unique and nontransferable taskto uncover for his own age its vital interrelationshipswith the past .... To plan we must know what has gone on in the past and feel what is coming in the future. This is not an invitation to prophecy but a demand for a universaloutlook upon the world." Ibid., 6-7. On Giedion's polemic with established historical practice, see Spiro Kostof, "Architecture,You and Him: The Mark of

of unchanging facts, but a History is not simplythe repository a pattern of livingandchanging attitudes andinterpretations. process, As suchit is deeplypartof ourown natures. To turnbackward to a whichwill be the pastage is notjust to inspectit, to find a pattern samefor all comers. The backward looktransforms its object; every at every period-at every moment, indeed-inevitably spectator transforms the pastaccording to his own nature.... Historycannot be touched withoutchanging it.1 SIGFRIED GIEDIONin 1941. Though intending to So WROTE make an apology for the engaged readingof history that characterizes his Space,TimeandArchitecture, Giedion nonetheless points to a fundamental condition of history writing, namely to the relationship between past and present in the manufacture of historical narrative.The fact that his deliberate stance exceeds only in degree of self-consciousnessthatof any historianconfronting the amorphous materialthat constitutesthe past is acceptedby now as an undisputed truth. The revisionist impetus behind the scholarship of the past two decades testifies to an increasing urgency to distinguish between history as an objective process within which we are located and historicity as a certain way of being awareof this fact.2

Daedalus 105(1976):189-203.On the sametopic,see Giedion," Sigfried two essaysin Sigfried Giedion 1888-1968.Entwurf einer modernen Tradition 1 February-9 (Zurich,Museumffir Gestaltung, April 1989):Sokratis Giedionund die Kriseder kritischen Georgiadis, "Sigfried Historiograzu SigfriedGiedions phie," 224-31; and WernerOechslin,"Fragen kunsthistorischen 191-205. For Giedion'sintellectual proPrimissen," Giedion. EineIntelektuelle file, referto Sokratis Georgiadis, Sigfried Biographie(Zurich, 1989). 2. Thoughby now the literature on the problem of historicity andits is vast and rangesfrom the impactupon the natureof interpretation of HaydenWhiteto the systematic of conceptual readings cataloguing historians of Gianni by Heinrich Dillyor thephilosophical investigations the status of the discussion as a still-active is highlighted debate Vattimo, in New Literary 17 by a recent(andspirited) exchange published History (1986): Keith Moxey, "Panofsky's Concept of 'Iconology'and the Problem of Interpretation in the History of Art," 265-74; Arthur Danto, in the History "Intentions of 275-79; DavidSummers, "Commentary," Moxie andthe Summers of Art,"305-21; StevenZ. Levine,"Moxey's '84:Intention andInterpretation in theHistory of Art-A Commentary," 323-31; David Summers,"David SummersReplies,"333-49. For of thesynthetic referred to above see Hayden examples White, approaches JSAH 53:322-342, SEPTEMBER 1994

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In architecturalscholarship, modernism (and following from this, the nineteenth century, an area known to have been particularlyaffected by modernist orthodoxy) has claimed the lion's share of attention in this process of re- and selfexamination. Official accounts such as Giedion's and Pevsner's, overtly proselytizing and deliberatelyseeking to participatein the then-currenttheoreticaldebatescalled for such a recharting.3 Less attention has been paid to histories of the more distant past effected in the years of high modernism: apparentlyremoved from the crucible of modernist discourse due to their (historical) subjectmatterthey seemed insulatedfrom its issues. The fact that this period coincided with the consolidation of the craft of (art/architecture) history writing into an institution with a positivist orientation and programmaticseparationfrom theory and criticism probably further reinforced such a view. On the occasionswhen creativeexchangesand overlapsbetween architectural history and theory/criticism have been noted, it has been mainly with reference to the formative period of the discipline and of modernist discourse, which (though not coincidentally) coincided.4 For example, the later-nineteenth-centurypopularity
(Baltimore and London, 1973); Heinrich Dilly, ed., Altmeister Metahistory moderner Kunstgeschichte (Berlin, 1990); Gianni Vattimo, The End of Nihilism and Hermeneutics in Post-Modern Culture(Baltimore, Modernity: 1988). For a summary of the debate as it applies to architectural scholarship, see also Marvin Trachtenberg, "Some Observations on Recent ArchitecturalHistory,"Art Bulletin70 (1988): 240-41. The most recent attemptto review more comprehensivelythe issue of historicity in architecturalscholarshipis Elizabeth B. MacDougall, ed., TheArchitectural Historian in America (Washington,D.C., 1990). 3. Nikolaus Pevsner, Pioneers Movement of theModern (London, 1936); and Giedion, Space,Time (see n. 1). For a sample of recent scholarship concerned with a rereadingof modernism and its key figures, see Demetri Porphyrios, ed., "On the Methodology of ArchitecturalHistory,"AD 51 1927 and the (1981); Richard Pommer and Christian Otto, Weissenhof Modern Movement (Chicago and London, 1991); Giorgiadis, Sigfried Giedion(see n. 1); Fritz Neumeyer, TheArtless Word: Mies van derRoheon the BuildingArt (Cambridge, Mass., 1991); Francesco Dal Co, Figuresof Architecture and Thought:GermanArchitecture Culture, 1880-1920 (New York, 1990); Marlite Halbertsma, "Nikolaus Pevsner and the End of a Tradition,"Apollo(February 1993): 107-9. Another aspect of revision is the current expansion of the traditional canon. See in this context the GarlandArchivesdocumentation of the careersof such architectsas Henri Sauvage and Richard Schindler and the current interest in the work of Otto Wagner that led to revisions of inherited modernist definitions and criteria. Particularly relevant are Harry Francis Mallgrave, ed., Otto on the Raimentof Modernity Wagner: Reflections (Santa Monica, 1993); and Otto Wagner, Modern trans. Harry Francis Mallgrave (Santa Architecture, Monica, 1988). 4. On the centralityof history to modernist thought and on the rise of historical disciplines in this period, see for example Vattimo, The End of (see n. 2), 1-13. For investigations of key turn-of-the-century Modernity figures (especially art historians) see for example the work focused on Warburg,Riegl et al., Henri Zerner, "Alois Riegl," Daedalus105 (1976): 177-88; Willibald Siuerlinder, "Alois Riegl und die Entstehung der autonomen Kunstgeschichte,"Fin de Siecle:Zur Literatur und Kunst der Jahrhundertwende (Frankfurt,1977); MargaretIversen, "Style as Structure: Alois Riegl's Historiography,"Art History2 (March 1979); idem, Alois Riegl:Art Historyand Theory(Cambridge, Mass., 1993); Michael Podro, The CriticalHistoriansof Art (New Haven and London, 1982); Silvia

of Renaissance forms and culture on the Continent has been linked with the debate on renouvellement in France, and, in Germany, with a nationalistpolitical and culturalprogramand a drive towardsan aesthetizationof science and power.5 However, now that the architecturalhistory of modernism is being rewrittenand its dependenceon nineteenth-centuryaesthetics laid bare,it seems appropriate to recognize that one dimension is missing from this revisionist project,namely the evaluationof the historicalnarratives modernism produced, or, in other words, of the exchanges between the present and the past that characterized this moment in history. In architecture where-witness Giedion-theory and history are uneasy albeit traditionalbedfellows, such an evaluation of their reciprocal relationship should prove particularly welcome. Not only would it provide an opportunity to identify blind spots in our historical corpus but it would also reveal how the historicaland theoreticalimaginations overlap and thus offer insight into the broader intellectual configurationof modernism itself. A particularly case study for such questions constiappropriate tutes the Wittkower phenomenon. It is probablyironical that his work should not earn such an epithet for his monumental contribution in the area of baroque studies that amounted to a Prinlife-long project, but for the consequences of Architectural
ciples in theAge of Humanism of 1949.6 Howard Hibbard voices the

consensus when, in his obituaryfor Wittkowerof 1972, he states: "Perhapshis most original single work, it is too well-known and too influential to need comment, save to remind art historians that it has had some influence on other disciplines, including architectural design."7Hibbardthus recordsthat it is Wittkower's

Ferreti, Cassirer, Panofsky, (New HavenandLondon,1989); Warburg Joan "Heinrich anIntellectual Goldhammer-Hart, Wdlfflin, (Ph.D Biography" of California diss.,University ErwinPanofsky is 1981).Though Berkeley, of another the investigation of his work (published to date) generation, hasalsofocused on the early Seeespecially Michael AnnHolly, writings. andthe Foundation Panofsky ofArt History (Ithaca, 1984). 5. The intellectual contextfor Renaissance studies is examinedin undRenaissancismus von akob Burckhardt bis AugustBuck,ed.,Renaissance Thomas Mann(Tiibingen,1990). The Frenchcontextis discussedby Paris Architectural Mead,Charles Garnier's Christopher and Opera: Empathy Renaissance the Classicism ofFrench Mass.,1991).On theuseof (Cambridge, theRenaissance andhis contemporaries asa cultural model byBurckhardt for fin-de-siecle subtextimplicit in this Germanyand the nationalist of Frenchdecadence see Patricia "The rejection aesthetics, Bermann, Renaissance in German Modernist Abstracts Paradigm Culture," College ArtAssociation 1992 (Chicago, of the Burckhard1992).Fora discussion tianFlorentine modelforthe reconciliation of powerandbeauty andthe call for a harmonious contemporary culture,see Dal Co, Figures of Architecture (seen. 3), 171-82. 6. RudolfWittkower, Architectural in theAge of Humanism Principles cited as Principles. Unless different (London,1949),hereafter from the firstedition, references in thisarticle areto theNortonedition subsequent (NewYork,1971). 7. Howard for Rudolf Hibbard, obituary Wittkower, Burlington Magazine114(March S.Ackerman, 1972):175.Thisviewis reiterated byJames who describes Wittkower's book as having"soldmore copiesthanany sincethe first uncompromisingly scholarly studywrittenon architecture

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"Palladio's andthe SecondBookof the 'Quattro Theoryof Proportion Libridell'Architettura,' "JSAH59 (1990):279-92; andGeorgeHersey and Richard Possible Palladian Villas(Plus SomeInstructively Friedman, Mass.,1992).Fora moregeneral Impossible Ones) (Cambridge, application of Wittkower's see William reading, J. Mitchell,TheLogic ofArchitecture Mass.,1990).ForWittkower's (Cambridge, impacton both the history beforeChrist." "Rudolf Wittkower's and theoryof architecture Influsee also Decio Gioseffi,"Palladio century JamesS. Ackerman, oggi: dal enceon the History of Architecture," Source Wittkower al post-moderno" Annalidi architettura 1 (1989): 105-21. 8/9 (1989):87-90. 8. Hibbard, 175. fora challenge to someaspects of Wittkower's linear thesisis obituary, Noteworthy 9. My main concern is with Wittkower's characterization of the Manfredo La ricerca delrinascimento Tafuri, (Turin,1992),3-32. with the "principles" as such; his almostunprecedented WhenWittkower's thesishasbeenquestioned it hasbeenmainlyas it Renaissance, to reconstructions of specific the new See,forinstance, attemptin architectural historyat the time to explicatearchitectural applies buildings. of theory,his concernwith textual(and of the centrally production througha reading interpretation plannedchurchofferedby Paul Davies, betweenarchitecture and "The Madonna delle Carceri in Prato," Architectural 36 (1993): sources,with the relationship documentary) History for architectural 1-18; andthe proposals forAlberti's SanSebastiano andSant' Andrea society, all of which had fundamental implications by asa discipline, is notatissuehere.Fora discussion of theseaspects HowardSaalman, "Alberti's San Sebastiano in Mantua," in Renaissance history of Wittkower's see Henry Millon, "RudolfWittkower, Studies in Honorof CraigHugh Smyth,ed. AndrewMorroughet al. contribution, Architectural in the Age of Humanism: Its Influenceon the LivioVolpiGhirardini, Principles Saalman, (Florence, 1985),645-52; andHoward of ModernArchitecture," andAnthonyLaw,"Recent Excavations Under the Ombrellone of Sant' Developmentand Interpretation JSAH 31 Andrea in Mantua: 51 (1992): 357-76. (1972):83-91. Preliminary Report,"JSAH On Wittkower's seminalrolefor Renaissance see citations 10. The intellectual formation of the three historians coincidedin scholarship in the standard texts on Renaissance architecture such as LudwigH. time.Giedionwrotehis doctoral dissertation forWolfflinat Munichin andWolfgang in Italy1400-1600 (Harhis doctoral workforAdolfGoldschmidt Lotz,Architecture at Heydenreich 1922,Wittkower completed of the field overviews Berlin in 1923, and Pevsnerreceivedhis doctorate mondsworth, in Leipzigfrom 1974):392 n. 1. In theirrespective bothTrachtenberg andSummers discuss thecentrality Wilhelm Pinderin 1924. ofWittkower's (as contribution to Renaissance studies.Moreover, Summers 11. On the climate atthe timeandthe reception of W61fflin in North yet unrivaled) setsup his ownargument foranoptical in Renaissance aesthetics America, see Christine andSensibility' AnEpistemo" 'Sense primacy McCorkel, view that he tracesto to thePhilosophy of ArtHistory,"Journal and againstthe traditional (and hence established) logical Approach ofAesthetics Wittkower. n. 2), 236. David SumArtCriticism 34 (1974):35-50. "Observations"(see Trachtenberg, 12. Wittkower's mers,The udgement reaction to thisreception wasmostrecently to referred ofSense 1987),28-31. On Wittkower's (Cambridge, seminal on American see alsoTod Marder, "Renais- byTrachtenberg, "Observations" Wittkower impact scholarship, (seen. 2), 239.Mrs.Margot sance and BaroqueArchitectural toldme (telephone conversation 31 March FritzSaxl History in the United States,"in 1994)thatoriginally Historian wantedto printthreehundredcopiesand that it was at her insistence ed., TheArchitectural MacDougall (see n. 2), 161-76. For an of thecontinuous of Wittkower's asa starting (based on herconviction thatthe architects example wouldbuythe book)thatthe presence paradigm work(evenwhen it challenges his empirical pointfor scholarly results), figurewas raisedto five hundred(the original run). It seemsthateven see Deborah Howard andMalcolm "Harmonic and afterthe firsteditionsold out Wittkower subseLongair, Proportion thoughtthatTiranti's Palladio's Libri,' wastoo optimistic. 'Quattro Mitrovic, quentrunof fifteenhundred "JSAH 51 (1982):116-43; Branko

engagement with the Renaissance that lays claim to exemplary originality,an originalitythat he attributesto Wittkower'shaving "radicallychanged our conception of what happened in Italian architecture from the fifteenth to the seventeenth centuries."8 That this should be so is noteworthy in itself. Although from the later twenties onwards new scholarship could be expected to produce greater impact in the study of the baroque, a relatively new area for serious consideration, it is in scholarship on the Renaissance, a distinguished and established field for over a century, that it occurred. However, what the impact noted by Hibbard measures is change: a new way of looking at architecture had relegated an old one into obsolescence; in short, one paradigmhad succeeded another. It is this categoricalposition it assumed that makesWittkower's text particularlyappropriatefor our inquiry. In the first place Principlesoffers the opportunity to examine a paradigm in its formation, one that is additionallysignificant because it is still at work in, and central to, our conception of Renaissancearchitecthe only available(and unchallenged) ture. Not only is Principles comprehensive study of Renaissancearchitecturalaesthetics,but it is still in many instancesthe standardclassroomtextbookon the subject. The fact that it requires no comment-and Hibbard's words still reflect the consensus twenty years later-reveals its transparencyto current thinking that is due to its continuing presence within our discourse, submerged and unnoticeable because identicalwith it.9

Yet this formulation assumedthe role of paradigm within a that makesit relevant to very specifichistorical configuration consider Wittkower not only in relation to Gombrich, Panofsky, or Krautheimer, butespecially in relation to GiedionandPevsner, thatis against the contextof a formulation of a moderntheoryof architecture afterseveral decades of conflictanddebate.10 Placing the paradigm in such a historical should therefore perspective revealthe nature(or historicity) of our own (still-current) conof the Renaissance. ception It could be arguedthatWittkower's basedon interpretation solid factual was successful foundations becauseit responded to the scientific andobjective of arthistoryin ascendence at agenda the time.11 The secondreasonthis workdeservesspecialattenas anoversimplification. dismisses suchananswer tion,however, A decidedlyscholarlypiece and seminal for the Renaissance architectural criticism corpus,it also influencedcontemporary anddesign.ThatWittkower inscribed hisworkin a conception of that did not to affect current architectureattempt writing history that in fact was antithetical to Giedion's-and that he was atthis sequelis well known.12 and Yet,the factremains surprised And such an seems explanation requires explanation. particularly

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called for not only because this interaction with architectural practice in the early fifties alerts us to the presence of exchanges between historical scholarship and criticism within modernism itself, but also because it promises insight into the complex structureof architectural discourse at a moment when uncertainty in the tenets of modernism was beginning to give rise to its critique.'3 Wittkower'sparadigm Architectural Principlesin the Age of Humanism constitutes an explicit attempt on Wittkower's part to access the core of Renaissancearchitecture.Although developed from three articles on Alberti and Palladio respectively,the book aspires to broader conclusions.14 Wittkower'sagendais twofold: not only does he set out to identify the theory of architecturein the Renaissance,but he frames this attempt as a direct response (and rebuttal) to formaliststrategiesthatcustomarilypresent Renaissancearchitecture as a matter of pure form. His footnotes to this statement clarify the aim of the attack:both Ruskin's Stonesof Veniceand Geoffrey Scott's TheArchitecture of Humanism,though antithetical to each other with respect to an appreciationof the Renaissance, are his foils. Specifically,Wittkower takes issue with that which of architecturethatprivileges they share:a hedonist interpretation the sensuous aestheticreceptionby the viewer and projectsit back upon the architect'sintention."15 Instead, in a strategicmove that
13. On the 1950s as marking the beginning of the critique of modernism for architecture, see Manfredo Tafuri, History of Italian 1944-1985 (Cambridge,Mass., 1989), 44-96. Architecture, 14. "In order to avoid misunderstandingsI should like to stress that this study is neither a history of Renaissance architecture nor does it contain monographic treatmentsof Alberti and Palladio. I am discussing the works of these architectsonly so far as they are relevant to my main topic, the illumination of architectural principles at the time of the Renaissance."Wittkower, introduction to Principles (see n. 6), n.p. The book is made up of the three articles on Alberti and Palladio that Wittkower had published in the early forties. Rudolf Wittkower, "Alberti's Approach to Antiquity in Architecture," and Journal of the Warburg Courtauld Institutes 4 (1940-41): 1-18; idem, "Principles of Palladio's and CourtauldInstitutes Architecture,"Journal of the Warburg 7 (1944), pt.1:102-22; 8 (1945), pt.2:68-106. The differences between the articles and the book are minute. The most significant change is the inclusion of chapter one, "The centrally planned church in the Renaissance,"which was not partof the earlierAlberti article;the section on Palladio's optical and psychological concepts discernable in II Redentore is also new. Mrs. Margot Wittkower told me that Wittkower had conceived of the book project from the beginning and that the articleswere records of his work in progress. 15. Wittkower's selection of quotes from both authors is revealing of his attempt to situate his own argument. From Ruskin: "Pagan in its origin, proud and unholy in its revival, paralysed in its old age ... an architectureinvented as it seems, to make plagiaristsof its architects,slaves of its workmen, and sybarites an architecture in which of its inhabitants; intellect is idle, invention impossible, but in which all luxury and isgratified all insolence fortified." From Scott: "The Renaissance style ... is an architectureof taste, seeking no logic, consistency, orjustification beyond that of giving pleasure" [my emphasis]. Wittkower, Principles,1. With referenceto his intentions,Wittkowerstates:"Sir Kenneth Clarkwrote in the Architectural Reviewthat the first result of this book was 'to dispose,

draws both on Panofsky's studies in signification and Goldschmidt's art historical Sachlichkeit, Wittkower posits a conscious intellect-driven will to form aimed at conveying meaning, and hence, aimed at the mind ratherthan the senses.16 In order to support this hypothesis, Wittkower focuses the investigation on four issues that he considers essential: symbolism, appropriation of forms, development of characteristic building types (the latter two subsumed under the heading of "the question of tradition"), and commensuration. In spite of this reduction and the concentration on Alberti and Palladio as representativefor the period as a whole, the study nonetheless promises a comprehensive survey. Yet, although these issues appear to be distinct and seem to structure the book into four independent chapters,each chapteroffers a further reduction to a few recurrent themes that imperceptibly lead to a synthesis. Alongside meaning and creative ("free and subjective")transformation of models, the central and most compellingly presented theme is that of the unity between art and science (mathematics).'7Explicitlystatedit is the exclusive domain of the last chapter on harmonic proportions.Yet, by Wittkower'sown admission, it runs like a red thread throughout the book and determines the direction along which the discussion principally unfolds.'8 For example, in PartI, the discussion of the church plan is singled out as most significantfor an understandingof a Renaissanceconception of meaning in architecture, and offers Wittkower the opportunity to show a relationship between symbolism and geometry. The centralized plan, based on the circle and square, and developed from the Vitruvian homo ad circulumand ad quadratum, emerges both as a Renaissance ideal and as its "symbolic form." As "visible materializationof the intelligible mathematicalsymbols," it revealsthe (Neoplatonic) Renaissance conception of a geometricalintersectionbetween microcosm and macrocosm.19In order to contextualize his interpretation,Witt-

onceandforallof the hedonist or purely of Renaissance aesthetic, theory

architecture,and this defines my intention in a nutshell.' " Introductionto

"Humanism Principles, n.p. For this comment,see Clark, andArchitecture," Architectural Review 107(February 1951):65-69. 16. On Goldschmidt's contributionto the discipline,see Marie Goldschmidt 1863-1944LebenserrinerunRoosen-Runge-Mollwo, Adolph gen(Berlin, 1989). 17. Wittkower, 89 and56 (withreference to Palladio andto Principles, Alberti respectively). 18. "Thethirdproblem thatoccupied Renaissance architects unceasIt turns inglywasthatof proportion. of thisbookandis up on manypages discussed in PartIV." introduction toPrinciples, systematically Wittkower, n.p. 19. Wittkower, 29; Wittkower sees this Vitruvian Principles, concept embedded in a metaphysical context, 15. "Wehavean epitome Principles, of whatRenaissance churchbuilders endeavoured to achieve: for them the centrally church wasthe man-made echo or imageof God's planned universe andit is thisshape whichdiscloses theunity, theinfinite essence, the uniformity and thejusticeof God."On this basishe connectsthe design of the perfectchurch with Platonic cosmology and hence Neoplatonism; Wittkower, 23. This issue had already Principles, been raisedin Panofsky's der Proportionsessayof 1921,"Die Entwicklung

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1994 JSAH 53:3, SEPTEMBER basis he can affirm that "Italian architects strove for an easily perceptible ratio between length, height and depth of a buildPalladio'sstatedtheoreticalviews, his planning strategyfor ing."26 the villas and his church elevations are shown to confirm the view that as the particular Like Barbaro "virtue" inherentin [he] regarded of materializing in spacethe "certain architecture the possibility truth" of mathematics ... it maybe argued thatfromAlberti's day in termsof applied mathematonwards architecture was conceived everbefore Barbaro wasthissubject submitted to such ics;buthardly Palladio's almostentirely Libri, Quattro closely-knit logicalanalysis. concerned with practical marked issues,aresimilarly by acuteness, andclear andrational arrangement.27 precision,

kower points to contemporary philosophy, particularlyto Cusanus's geometrical definition of God that he adopts from Cassirer.20 He can thus conclude: as a mathwas regarded Architecture artists] by them [Renaissance withspatial ematical science whichworked units.... Forthe menof this architecture with its strict geometry,the the Renaissance, and aboveall, order,its formalserenity equipoiseof its harmonic withthe sphere andthedome,echoedandatthe sametimerevealed andgoodness of God.21 theperfection, omnipotence For Wittkower, this concern with geometry permeatesall aspects of the Renaissanceaesthetics of architecture:Alberti, Bramante, Leonardo,Palladio,all concurred in a mathematicaldefinition of beauty manifested as "logic of the plan," "precision,geometrical "lucidity of the geometrical economy," "symphonic quality,"22 scheme," "evidence of the structuralskeleton,"23a "crystalline vision of architecture"and "devotion to pure geometry."24In Wittkower's words, the effect is of a pure, simple, and lucid architectureof elementary forms. Similarly, in Part III, in which Wittkower focuses on Palladio's formulation of new building types from ancient models, and therefore turns to the Renaissance strategy for appropriation, he reaffirms the centrality of the mathematicaltheme. In the elevationsand plans thathe examines, Wittkower finds a fundamental Renaissance order that allows disparate ancient forms and quotations to be brought into homogenous wholes. Thus he finds a persistent intention to seek a congruity of parts by way of the Vitruviansymmetria encoded both in Palladio's villa plans and his church fagades.25 On this

Such a summing up at the midpoint of the book clearlybuilds up towardsthe last chapterwhere, afterhaving repeatedlypointed to the importance of mathematics for Renaissancearchitecture, Wittkower can finally state his thesis forcefully and explicitly: "The conviction that architectureis a science and that each partof a building, inside as well as outside, has to be integratedinto one and the same system of mathematicalratios, may be called the With this statement basic axiom of Renaissance architects."28 Wittkower opens a discussion specificallydevoted to the issue of harmonic proportionsin architecturethatwill justify the strength of this assertion and confirm his previous findings. This chapter (by far the longest) constitutes the real center of gravity of the book, since its main object is to demonstrate the central role of mathematics for Renaissance theory by revealing a relationship that unites architectureand music (as "mathematicalscience") In reviewing architecturaltexts through an aesthetic of ratios.29 with reference to the contemporaryliteratureon art, music, and lehrealsAbbildder Stilentwicklung," reissued as ErwinPanofsky, "The as a Reflection of the Historyof Historyof the Theoryof Proportions philosophy, Wittkower identifies a will to order in Renaissance in Meaning in theVisualArts Styles," (Garden City,N.Y.,1955),88-89. architecture that manifests itself as a recurrent concern with 20. Wittkower, 27 n. 3. Principles, 21. Wittkower, 29. systems for proportion and composition. In his narrative, a Principles, 22. Wittkower, 26 reference to Wittkower Bramante). Principles, (with deliberately sought identity between these systems and musical continues: "The plan is, in fact,the supremeexampleof that organic reveals the latter as the authority behind aesthetic that kind of proportionally mathematics,' harmony geometry, integrated 'spatial whichwe haverecognized as a drivingfeature of humanist Renaissance judgements that performs the office of an external, rational,and architecture." to Palladio's Ibid.Seealsohis reference "Itis architecture: andentirely 84. Wittkower, orderly, systematic, logical." Principles, 23. Wittkower, 20 (withreference to Giuliano da Sangallo). all-important whichis thefixedmathematical ratio Principles, postulate ofsymmetria, 24. Wittkower, 17 (withreference to Leonardo). On Alberti's of the partsto eachotherandto the whole."Wittkower, 96. Principles, Principles, churches he states: "Insuchcentralized the geometrical will Albertireceives a similar Evenwhen the problem at handis the plans pattern reading. staticandentirelylucid." Prinevaluation of hisattitude to tradition, theemphasis on proportion is stillat absolute, immutable, Wittkower, appear 7. theheart of theargument: "Allthenewelements introduced in ciples, byAlberti 25. "Oncehe hadfoundthe basicgeometric for the problem the thecolumns andthepediment, theattic, andthescrolls, would pattern facade, it as clearlyand as simplyas possibleto the special remain isolated features wereit not focthatall-per 'villa,'he adapted which vading harmony of each commission. He reconciled thetaskathandwiththe formedthe basisandbackground of his wholetheory... in fact,a single requirement 'certain truth' which isfinalandunchangeable. The geometrical system of proportion the andtheplaceandsizeof every ofmathematics permeates facade, rather thanconsciously, to every45. keynoteis, subconsciously perceptible singlepartanddetailis fixedanddefinedby it."Wittkower, Principles, villas.... Yetthis grouping andre-grouping of 26. Wittkower, 74. one who visitsPalladio's Principles, the samepattern wasnotas simpleanoperation as it mayappear. Palladio 27. Wittkower, 69. Principles, tookthe greatest carein employing harmonic ratios not only insideeach 28. Wittkower, 101: Principles, of the roomsto eachother,andit is 29. "Renaissance artists did not meanto translate musicintoarchitecsingleroom,but alsoin the relation this demandfor the right ratioswhich is at the centreof Palladio's ture,but tookthe consonant intervals of the musical scaleas the audible of architecture" 72. On of the ratiosof the smallwhole numbers Wittkower, conception 1:2:3:4." [myemphasis]. Principles, proofsfor the beauty Palladio's elevations: his structures also obey Vitruvius's Wittkower, 116. "Moreover, Principles,

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scientific guarantorfor perfection. With such an approachWittkower not only effectively rationalizes artistic will but he also offers a powerful alternative to the then-current argument in favor of the Golden Section, which he dismisses for leading to irrational,hence incommensurablenumbers, alien to an "organic, metricaland rational"Renaissancemind-set.30 Further,Wittkoweraims to show that the aestheticcentered on the harmonic ratios that he proposes is not solely the domain of theory but finds its resolution in the practiceof architectureitself. In the subsequentdemonstrationof this thesis Palladioonce again takes on the role of the main protagonist.31 Educated in the circle of Trissino and Barbaro,a uomouniversale, Palladio can be either documented or inferred to be familiarwith both musical theory and a mathematicalconception of aesthetics and thus participate knowledgeably in a discourse that unites architects,mathematicians, and music theorists: Alberti with Ficino and Pacioli; Palladio with Lomazzo, Gafurio, Zarlino, Belli, and especially Francesco Giorgi.32 Beyond contextual evidence, key to this interpretationis Barbaro'sinsistence on proportion in his comPalladio'sown description mentary on Vitruvius'sDe architectura. of his architecturein the Quattro Libri is then read in this light. The measurementsof the individualrooms inscribedon the plans
30. On Wittkower'spolemic on this score, see Principles, 108. The tone and thrust of his argument shows the impact of Nobbs's rebuttal to

and his emphasison simple ratios and a "proportional astrology" dominant (or characteristic) recurringproportionas the source of
aesthetic appeal (which Wittkower quotes). Percy E. Nobbs, Design:A Treatiseon the Discoveryof Form (Oxford, 1937), 123-51. A similar argument (though less polemical) and one that Wittkower also uses is made by Louis Hautecoeur, "Les proportions mathematiques et Gazette desBeauxArts18 (December 1937): 263-74. l'architecture," The modern concern with the Golden Section can be tracedbackto ca. 1815-44. The principal texts that established the parameters of the discussion were J. Helmes, ArchivderMathematik, vol. 4 of 1844; and A. mit der Wiegand, Der allgemeine goldeneSchnitt und sein Zusammenhang harmonischen of 1849. Zeising develops the connection between Theilung the Golden Section and morphology in his Neue Lehre vondenProportionen desmenschlichen auseinembisher dieganzeNatur Kirpers unerkanntgebliebenen, und Kunstdurchdringenden entwickelt morphologischen Grundgesetze (Leipzig, 1854); this view is absorbed into aesthetics by T. Fechner in his of 1871. Beginning with August Thiersch, Handbuch ExperimentelleAsthetik der Architektur (Darmstadt, 1883), 4: part one, there is a tradition of associating the Golden Section with classical and hence Renaissance architecture.Burckhardtdevotes a chapterto it; the argumentis picked up and amplified by W1lfflin. From then on the discussion becomes de Jakob Burckhardt,Architecture rigueur. of the ItalianRenaissance (Chicago, und 1987), 70-76 [1st ed. Stuttgart,1867]; Heinrich W61fflin,Renaissance Barock (Munich, 1907), 48-51 [1st ed. Munich, 1888]. For further bibliographyon the Golden Section, seeJay Hambidge, DynamicSymmetry (New Haven, 1920); Wittkower, Principles,162-66; Hermann Graf, zumProblem Bibliographie derProportionen (Speyer,1958);Paul H. Scholfield, The Theory in Architecture of Proportion (Cambridge, 1958); Werner Hahn, alsEntwicklungsprinzip in NaturundKunst(K6nigstein, 1989). Symmetrie 31. "It seems appropriate to inquire how far the harmonic ratios of the

emphasison numerical relationships testifyto a particular that turn out to be harmonic anddisclosea sophisticated systemfor theirgeneration. Wittkower canthus conclude: "Thereader, we like Barbaro, hope, will agreethatPalladio, firmlybelievedthat contained 'allthe secrets of the art.'"33 proportion While undoubtedly present,the concernwith proportion is thatalertsus to a reductive givenherea categorical preeminence of Palladio's aesthetics. Palladio's definition of architecreading turalbeautyin Book I of the Quattro Libriinvolvesnecessita and as critical andthussuggests forma categories alongside proportion a more complextheoretical positionalbeitpithilystated.Similarly, the reasonsfor his deploymentof ornamental forms, a fullspectrum fromstatuary to rustication, mustbe seen running as an integral rather thanbeing partof his theoryof architecture attributed to a general manifestation of the mannerist horror vacui asWittkower proposes.34 aestheticsis pivotalfor However,this readingof Palladio's Wittkower becauseit allowshim to demonstrate a convincingly fundamental link betweenscienceand architecture in Renaissancetheory.Further, the emphasis on idealnumbers alsoallows him to place architecture, the other arts, inside a alongside commonphilosophical discourse-a themeof some Neoplatonic of Renaissance prominencein the then-contemporary readings culture by Panofsky, Wind, and Gombrich-and acquiresan intellectual dimension for architecture thatearlier interpretations hadnot accorded.35 takesa leading thus,architecture Interpreted roleamongst the artsin materializing a Weltanschauung rootedin a
33. Wittkower, 140. Barbaro's statementon the role of Principles, e la forza de'numeritra se ragione numberin architecture ("divina allowsWittkower to attribute it also to Palladio; comparati") Principles, 138. He justifiessuch a transferral of Barbaro's vision to Palladio by "Palladio's work embodiedfor pointing to their close relationship: Barbaro his own idealof scientific, mathematical andit may architecture, be supposed thatPalladio himselfthoughtin the categories which his 68. On the patronhad so skilfullyexpounded." Wittkower, Principles, between Barbaro andPalladio, seePrinciples, 138-40. relationship 34. On Palladio's mannerist see Wittkower, 86. practices, Principles, These characteristics of mannerism had been partially established by Wittkower himselfin his articles on Michelangelo of the 1930s.Rudolf Wittkower,"Zur Peterskuppel Michelangelos," Zeitschrift fiir Kunst2 (1933): Biblioteca 348-70; andidem,"Michelangelo's Laurengeschichte ArtBulletin 16 (1934):123-218. ziana," Palladio definesbeautyas follows:"Labellezza e risulteridallaforma dalla deltutto alle delleparti fraloro,e di quellealltutto: corrispondenza parti, conciosach6 uno intieroe ben finitocorpo, gli edificiabbinoda parrere nel qualel'unmembro all'altro e tuttele membra sianonecessarie convenga a quelloche si vuol fare"[my emphasis]. Andrea Libri Palladio, Quattro to thispassage, Wittkower (Milan,1981),12.Withreference states: "Like most Renaissance artists, to the Palladio, followingAlberti,subscribed mathematical definition of beauty." 20. Fora different Principles, reading of Palladio's see AlinaPayne, "Between andauctoritas: aesthetics, giudizio Vitruvius' decor andItsProgeny in Sixteenth Italian Architectural Century of Toronto,1992),Chapter 8. (Ph.D.diss,University Theory" 35. See, for example,Franklwho under his category"purposive intention" intention but does not go beyonda broadly positsa cultural definedZeitgeist. Paul Frankl, TheFour Principles ofArchitectural History: Phases 1420-1900(Cambridge, ofArchitectural Style Mass.,1968),156-61. der neueren [1sted.DieEntwicklungsphasen Baukunst, Stuttgart, 1914].

sance in theory and practice.Alberti and Palladioareour main sources for an accurateestimate of Renaissanceopinion on this subject."Wittkower, 107. Principles, 32. Wittkower,Principles, 102-26.

Greekmusicalscaleinfluenced architectural of the Renaisproportions

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derProportion alsAbbild der debt.Panofsky's "DieEntwicklung of of human the (The history theory proporStilentwicklung" of the history of styles)of 1921,in whichhe tions as a reflection describes the theoryof proportions as anempirical sciencein the Wittkower with a critical Renaissance, provides pieceof evidence in thetestimony of Francesco on thefagade commentary Giorgi's for SanFrancesco thereforthefirsttime.39 dellaVignapresented With such appropriations Wittkowerdrawsinto the orbit of in arthistory notionselaborated architectural current scholarship and philosophythat lend his work the additional appealof a and of of the aesthetics methods reflective synthesis predominant atthe time. current inquiry betweenartand science,probBeyondthis tightrelationship of most thesisaboutthe the aspect Wittkower's ably significant is his focus on syntax. rudiments of Renaissance architecture A and exchanges on proportion natural extensionof his emphasis constitutesthe key betweenart and science,syntaxultimately of broad Unlikehis reading composiobjectof his investigation. form the architectural whenhe comesto reading tionalstrategies, fromthe available classical kit of parts (or sentence)constructed withsymbol andsignin art concerned 36. Wittkower's seriesof articles his sustained interest in the issue.The firstpart to its structure rather fromthe 1930sindicates he dissectsit with respect (or vocabulary) of Principles that he addsto the three articleson Albertiand Palladio than of of the the significance placement meaning: recognition of centrally withthe symbolism andthatdealsprecisely earlier, published of and the investigation between component parts relationships his on this into work shows him churches, translating thinking planned is Wittkower's focusand thoserelationships Wittkower refersto "intuitive the rulesthatcontrol It is truethatin one instance architecture. to Renaissance whendiscussing theviewer's spatial probably response perception" In thus approaching his most originalcontribution.40 27. Yet by this he does not meanan andplanconfigurations. Principles, to looksbeyondits immediate Wittkower presence physical to Gombrich's form, butanintellectual one:his reference intuition a-perceptive that a all to structure and subordinates other wheretrue of the Neoplatonic "principles" primary knowledge theoryof three-fold reading of a processof intellectual of an essential andwilled, rather thanintuitive, orderthatrests knowledgeis definedas the consequence intuitionof ideasandessencesmakesthis quiteclear.ErnstGombrich, a scientificmatrix.Ultimately,this explicitlink between upon of Symbolism and Their Bearing on "IconesSymbolicae: Philosophies allowsWittkower to situate syntaxand sciencevia mathematics 2 (1948):163-92. On andCourtauld Institutes Art,"Journal oftheWarburg these issues, see also Wittkower's to a version of the indebtedness formalpractices within the objectiveand rational Renaissance in derdeutschen rather then-current DerSymbolbegrif Symbolbegriff G6tz Pochat, thansubjective realm. undKunstwissenschaft to this issuemay Asthetik (Cologne,1983).Relevant on a scientificRenaissance Wittkower's is further emphasis alsobe Tod Marder's observation of thepossiblelinksbetweenHeinrich its of a obverse: the near of absence discussion von Geymiiller's of 1911 andWittkower's Architektur undReligion Prinheightenedby in the UnitedStates" "Renaissance andBaroque Marder, (seen. 9), ciples. of actual forms into the the senornament, put (architectural) of architecture as symbolin the formative 173 n. 30. On the conception whose tences rules he identifies. The semantic syntactic implicaof Architectural see alsoPaulZucker, "TheParadox yearsof modernism, tions of do not the sentence surface: the themselves of the Modern 10 Theoriesatthe Beginning components Movement,"JSAH (1951): 8-14. remain abstractentities, disembodied,characterized only by 37. ErnstCassirer, DasErkenntnisproblem in derPhilosophie undWissen- number andratios.41 to be sure,a facetto There is, (as dimension) der neueren Zeit,2 vols.(Berlin,1906-8). schaft
mathematicalconception of the universe: science (cosmogony), simultaneouslyabsorbedand transcended,receivesvisible expression in architecturalform. Even spatial configurations take an intellectualratherthan experientialsignificancein this model: the characteristic Renaissance(spherical)domes over (square) crossbecome symbols for the universal harmony and geometric ings configurationof the cosmos as intimatedby science.36 Not only does Wittkower bring architecturein line with the Panofskian theories of signification by signaling its debt to Neoplatonic philosophy, but he also participatesin the Cassirerof Panofsky dialogue begun in the former's Erkenntnisproblem 1906.37 By confirming their conclusion that the "complete parallel" between the theory of art and the theory of science constitutes the most profound motif of Renaissanceculture, he perpetuates their claims.38At the same time, while Wittkower deliberatelyinscribes his reading of architecturein a contemporary historical-philosophical dialogue, he also owes it a direct 38. "It is worth dwellingupon this completeparallel betweenthe of artandthetheory of science, forit reveals to us one of the most theory motifsin theentireintellectual of the Renaissance." movement profound Ernst The Individual andtheCosmos Cassirer, 1963),159 [1st (Philadelphia, undKosmos in derPhilosophie derRenaissance, Studiender ed., Individuum Bibliothek 10, (Leipzig,1927)]. Lateron in the text (when Warburg to Panofsky's is evenmorespecific: Cassirer "Fornow Idea), responding the mathematical idea,the 'a priori'of proportion [in the Renaissance], and of harmony, constitutes the commonprinciple of empirical reality andof artistic TheIndividual, 165n. 65. ForPanofsky's Cassirer, beauty." of this issue, see Erwin Panofsky, "Die Perspektive als development derBibliothek 4 (1924-25) (also Form,'" Vortrige 'symbolische Warburg Leipzig and Berlin, 1927). Another source for Wittkowerwas the on fifteenth-century Italian science(withparticipants suchas symposium andThorndike et al.)published Baron, Kristeller, Cassirer, injournal ofthe 4 (1943). History ofIdeas 39. Panofsky, "TheTheoryof Proportion" (seen. 19),91. Wittkower lead in the discussionof the unity of the acknowledges Panofsky's andaesthetic of proportion theRenaissance in cosmological aspect during 102n. 2. Principles, 40. That Wittkower thinks in terms of syntactical is relationships confirmed reference to syntax in his 1959adaptation of this byhis explicit argumentfor Casabella: "Negli edifici rinascimentali migliori,gli elementiderivati da differenti tradizioni venivano alladisciplina sottoposti di una'sintassi' coerente" "L'architettura RudolfWittkower, [myemphasis]. del Rinascimento e latradizione Casabella 234 (1959):43-49. classica," 41. This positionis already presentin embryonic, thoughexplicit, formin Burckhardt's of Renaissance treatment architecture. In hischapter on "Treatment of Form"(subsection he states: "Proportion") "Proportionsin theirrelationship to forms,andthe latter to the former, remained the subject of thehighest andsubtlest artistic efforts. The problem layin a

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Wittkower's argument that concerns forms directly. Primarily contained in chapters two and three, the discussion, however, focuses on the appropriation of plan and elevation configurations, especially of such meaning-laden types as the temple front, the Roman thermae hall, the triumphal arch, the forum, and the atrium. Again Wittkower's concern is with forms as generic entities, in this case as quotations and transformationsof large typological units, that is with motifs whose component formsthe columns and architraves,friezes and cornices, acroteriaand festoons-are treated as abstract entities ordering the larger aggregate.The same abstractingtendency is also at work in his analysis of Alberti's attitude to Antiquity, which he frames as a discussion on his use of the column. In spite of Alberti's definition of the column as "the principal ornament in all which almost amounts to an invitation to consider architecture," his conception of the aesthetic function of ornament, Wittkower concentrateson a readingof his architectureas a drive towardsthe rationalization of structure.42The discussion aims to reveal Alberti's gradual realization of the implications of Roman wall architecture,his consequent probing of the relationshipbetween column and wall, and finally his demand for a "logical wallFor Wittkowerthe analysisofAlberti's churches (the structure."43 Palazzo Rucellai with its incised representationof pilastersis not discussed) reveals an intention to avoid "the compromise of joining the column and wall-the compromise of many a Renaissance architect-in favour of a uniform wall architecIn Wittkower'spresentationnot only is Alberti gradually ture."44 moving away from the column as ornamentalmotif in spite of its usefulness in giving the fagade a "powerful rhythmic accentuation," but he is also concerned with the continuity between interiorand exterior"giving evidence [to] the homogeneity of his wall structure."45 Notwithstanding this review of Renaissance formal practices then, the issue of ornamentalform asformremainsuntouched. To justify such a reduction, Wittkower opens this discussion with a quotation of Alberti's definition of ornament as "a kind of additional brightness or improvement to beauty"and allows the matterto rest there: apparentlyconceived as a secondaryaesthetic device by no lesser an authority than the first and possibly the greatesttreatisewriter of the Renaissance,ornament did not seem to warrantclassificationamongst fundamentalprinciples at work

in Renaissancearchitectureaesthetics.46 Thereafter,when considered at all, ornament for Wittkower is a matter of lines that "enhancethe lucidity of the geometricalscheme." Even when he brings up Palladio's practice of "introducing figures silhouetted against the sky, figures and festoons as decorations of windows, and masks and keystones in the basement [that] gave his buildings a richer and more genial appearance," he does not take the observationfartherto an inquiry into the reasonsbehind such presences.47Time and again the discussion returns to (perfectbecause-they-are-square) plan configurations,48column ratios and rhythms,overallsystems governing elevations,49 and "orchestrations"of ornamentaldevices.50 When, in the section devoted to Palladio's mannerist years, the discussion does address his approach to the ornament that ultimately makes up his fagadesinto sculptural forms rather than outlines, it is either shown that "politicalactualityoverruled considerations of artisticprinciple" calling for a narrativeensemble (for example, Loggia del Capitanio) or, in the case of the PalazzoValmarana where "the wall is almost eliminated and the surface is crowded with motifs," little is in fact said other than of Palladio'sparticipation in a "Mannerist Palladio's move towardsan increasingly style."51 vocabusculptural lary that encompassesall tectonic and ornamentalcomponents of his buildings is thus almost imperceptible in this discussion where form is primarily read in terms of [out]line and where ornament is either a syntacticalor an iconographicaldevice.52 Wittkower thus presents a very convincing and tightly knit argument:the cosmological content and the cultural evidence he adduces, the gradualbuild up of essential Renaissanceforms, his emphasis on geometry, science, on reduction of forms to almost abstractschemata,all converge towardsmaking commensuratio the key instrumentfor conceptualizingform, the "symbolicform"-to borrow a Panofskianformula-for Renaissancearchitecture.53 In 46. Wittkower, 33. ThatAlberti conceives of ornament as a Principles, is attested to byhis use of thetermornamentum, otherwise principle notto be found in Vitruvius, who only refersto ornamenta. Hans-Karl Liicke, Alberti Index,vol. 2 (Munich, 1976): 944-49; HermannNohl, Index Vitruvianus 1876):89. (Leipzig, 47. Wittkower, 78. Principles, 48. See, for example,the application of the atriumform to palace Wittkower, 79. design. Principles, 49. Wittkower, 92. Principles, 50. Wittkower, 99. Principles, 51. Wittkower, 84-88. Principles, 52. "Yetin contrast to Michelangelo's deeplydisturbing Mannerism, Palladio's is soberandacademic: it is hardly everconcerned withdetailed tabernacles forms;capitals, andentablatures retain theirclassical significance,shapeand ratio.It is the interplay of entireclassical units that accounts forthe Mannerist character of thewhole." Wittkower, Principles, 93. For a different of Palladio's late,sculptural reading style,seeJames Ackerman, Palladio (Harmondsworth, 1977),112-13. 53. The concernwith proportion-undoubtedly a criticalissue in Renaissance aesthetics-also affordsother readings. See, for example, Christine Smith'sobservation thatthe Renaissance Cicero's interpreted concinnitas as referring to an analogous effectbetween wordsand sensory music(rather thanto theircommonintellectual sourcein numbers) and thatit is thisconcept of aesthetic thatis taken in his pleasure up byAlberti

was not in the designof individual stylein whichthe realvitality forms in themselves), but in theirrelationship (evenif beautiful to thewhole." Architecture Burckhardt, (seen. 30), 76. 42. Wittkower presentsAlberti'sdouble readingof the column as ornament andresidual wall (thatis, structural as an "incongrumember) ousstatement" andcredits himwithresolving thisdichotomy in favor of a rationalism. protostructural 34-35. Wittkower, Principles,
43. Wittkower,Principles, 37 and 47. 44. Wittkower,Principles, 47. 45. Wittkower,Principles, 56 and 44.

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1994 JSAH 53:3, SEPTEMBER (who had recently emigrated to London, as had Wittkower) lists explicitly its range of formal characteristics.For him Modern Architectureattemptsto accessan essentialtruth through architectural form and in doing so develops a languagewhose simplicity, clarity, lucidity, spareness,severity, lightness (whiteness), and its heightened sense of geometry recordsthis higher order.57 For Giedion the principalcharacteristic of historicalperiods is the predominantspaceconception manifestedin architecture, and it is true that this issue, though present, is secondaryto Wittkower's main line of reasoning.58 However, the real significanceof his argument lies in the fact that in his definition of modernity Giedion allies this neo-Kantiantendency in contemporary thought that had been gaining momentum since Schmarsow's formulawith the modernists' drivetowardstechnoltion of Raumgestaltung ogy and science as paradigmsfor architecture,an alliancethat he not only stresses but that he places in the domain of the For him the modern architecturalformulation of a inevitable.59

short, effecting a synthesis of various methodological orientations in contemporary scholarship as represented by Goldschmidt, Wolfflin, Cassirer,Panofsky,and Warburg,Wittkower ultimately defines a Renaissance style, constructs a Renaissance intention, and projects a Renaissanceviewer who recognizes and abstracts essential form from its manifestationin built matter.54 However, not only does Wittkower's argument fit into a currentarthistoricaland intellectualcontext as shapedby Cassirer and Panofsky,among others, but it presentsa familiarfacture:the reduction of form to syntacticrelationships,the geometric grids, the emphasis on structure,on "white" and "cubic"forms, on the causal relationship between art and science (mathematics) and away from an understandingof architecturalform as representational, the rejection of ornament from the core of "principles," the presentation of an architect actively shaping theoretical directions, in short all key aspects of Wittkower'sconstruction of the Renaissance, echo the then-current tenets of victorious modernism.55 Indeed, Giedion, Pevsner, and Hitchcock, the begettersof this orthodoxy, presented these same themes in their seminal validations for modernism that interpreted, edited, and For example Pevsner institutionalizedits discourse in the 1930s.56

manandyethaveentered numbers. He maybe a modest Let justthesame. him remain,entranced The by so much dazzlinglight."Le Corbusier, Modulor (London, 1951),51. 57. Forexample, see the parallel he drawsbetweenmodernarchitectureandmodern "Cezanne sucha superficial despised painting: approach. The womenin his Bathers arewithoutanysensuous on the analogy betweenthingsseen and heard.See seminalstatement appeal. Theyactnot on theirownbuton behalf of anabstract scheme which isthereal in the Cultureof Early Humanism(Oxford, Christine Smith, Architecture ofconstruction His aimis to express of objects; no the lasting 1992), 94. For a more general argument on the primacy of the senses subject ofthe picture. qualities his mind.... By constructing aestheticsand his his pictures with transitory occupies beauty (especiallyof optical perception)for Renaissance toparaphrase theeternal observation that Wittkower's Renaissance may be one of many, see strove lawsof sphereand cone, Cizanne cylinder, Pioneers Nature" Summers, Pevsner, (seen. 9), 28-31. (seen. 3), 70. ofSense [myemphasis]. Thejudgement of a Renaissance one hasto 58. The introduction of a discussion of aRenaissance 54. "Inanalyzing theproportions building, space-conception of generation into account.It can even be said that, is in fact the most notableadditionWittkower takethe principle makesto his original the intentionsof a aspublished in his articles of the forties. without it, it is impossiblefully to understand The characteristics of argument of thestyle as Renaissance architect. Wearetouching hereon fundamentals this Renaissance derivation and space are for him its mathematical awhole;forsimpleshapes, wallsandhomogeneity of articulation are "Architecture was regarded plain quasi-abstraction: by them as a mathematical for thatpolyphony of proportions which the science whichworked withspatial units: of thatuniversal forthe necessary presuppositions parts space Renaissance mindunderstood and a Renaissance of whichtheyhaddiscovered thekeyin the lawsof scientific eyewas ableto see" [my interpretation of 1953,in whichhe 116.In an article Thustheyweremadeto believethattheycouldrecreate the Wittkower, emphasis]. Principles, perspective. revisits this argument, Wittkower states it with evengreater "I valid ratiosand expose them pureandabsolute, as close to emphasis: universally thinkit is not goingtoo farto regard of measure asthe abstract as possible.And they were convincedthatuniversal commensurability geometry nodalpoint of Renaissance aesthetics." RudolfWittkower, of couldnot revealitselfentirely unlessit were realized in space "Systems harmony Architects' Yearbook 5 (1953):16. in the service architecture conceived of religion" Proportion," through [myemphasis]. 55. On thisview,witnesshis description of S. Maria delleCarceri: "Its 29. Wittkower, Principles, the undisturbed of itsgeometry, the 59. Giedion initiatesthis science-and-technology-oriented majestic simplicity, impact purity ofits strategy whiteness aredesigned to evokein the congregation a consciousness of the with Bauenin Frankreich: of 1928. The traditionof Eisen,Eisenbeton of God"[myemphasis]. 21. in termsof spacegoes backto Schmarsow architecture and Wittkower, presence Principles, discussing 56. Giedion, Space,Time (see n. 1); Pevsner,Pioneers Ostendorf,but is developedin the 1920s by HermanSoergel,Paul (see n. 3); Modern Architecture: Romanticism andReintegra- Klopfer, LeoAdler,FritzSchumacher, PaulFechter, Otto Schubert, and Hitchcock, Henry-Russell tion(NewYork,1929); Hitchcock andPhilip The HermannHinselmann.On this issue and on the distinctionmade Henry-Russell Johnson, International Since 1922 (New York, 1932). For a between volumeandspace, seeZucker, "TheParadox" Style:Architecture (seen. 36), 11-13. of the critical role playedby these issues,and For the aesthetics to Giedion'sspace-time see contemporary testimony background conception, for architectural Mitchell W. Schwarzer, "TheEmergence of Architectural especiallyby science (mathematics) practice,see Le Space: August Corbusier's almostlyricalpassage in his Modulor: is the "Mathematics Schmarsow's 15 (1991):50-61. Theoryof'Raumgestaltung,' "Assemblage structure conceived him comprehension of the Of specific to Giedion wasPaulZucker, "DerBegriffder Zeit majestic by manto grant importance universe. It holdsboththe absolute andthe infinite,the understandable in derArchitektur," 44 (1923-24): 237-45. Kunstwissenschaft Repertoriumfiir andthe forever elusive.It haswallsbeforewhich one maypaceup and Zucker subsequently to his readingof history appliesthis approach downwithoutresult; sometimes thereis a door:one opensit-enters-Renaissance andcharacterizes historical (specifically architecture) periods one is in another the realmof the gods,the roomwhichholdsthe realm, of space. Hans Willich and Paul by the prevalentconceptualization Baukunst der Renaissance in Italien andPotsdam, key to the greatsystems.These doors are the doors of the miracles. Zucker, vol.1, (Wildpark theoperative butrather 1914; vol. 2, 1929).ThoughGiediondraws one,manis no longer fromZucker force, theemphasis on Having gonethrough it is his contact withthe universe. In frontof him unfoldsandspreads out in architecture, hispresentation of modern architecture aspart space-time the fabulousfabricof numberswithoutend. He is in the countryof of a historical on this basisis more directly stream anticipated by Frey.

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space-timecontinuum is due to a spontaneoussynthesisof andFiihlen, thatis to an expression Denken of a new understandof cosmos afforded the and mathematics that is ing by physics of the modern use which, as possibleonly through technology, of the samespirit, aloneallowsit to takephysical form.60 product To this end the (scientifically andtechnology determined based) structural frameworkof the building and its dialecticwith nonstructure (the glasscurtain wall) thatheightensits presence for Giedion: becomecritical as essential andirreducnecessarily ible partof the building,structural membersentervisiblyinto thatgive formto the reality of spaceand placement relationships motionas construed modern Architectural science.61 narrative by or semantics is thusinevitably fromthecenter displaced bysyntax of his attention: the "deepstructure" that organizesform and to engineeredstructuretakes precedencein his corresponds narrative becauseit is an instanceof Anschaulichkeit overlapping with technology;that is, it re-presents,offers to view, the simultaneous physical productand insightofferedby science.62

undRenaissance alsGrundlagen dermodernen WeltanDagobert Frey,Gotik to useconceptions 1929).Foranevenearlier schauung (Augsburg, attempt of space ashistorical seeArnold des devices, ordering Spengler's Untergang Abendlandes of 1918, to whom Zucker also refers. The perceptual in the space-time implications concept(mostvisiblyexploited by Paul Frankl)is present,though underplayed, by both Giedion and Frey. seesZucker as instrumental in Giedionmaking this shift.On Giorgiadis Giedion's debtto Zucker, see Sokratis Giedion Giorgiadis, Sigfried (see n. 1), 132. 60. "That thereis a remarkable betweenrecentdepartures in analogy art and music is a factwhich has been philosophy, physics,literature, commented on. In the lightof the particular casewe have frequently just examined [Maillart],it is worth consideringwhether the field of structural cannotbe includedas well. New methods arenew engineering tools for thecreation Giedion,Space, of newtypes of reality" [my emphasis]. Time alsogiveshim the keyto a presentation (seen. 1),384.This strategy of the nineteenth anopportunity of rescuing (andsimultaneously century it) as a coherentstep in the course of history unfoldingtowards modernity. 61. "Nowthoseformsin concrete whichignoreformer conventions in the product of a process into elements designarelikewise ofresolution (forthe slab isanirreducible thatusesreconstruction asa means of attaining element) a morerational Time Giedion, synthesis" [myemphasis]. Space, (seen. 1), 383; "Le Corbusierwas able-as no one before him had been-to transmute the concrete skeleton intoa means developed by the engineer of architectural ... .Borrominihad been on the verge of expression the interpenetration of innerandouterspacein someof his late achieving ... Thispossibility churches. waslatent in the skeleton of baroque system but the skeleton hadto be usedas Le Corbusier construction, uses it: in the serviceof a new conception of space." Giedion,Space, Time,416. undertonethese Georgiadis points out that in spite of the rationalist structural forms are nonethelessconstruedby Giedion as "symbolic forms." Giedion Sigfried Georgiadis, (seen. 1), 163. 62. On theformal characteristics thatdisplay theartist's formulation of scientific the followinglist is revealing: insight, "Interrelation, hovering, ... fundamental elementsof pure colour,of planes,their penetration and interrelation ... pure interrelationships." equipoise Giedion,Space, Time,360. "[Mathematical the physicistsand cubistsgave architects] meansof organizing objective spacein waysthatgaveformto contemporaryfeelings."Giedion,Space, Time,26. In this contextGiedionalso a concernwith syntax to be critical for modernist aesthetics: recognizes

For Giedion this drive towards Anschaulichkeit, though ideally is ultimatelyprogrammatic, for he promotesa spontaneous, militantmodernismthat also impliesa militantarchitect, selfconsciousaboutthe aesthetic profileof the momentwhereinhe his workandabouthis own placein the march inscribes towards progress,neither a passivevehicle for a will to art, nor an of the culturalundertow,in short,an unwittingseismograph architect-theorist to whomWittkower's Renaissance counterpart stands asa distant, ancestor. thoughrelated, Not only does Giedionpromote a new definition of architecan ture,butthe Renaissance role in this formulaplays important tion. In a move characteristic of modernist discourse thatgives Giedionlegitimates modernism ontological weightto history, by it in history andpresents the Renaissance asanorigin embedding thatvalidates its aspirations.63 Thus Giedionalso picks up the of a modernand scientificRenaisCassirer-Panofsky proposal sanceand explicitly makesuse of this interpretation to promote the modernityhe supports.64 The synthesisbetween art and sciencethatcharacterizes the Renaissance forhim andconstitutes it into an "esprit nouveau" manifests itselfboth in "thecomplete union of artistand scientistin the same person"and in the perspectival conceptionof space, the incipient patternof a dialectic between structureand infill, between interior and exterior allof whichvalidate the impulses withinmodernspace, ismandatthe sametimereveal it asanepiphany.65 Seen in this company, Wittkower's Renaissance, thoughenrichedby the historical he for its apparatus deploys explication, reveals its spiritual architectural aesthetkinshipwith modernist
"In a modern work of artit is the relationshipbetween the elements in the composition that aredecisive in determining its character, Giedion, Space, Time, 21. "The human eye awake to the spectacle of form, line and colour-that is, the whole grammar to one another ofcomposition-reacting within an orbit of hovering planes" [my emphasis]. Giedion, Space,Time, 382.

Thatthis focuson syntax constitutes a keymodernist is phenomenon

confirmed by its broader relevance to other areas of artisticproduction. See, for example, the explicit formulation it receives in the later minimalist work of the sixties. On Michael Fried's seminal discussion of syntax with reference to Tony Caro's sculpture, and on Clement and the conseGreenberg's own formulation of the term "relationality" quences for definitions of modernism of both these views, see Rosalind Krauss,"Using Languageto Do Business as Usual," in VisualTheory, ed. N. Bryson, M. A. Holly, and K. Moxey (NewYork, 1991), 79-100. 63. Giedion, Space, Time (see n. 1), 30-67. For the origins of this and Nietzsche, as well as the patternin the exchangesbetween Burckhardt significant impact of the latter's championing of the Renaissance, see August Buck, "Burckhardtund die italienische Renaissance,"in Buck, Renaissance undRenaissancismus (see n. 5), 5-12. Like Giedion and Pevsner, though less polemical, Hitchcock also seeks a historical continuum for modernity.On this aspectof his work, see Helen Searing,"Henry-Russell Hitchcock: The ArchitecturalHistorian as Critic and Connoisseur," in Historian MacDougall, ed., TheArchitectural (see n. 2), 251-63. 64. "Indeedone rarelysees so complete a unity of thinking and feeling as is to be found in the early 15th century. There was not only the importantidentity of method in these two spheres, but a complete union of artistand scientist in the same person." Giedion, Space,Time,31. 65. Giedion, Space,Time,30 and 31.

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In Scott's definition, taste is "the disinterested enthusiasm for architectural form," and stands outside race, politics, societal The context for Wittkower's paradigm change, geological facts, and constructionalpractice.69 By focusthe discussion on Scott aims to reestabing taste-that-begets-style, with this the nature of modernism, Beyond general kinship lish the of the aesthetic and a independence develop critical Wittkower's paradigm comes into true focus, however, when framework for its evaluation. his Ultimately argument, like examined against contemporary Renaissance studies, that is Wittkower's,is polemical in nature:beyond the Renaissanceand against the work of W61fflin, Frey, Frankl, Scott, Giovannoni, his intended apologia for classicism, Scott is concerned with the Of and foremost these is Zucker.66 Willich, importanceamongst of architecture definition itself. In line with this goal, before he his chosen foil, Geoffrey Scott's Architecture of Humanism of to the of Renaissance forms, Scott character define attempts 1914.67 As such, this text requires a closer reading precisely reviews contemporary interpretativestrategies and finds them because Wittkower singles it out and constructs his own arguflawed. They are flawed because they transfer fundamentally in For ment opposition to it. Scott modern definitions of architectureto an evaluationof the past. It is precisely because these modern definitions are themselves Renaissancearchitecturein Italy pursued its course and assumed its flawed-and Scott identifies several fallacies at their root-that various forms rather from an aesthetic, and so to say, internal the resulting interpretations are unacceptable.70In a lengthy impulsion than under the dictates of any external agencies. The architectureof the Renaissance is pre-eminently an architectureof review, the literary,scientific, ethical, and biological models for Taste. The men of the Renaissance evolved a certain architectural architectureare dismissed one by one. Instead, for Scott, "architecture is a humanised patternof the world"; it stirs our physical memory and causes an aesthetic reaction that he defines else66. When Wittkower turned to his synthesis in the forties the seminal where as pleasure.71We, the viewer, transcribe ourselves into treatments of the Renaissance that attempted such a reading were still terms of architecture as it comes into sight and invest it with those formulated in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Such works were: Burckhardt, Architecture (see n. 30); Wl1fflin, Renaissance human movement and human moods. This is the humanism of und Baroque(see n. 30); C. v. Stegmann and H. v. Geymiiller, Die architecture,he concludes.72 in Toscana, 11 vols. (Munich, 1885-1908); Architektur der Renaissance Scott's subsequent readingof Renaissancearchitecturereflects n. and Willich Baukunst der Renaissance Zucker, Frankl,Principles (see 35); his apperception-basedaeshtetics. For example, the traditional (see n. 59); Frey, Gotik und Renaissance (see n. 59). Even though these syntheses address architecturalaesthetics they are not, strictly speaking, debate over the relationship between wall and column is dishistories of theory as is Wittkower'sPrinciples. The majorityof these works reflect the current readings of art and architecture as Stilgeschichte, missed by him as confused thinking:
The works by Geymfiller, and and/or Kulturgeschichte. Geistesgeschichte, Willich and Zucker, albeit more sachlich, fall more readily in the category of Baugeschichte than in that of histories of theory.Wittkower'sattentionto texts as historicaldocuments and as vehicles to the intellectualhorizon of the period was groundbreaking.From the 1920s, to Wittkower, scholarship had increased substantially, yet the period had not known of additional proposals for a comprehensive interpretation. For example, notwithstandingits title, Giovannoni's book does not offer a comprehensive pictureof Renaissancearchitecture. GustavoGiovannoni,L'architettura delRinascimento: Saggi,2d ed. (Milan, 1935). With the generation coming to maturityin the 1920s-Pevsner, Giedion, Kaufmann,and Wittkowerthe pendulum of attention was swinging from synthetic readings that processed the period as a whole based on its formal unity (the classical vocabulary),to readingsthat privileged the Renaissance'sstructuringand recognized its diversity.For example, see SigfriedGiedion, "LateBaroque and Romantic Classicism" (Ph.D. diss., Munich, 1922); Nikolaus PevsKunstwissenner, "Gegenreformationund Mannierismus,"Repertoriumfiir schafi46 (1925): 259-85; Emil Kaufmann, "Die Architekturtheorieder KunstwissenFranz6sischenKlassikund des Klassizismus,"Repertoriumfiir schafi44 (1923-24); Rudolf Wittkower, "Zur PeterskuppelMichelangelos" (see n. 34); and idem, "Michelangelo's Biblioteca Laurenziana" (1934). 67. On the history of the publication and Scott's criticism activity,see David Watkin'sintroduction to TheArchitecture of Humanism, by Geoffrey Scott (London, 1980), ix-xxix. Subsequent references are from Geoffrey Scott, TheArchitecture ofHumanism (Gloucester, Mass., 1965), basedon the 2d edition of 1924. In Renaissance architecture, one might say, the wall becomes articulateand expressesits ideal propertiesthrough its decoration... The classic orders, when applied decoratively, represented for the Renaissancebuilders an ideal expression of these qualities, stated as generalities. The fallacy lies with the scientific prejudice which insists on treatingthem as particularstatements of constructive fact wherever they occur.73

ics. Moreover, it becomes equally clear that his conception of the Renaissancehad alreadybeen intimated in broad terms and had been processed within the architecturaldiscourse, albeit within the criticalliterature.

kind.68

Unlike Wittkower, who sees structural rationalism at work in Alberti's buildings, Scott argues against a concern with the
68. Scott,Architecture 36. ofHumanism, 69. Scott,Architecture 28-35. ofHumanism, 70. The romantic literary fallacy and the cult for nature and the picturesque, the mechanical fallacy or the cult for scientific logic in construction, the ethical fallacy or the cult for truth and morality, and finally, the biological fallacy,centered on the patternof growth and decay exhibited by organisms,are systematicallydefined, examined, and demolished by Scott one by one. Structured into individual chapters, the discussion of the fallacies makes up two-thirds of the book. Scott, Architecture 40-141. ofHumanism, 71. Scott,Architecture ofHumanism,178. 72. Scott,Architecture ofHumanism,159. 73. Scott,Architecture 92. ofHumanism,

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coincidence of constructionalappearance and fact, and praisesthe appealto psychology ratherthan to abstractlogic in the use of the orders. For him the scientific view fails adequatelyto distinguish between factand appearance, between feeling and knowing: "The art of architecturestudies not structurein itself, but the effects of structureupon the human spirit."74 Once Scott vindicates fictive or virtual structure,all the components of the columnar ordersthat is the capitals,bases, plinths, and cornices-can be rescued from the incidental and given an essential role in the reception of the building by the viewer: thecurves of thevolutes arerecognized asboldor Thus,forexample, weak,tense or lax, powerful,flowing,and so forth.But we must themashaving thesequalities with recognise byunconscious analogy sinceit is onlyin ourownbodiesthat we know ourownmovements, therelation of the line--or movement-to the feelingit denotes.... The cornicesandthe otherdevicestie elementstogether to forcea of mass upon the eye; the orders,the use of single impression rusticated bases andbattered to oursenseof powerfully plinths speak adjusted weight.75 Such a conception of ornament as form is radicallyopposed to Wittkower's,for whom ornament does not take on a determining role either in the conception or the reception of architecture. Instead, for Scott, it constitutes an essential psychological bridge between object and subject. Once Scott takes aim at the fallacy that links science and art with his body-centered conception of architecture,his readingof proportion-the other traditionaltoposin discussions of Renaissance architecture-must necessarilyfollow. As writer and dilettante architecthimself, he is particularly sensitive to the architectural object as the end product of an artistic process.76As such Scott recognizes the choices that have to be made in the course of that process and identifies the origin of these choices as the key problem. For him the issue is not the presence of a proportional coherence, which he accepts as essential for architecturebecause it is essential for nature, but the aesthetic basis for the choice. Thus he turns the discussion to that which lies beyond the use of proportions and in doing so again sets himself poles apartfrom Wittkower: The intervals of a vulgar tunearenotlessmathematical thanthoseof nobler music.... It was realisedthat "proportion" is a form of 74. Scott, Architecture 96. ofHumanism, 75. Scott, Architecture 165. That this conceptionof of Humanism, ornament is a critical is confirmed aspectof Scott'sdiscussion by Rhys who develops the ideaandpresents thecolumnar orders asthe Carpenter, imitation "of familiar realities of world sense,. . . an artificial language which communicates architectural emotion."RhysCarpenter, TheAesthetic Basis Art(London, ofGreek 1921),118-19. 76. Scottworked withCecilPinsent on renovations fortheVillaI Tatti for Bernard in fact,The Architecture Berenson; is dedicated to ofHumanism Pinsent.On Scott'srelationship with Berenson,see ErnestSamuels, Bernard Berenson: TheMaking ofa Legend Mass.,1987),103 (Cambridge, and126.

But it was not realised mathematics. thatthe word has a different in the two cases.Our aesthetic bearing tasteis partly physical; and, while mathematical "proportion" belongsto the abstract intellect, aesthetic is a preference "proportion" in bodilysensation.77 Thus Scott associates numerical order with states of being and with making nature intelligible as an organic system through an act of apperception. For him architecture and science do not interact; architecture does not embody scientific truth, but, privileging vision in the act of comprehension, presents a deeply resonant metaphor for order.78Whereas for Wittkower aesthetic judgment devolves from an explicit intellectual intention, for Scott it is ultimately dependent on an intuitive, physicallydriven will to form. Wittkower'shumanism is therefore not Scott's, and his choice of title when read in light of his polemical stance must be seen to point deliberatelyto this difference. For Wittkower,humanism is an intellectualconfigurationbased on an appropriation of ancient that is, of Platonic philosophy, Pythagoreanmathematthought, ics, and Euclidian geometry, at the hands of humanists, that is absorbed by an act of cultural osmosis into architecturaltheory. For Scott, on the other hand, humanism describes the bodyconsciousness of Renaissance artistic production, the preeminence of the physical/perceptual moment over the rational/ intellectualone.79In the context of their concern with humanism, Architecture 77. Scott, 155. ofHumanism, 78. "Thus in makingthe masses,spacesand lines of architecture a measureof symmetry and balance respondto our idealstability, are entailed.... Nature,it is true, is for sciencean intelligible constantly system.But the groupswhich the eye, at any one glance,discovers in Naturearenot intelligible bears no relation to .... ThusOrderin Nature ouractofvision.It is nothumanised. Itexists, butit continually eludesus. This Order, whichin Natureis hiddenandimplicit, architecture makes to theeye.It supplies theperfect between theactof patent correspondence vision and the act of comprehension." Scott,Architecture of Humanism, 175-76.Compare with LeCorbusier, who in hisModulor states: "Iagree, he replied to theProfessor andhistorian Andreas [mathematician Speiser, at the 1951 Congresson Proportion] natureis ruled by participant andthe masterpieces of artarein consonance mathematics, with nature; the lawsof nature andthemselves fromtheselaws. theyexpress proceed and the scholar's Consequently they too aregoverned by mathematics, and unerring formulae to art."Le implacable reasoning maybe applied Modulor Corbusier, (see n. 56), 29-30. In factLe Corbusier his brought scale to Einstein at Princetonfor verification, and paraphrases his "The scientisttells us: 'This weaponshootsstraight: response: in the matter of dimensioning, i.e. of proportions, it makes task more certain" your LeCorbusier, 58. [myemphasis]. Modulor, 79. Evenif Scottdescribes formsin termsof theirmostabstract rather thanmimeticcomponents, his reading is apperception-oriented andhe sees formarising frombodyconsciousness rather thanfroman intellectualeffort to grasp fundamental anduniversal laws.Thisrecognition of an of form and psychological/physiological overlapbetween abstraction in architecture andW61fflin, reception and is goes backto Schmarsow concededeven by Worringer in acknowledging theirwork,thoughhe otherwise to identify thetwo impulses-towards abstraction attempts and towards empathy-aspolaropposites (in whichhe followsa W61fflinian in KleineSchriften, model). HeinrichWblfflin,"Prologomena," ed. J. Gantner Unser (Basel,1946),13-47;August Verhdltnis zu den Schmarsow, bildenden Kiinsten Abstraktion (Leipzig,1903);WilhelmWorringer, und

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both recognize the human analogy as significant for Renaissance theory, and both draw Michelangelo's "Letter to an Unknown Prelate" into their argument as a critical piece of evidence. Yet their handling of the text revealstheir fundamentaldivergence:
Architecture, to communicate the vital values of the spirit, must

likethe body.Anda greater criticthanVasari, Michel appear organic it maybe, Angelo[sic]himself,touchedon a truthmoreprofound,
than he realised, when he wrote of architecture:"He that hath not mastered, or doth not master the human figure, and in especial its anatomy,may never comprehend it" (Scott).so Michelangelo, in a letter of about 1560, wrote that "there is no members reflect the members of Man question but that architectural and that those who do not know the human body cannot be good

architects" (Wittkower).81 Wittkower clearly avoids the reference to anatomy in the closing of the sentence that suggests Michelangelo's concern to go beyond placement of members (and hence syntax) and to recognize the physicalityof bodies as fundamentalto architecture. Thus reduced the passagecan then be used as evidence to support a critical aspect of his thesis for a mathematicalbasis to Renaissance architectureaesthetics.82 Beyond its historical garb, Scott's argument is ultimately structuralin nature, since in reviewing Renaissancearchitecture he attempts to extractprinciples of general validity referrableto form making and form reception and more generally to the natureof being. As he defines it, the aestheticresponse elicited by architectureinvolves "a process of mental self-identificationwith the apparentphysical stateof the object and a sympatheticactivity of the physical memory."83With these words Scott explicitly discourse current places himself within the empathy (Einfiihlung) at the time on the Continent.84Indeed, he openly acknowledges

his debt both to TheodorLippsand Bernard Yet, Berenson.85 more than to either, his readingof architectural aestheticsis indebtedto W 1lfflin's Renaissance undBarock and to the earlier In the latter,his doctoral dissertation of 1886, "Prologomena." W 1lfflin takeson the materialist to the of approach interpretation architecture andattempts to demonstrate thevalidity of a psycholarchitectural aesthetics. His focusis the subject-object ogy-based not the makingof the objectas such.For him the relationship, of architectural corporeality (ortectonic)forms,is (K'rperlichkeit) the realvehicleof theirexpressive that elicitsan aesthetic power fromtheviewer,whichhe definesas "astateof organic response well being"(organisches This is so because archiWohlbefinden).86 tecturalforms drawon the Korpergefiihl, that is, the perceptual thatexistsbetweentwo bodymasses, the viewer's and sympathy the building's. definitionof Takingissue with Schopenhauer's architecture as a dialectic betweenStarrheit andSchwere, W61fflin defines it in more dynamicterms as the representation of the between a force to form immanent an will opposition (Formkraft), within matter, and matteritselfthatlongs (sehnt sich)to become Forhim, to causea significant aesthetic architecform.87 impact,
kosmos: Ideen zur Naturgeschichte derMenschheit und Geschichte (Leipzig, dasoptische Vischer,Uber 1856-65); Robert (Leipzig,1872); Formgefiihl in derneueren Asthetik JohannVolkelt,Der Symbolbegriff (Jena,1876); der (see n. 79); Adolf Gller, Zur Asthetik W1lfflin, "Prologomena" Architektur derarchitektonischen (Stuttgart, 1887); idem, Die Entstehung Raumdsthetik (Stuttgart, 1888);Theodor Lipps, 1897); (Leipzig, Stilformen desSch6nen 2 vols. (Hamburg idem,Asthetik: and Kunst, undder Psychologie Leipzig,1903-6); idem, Zur Einfiihlung (Leipzig,1912); Paul Stern, in derneueren Aesthetik andLeipzig, undAssociation (Hamburg Einfiihlung "Vierter in Unser Verhdltnis 1898).AugustSchmarsow, Vortrag," (see n. Abstraktion undEinfiihlung 79), 78-107; Worringer, (see n. 79); Rudolf Diedynamische inder Kunst Metzger, aufgewandten Empfindung 1917). (Jena, Fora selection andcommentary of relevant textsrelated to thisissue,see FormandSpace: Henry Francis Mallgrave's recentlyreleased Empathy, Problems in German Aesthetics 1873-1893(Santa Monica,1994).Thiswork wasnotavailable to me atthetimeof writing thisarticle. 85. Scott, Architecture of Humanism (see n. 67), 159. His debt to Berenson forwhomhe acted asbothsecretary andarchitect in Florence is referrable to the latter'sconceptof "tactileforms"developedin The Florentine Painters of 1896. Scott also acknowledges the one isolated at importing thesenotions; VernonLee (VioletPaget), Englishattempt The AnIntroduction toPsychological Aesthetics Beautiful, (Cambridge, 1913). 86. W1lfflin, (seen. 79),21. "Prologomena" 87. "Der Gegensatz von Stoff und Formkraft, der die gesamteorWeltbewegt,ist das Grundthema der Architektur. Die astheganische tischeAnschauung unseresK6rpers diese intimsteErfahrung iibertrigt auchaufdie lebloseNatur.Injedem Ding nehmenwir einenWillenan, der zur Form sich durchzwingen versuchtund den Widerstand eines formlosenStoffeszu iiberwinden hat.... Nach all dem Gesagten kann kein Zweifel sein, dass Form nicht als etwasAusserliches dem Stoff tiberworfen als immanenter wird, sondernaus dem Stoff herauswirkt der Form entgegen." Wille.... Der Stoff sehnt sich gewissermassen (see n. 79), 22-23. Scottalsotakesoverfrom W1lfflin,"Prologomena" W61fflinthe concept of Formgeschmack (Scott'staste) and Formgefiihl that he opposes to the materialist (elsewhere,Formphantasie) view, ascribed to Semper(starting with Riegl) of the origin of traditionally architectural form in the technical of building: "Einetechnische reality einzelnerFormenzu leugnen,liegtmir natfirlich durchaus Entstehung fern.Die Naturdes Materials, dieArtseinerBearbeitung, die Konstruk-

EinBeitrag zurStilpsychologie 1919[1sted. 1908]),30 (Munich, Einfiihlung: and85. On the opposition between on bodymasses emphasis W61fflin's and Schmarsow's on spaceas perceptually see Schwarzer, processed, "Architectural Space"(see n. 59), 50. On the impactof the empathysee David Morgan,"The Idea of theory on the rise of abstraction, Abstraction in German Theories of the Ornament fromKant to Kandinand ArtCriticism 50 (Summer sky,"The journal ofAesthetics 1992):231-42. 80. Scott, Architecture 164-65. ofHumanism, 81. Wittkower, 101.The finaltwo sentences of MichelangePrinciples, lo's letterto which both authors referrunsas follows:"Because it is a certain of architecture derivefromthe members thing,thatthe members of man.Whohasnotbeenor is nota goodmaster of thehuman body,and mostof allof anatomy, cannot understand of it."Astranslated in anything DavidSummers, andtheLanguage Michelangelo ofArt (Princeton, 1981), 418 and573 n.1. 82. "Asmanis the imageof God andthe proportions of his bodyare in architecture have to producedby divine will, so the proportions embrace andexpress the cosmicorder." Wittkower, 101. Principles, 83. Scott, Architecture ofHumanism (seen. 67), 196. 84. Someof thecritical textsforthedevelopment of thistheory andthe debatesurrounding it were:Friedrich Th. Vischer, Asthetik oder WissendesSchdnen, 4 vols. (Reutlingen andLeipzig,1856-58);Hermann schaft der Asthetik in Deutschland Lotze,Geschichte (Munich,1868);idem,Mikro-

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ture must draw on the "deeply human experience of the forming of unformed matter" that underlies the operation of nature itself.88 In this model ornament plays an essential role as rhetorical device precisely because it is superfluous: resulting it manifestsvisibly this force from an excess of energy (Formkrafi), at work. Proportion, symmetry, harmony, and the Golden Section, that is, all number-based categories are treated in a similar way. Though he recognizes them as essential criteria for organizing form, for him they do not testify to a mathematical conception of the universe, but to a sensual conception of mathematics: proportions reflect breathing rhythms, and the Golden Section triggers a deep consciousness of physical condition.89It is an architectural vocabularythat enhances the essence and inert matterand makes it of the opposition between Formkraft a to that is it elicits empathy,that resonant viewer, psychologically interest and attention and is explicattracts W ultimately 1lfflin's of 1888. From undBarock itly addressedby him in his Renaissance the general and abstract"Prologomena,"that in itself draws on on empathy,the psychologyand synthesizesthe available literature based and body-centered architecturalaesthetics he promotes is thus appropriated within the mainstreamof architecturalhistory by W61fflinhimself. Seen from this perspectivethen, Scott's reading of the Renaissance as an example of good architecturein general indicatesthat he offers an argument that stands at a midway point between W1lfflin's historical account and his broaderreflection on architecture initiated in the "Prologomena."Where he exceeds W 1lfflin, however, is in his more polemical position towards contemporarypractices,which clearly grounds his argument in current criticism. Scott's object, first and foremost, is to make a strong case for Einfiihlungwhile couching it in an argument about Renaissance architecture.Indeed the Einfiihlung discourse, with roots in nineteenth-century formalist aesthetics and the budding new science of perceptualpsychology substantiallyaffectedarchitecturalcriticism and production and fed the argumentin favorof mass production, and the will-to-art and againststandardization, rationlizationof the artisticprocess.90 This confrontationis a locus tion werden nie ohne Einflusssein. Was ich aber aufrechterhalten m6chte-namentlichgegeniiber einigenneuen Bestrebungen-istdas, dassdie Technikniemals sondern wo manvon Kunst einenStil schafft, immerdasPrimireist. Die technisch ein bestimmtes spricht, Formgefiihl Formendirfen diesemFormgefuihl nichtwidersprechen; sie erzeugten

classicus for the periodas it constitutes one of the debatesthat characterize the earlymodernistphase.91 Almost threedecades after W61fflin's what had startedas conceptual formulation, options within the field of aestheticshad heated up into a confrontation andwarranted a partisan stance suchas full-fledged Scott's.It is a measureof the prominenceof these issues to current architectural discourse thatScott's Architecture polemical of shouldcome out in 1914,the sameyearthatsaw the Humanism destabilization of the Deutscher Werkbund as the resultof the
clash between the two factions.92

Unlike Scott's,the other available synthesesof Renaissance

architecturalthought took less partisanpositions, though these

Renaissance immodernen andidem,"DieBelebung desStoffes Kunstgewerbe; als Prinzipder Sch6nheit," in Essays [1910]) at the beginningof the twentiethcentury.Endellmay have derivedhis views from attending in MunichandfromW1lfflin. Theodor lectures This is related Lipps's by Fritz Schmalenbach, zu Theorie und Geschichte der Ein Beitrag Jugendstil: Fldchenkunst "TheIdeaof Abstrac1953)as citedin Morgan, (Wiirzburg, tion" (see n. 79), 241 n. 68, who also discusses the debates withinthe ranks of promoters of Einfiihlungtheorie. On the impact of empathy-theory on expressionist aesthetics, Ian BoydWhite,introducsee, for example, tionto TheCrystal Chain Letters: Architectural Fantasies Taut and His byBruno ed. Ian B. White(Cambridge, Circle, Mass.,1985).For an even earlier betweenempathy aesthetics andarchitectural in the overlap production nineteenth see alsoMead,Charles Paris Garnier's century, (seen. 5), Opera 253-59. Foraveryusefulinsider's of the relationship evaluation between German aesthetics andarchitecture, see Zucker,"The Paradox" (see n. 36), 8-14. The intellectual context the formulation of theEinfiihlung surrounding with architectural theory and its intersections theory and design is charted to date.See particularly particularly complexand only partially F. Mallgrave's, introduction to Wagner, Modern Architecture Harry (see n. "Adolf Loosandthe Ornament of Sentiment," 1 3); Mallgrave, Midgard Dal Co, Figures and (1987):85; idem,reviewof Francesco ofArchitecture Formand ed., Empathy, JSAH 51 (1992):336-38; Mallgrave, Thought, of theseissuesandtheirrootsin (see n. 84). Forotherdiscussions Space see most recentlyMitchell Schwarzer, aesthetics, nineteenth-century andRepresentation in KarlB6tticher's "Ontology Theoryof Tectonics," JSAH 52 (1993):267-80; and Dal Co, Figures ofArchitecture (see n. 3), 182-97. Relevant to this discussion arealsothe questions most proposed forthesession, "Theories ofVisual recently byBarry Bergdoll Perception, the Body,andArchitecture in theAgeof Historicism, atthe 1750-1920," annual forty-seventh Historians, meetingof the Societyof Architectural Penn.,April1994. Philadelphia, 91. See the 1914 Werkbund exhibitiondebatebetween Muthesius andrationalization) andvande Velde(upholding (upholding Typisierung andhencethewill-to-art) asa manifestation of theschism. For expression the statements made by the two opponents,see Tim and Charlotte andDesign: 1890-1939(London,1975).The diverHistory ofArchitecture was commonplace gence in approach enough to be referredto by of Renaissance artand architecture. Dagobert Freyin his reading Frey, Gotik und Renaissance (see n. 59), 292. For the frequentlyblurred boundaries between thetwocamps PeterBehrens's shift see,forexample, froma functionally andorganismic of formto an expressive conception on stereotomical in the contextof his involvement assemblies emphasis with the industrial world of the AEG. Stanford Anderson,"Modern Architecture and Industry: Peter Behrens,the AEG, and Industrial 21 (1980):79-97. Design," Oppositions 92. For a synopsis of the implications of this clashfor the Werkbund seePommer andOtto,Weissenhof (andformodernism), (seen. 3), 5-15.
A Source Book Benton, with Sharp,Dennis, eds., FormandFunction: for the

k6nnen nur da Bestand haben, wo sie sich dem Formgeschmack, der schon da ist, ffigen."W61fflin,Renaissance undBarock(see n. 30), 57. This und passage is also picked up as significant by Worringer, Abstraktion (see n. 79), 11-12. Einfiihlung 88. W61fflin,"Prologomena,"24. 89. W61fflin,"Prologomena,"32. 90. For the absorptionof perceptualistconcepts (associatedto tectonics, experience of space, organic analogies for form, and abstraction) developed in the field of aesthetics into architectural discourse, see particularlythe expressionist position and the tradition going back to Kunstof 1897 August Endell (especiallyhis series of articlesfor Dekorative and 1898) and Van de Velde (especiallyKunstgewerbliche Die Laienpredigten,

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too absorbed current architectural issues and responded to contemporary trends in aesthetics.93 For example, in his Entwicklungsphasender neuerenBaukunst of 1914 Frankl attempts to bridge Burckhardt's cultural history with W61fflin's autonomous object in an effort to reconcile form with content, artistic will, and intellectual inquiry. The four categories with which he proposes to analyze architectural form, that is spatial form, corporeal form, visual form, and purposive intention, testify to this attempt at synthesis. Under spatialform Frankl identifies syntactic relationships between individual volumetric cells that result in the overall spatial experience. Since for him space is experienced through movement, and movement occurs in plan, his syntactical laws are illustrated as plan relationships. With his second category, corporeal form, Frankl posits a narrative about the dialectic between load and support enacted by the walls and columns, which, as the tactile fabric of the building, define space and act as anthropomorphic devices; he stops just short of describing them as empathy bridges.94 Finally, with visualform he addresses the reception of form by the viewer as a seeing subject who synthesizes (and interprets) an optical form (or mental image) from the variety of information provided.95 While his first three categories are draw from tactile, and visual-and perception-related-spatial, of and aesthetics both W61fflin the then-current physiological Schmarsow, the last category, purposiveintention, addresses content as intended meaning and places it in a cultural context.96 Yet this argument for signification that points to a kinship with Wittkower's Principles, as did his syntactic reading of plans, is neutralized by a perceptual one: the agent through whom Frankl effects his syntactical analysis is the moving viewer; the mental image synthesized by this viewer reveals a form of impressionism, and the tectonic fabric is apprehended through empathetic response. Equally divided between the rational and the perceptual, Frankl's strategy is one of reconciliation of what, by 1914, had become

increasinglydivergentconceptions of artmaking.Thus conceived and coming as it does at a moment when this cleavage is heightened, his argument is neither strong enough to be the purveyor of a new Renaissanceparadigmnor useful as a foil for Wittkower,who inherits a definition of architecturedeveloped in the subsequent decades and that reflects a changed aesthetic horizon.97 Like Frankl's Entwicklungsphasen, Dagobert Frey's Gotik und of 1929, a relatively forgotten text today, presents Renaissance It is Freywho makes points of contactwith Wittkower'sPrinciples. a strong case for a kinship between music and architecture-with specific referenceto harmony and spaceconception-on the basis of a common approachto proportion; it is Frey who brings up Gafurio and Zarlino in this context as well as Alberti's "musical proportion"; and it is still Frey who, like Wittkower himself, avoids ornament and reduces forms to elemental geometrical configurations (cube, prism, cylinder, sphere) testifying to a current tendency towards abstractionevident in this heightening of geometry.98Though broadly conceived, Frey's primaryissues are, like Wittkower's, mathematical space, perspective, and the harmonic tonal system.Also like Wittkower,he turns to Cassirer, from whom he borrows the main premise for his argument. Unlike Wittkower, however, his emphasis is not on the overlap between art and science but on Cassirer'sneo-Kantianreadingof Renaissanceconceptualizationsof space (and hence of the self in the universe) and on Panofsky'sseminal presentationof perspective construction as their tangible manifestation in art.99Frey's emphasis on space conception as a taxonomic device for his history is substantially different from W61fflin's (and from Scott's) who focuses on the tectonic-tactileaspectof building and its empathy-generatingcapacity,on form in its physicality (Kbr97. Although Frankl'semphasis on spaceconceptionsaffectedGiedion, he used (and transformed)the argumentto his own to different ends. On Frankl and Giedion, refer to Georgiadis, SigfriedGiedion (see n. 1), 131-32; and Kostof, "The Mark of Sigfried Giedion" (see n. 1), 195. 98. Frey, GotikundRenaissance (see n. 59), 76. Not only does he alertus to the issue of musical proportions, but he states unequivocally that "all Renaissanceaestheticsis basedon proportion,on the relationshipbetween the spatial dimensions to each other" (thus stating with greater force a position already encountered in Burckhardtand W61fflin), and thereby Wittkower'semphasis on proportionastheissue of Renaissance anticipates 79. For another precedent, see also theory. Frey, Gotik und Renaissance, Hautecoeur's argument that focuses on this issue (though not on music) in an article highly praisedby Wittkower.Hautecoeur, "Les proportions" (see n. 30). 99. Although in general terms Frey's Geistesgeschichte reading of the Renaissanceis indebted to Max Dvorak-a fact Frey pointedly acknowledges-his specific frame of reference is Cassirer'sDas Erkenntnisproblem (see n. 37), and Individuumund Kosmos.By his own admission, his interpretationis also influenced by Schopenhauer'sDie Weltals Willeund Vorstellung, especiallyby his concept ofAnschaulichkeit, offormasubstantialis as ultimate knowledge (Erkenntnis); Frey, GotikundRenaissance (see n. 59), 266. Frey also drawson Paul Zucker (whose work he cites), who had been working with the neo-Kantianconcepts of space and time since the early twenties and applied them to Renaissancearchitecturein a contemporary work to Frey's.Zucker, "Der Begriffder Zeit" (see n. 59).

93. See particularly the worksby Burckhardt, Willichand Geymiiller, Zucker, (seen. 35). Frey(seen. 66),andFrankl 94. "Thetectonicshell,which formsa continuous for the boundary enclosedspatial is so thoroughly modeledthatit form,a skinso to speak, is possibleto sense tactually beneaththe skin the solid everywhere skeleton with all itsjoints.Continuing the metaphor, I mustaddthatit is not the skeletonitselfthatis present-not the prepared bones-but the firmarticulated the muscles thatareconnected to the structure, including bonesandthatmakethe members movable. We cannotsee the actively thinbonesthemselves; we canonlysensethembeneath themusculature." Frankl, Principles (seen. 35), 112. 95. "Not only the frontality of all individual views, but also the character of theirsynthesis-whatI callthe architectural image-ensues fromthis. The architectural image [or mentalimage]is not conceived fromfixedviewpoints butremains theuniquethree-dimensional conception of the whole."Frankl, 146.JamesAckerman notes the Principles, connection betweenFrankl's mentalimageandthe contemporary develintroduction to Frankl, opmentof Gestalt psychology. JamesAckerman, (seen. 35),viii. Principles 96. "The formalelementsarechangedby internal causes,then, and this changeis sealedby external causes,by the new intention." Frankl, 190.See alsoSchwarzer, "Architectural Principles, (see n. 59), on Space" Frankl's to Schmarsowian aesthetics. relationship

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orders of scholars, seeJeanGuillaume, des by a community ed.,L'Emploi ordres a la Renaissance (Paris,1992). To datethereexists no work that reexamines theaesthetics of Italian Renaissance architeccomprehensively ture. One notable exception-though focused more on the social of artthanaesthetics-isJohnOnians, Bearers The implications ofMeaning: Classical inAntiquity, Orders theMiddle andtheRenaissance Ages (Princeton, kristallinischer Struktur darstellen." of Renaissance Frey,GotikundRenaissance aesthetics with a focus on (see n. 1988). For a recentreading 59),288. see Payne, andauctoritas" ornament, "Betweengiudizio (seen. 35). 101.Rudolf and'Proportion in PerspecWittkower, 103. Scott's rejectionof the predominant "Brunelleschi modernistemphasison and Courtauld 16 (1953): 275-91. tive,' "journal of the Warburg Institutes actual structure asexpressive in favour of thevirtual structure of language Wittkower on anargument albeit in more formulated, expands was immediately notedby the profession. general the classical vocabulary J. L. "TheArchitecture of Brunelleschi terms,by GiulioCarloArgan, andthe Ball, reviewof Scott,TheArchitecture of Humanism (see n. 67), in RIBA of Perspective in the Fifteenth Origins Theory Century," Journal of Journal (November1914-October 1915):3-6. It is indeedthisempathyoriented Warburgand CourtauldInstitutes8 (1946): 96-121. Apart from the of his thesisthatmetwiththe mostresistance: in 1915the aspect characterization of Renaissance in whichWittkower ulti- reviewer architecture, for TheBuilder findsit hardto understand; in 1925the reviewer differs from Mrs. Wittkower recalls that ata methodological forArchitectural mately Frey, states thatin the intervening of Review yearsquestioning level herejected thelatter's foraninterpretation of this thesis has been confirmedand that the dispute is still active. philosophical approach art. reviewof Scott,The Architecture in TheBuilder Anonymous, ofHumanism,

on Alberti andPalladio asparadigms shows in short on the Formgefiihl, ratherthan on abstract rolebuthis emphasis perlichkeit), a of Renaissance architecture that is "white" and that a (or at configurations relationships engender Raumgefiihl.100 conception least of and few like stone precise, Wittkower,Frey rejectsperceptual mainlymonochromatic), "tooled," readingsof Although contours.102 The colorful,exuberant, multi-material is notone thatWittkower architecture since form,his mainargument supports is not on experience buton intellect. of Bologna,Milan,Venice(withthe exception his own emphasis of Palladio), and (of space) into the Eventhoughhe subsequently worksout the Cassirer-Panofsky- Naplesthen,is constructed heterogenous, by implication thatfallsoutsidethedefinition asa manifestation forarchitecture of "being-in-the- the "other," of the Renaissance. Freyproposal on Brunelleschi WolfflinbothFrankl andperspective andFreybringsomecosmos"in his article published Thoughalongside alsouses,be it syntax, with intellectual in 1953,his concernis ultimately musical instruments, thingthatWittkower proportion, 101 notwith architecture-as-event. or their are theory, signification/intentionality, arguments neither Read againsthis foils, Wittkower's construction achievesa singledout by him nor do they surviveas partof the reference studies.In selectingScott-whose direct respondsto Frankl's corpusfor Renaissance crispercontour.Firstly,while Wittkower to the concerns he elects leave to and of allegiance to the Einfiihlung perceptual polemical acknowledgement analysis, syntactical andpursues one side,as he did with Scott's, a rationalist tradition his within debate-as his that course. places argument squarely Forhim syntax is not a matter of experience movement) foil, Wittkowerthen sets himself apartfrom a specific and (through his viewerresponds awareness: to formintellectu- significant butof rational line of thinking thataffected botharchitectural history rather than its essential or and in the modernism. of Wittkower's debate is deep ally perceptually, abstracting theory early years structure.Shiftingthe center of gravityof the discussionof neither withW 1lfflin andhis concept of stylenorwith Frankl and Renaissance aesthetics and percep- Frey,though his readingsupplants theirsas categorically as it awayfrom the physiological tual towardsproportion, thus offersa link between supplantsScott's.Wittkower's Wittkower debate is with the perceptual humanism andabstraction. thisform(andstructure) is of architecture because he workswith a "willto truth" Secondly, readings two-dimensional and is manifested eitheras plan or elevation: that originates in a conception constructed in antithesis to that neitherspace(hencemovement)nor the sculptural presenceof represented by Scott.AndthoughWittkower keepshis historical the wall (hence the tactileor haptic)is at issue. In fact, for distancefrom contemporary debatesand does not see them the masonry shell as sculptural andrhetorical instru- impinging andhenceuponhis historical Wittkower, uponhis interpretation ment dissolvesinto a site for the expression of actualstructure. objectivity,the polemical frame within which he places it Wittkower makes almosthis singleissueand nonetheless declares hisbias.ThusWittkower's rhetorical Thirdly, proportion opposiin doing so ties art and science into a single epistemological tionto andvictory overScott's hedonism indicates that ultimately from Cassirer for Renaissance architecture undertaking. Borrowing (andpossibly the successionof constructions selectively a subtleredirection of emphasis fromcharacter- followthe pattern of succession of paradigms formodernism, for Frey)he achieves isticspaceconceptions to the underlying scientificmatrices that the rational overEintriumphsover the subjective, Typisierung inform them. Fourthly,unlike his predecessors, Wittkower fiihlungand other organicist positions,and, for all intentsand concentrates on the intentionof the architect, on deliberate and purposes, the latteroptionsareerasedfromthe officialaccounts artistic not on a hence of modernism.103 action, purposeful passive(and anonya conduit,thewill to whom,as if through mous)subject through 102. Though the use of ornamentby Renaissance architectsart manifestsitself. Finally,with his approach he endorsesan especiallythe orders-has emerged as a recurrentconcern in the attitude toward ornament thathelpeddetermine the pathof later scholarship of thepastfifteen a synthetic of thetheory of its years, charting has not been not Forexemplary does he to workon the ornament a deployment attempted. scholarship: only ground relegate secondary 100.An example of Frey's is the following evaluation of approach modern architecture withwhichhe brings his textto a close:"Der vielobK6rper oder kiinstlerisch Raum, Hohlraum, gestaltete gleich zeigt sichals Durchdringung undVerschneidung ideeler Geprismatischer die Realisation der demRaume an sicheigener bilde,die gleichsam

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In 1929 Frey recognized two opposed camps in the modern production of architecture:on the one hand, those concerned with the geometrical rationalizationof space (he lists Le Corbusier, Oud, and Mallet-Stevens as examples) and those concerned with the treatment of space as cellular structure,as body, on the other (exemplified by Scharoun, Hiring, and De Klerk). Though antithetical,he puts them down to a manifestationof the In his 1938-39 Norton of space-time.104 same Grundanschauung lectures (laterpublished as Space,TimeandArchitecture), seeking to than dialectical a rather demonstrate well-defined modernity, Giedion does not take this approachand privileges the anorganic over the organic stream as he presents abstractconfigurations entered into by structural elements that manifest the deeper structure of space itself as the only language of modernism. Although within architecturalcriticism and production the antithesis between rationalistand subjectivistdefinitions of architecture had thereforeworked itself out by the late forties in favorof a unilateral ideology for modernism-the latter having been discarded-this had not yet happened within a historical synthesis. Between Scott (andWdlfflin, Frankl,and Frey) andWittkowerno new synthesis had been offered. It is this gap that he fills and that raises his argumentto the statusof paradigm. In offering alternatives or attempting a reconciliation, and hence not explicitly placing themselves in either one camp or the other, Frankland Frey stand outside this ideological dialectic that ultimately shaped the agenda of mature modernism and within which there is a necessaryplace for the Renaissance.Though Frey offers a neo-Kantian reading of architecture by focusing on conceptualizationsof space-time, as does Frankl(albeit to a lesser degree), and although these applications are appropriatedinto 108 (1915):25-26; LionelBudden,reviewof Scott's,TheArchitecture of inArchitectural 58 (1952): 207-8. Review Humanism, with respect to expressionism On the modernist andother orthodoxy alternatives to theempathy andorganicist seeGiedion, discourse, tributary Mendelsohn, Time,who does not includeScharoun, Space, Gropius's work,andBrunoTaut(whois givenonlya briefmention). early Though Giedion'spositionfrom the twentiesinto the rejectioncharacterizes the later of Space, editions Time the 1956edition)show forties, (especially a gradual of the expressionist contribution. in On this pattern acceptance Giedion's of expressionism, seeGiorgiadis, Giedion reading Sigfried (seen. includes theworkof Poelzighis evaluation of the 1), 14.ThoughPevsner contribution is negative: "Therealsolidachievement hadits expressionist sourcenot in Sant'Elia, not in PoelzigandMendelsohn, but in Behrens and his greatpupilWalterGropius." Pioneers Pevsner, (see n. 3), 211. is lesspolemical Hitchcock is ultimately no lesspartisan, yet his selection since his modern pantheonis also focused on Le Corbusier,Oud, andhe presents theexpressionist as Mies,andRietveld, Gropius, position lateral to the formation of a "New PioneerManner." Modern Hitchcock, Architecture andalthough he writers, (seen. 56), 158-62.Unliketheselater too supports a sachlich andingenieurgemdss Gustav AdolfPlatz architecture, allowsa much broader of modernidioms.He includes representation and architects thatdo not appear in the reduced manymore countries TheodorFischer, Taut,Poelzig,H6ger,Mendelpaletteof the forties: and othersreceivesignificant sohn, Tessenow,Schumacher, coverage. Gustav AdolfPlatz, DieBaukunst der neuesten Zeit,2d ed. (Berlin, 1930). 104. Frey,Gotik und Renaissance (seen. 59), 288.

criticism Giedion,the absence by no lessera figurethanSigfried of a contextfor sciencein thesediscussions, the most significant modernist conceptgalvanizing thought,necessarily placedthese outsidethemainarena received readings uponwhicharchitecture a (new)definition.105 The factthatit required Wittkower's more to of the status a indicates position gain single-minded paradigm that it confirmed,stated explicitlyand crisply paradoxically thatwasalready to receive it.Andthishas there,ready something to do with the historical and theoretical projectwithin which and its is inscribed. This reception provesits reception Principles in thecontemporary of a finalrejection of the situation rootedness and other body-groundedapproachesover the Einfiihlung As such, lines of thinkingof victoriousmodernism. Typisierung is a post-Giedionargument; Wittkower's it absorbsFrey and definitionof Franklinto a positionthat is partof the prevalent of thecurrent architecture, paradigm.106
andFrey, see n. 59. 105. On Giedion, Zucker, told me thatwhileWittkower didnot approve of 106. Mrs.Wittkower Giedion's-andoftenneitherof Pevsner's-methodological orientation, with the issues of he had readtheir books and was well acquainted Wittkower hadalways been deeplyinterested in emergingmodernism. both modernandhistorical. he hadintended to architecture, Originally at Berlin,had but, disappointed studyarchitecture, by the curriculum to Heidelberg to studypsychology, transferred and,sinceit wastoo lateto he movedto Wiirzburg for a semester of archeology andfinally register, settledon arthistory(for a shortwhile at Munichwith W6lfflin,with whoseteaching he wasdissatisfied, andthenatBerlin withGoldschmidt). Even if his earlywritingsdo not displaythis interest, Mrs.Wittkower wastrained asan interior andhadintended decorator to go (who herself in the 1920s)toldme thatit camethrough andstudyatthe Bauhaus in all his letters andcomments, andthattheywerebothfamiliar withmodernist anddebates, LeCorbusier's et al.,("wereadit all"),andhad publications evengoneto seetheWeissenhofSiedlung in 1927("theonlyarthistorians to do so"). This interestin modernart and criticismis also evidentin Wittkower's work.See,forexample, Rudolf "Diedritte Wittkower, early r6mischeBiennale," Kunstchronik und Kunstmarkt 59, n.f. 35 (1925): ZukunftRomsim 20.Jahrhun138-39; andidem,"Die St~dtebauliche Kunstchronik undKunstmarkt dert," 59, n.f. 35 (1926):673-77. Although thisinterest did not leadhim to enterthe arena of modernist as it debates did Pevsner, he continued a dialogue with the profession to which his later(andfamous)lectures at the Liverpool Schoolof Architecture, his awareness of contemporary concernswith the fourthdimensionand non-Euclidian in his paper delivered at the Congress (evident geometry on Proportion of 1951)andhis (few)bookreviews forArchitectural Review withcurrent architectural bear witness. (whichshowfamiliarity curricula) RudolfWittkower, in Numbers," reviewof R. W. Gardner, A "Safety Primer in the Arts andMusic, inArchitectural 100 Review ofProportion ofForm della (1946):53; for a synopsisof Wittkower's paper,"Sualcuniaspetti nel medioevo e nel Rinascimento," see proporzione givenatthecongress, "Il primoconvengointernazionale sulle proporzioni nelle arti," Attie tecnica della societa e degli in Torino architetti 6 (1952): rassegna degli ingegneri reviewof Miloutine Boris119-35;Wittkower, "Subjectively Speaking," Lestheories de l'architecture, in Architectural Review 111 (1952): savli6vitch, 265. However, Wittkower didnotmeetLeCorbusier whenhe apparently lecturedon the Modulor on 18 December1947 at the Architectural Association in London(on the occasion of the AACentenary). It is also thatthe observation-which amounts to a publicaccoladesignificant thatPrinciples andtheModulor werethe mostdiscussed booksatMITand Zurichin 1950(reported andnotedby Millon)should by the Smithsons comefromnoneotherthanGiedionhimself. AlisonandPeterSmithson, letterto theeditor, 59 (1952):140. RIBAJournal

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suchasthe Smithsons andVoelcker, whomMillonrecords, it Liverpool), pretationsof the Corbusianvocabularyof the sixties that eventuis a testamentto the relevanceof the book that even a less-thanof architecture-asin the ally lead to a linguisticformulation reviewer suchasA. S. G. ButlersawPrinciples asa potentially sympathetic work Eisenman-find of Peter their and hence relevant origins contribution to salutary here.111 contemporary design.In fact, his recommendation for a simplified versionfor architectural journals is exactly the paththatthe reception (andhencefor the practitioners) of Wittkowertook. A. S. G. Butler, review of Wittkower, Architectural more like a glamorous film opening with Wittkowerand Le Corbusier in in theAgeofHumanism, inJournal Institute Principles of theRoyal ofBritish the role of the two stars. Architects 59 (1951):59-60. 110. Following the direction he identified here, Rowe himself pursued 108. ColinRowe,"TheMathematics of theIdeal Mathemat- his investigationson the reciprocalillumination that modernist architecThe Villa," icsof theIdeal Villa andOther Mass.,1976):1-28 [1st Essays (Cambridge, ture and historicalforms castupon each other in a subsequentessaywhere Review publ.Architectural "International Con(1947)];Rudolf Wittkower, he explores the problemof signification (andtakeson Giedion).Colin in the Arts," 94 (1952):52-53; gresson Proportion Burlington Magazine Rowe,"Mannerism and ModernArchitecture," Architectural Review 107 of Proportion" idem, "Systems del (see n. 54); idem, "L'architettura (1950): 289-99. Rinascimento" (see n. 40); idem, "The Changing Conceptof Propor111. See especially the work of the so-called New York Five: Eisention,"Daedalus (Winter 1960):199-215;idem,"LeCorbusier's Modulor," man, Hejduk,Meier,Gwathmey, and Graves.For an exampleof the in FourGreat Makers Architecture ofModern (New York,1963), 196-204. see PeterEisenman, linguisticprobingsby Eisenman, House X (New Fora nearly listofWittkower's complete publications uptoJune1966,see York, 1982). On the relationship between Eisenman and Rowe and on "TheWritings of Rudolf in Essays in theHistory Wittkower," ofArchitecture syntaxas the departure point for Eisenman's postmodernlinguistic Presented toRudolf ed. D. Fraser, H. Hibbard, Wittkower, andM.J. Lewine see Rosalind "TheDeathof a Hermeneutic explorations, Krauss, Phan377-81. For an (London,1969), list, see DonaldM. Reynolds, tom: Materialization updated of the Sign in the Work of Peter Eisenman," ed., TheWritings Wittkower: A Bibliography ofRudolf (NewYork,1989). Architecture and Urbanism (January1980): 189-219. In his article of 1972 109. On 25 March1994James Ackerman toldme thatthe congress, at Millon argues that Wittkower and Rowe galvanized the subsequent which he also participated, receivedso much attention that it seemed (short-lived) Palladian(and classical) interest and studies. Though this is

morepositively a commonintellectual withinwhichsuch ground could occur. Further, exchanges since like Rowe'searlyessays ThatWittkower a modernist matrix to his reading of the applies Casabella played important an role in thesubsequent development Renaissance is madeadditionally evidentby its reception. Howof a modernist critique of tenets, the fact of this absorption into in this instance it is not the reception withinthe institution ever, these two contexts and at this time precisely raises precisely the of art history,though in itself overwhelming, that calls for role at this juncture and offers the comment,but the receptionwithin the contemporary critical question of Wittkower's literature.107 The absorption intoarchitec- potentialof insight into a complex period in the historyof ofArchitectural Principles tural criticismtook essentiallytwo forms: on the one hand, modernism. In his "Mathematics of the IdealVilla,"Roweseizesthe most Wittkower's wasappropriated argument byothersin thedevelopsalient Wittkower's of thesis, his identification aspect of a ment of new criticalperspectives and on the other it was discourse in Renaissance, the syntax-based and uses it to arrive ata as such architectural and popularized through journals symposia. Struck by the Thus it surfaced in Architectural Review as partof Colin Rowe's new reading of Le Corbusier'sarchitecture. devicesin the workof (Wittkowpresenceof similarsyntactical "TheMathematics of the IdealVilla"; it alsobecameavailable to and Le Corbusier, er's) Palladio Rowe drawstogetherthe Villa the profession at largein Wittkower's own contributions to the Malcontenta with the Villa Stein and evaluates their respective on in the Arts of 1951 interdisciplinary Congress Proportion compositional This concentration on strategies. allowshim of the syntax 1951 Milan for the Architects' Yearbook in (sequel Triennale), not to Palladio within the orbit modern of only bring criticism, in 1959, and for Deadalus in 1960.108Thus 1953, for Casabella but, more offer to a for generally, implicitly Wittkower took his placein the forefront strategy of criticism appropriating alongside into modernist exemplars designwithoutopenlyquesPatrickHeron, historical designerssuch as Ove Arup,Joseph Samonat, its of suchborrowing.110 tioning Evenif programmatic Giancarlo de Carlo,Alison and PeterSmithson(Architects rejection Yearhe follows Wittkower's lead and attributes differences in the two injournalseditedby Pevsner(Architectural Review underJ. book), to M. Richards's specificcauses,the very factof hisjoining andErnesto general editorship), Rogers (Casabella), designs culturally a community of problems in directdialoguewith Giedion,Corbusier, suggests that BrunoZevi, Max themintoone discussion transcends historical and that makes the relevant periods and Gino Severini for past Bill, (1951 Congress).109 Beyond suggesting the In as that present. thatWittkower's explicitlypresentingsyntax common issueswere in the air,this receptionindicates concernand denominator he offersa viableformalstrategy for 107. On the reception of Wittkower's withinarthistory, see communication betweena contemporary abstraction-based Principles aesn. 9. The most important on the study(with exhaustive bibliography) theticandthe historical tradition. Oncethisis accepted asaviable thesis on the architectural is Millon, impactof Wittkower's profession the of Rowe's testifies premise-and to this reception reading "Rudolf Wittkower" to (seen. 9). Not mentioned by Millon,butrelated me byMrs.Margot effect-the becomes is indeedGiedion's "eternal of thebook past Wittkower, theextraordinary and present" popularity in thefiftiesanditsabsorption withinmassculture: wasrequired can be reprocessed Principles as such. Both the subsequent relevance of forthe adulteducation courseon architectural offered reading history by Palladio and classicism of (in to particular) the (in general) the BBC for two yearsrunning. the enthusiastic Alongside reception by formulation of a postmodern the younggeneration andthesyntactic of architects reinterhad lectured vocabulary at (to whomWittkower

The reception principles of Wittkower's

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of art history and Although he deploys the scholarly apparatus inscribes his argument within its institutional boundaries,Wittkower thereforeprocesseshistory-specifically the Renaissancefrom within the same horizon as Giedion's. His essential principles of Renaissance theory and mutatismutandisproduction confirm Giedion's metahistoricallinks that place modernism in a continuous stream and give it an ontological validation. In this way, Giedion's privileging of classicist architectureover Gothic of the Renaissance (which he doesn't even mention), particularly as esprit nouveau because it is rational,because it is scientific, and because it provides a discipline that brings order, receives the from historical scholarship. In thus offering the imprimatur of possibility a homogenous architecturaldiscourse by implicitly bestowing the authorityclaimed by his craft upon such readings as Giedion's, Wittkower ultimately rescues the Renaissanceand hence classical architectureas a viable thinking ground for the furtherdevelopment of contemporarydiscourse. However, it seems legitimate to ask at this point why this imbrication with mainstream modernism should be at work primarilyin Wittkower'streatmentof the Renaissanceand not of the baroque. Though the question of the construction of the is the (implicit) fact for this discussion true,whatis significant certainly baroque deserves attention in its own right, it is useful to note that the distantpast, history,becamerelevantagain to architectural here that the Renaissance paradigm that Wittkower inherits is The factthatthis relevance would discoursethroughtheir mediation. of the slowlydeveloping markmore deeplythe trajectory postmodern already permeated by a modernist sensibility. Wittkower was could not havebeen notedfrom the vantage point of 1972. vocabulary working within an aesthetic horizon that had turned to the assessement of Millon,"RudolfWittkower" (seen. 9), 89-90; foranearly Renaissance-central to historical inquiry at least since Burckof the New Brutalists and Wittkower's impacton the formalpractices discourse from Semper and Schinkel to hardt,and to architectural of the Mediterranean basin (albeit their interestin the architecture focusedon the vernacular), referto Reyner TheNewBrutalism Behrens and Le Corbusier-to work out modern issues and Banham, (NewYork,1966),15, 19,and41-46. forms for well over a hundred years.114 As such, the Renaissance 112. Wittkower, Architects' Yearbook (see n. 54), 9. On Wittkower's on Brunelleschi structural see alsohis contemporary article and reading, wherehe reasserts the psychological dimension of architecperspective ture:"Thusthe architecture of the period,if viewed like buildingsin see Giorgiadis, Giedionund die Krise"(see n. 1), categories, "Sigfried in whichpropor- 231. On Giedion'suses of historicalexemplars, Renaissance a psychological situation see also Oechslin, pictures, produces tionandperspective orevenidentical of arefeltascompatible, realizations (seen. 1). "Fragen" a metrical andharmonic of space." Rudolf "Brunelle114. On the Renaissance in nineteenth-century architectural disWittkower, concept " (see n. 101),291. Wittkower schi and 'Proportion in Perspective' had "TheRationalist of Classicourse,see RobinMiddleton Interpretations cismof LeonceReynaud when he andViollet-Le-Duc," 11 (Spring AAFiles alreadymade passingmention of these issues in Principles 1986): describedthe experience of Palladio's as an "instinctive 29-48; Eva B6rsch-Soupan, architecture "Der Renaissance Begriff der Berliner reaction to geometry," Schuleim Vergleich in Gottfried zu Semper," unddieMitte des19. though,as notedabove(see notes36 and58), for Semper him this response is elicitedby geometry, not tectonic ParisOpera form,andit does Garnier's Jahrhunderts (Basel,1976), 153-74; Mead,Charles not originate withbodyconsciousness asargued andScott.In We Herrmann, ed., In What byW1lfflin (see n. 5), 221-52; Wolfgang StyleShould this context,see also Marder,who notes Wittkower's referencesto Build? Debate onArchitectural TheGerman Monica,1992).For Style(Santa and Mitrovic, who points to his ambiguous an acknowledgement of the relevance of classicismto the objectivist "feelingfor proportion," on subjectivity. "Renaissance in theUnited andBaroque of modernism, see AdolfBehne,the apologist of expressionism: Marder, position agenda States"(see n. 9), 173 n. 30; and BrankoMitrovic,"Objectively "Technizismus undKlassizismus sindeinander keineFeinde, im GegentWittkower's DerTechnizismus istdie geistige Verfaseil, sie sindzusammengeh6rig. Speaking," JSAH 52 (1993):59-67. Nonetheless, position on this issuemayhaveshiftedovertime;on 13 April1994Mrs.Margot sung,der Klassizismus ist sein kiinstlerischer Ausdruck. Sie hat uns das Wittkower recalled thathe hadbeenopposed to psychological of Vorbild allermodernen Reissbrettarchitektur beschert und uns verleitet, readings art. alleArchitektur alsglattunm6glich zu verdichtigen, die kreuzund quer, 113. Giedion'srejection of styleas a taxonomic in favorof ist."AdolfBehne,Die Wiederkehr der Kunst bunt,dithyrambisch category quellend, is a corollary of this orientation. "Inthe artsperiodsare on the Strukturanalyse (Berlin,1919;repr.1973),73-74. Fora contemporary testimony differentiated whichbecomefixedanddefinite in eachstage initial resistance to the Renaissance and its subsequent relevance to bythe'styles' of development. Andthestudy of thehistory of styles wasthespecial work see Cornelius Geschichte desBarockstiles in interest, Gurlitt, contemporary of nineteenth-century a workmost skilfully carried vii-viii.Gurlitt wasin a position historians, to comment since through. Italien 1887), (Stuttgart, But it may be that the links and associations betweenperiods-the his own activityinvolvedhim in criticismand hence affordedhim constituent facts-are more important to us thanself-enclosed entities of the currentissues.For example, see his reviewof Adolf knowledge suchas styles." Time(see n. 1), 21. Fora commentary of Die Entstehung derarchitektonischen Giedion,Space, in Harry discussed Stilformen, G6ller's thetensionbetween Giedion's ata metahistory andhis ahistorical FrancisMallgrave, "From Realismto Sachlichkeit: The Polemics of attempt

What makes the apparentparadoxof a reabsorptionof history within modernism possible, and what allowed Rowe to make use of Wittkower's Renaissance in the first place, is due to the ontological premise that informs both their arguments and that constitutes a familiar modernist matrix. In his reformulationsof for architectural Principles journals,Wittkowermakesthis ontological aspect of his thinking explicit when he states: "Nobody will deny that our psycho-physical make-up requires the concept of order, and, in particular, of mathematical order.... Modern psychology supports the contention that the quest for a basic order and harmony lies deep in human nature."112 With this opening statement that introduces his book to an audience of architects, Wittkower asserts a will to order and openly posits permanentlyvalid and hence metahistoricalconditions that lead to form making. Such practice and such emphasis was common to, and in fact characterized,modernist discourse. It is on this basis that in Space,TimeandArchitecture Giedion achieved his own seminal synthesis of philosophy, art history, and science, and historicized modernity."113

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KarlScheffler, who in his Geist derGotiknot only drawsthe example, andrococointohis definition of theGothicspirit, butbrings baroque the into the present with imagesof the samegrain argument by concluding elevators in theWerkbund Almanach published (andthatwerethebasisfor 116. On the editorial policiesof Vittorio andErnesto Gregotti Rogers Le Corbusier's laterand morecelebrated a imagesfor his own Towards andthe roleof Casabella in thecritique of modernism in the fiftiesandits NewArchitecture) andwith imagesof Vande Velde'sandPoelzig's work. of "neo-liberty," see Tafuri, spearheading Architecture History ofItalian (see Karl DerGeist der Gotik Scheffler, contribution n. 13),54-55. Stirrings (Leipzig, 1919).Scheffler's to thiseffectarealsodiscernible in theArchitecture to the debate on empathy in an earlier article on ornament forDekorative Review: alongsidethe historical articlesby Pevsner(as F. R. Donner) Kunstof 1901 testifiesto the overlapbetween the pro-Gothic(and underthe rubric "Treasure Hunt," editorial "TheNext J. M. Richards's and empathy-theory discourses. A similarparallelism baroque) maybe showsboth the dissatisfaction Step?" with the functionalist and dogma inferred fromthe interest in the baroque shownby AugustSchmarsow the general in the 1950s.J. M. Richards, "TheNext Step?" uncertainty who in his Barock undRokoko of 1897responds to Wolfflin's "painterly" Architectural Review 107(1950). with his own category also brought the Gothic, "plasticity." Worringer 117. LeCorbusier's Modulor on an application of the Golden (focused which he promotesparticularly on nationalist grounds,into the foreSection anda keyworkforthe congress), in 1948after published of years WilhelmWorringer, groundwithin this debate. derGotik research, Formprobleme to the world of Borissavlievitch, belongs effectively Ghyka, of (Munich1910). For a similarnationalist reading the baroqueas a Ozenfant, andthe Section Hambidge, D'Or,thatis to a discourse current German contribution significant andits absorp- in the earlierpart of the century.Of particular (unlikethe Renaissance) is the importance tion into massculture,see PaulZucker, Deutsche Barockstddte, Quelle & concentration of activity on the GoldenSectionin the firsthalf of the und Bildung Series (Leipzig,n.d.), 3-5. For a Meyer Wissenschaft twentiethcentury.Eugene Grasset, de composition MWthode ornamentale of the Renaissance as negatively reading German see culture, influencing (Paris, 1905); Le Corbusier,Versune architecture (Paris, 1923); Jay Richard das Verhangnis Benz,Die Renaissance, derdeutschen Cultur (Jena, Hambidge, The Parthenon andOther Greek Their Temples. Dynamic Symme1915). For a historyof baroquereadings,see Hans-Harald Miiller, try(New Haven,1924);Matila C. Ghyka, des dans la Esthetique proportions undMethode. Ein Kapitel deutscher Barockforschung: Ideologie et danslesarts(Paris,1927);idem, Le nombre Riteset rythmes Wissenschfisge- nature d'or. schichte 1870-1930(Darmstadt, and Werner "Barock: zu 1973); Oechslin, pythagoriciens (Paris,1931);AmedeeOzenfant, Lapeinture moderne (Paris, de negativen Kriterien der Begriffsbestimmung in klassizistischer und 1925).Miloutine a uneesthetique Borissavlievitch, de Prolhgomenes scientifique spiter Zeit," in Europaische ed. Garber Barock-Rezepzion, Klaus (WiesP'architecture of the heightened (Paris, 1923).Part this activity surrounding baden,1991), 1225-54. For an analysis of politicalmotivesat work in issueis alsotheformation of theimportant cubist LaSection group, D'Or, German attitudes to the Gothic,see Michael J. Lewis,ThePolitics of the in 1912. On the recedingdiscourseon modularconstruction and German Gothic Revival York and (New Mass.,1993). Cambridge, in the 1950sseealsoMillon,"RudlofWittkower" proportion (seen. 9).

Wittkower's didin itsfield,andthatit played a part in theeventual rejectionof modernistantihistoricism, constitutes more than a historical footnote.Similarly, the presenceof Wittkower's concept of appropriation as a recurrent cultural strategy within the earlycriticism of modernism fostered by Casabella, indicates both thatArchitectural Principles appears at a momentof warp in the self-construction of modernismand that it makes this warp evident.116 Historically, Wittkower's Principles is poisedon theone handbetweenthe Einfiihlung debate thatwas essentially resolved by the later thirties,when modernismformulatesits agenda explicitly, and the problems currentin the latefortiesandearly fifties on the other. Whereasthe enthusiastically promoted International of 1951 ultimately Congresson Proportion has a short-livedsequel (as does Le Corbusier's becauseit Modulor), comes virtuallyat the end of a period privilegingcontrol, lines,essentialism, regulating and abstraction, Wittkower's Principles, equally tributary to thisspirit, feedsthe emerging discourse thatturnsto history with a new perspective."7 This is so because his argument is historical in nature andthusallowssomething to surfacefrom within modernismitself, namely its unresolved positionandambivalence toward toward the memoryof history, forms,accretion, andrecollection. withthe discourse Compatible of modernarchitecture, his historical of its definition application in the 1890s," in Mallgrave, Architectural Modernity ed.,Otto (see Wagner allows architects access to a no past longerforeignand disconn. 3): 292-93. and recognizable, andtherefore useable. 115. In his veryperceptive andperiodization As of the baroque, nected,but familiar reading Cornelius Gurlitt the roleof the present in the contemporary such, the receptionof Wittkower recognizes within architectural practice rise of interest in this historical des Gurlitt,Geschichte period.Cornelius reveals to be theAlbertian history fig treethat,paradoxically built in Italien Barockstiles the (seen. 114),viii. Thoughnot itselfa protagonist, into the wall modernist of discourse by Giedionhimselfso as to wasoftendrawn the Gothic(on bothaesthetics baroque and/or alongside intothedebate the classical. political/nationalist buttress it firmly, grounds) breaks finally See,for up theedifice. against

he inherited was too ladenwith motivesembeddedin a dense fabricof scholarship andtheoryfor Wittkower, notwithstanding his detachment, to be unaffectedby this tradition.Working withinthe contemporary thisimplicitly meantdistanorthodoxy, from its center and its cing subjectivism retaining rationalism, andcommitment to abstraction. A morerecentarrival precision, on thesceneof historical andhencelessinvolved withthe inquiry slow processof maturation of a modernist aesthetic and theory, the baroque could more readilyabsorbthis discussion without internaltension.That the baroqueshould rise to notice at the close of the nineteenthcenturyis certainly a measureof the simultaneous riseof theEinfiihlung and theoryandits corollaries, hencesuggests thatits formulation is alsotiedintothe contempocontext. The pattern ownscholarship makes this rary ofW61fflin's connection debate quiteclear.However,as faras the modernist as a significant went, it is classicism(with the Renaissance and the traditional in the Gothic, mediator) sparring partners debatepittingobjectivism thatwere castas against subjectivism, on the periphery of principal protagonists, leavingthe baroque thissensitive area forcontemporary theoretical discourse.I15 ThatRowe'sessaybecame as seminal to subsequent as practice

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obvious consequenceof such illuminationis shadow,such a to the fragmentary model drawsattention aspectof anyexplicato of thepastonlyreveal themselves "Theinnermost structures to thefactthatunique attention tion.Yetatthe sametimeit draws any presentin the light producedby the white heat of their fromthe of the pastcanonlybe achieved intothe structure insight issue here is the critic,as Walter relevance now."118 Benjamin's is meritto of it Wittkower's the Thus, present. great point of meaning achieved vantage Giediondefineshimself,andtheproduction anissuenotevident eitherto historians to prominence between haveraised illumination throughcritique:for him the reciprocal themnor to the Renaissance architects from other not on the focuses is provoked generations by the criticwho pastandpresent in their with albeit latent selves, Sincethe buton the objectas permeated practice. Interacting contempoby "error." Dingansich, blindspotsand his historical construction, discourse, insight, rary Gesammelte 118. WalterBenjamin, 3:97, as quotedin Peter Schriften, testifiesto the activerole of history all, ultimately writingin the Some Preliminary Critique': 'Redemptive Benjamin's Biirger,"Walter to and more of modernism construction (anddemise) generally in TheDecline of a Critical on the Project Reflections Hermeneutics," of of anypresent. in the definition reflection the placeof historical Modernism Penn.,1992),19-31. Park, (University