GEORGE L. CLAFLEN, JR.
Temple University
ATTITUDES TOWARD BORROWING
Peter Collins articulated the traditional view of the academic profession on the linkage of architecture and literature in 1965, and the tenor of much conservative academic criticism of deconstruction in architecture has taken on a similar character:
"The influence of the allied arts on architectural design raises ethical problems of considerable gravity, for what this influence can bring about, and undoubtedly has brought about, certain benefits, it can also vitiate the nature of architectural creativity by leading to the production of forms which are not strictly architectural [emphasis added] at all....
But it seems nevertheless fair to say that when the allied arts have exerted an excessive or even predominant influence on architectural design, the result has often been pseudoarchitecture, in the sense that it is difficult in such instances to tell where the genuine tectonic virtues [emphasis added] of the work are to be found... But if the artistic merit of a building depends mainly on literary romantic allusions, ... it may be reasonably argued that such buildings are not architecture at all but whimsically conceived constructions disguised in the borrowed aesthetic trappings of another art.”18
From a deconstructive point of view, Collins's text is dripping with ties to assumed metaphysical authority. He refers, without definition or clarification, to "forms which are not strictly architectural". Clearly there is an assumed, and privileged condition of "being architectural," which the particular production he is criticizing is outside. This is an effort to draw a boundary, but, funny to say, the words
do not define one, rather forcing us to assume it through our own interpretation of the word "architectural".
Reference is also made to "genuine tectonic virtues". Here the quest for authority has run into a little difficulty, surely indicated by the appeal to the moral value of truth implied in the word "genuine". What are the implicit alternatives. necessary for this statement to carry meaning? What is a non-genuine tectonic virtue? What is a genuine, non-tectonic virtue? Each of these realms is necessarily an implicit creation of the original statement, and the understanding of each is necessary for the original statement to have meaning. Collins is here aligning himself with many other critics including, Quatremere de Quincy19, Demetri Porphyrios20, and Kenneth Frampton21 in defining the natural or distinctive system of architecture as the tectonic.
It should thus be apparent that Collins's view of borrowing does not provide an adequately secure base from which to criticize deconstruction in architecture.
Temple University
ATTITUDES TOWARD BORROWING
Peter Collins articulated the traditional view of the academic profession on the linkage of architecture and literature in 1965, and the tenor of much conservative academic criticism of deconstruction in architecture has taken on a similar character:
"The influence of the allied arts on architectural design raises ethical problems of considerable gravity, for what this influence can bring about, and undoubtedly has brought about, certain benefits, it can also vitiate the nature of architectural creativity by leading to the production of forms which are not strictly architectural [emphasis added] at all....
But it seems nevertheless fair to say that when the allied arts have exerted an excessive or even predominant influence on architectural design, the result has often been pseudoarchitecture, in the sense that it is difficult in such instances to tell where the genuine tectonic virtues [emphasis added] of the work are to be found... But if the artistic merit of a building depends mainly on literary romantic allusions, ... it may be reasonably argued that such buildings are not architecture at all but whimsically conceived constructions disguised in the borrowed aesthetic trappings of another art.”18
From a deconstructive point of view, Collins's text is dripping with ties to assumed metaphysical authority. He refers, without definition or clarification, to "forms which are not strictly architectural". Clearly there is an assumed, and privileged condition of "being architectural," which the particular production he is criticizing is outside. This is an effort to draw a boundary, but, funny to say, the words
do not define one, rather forcing us to assume it through our own interpretation of the word "architectural".
Reference is also made to "genuine tectonic virtues". Here the quest for authority has run into a little difficulty, surely indicated by the appeal to the moral value of truth implied in the word "genuine". What are the implicit alternatives. necessary for this statement to carry meaning? What is a non-genuine tectonic virtue? What is a genuine, non-tectonic virtue? Each of these realms is necessarily an implicit creation of the original statement, and the understanding of each is necessary for the original statement to have meaning. Collins is here aligning himself with many other critics including, Quatremere de Quincy19, Demetri Porphyrios20, and Kenneth Frampton21 in defining the natural or distinctive system of architecture as the tectonic.
It should thus be apparent that Collins's view of borrowing does not provide an adequately secure base from which to criticize deconstruction in architecture.
