s 5

Therc is No Criticism, Only History H

The Cl'itical Edg~: c'ontrovcrsy in Recem Amcrican Architedure, edited by 7()({ Matrier 12
011 the Rise: Architccture in a Postmoerll Age, b)' Paul Goldberger

Thc Neces.'iity of Crities 16

A History oi' Architecture: Settings auri Rituals, by Sp':"o Kostof 24
A History 01' Architectu"e: Stollehcnge to Skyscrapers, by Dora Croltch

Stronghold, by Martin H. Erice 2H

Bistorie Architecturc of the Royal Navy, hy jonathan Coa.d
Frank Lloyd Wright and Le Codllisicr, by Thomas Dorernw
The Architccture of Castlcs, by R. Allen Rrown 50
Frank Lloyd Wright: A Research Guide to Archival SOll"ces, h)' Palr:k J. M(~ehall 51
Ada Lonise Huxtahle: Ali AnnotatecI BiJJliop"aphy, by Lawrence Wodehouse
Ludwig Karl Hilherseimcr: An Annotated Hihliography, by Dall/:d ::'paeth

Finland in Old Maps, by l/arn: Rosberg and lussi ]dppinen 53

Views of Helsinki, by Seppo HeL~kanen
Helsinki in Aerial Views, by lI1a~ia-Liisa Lampinen, alli Ull:llsalainen and Viggo Karlsson

Prccetlenls in Archileclurc, by Roger Il. C!nrk anri lI1ichael Pause 55

AND CONTEMPORARY DESIGN

Johll Bcach: In Mcmoriam 21
James Stirling: BlIildings and Pl'ojccts, by ]arnes Slirling, Michael Wilford and As,wct:(I.(.e.~ 30
The Chal'lottcsviJle Tapcs, edited by Stephen CoreW 34
Frallk o. Gehry, edited by 7bd Arnelf and Peler B,:ckfonl 36
Folio VII: MUSCUlll 01' Modcl'll Art, Frankfurt, /Jrawings and Introduclion by ]uml';; ~Ville.~ 57
Box I: Light Box, hy Daniel Weil
The .Jerscy DeviI, by Michael]. Crosbie .19

Lcon Krie.': Homes, Palaces, Citics, edited by Demetri Porphyn:os 60

The Production 01' Houses, by Christopher Alexander 62

AND VERNACULAR ARCIIITECTURE

The Virginia House: A Home for Three Hundred Years, by Anne M. Faulconer 65
Mississippi Valley Architecture: Houses of the Lower Mississippi Valley, by StanZey SchllZer
Amcrican Barns: In a Class by Themselves, by StanZey Schllier
Grand Old Lames: North Carolina Anhitecturc During the Victorian Era,
by Marguerite Schnrnann, SterZing Boyti, and ]oAnn Siebllrg-Baker

'l'he Impecunions House Reslorer, by 101m T. Kirk 6H

A Guide to Ihe Maintenance, Repair, and Alteration 01' HiSloric Huildings, by Fredf:rick A. Sta.!!.L
Hamlhook of Building Crafts in Conse,'vation, eded by ]ack BOlV:ver
Moisture Prohlems in Historic Masonry Walls, by Baird M. Smith

Livillg lt Up: A Guide to thc Named Apartment Houses 01' New YOI'k, 70
b.,,!, Thomas E. Nortuf/. Ilful }erry E. Patter.mn

Houses of New England, by Pe/.a Maltary 71

Old New EngJand Homes, by .)lanLey SchuZer

DESIGN AND DECORATIVE ARTS

'l'he English Room, by Derr)' Moore (I.nfi MiclweZ Pick 40
English StyIe, by Suzanne Sll'sin ami Sla:fl'ord CI{{/
The ElIglishwoman's Bedroolll, edited by Eliz(l!Jeth Dickson
English Elegance, by lud)' Britlain and Palrick Kwwulh
6 D

LALiRIE lIAYCOCK The Hot House, by Andrea Branzi

Memphis, by Barbara Radice
Phoenix, et1itl~d by Christina Ritchie and Laris Calzolari.

IWUERT F. TRENT Chicago Furniture, by Slwron Darling

JEFFREY L. MEIKLE The Facts 011 File Dictiollary of Desih'11 ami Desi/-,'llerS, by Sim.un Jervis

GRAPIIIC ARTS
FRANCES BUTLER Thc Postel': A Worldwide Survey alld History, by Alain Weill
Thc 20th~Century Poster, by Dawn Ades, Robert Brown, Mildred Friedmnn, Arml. lIojfma/w antl Alma Law
100 Tcxas Posters, by Donald L. Piace, k
ALASTAJf{ JO!JNSTON FrOlll Manet to Hocl~ney, by Carol Hogh('fI. ruul Rowun Watson
Artists' Books, ediled by foan L)'on5

ROGER M. DOWNS Thc Visitai Display of Quantitative Data, by Edward R. T/ljie

Semiology or
Graphics, by Jacqnes Bertin

CITIES
ANN CLINE Bioshelters, Ocean Arks, City Farmillg, by Naney Jack Tudd and Juhn Todd
NOHJ'vIA EVENSON Cities and Peoplc, by Mark Girouard
RICHAHD LONGSTRETH Historic Rittellhousc, by Bohbye Rurke, Otto Sperr, Tlugh]. McCauley, and Trina V(wx
Philadelphia A,"chitecturc, by t/w Grol/p far Environmental EducatiOlI ol the f)llluinl/un for ArchitecllIre
Ccnter City Philadelphia, by Erie Uhlfdder
NORMA EVENSON Architcctm"e aneI City Planning in the Tweutieth Ccntllry, hy Vlorio Magnago Lampugnani
PAUL GLASSMAN LOSl Chicago, by David Lowe
Architectural Ornamentation in Chicago, by lVillium A. Rooney

LANDSCAPE
.fOHN DIXON HUNT Georgian Gardens, hy Da/!id Jaeques

RICHARD INGERSOLL Il Sacro Bosco di Bomarzo, by Margaretta J. Damell and Mark S. Uht

WIl.LlAM COHURN The HOllse of BOllghs, by Elizabeth Wilkinson and Ma/jorie Benderson

PROFESSIONAL READING
JOHN ELLIS Multi~Use Buildings in an Drhan Context, by Eberhard H. Zeidler
DOUGLAS MAHONE Small Offiee Building Handhook, by Burt Bill Kosar Rittelmann Associates
THOMAS KVAN AE/CADD, by Autodesk
BONNIE FISHER The Urban Edge, edited by Joseph Petrillo and Peler Grenell
anci BORIS DRAMOV

MARYANNE HEYSERMAN Access fOl" the Handicapped, by Peter S. Hopf and John A. Raeber
Barrier~(i'ree Exterior Design, edited by Cary o. Robinette

LOUlS E. GELWICKS Site Planning and Design for the ElderIy, by Diane Carstens
CORRY ARNOLD Report Graphics, by Richard L. Austin
TOM CRAVEIRO Shelter in Saudi Arabia, by Kaiser Talib
NATALIE SHIVERS House, by Traey Kidder
JACQUELINE VISCHER Social Desigll, by Robert Sommer
nere is no criticism

, JEAN'ANDRDUET DU--CERCEAU IL VECHlO, CASTI;LL~;

nlyhistory

Manfredo Tafuri, born in Rome, 1935, is the director oj the

Institute oj Architectural History al the University o/Venice.
He is a prol~fic author on a wide variety ofsubjects ranging
from16th-century Venice (L'armonia e i conflitti, coautkored
with Antonio Foscari, Turin, 1983, reviewed in DER 5) to
more alien topics such as The American City (coauthored
with Giorgio Ciucci and Francesco Dal Co, 1983, reviewed
in DER 4). Each oj his works serves as a platform jor
questioning the methods of architectural history, which, as
he so emphatically states belaw, is not lo be distinguished
from criticismo In Theories and History of Architecture
(1968, translated 1980) he identified a major problem oj
"operative criticism," endemie lo architects who write about
architecture. His suggestion lo counteract this tendency lo
impose contemporary standards on the past was to shift the
discourse away /rom the protagonists and individuai monu-
ments and consider architecture as an institution. His most
widely read book in America, Architecture and Utopia
(1969, translated 1976), advances this position, proposing
an ideological analysis oj architecture. His disconcerting
message jor those who had hopes oj a "progressive" archi-
tectare was that there can be no class architecture with
which to revolutionize society, but only a class analysis oj
architecture. In his most recent theoretical work, La sfera e
il labirinto (1980, translation to appear in 1986), he ha..
outlined a method oj history called the progetto storico.
This historical project, which is indebted to Michel Fou-
cault's "archaeologies oj knowledge" and Carlo Ginzburg's
"micro-histories," seeks to study the "totality" oj a work,
disassembling it in terms oJ iconology, political economy,
philosophy, science, and jolklore. His goal is to penetrate
the language oj architecture through non-linguistic means.
At the core he stili finds the problem oj "the historic role oj
ideology." The job 01 the Tafurian critic-historian is to
lO
"reconstruct lucidly the course followed by intellectuallabor
through modern history and in so doing lo recognize the
contingent tasks that call for a new Olganization qf labOl:"
In November, 1985, we interviewed Professor Tafuri on
the suhject of criticism:
There is no 8uch thing as criticism, there is unIy history.
What usually is passed off as criticism, the things yOll find
in architecture magazines, is produced by architects, who
frankly are bad historians. As for your concern far what
should be the subject of criticism, le! me propose that
hislory is nol about objects, but instead is about men,
about human civilization. What should interesl the his-
torian are the cycles of architectural activity and the
problem of hw a work of architecture fits in its OWll time.
To do otherwise is to impose one's own way of seeing on
architectural history.
What is essentiai to understanding architecture is the
mentality, the mentai structure of any given periodo The
historian's task is to recreate the intellectuai context of a
work. Take far instance a sanctuary dedicated to the cult
of the Madonna, built sometime in the Renaissance. What
amazes us is how consistently these buiIdings have a
centraI. pIan and usually an octagonal shape. The form
cannol be explained without a knowledge of the religious
attitudes of the period and a familiarity with the inheri-
tance from antiquity-a reproposai of the tempIe form
devoted to female divinities. Or take the case of Pope
Alexander VII, whose interest in Gothic architecture at
the cathedral of Siena [mid-seventeenth century l compared
to his patronage of Bernini in Rome can onIy be explained
through a knowledge of the Sienese environment and tradi-
tions. The historian must evaluate alI the elements that
surround a work, alI of its margins of invoIvement; onIy
then can he start to discover the margins of freedom, or
creativity, that were possible far either the architect or the
sponsor.
The problem is the same for comprehending current
work. You ask how the historian might gain the distance
from a new work to appIy historical methods. Distance is
fundamental to history; the historian examining current
work must create artificial distance. This cannot be done
without a profound knowledge of other times-through the
differences we can better understand the present. l'll give
you a simple example: you can tell me with precision the
day and year of your birth, and probably the hour. A man
of the 16th eentury would only be able to tell you that he
was born about 53 years ago. There is a fundamental
difference in the conception of time in our OWll era: we
have the products of mass media that give us instantaneous
access to alI the information surrounding our lives. Four
centuries ago it took a month to Iearn of the outcome of a
battle. An arlist in lhe 15lh eentury had a completely
different reference to srace-time; every time he moved to
a new city (which was very rarely) he wouId make out his
DR R 9
will. In earlier centuries time was not calculated but was>:
considered a gift l'rom God. KnowIedge was also consid,,' ,;
ered lo be God-given and lhus teachers in lhe Middle Agew;;
could not be paid; unIy later was their payment justified<?
as a compensation for time. These factors belong to the\:
mental web of another era. The way far us to gain distan6,':,:l,
from ouI' own times, and thus perspective, is to confron,~>::
its differences from the past. ."
Oue of the greatest probIems of our own times is dealUJg<
with the uncontrollable acceleratimI of time, a process
began with 19th-century industrializations; it keeps
tinually disposing oi' things in expectation of the fulun'<2
of the next thing. All avant-garde movements were in
based on the continuaI deslruction of preceding works
arder lo go 011 to something new. Implicit in this is
murder of the future. The program of the "modern"
was always lo anticipate the next thing. It's just Iike
yOll see a '~coming attraction" ad for a film, essentially
have aIready consumed the film and the event oE going
see the film is predictabIy disappointing ancl makes
anxious for something new.
This anxiely for the future represents a
of the Book of the Apoealypse-things only have
in relation to the eschatology al' their finaI goal.
the basie parameter. This continuaI destruction of
present contributes to the nihilism of our times.
What you would calI an "archilectural critic" serves
a tt11ffle dog looking for tbe new to get rid of the old.
is a goocl example, when he fust discovers Louis
and then dumps him to go on to Venturi. For this sort
critic, truIy profound work, such as that of Mies,
"unread" because il does not fil into the scheme of
tinual destruction.
As lo how lo seleet buildings lhat are worthy of
it is the problem and not the object that concerllS
historian. The works selected are irrelevant on their
and only have meaning in the way they l'elate lo
problem. If you look baek to the fifties you'd see lhat
of the most published aTchilects were Oscar Niemeyer
Kenzo Tange, architects who have not enjoyed eontInu'
prominence in successive histories. They were swept
in the news in an ephemeral notoriety, but this
did not ensure them a piace in history.
The historian has to abandon his prejudices about
quality of a work in order to deal wilh the problem
it. The work of Eisenman and Hejduk was much
interesting ten years-ago than il is today beeause it
a curious problem of Americans Iooking to Europe,
what they chose to Iook at was an
Europe- Eisenman's Terragni is an architecture
human history. Using the theorelical precepts of
and Lvi-Strauss (rather than the more chanlet,e]"!l
American pragmatism), they succeeded in emptying
historic sources of the human subject.
 is no criticism, only htory
lo the problem of architecture, it is more interesting
cyc1es-series of things-rather than individuaI
of architects. The historic cycle tells us more lhan
taxonornies. In the US., for instance, the attitudes
public housing that emerged during the Progressive
Theodore Roosevelt were regenerated during the
Deal and present a signiftcant cycle for the hislorian
greatest confusion in the "criticism" of architeclure
faei due lo the magazines attached to the profession:
,hite,'t, should do architeclure and historians should do
Can you imagine what would happen if I built a
Or do you think that Reagan took a copy of
,cnlm,elll' (or even something more contemporary like
tlesin,ger) to Geneva-impossible, he just aets, and ihis
whal the aIchitect should do, The study of history
indirect ways of influencing action. If an architect
to read to understand where he is, he is without a
a bad architect! J frankly don't see the importance
pllSJlln'g theory into practice; instead, to me, it is the
of things that is importanl, that is productive. I
see it as being prophetic, but what I was saying
years ago in Architecture and Utopia has -become a
standard analysis: there are no more utopias, the
of commitment, which tried to engage us
and social1y, is finished, and what is left to
lS empty architecture. Thus an architect today is
to either be great or be a nonentity. I really don't
this as the "faiIul"e of Modern architecture"; we must
instead at what an architect could do when certain
were not possible, and what he could do when they
possible. This is why I insist on the late work of Le
prl'U5iier, which had no Ionger any message to impose on
And as I have been trying to make clear in
about historical context: no one can determine the
recently history had been conceived of as Univer-
History, which had a finite sequence from beginning
end. There was always a goal to history, inherited- from
thought, and this remained with historians
they moved from hermeneutic history based on the
ltelrpl'etation of sacred texts to a history based on human
The desire to understand life according to a final
necessarily led to a causaI way or thinking,
even in someone as modern as Benedetto Croce,
considered history as the history of freedom. If we
at it, however, as the continuaI exposure to the
Illexp,ecl:ed instead of seeking causes, we get a different
one that presents concatenations rather than causes.
;Jnst"ad of a linear history, we get a history with a hole in
middk
To live in the world of today is to Iive in a state of
anxiety. Look at the minor architects, the un-
ones who a decade ago would have been content
II
putting up curtain-walled boxes. They now [eel obliged to
inject symholism into their work: a pseudo-temple on top
and an Italian piazza below-thanks lo Jencks's and Porto-
ghesi's "recovery of history." AlI of this is being done
from the point of view of publicity and exercised just
like advertising. History has been reduced to fashion and
is understood in the way Walt Disney understands il-
Venturi, who thinks he is being ironie, actually ends up
more like Mickey Mouse.
But let's step outside these judgments on matters of taste
lo examine the problem underneath, the sense of inseeurity
so common in our world. Gane are the certitudes. Just as
a ehild diseovers the tluth about Santa Claus, we find
ourselves confronting the great "truths" about the world,
and uncertainty prevails. Phillipe Aris in his excellenl
history of death (The Hou,r oj Ou,r Death, 1982, reviewed
in DER 5) shows the change in attitude toward death
during the late Middle Ages after the invention of Purga-
lory. The certainty of Ieaving one life for a better one was
suddenly thrown into crisis, and from that time on we ean
observe humanity's hopeless struggle to eliminate death.
Along with this uncertainty comes a nostalgie search for
a center, thus in our times we see the return of the pope
in ltaIy and the triumph of Reagan in America. In archi-
tecture, we might see Graves like Vignola in the 16th
century, not having the talent or the courage to really
design. But even the work of a good architect, such as
Stirling, shows this problem of the search for the center.
The mass of architects shouldn't worry, they should just
do architecture. If we take two theorists who are eurrently
enjoying a revival, Loos and Tessenow, the latter especial1y
advised never to insist on invention but rather on pro-
duction. One should refine a few elements lo perfection as
a good craftsman. In OUT times, fuchard Meier does this,
he is a good craftsman. The avant-gard~ oriented architects
are infused with some sort of mysticism awaiting an ulti-
mate epiphany, a final word - buL- the word aIready exists,
they just are unable to hear il. Contemporary architeets
are heirs to an enormous effort of libenition, yet it often
appears thal they would prefel" that the liberation had not
yet oceurred so that they might repeat the processo
The time of eonneetions (collegamenti) is over. Knowl-
edge seen as analogy is no longer valido The correspon-
denees that were eonside1'ed capabie of ] inking microcosm
to macrocosm (i. e., treating the headache as a storm in the
head), this system of concordia-discors gave way because il
eouId no longer alleviate man's anxiety. Even our great
19th-century minds-Nietzsche, Ma1x, Freud-retained
some millenial thinking when they proposed the possibility
of a better time by bringing us Lo the limits of ouI' own
existence. BuiIding on their knowledge, we can only try
to live more completely-if we really are resolved to
eliminate anxiety, then we would realize that history serves
to dispell nostalgia, not inspire it.