TECTONIC MEMOIRS: THE EPISTEMOLOGICAL PARAMETERS OF TECTONIC THEORIES OF ARCHITECTURE A Dissertation Presented to The Academic Faculty By Anthony P. Rizzuto In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in Architecture Georgia Institute of Technology May 2010 TECTONIC MEMOIRS: THE EPISTEMOLOGICAL PARAMETERS OF TECTONIC THEORIES OF ARCHITECTURE Approved by: Dr. Ron Lewcock Advisor Dr. Donald Phillip Verene College of Architecture Department of Philosophy Georgia Institute of Technology Emory University Dr. Elizabeth Dowling Dr. Karsten Harries College of Architecture Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Georgia Institute of Technology Yale University Professor Harris Dimitropoulos Date Approved: College of Architecture Georgia Institute of Technology DEDICATION To my parents Carol and Tony Rizzuto for all their love, support and patience. i ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank my professors from the University of Illinois for broadening my view of architecture and helping me see its connections to other fields of study. I would particularly like to thank Stanley Tigerman and Peter Eisenman for their insight, support and encouragement to pursue my Ph.D. I want to thank my Advisor Dr. Lewcock for his support, patience and careful reading, rereading, editing and reediting. Without his critical insight and commentary, I could not have had the fortitude to stick with this project. I want to thank my committee members Dr. Dowling and Professor Dimitropoulos for all their encouragement, support, and friendship. I want to also thank Dr. Dowling for providing me with my first teaching position. I would also like to thank Dr. Verene for opening a window onto the wisdom that is philosophy. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS………………………………………………………….…ii LIST OF FIGURES……………………………………………………………….…...vii SUMMARY……………………………………………………………………………....1 PART I: PROLEGOMENA CHAPTER 1: PROLEGOMENA TO A TECTONIC DISCOURSE…………………….…………………………………………………..…..3 PART II: THE ORIGINS OF TECTONIC CULTURE CHAPTER 2: STUDIES IN TECTONIC MYTHOLOGIES……………………….19 Discontinuity and Continuity: Tectonic Genesis and Ritual, Prometheus and the Three Transgressions, The Wisdom of Hephaestos: The Shield of Achilles, Hesiod’s Erga: The Twin Pillars of Justice and Work, The Birth of Athena: Construing Civil Constructions CHAPTER 3: STUDIES IN TECTONIC ETYMOLOGIES……………………..…39 The Tectonics of the Tekton, The Tectonics of the Archi-tekton, The tectonics of the Archon CHAPTER 4: STUDIES IN TECTONIC PHILOSOPHY………………………..…55 Sophrosyne and the Ethos of the Good, Sophrosyne as Harmonic Ontology, Beauty and the Sophron Eros, Does the craftsman who practices techne possess sophrosyne?, The Structure of Aristotle’s Epistemology, Techne as a form of Episteme: Aristotle’s ‘theoretical’ definition of Techne, Can techne respond to the subtleties of making?, The Janus face of the Tekton, The Assimilation of the tekton to sophrosyne as enkrateia/ antarkeia CHAPTER 5: STUDIES IN TECTONIC ARCHITECTURE………………………88 Vitruvius’ Principles of Architecture, Architecture and the Sophron Eros, The Principle/ Problem of Décor, Ciceronian Decorum, Vitruvian Décor, The Triad of Excellences, Phronetic- Techne and the Design Process iii CHAPTER 6: THE EPISTEMOLOGICAL PARAMETERS OF CLASSICAL TECTONICS………………………………………………….………114 The Epistemological Parameters of Classical Tectonics, Phronesis as Experiential Knowledge, Phronesis and the Means and Ends Equation, Phronesis and Right Judgment, Phronesis and Design Cognition, PART III: ARCHTIECTURE AND THE EPISTEMOLOGY OF SCIENCE: THE FORMULATION OF RATIONAL TECTONICS CHAPTER 7: SCIENCE AND THE IMAGE OF THE WORLD…………………133 The Medieval Imago Mundi: Geometry and the World, The Transformation of the World, The Copernican Revolution and the New Image of the World, The New Metaphysics of Science, Galileo and the Foundations of a New Epistemology, Descartes and the Foundation of Modern Metaphysics, Newton and the Metaphysics of Science, Science and the Image of the World CHAPTER 8: RATIONALISM AND THE DUALITY OF BEAUTY……………168 The Cartesian Influence on the National Academies, The Querelle between the Ancients and the Moderns, Baroque Science and the Duality of Beauty, Claude Perrault and the Rationalization of Architectural Proportion, Claude Perrault and the Duality of Beauty, Christopher Wren and the Rationalization of Architectural Perception, Guarino Guarini and the Rationalization of Invenzione, Aesthetics and the Duality of Beauty, Taste and the Aesthetics of Subjectivity, Reason and the Aesthetics of Objectivity, Science and the Image of Beauty CHAPTER 9: FUNCTION AND THE INSTRUMENTALIZATION OF ARCHITECTURE ……………………………………………………232 Architectural Theory and ‘Objective Aesthetics’ , The Abbe De Cordemoy and the Dawn of the Greco-gothic Ideal, Philosophy and the Reconciliation of Nature and Culture, Laugier and the Reconciliation of taste and Reason, Rationalism and the Greco-gothic Tradition: Soufflot’s Pantheon, Character and Composition: the Taxonomy of Function, The Search for a Universal Grammar of Construction: Typology, Jean Batiste Rondelet and the Practique of Building, The Rise of the Ecole Polytechnique, Architecture and the Origins of Engineering, J.N.L. Durand and the Autonomy of Architecture, Summation iv CHAPTER 10: THE EPISTEMOLOGICAL PARAMETERS OF RATIONAL TECTONICS…………………………………………………………..318 Reason in the form of Episteme, Technique as Instrumental Order, Technique and the Means/Ends Equation, Technique and the Assumption of Neutrality, Technique and Ethos, Technique and Design Cognition, Summation PART IV: ARCHITECTURE AND IDEALISM: THE EMERGENCE OF POETIC TECTONICS CHAPTER 11: TECTONICS AND THE HUMANIST TRADITION: VICO, LODOLI AND PIRANESI…………………………………354 The History of Lodolian Scholarship, Algarotti & Milizia: the Construction of a ‘Rigorist’, Memmo: Setting the Record Straight, Sheriman and the Dream of a New Architecture, Particolareggiamento or the Mytho- poetic Reasoning of the Particular, Vico and the Origins of Cognition, Vico and the Forms of Thought, Vico’s Critique of the Epistemology of Science, Vico on Truth, Vico’s New Science, The Verum of Vico’s New Science: Providence, The New Science as Self- Knowledge, Recollecting Architecture, Lodoli and the ‘New Science’ of Architecture, The Goal of Architecture, Lodoli’s Architecture at the Hospice of San Francesco della Vigna, Piranesi and the Lodolian Legacy, Lodoli and the Reasoning of the Particular, Summation CHAPTER 12: THE ROMANTIC REVOLT IN GERMANY: HAMANN AND HERDER…………………………………………418 Hamann and the Challenge to the Enlightenment, The Revolt Against Reason, Man as Experiential Unity, The Meaning of Words: Language, Thought and Expression, Herder’s Unity of Theory and Practice, The Sensus Communis: a Doctrine of Critical Regionalism, The Use and Abuse of History, Summation CHAPTER 13: THE UNITY OF THEORY AND PRACTICE…………………449 Nature as Poetic Unity, Freedom and the Autonomous Self, Life= Praxis, Poetry as a form of Resistance, The Return of the Sensus Communis, Poetic Unity and the Image of the World, CHAPTER 14: ART AND HUMAN KNOWING………………………………..482 Poetry as the Novum Organum of Philosophy, The Overturning of an Aesthetic Tradition, Art and Self-actualization in Schiller, Art and Self-actualization in Goethe’s Faust, Hegel and the Experience of Consciousness, Art and the Concrete Universal, Absolute Knowing in Hegel’s Philosophy, Kunstreligion: Art and the Sensus Communis, The Dialectic of Art and Philosophy v CHAPTER 15: TECTONIC REFORMULATIONS: PHILOSOPHY AND ARCHITECTURE………………………...…545 Goethe on Architecture, August and Friedrich Schlegel on Architecture, Hegel on Architecture, Summation CHAPTER 16: POETIC TECTONICS: ARCHITECTURE AND IDEALISM..………………………………588 Friedrich Gilly and the Architecture of the Systemprogramm, Schinkel and the Birth of Poetic Tectonics, Heinrich Hubsch and the ‘Technostatic’ Forces of Architecture, Karl Botticher and the Ontology of Intelligibility, Architecture as Poetic Unity CHAPTER 17: THE EPISTEMOLOGICAL PARAMETERS OF POETIC TECTONICS…………………………………………………………..679 The Inseparability of Language and Thought, Metaphor as Praxis: The Reasoned State or Capacity to Act, Sensory Topics: The Body of the Sensus Communus, Metaphor and Design Cognition, Metaphor and the Body: The Reasoning of the Particular, The Theory or Image: The Concrete-ness of the Metaphor, Bild/Bildung: the Construing and Constructing of Architecture BIBLIOGRAPHY……………………………………………………………………..715 vi LIST OF FIGURES FIGURE 1 Image of medieval Hierarchy…………………………………………135 FIGURE 2 Villard de Honnecourt’s Lodge- Book……………………….………138 FIGURE 3 Construction of Linear Perspective……………………………….…139 FIGURE 4 Geometric Construction of Space………………………………….…140 FIGURE 5 Ideal Forms: City Plans…………………………………….…………141 FIGURE 6 Plate #3 The System of the Orders from the Regola ……………….146 FIGURE 7 Galilean Conception of God, Nature and Man……………………...151 FIGURE 8 Interior of Contant d’Ivry’s Madeleine from Engraving by de Machy……………………………243 FIGURE 9 Interior of Boffrand’s Luneville Chapel……………………………..244 FIGURE 10 The ‘Primitive Hut’ Frontispiece from Essai Sur l’Architecture……………………..……254 FIGURE 11 Interior Nave of Ste. Genevieve………………………………………259 FIGURE 12 Interior Vaulting of Ste. Genevieve………………………………..…261 FIGURE 13 Rondelet’s Cutaway Elevation from His Traite Theorique et practique de l’art de batir………..…265 FIGURE 14 Hennebique’s Ferro-concrete Frame Construction System………..266 FIGURE 15 The Royal Library………………………………………………….…273 FIGURE 16 The Cenotaph