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Architecture, Mysticism and Myth (1891) William Lethaby and the Foundation of a Syncretic Modernism

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Architecture, Mysticism and Myth (1891) William Lethaby and the Foundation of a Syncretic Modernism ARCHITECTURE, MYSTICISM AND MYTH (1891) WILLIAM LETHABY AND THE FOUNDATION OF A SYNCRETIC MODERNISM. Deborah. A. van der Plaat. A DISSERTATION m Architecture Presented to the Faculties of the University of New South Wales in Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy. 2000 TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS. 1. ABSTRACT. 11. LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 111. INTRODUCTION. Two Lethabys or one? 1 0.1 William Richard Lethaby: A biographical Sketch. 2 0.2 Architecture, Mysticism and Myth. 4 0.3 Architecture, Mysticism and Myth: The problem of "two Lethabys." 5 0.4 Architecture, Mysticism and Myth: A syncretic theory of modem invention. 11 0.5 Methodology. 16 PART I. Architecture, Mysticism and Myth: Identifying a modern architecture. CHAPTER 1. Architecture, Mysticism and Myth: Reconciling the 'known' and the 'imagined.' 27 1.1 The debt to Ruskin. 28 1.2 Ruskin's thesis of mind and the Romantic Imagination. 32 1.3 'Known' and 'imagined' facts of the universe. 40 1.4 Lethaby's departure from Coleridge's and Ruskin's theory of the Imagination. 47 CHAPTER 2: Victorian mythography: Seeking a 'symbolism comprehensible to the great majority of spectators.' 61 2.1 The ambivalence of Victorian mythography. 62 2.2 The density of the mythic symbol. 66 2.3 The contribution of myth to Architecture, Mysticism and Myth. 73 CHAPTER 3. 'Would you know the new, you must search the old.' Nineteenth century readings of the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili (1499). 84 3.1 Nineteenth century readings of the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili. 85 3.2 'Would you know the new, you must search the old.' 97 3.3 Building with Heart. 101 PART II. Seeking an architecture of 'sweetness' and 'light.' Lethaby's debt to John Ruskin and Matthew Arnold. CHAPTER 4. Paradox in Ruskin's contrasts. 113 4.1 William Morris and John Ruskin's idea of making and its implications. 114 4.2 Subject versus object. 122 4.3 Physiological versus rational and active versus contemplative. 128 4.4 Universal morals versus relative, intellectual pursuits. 133 4.5 The implications of Ruskin's universal morals. 135 4.6 Contradiction in Ruskin's conclusions. 141 CHAPTER 5. Hebrew or Hellene? Balancing Ruskin's contrasts. 149 5.1 Hebrew: Lethaby's debt to Ruskin. 149 5.2 Hellene: Expanding the Ruskinian paradigm. 154 CHAPTER 6. Seeking architecture of 'sweetness and light': The influence of Matthew Arnold. 168 6.1 Arnold's thesis of cultural perfection and ambivalent modernism. 169 6.2 Arnold's influence on Lethaby's idea of architecture. 177 PART ill. The Significance of Architecture, Mysticism and Myth. CHAPTER 7: Architecture, Mysticism and Myth: A foundation for a syncretic modernism. 184 7.1. Modem practice as rupture. 185 7.2 The two faces of early modem architecture. 190 7.3 A syncretic model for modem architecture. 195 CONCLUSION. 208 ILLUSTRATIONS. 212 BIBLIOGRAPHY 225 Acknowledgments. I would like to thank my supervisor Peter Proudfoot and my co-supervisor Peter Kohane for their support and thoughtful suggestions. I thank Bernard Smith and Graham Pont for reading drafts of this thesis and for their helpful comments. I am grateful to Trevor Garnham, Godfrey Rubens, Wendy Hitchmough, and Ian Dungavell who all offered assistance and information in the early stages of my research. My gratitude goes to my associates and friends in the post graduate program at the Faculty of the Built Environment for their advice and support. I also thank Maryam Gusheh and Paul Hogben for patiently proof reading the final text. I gratefully acknowledge the financial assistance of the PhD program in Architecture at the University of New South Wales, especially in funding a period of research in Britain. My thanks go also to St Deiniol's Library who funded a period of research in Wales. I am indebted to the numerous librarians who assisted me in my research. In particular I would like to thank Lucy Watson and Sylvia Backemeyer at the Central St Martins Art and Design Archive. I would also like to thank the librarians at the British Architecture Library, the National Art Library at the Victoria and Albert Museum, the British Library, the North Devon Athenaeum at Barnstaple, the National Library of Australia, New South Wales State Library, and the University of New South Wales. Finally, my thanks go to the Gordon Wong Institute for Higher Studies (my husband) for his constant support and encouragement. Abstract. In this study I attempt to re-evaluate the thought of William Lethaby and his contribution to modem architecture, particularly through his most influential work, Architecture, Mysticism and Myth (1891). My thesis is that Lethaby's work presented a new view of architectural history which became the basis of an alternative tradition to mainstream modernism. His distinctive contribution emerged from a reconciliation of profound dichotomies in Ruskin's thought and criticism, particularly the opposition between rational knowledge and artistic imagination. Unlike Ruskin, Lethaby did not retreat into a medieval past but boldly advanced towards an architecture of the future. In achieving his new synthesis Lethaby was deeply indebted to Matthew Arnold's dialectical analysis of the 'Hellene' and the 'Hebraic' streams of Western culture, the ambivalent methodologies of Victorian mythography, and to the important Renaissance treatise Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, now ascribed by some to Alberti. Lethaby's work, Architecture, Mysticism and Myth, had an enormous impact on his contemporaries and following generations of architects and theorists in the English speaking world. In seeking an architectural realisation of Arnold's 'Sweetness and Light' Lethaby bequeathed an alternative vision of twentieth century sensibility, architecture and civilisation which saw its 'cultural perfection' in the balance of scientific knowledge and creative imagination. II List of Illustrations. Fig.1. William Richard Lethaby, photo, Central St Martins Art and Design Archive. 212 Fig.2. William Lethaby, Ziggurat, Pen & Ink, frontispiece, Architecture, Mysticism and Myth, 1891. 213 Fig.3. William Lethaby, Font and Canopy, St John the Baptist, Low Bentham, Yorkshire, alabaster and walnut, 1890. 214 Fig.4. Hexagonal Building, woodcut, Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, Francesco Colonna, Venice, 1499. 215 Fig.5. William Lethaby, A Garden Enclosed, pen and ink, 1889, reproduced in J. Sedding, Garden Craft Old and New, Kegan Paul, Trench, Triibner & Co, 1892, plate 8. 215. Fig.6. Two Gardens, woodcut, Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, Francesco Colonna, Paris, 1546 (1499), woodcuts. 216. Fig. 7. William Lethaby, Frontispiece for Architectural Association Sketchbook, 1889. 217 Fig.8. Temple of Venus Phyzizoa, woodcut, 1499, in Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, Francesco Colonna, Venice, 1499, folio n iii recto. 218 Fig.9. Great Pyramid Building, (trans-typological temple), woodcut, 1546, Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, Francesco Colonna, Paris, 1546, folio A recto. 219 Fig.10. Poliphili at the Cross Roads, woodcut, 1546, Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, Francesco Colonna, Paris, 1546, pl. 46 verso. 220 Fig.11. C.R. Cockerell, The Professor's Dream, oil on panel, Royal Academy of Arts, London, 1848. 220 Fig.12. C.R. Cockerell, A Tribute to the Memory of Sir Christopher Wren, oil on panel, Crichton Collection, Anglesey, 1838. 221 Fig.13. William Lethaby, Monogram, n.d. 221 Fig.14. William Holman Hunt, The Strayed Sheep, oil on panel, 1852, Tate Gallery, London. 222 lll Fig.15. Helena Blatvatsky, 'The World within the Universe and Manifested Logos,' Isis Unveiled. A Master Key to Ancient and Modern Science and 223 Theology (1875), Boston, New York, 1889, vol.2, pp. 262-66. Fig.16. Walter Burley and Marion Mahony Griffin, Capitol Building seen from Mt Ainslie, tracing of original drawing, Canberra Plan, 1912, Australian 224 National Archives. IV Introduction Two Lethabys or one? Published in the final months of 1891, Architecture, Mysticism and Myth was the first architectural treatise written by the late nineteenth century English architect and theorist William Richard Lethaby (1857-1931). (fig.1) 1 His goal, Lethaby tells us in the introductory statement of the text, was to determine the future direction of stylistic developments in architecture with the specific intention of identifying how the architect may develop an artefact that would 'excite an interest, both real and general '-by possessing 'a symbolism that was comprehensible [to] the great majority of spectators'-and be of 'sweetness, simplicity, freedom, confidence and light,' qualities he argued that were essential to a modem architecture. 2 However, in seeking solutions to such dilemmas Lethaby turned away from the present and future and retreated into a mythological past, and specifically, to design principles demonstrated by literary and architectural examples of the 'temple idea. ' 3 A retreat into the past to resolve the design dilemmas of the present was a common strategy in nineteenth century England, an obvious precedent being found in the writings of John Ruskin ( 1819-1900). Seeking to escape the consequences of the doctrines of relativism which emerged in conjunction with the modem negation of a classical and natural thesis of history, culture and her products, Ruskin turned to the art and culture of the medieval world as a paradigmatic model for future practice. The question for the modem day reader of Architecture, Mysticism and Myth is, can Lethaby's retreat into a mythological past be compared to Ruskin's return to the Gothic world? Or does Lethaby's interest in the past point to something else? Lethaby's relationship to, or departure from, a Ruskinian position has dominated present day readings of both Architecture, Mysticism and Myth and Lethaby's subsequent writings. It is this question which I wish to consider in this thesis. 0.1: William Richard Lethaby: A Biographical Sketch. William Richard Lethaby was born at Barnstaple, North Devon, in 1857. 4 At the age of fourteen he was apprenticed to William Lauder, a local architect who was interested in architectural education, the building crafts, and decoration.
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