Notes on Quatramere de Quincy and Hubsch

Here are more remarks on Hubsch, following an examination of Quatramere de Quincy who we went over last class
I. A.-C. Quatramére de Quincy on Imitation and Type

1. How does the term “imitation” function in Quatramére de Quincy’s text in relation to the term “model”?

Primarily, imitation is the basis of identity and meaning in architecture. But imitation corresponds to what he calls a “model” (e.g. the “principles contained in the rustic hut”). Classical architecture acquires its identity (Type) through the conservation of its relation to Nature as the model. Nature is understood here as a set of immutable laws. The very first statement is, “Architecture is the art of building following determined proportions and rules.” And then, a little later, “proportions and rules determined and fixed by nature and taste.”(27). The bridge between the rational expression of the primitive hut and Classical architecture is carpentry. “We have already shown that stone, in copying itself, or to put it better, in copying nothing, has offered no form to art, no variety to the eye, no relation to the spirit.” (30) (The reference is to Egyptian architecture).

Carpentry, as we shall make clear, has incontestably served as the model to Greek architecture; and one must admit that of the three models that nature can present to the art, carpentry is without doubt the most perfect and finest of all. (28)

. . . [This] imitation of carpentry or of hut is one of the principle causes of pleasure elicited by architecture; and that one could not negate this, either by changing or distorting the spirit, without striking at the laws of Nature and of verisimilitude, and destroying in us all the impressions of pleasure. (29)

(The primitive hut was, as you know, introduced by Laugier and taken up by most theorists in the 18th century and served as the archetype of building. The relation between building and Type ensured the communication of character. As Jacques François Blondel wrote: “all the different kinds of production which belong to architecture should carry the imprint of the particular intention of each building, each should possess a character which determines the general form and which declares the building for what it is."”(1749).)

Imitation is not the imitation of a thing, but rather a set of principles and truths. The primitive hut, in this instance is a set of moral lessons from which architecture must draw inspiration. However, the Neo-Platonist argument that he uses, that the highest reality belongs to principles, Ideas, and Forms, only defers the criticism of “imitation” as a principle of design that had begun to emerge after the turn of the century. And this is clear by Quatramére de Quincy’s evasion of the particular details of “model.”

What does it matter, that one copies the cabin more or less materially, provided that one copies the simple and true maxims that direct its construction? Nature, without doubt, has not made the cabin, but Nature has directed man in his formation, and man, guided by an instinct, coarse if one wishes, but sure, and by a sentiment which in early times could not mislead, has transmitted to it the true impressions of Nature. The art cannot, and must not abandon this original imprint . . . (30)

Quatramére de Quincy follows this diatribe with another, denouncing those who have corrupted or rejected the model by rearranging its syntax (one of whom is Ledoux). “They have shown us that one can no longer abandon the real or fictive imitation of the cabin without abandoning at the same time the principles of which it is the demonstration; and that one cannot deny these principles without abjuring at the same time Nature who dictated them and imprinted them there by her hand.

In rejecting, if one so wishes, the cabin, one rejects its imitation, but one also denies the following maxims:
That the strong must carry the week.
That solidity must be real and apparent . . .
[etc.]
If these maxims are incontestable, what is the difference whether the real or imaginary existence of the cabin is true or false? It is no less the axiom, the theorem of all truths: and who would dare proscribe its imitation, if it has become a visible rule, and a material and sensible example of the principles which constitute architecture? (31)

We are given to understand then that architecture is not an art of building unless it is an art of imitation. And this term, once again, seeks its equilibrium according to a “general order” (the words are Quatramére de Quincy’s), but one that functions according to representation.

Such then was the progress of architecture. In assimilating itself again to another model, it succeeded in finding a much more perfect one than the first. It is pointless to note that it never moulded itself materially on its model: it only made an intellectual copy of it . . . It is never form that architecture appropriated to itself, but the relations, the reasons which are contained there.

Not only is architecture thus the art of imitation (of principles, of Nature’s artifice) but it is also the most free to expand therein.

It is in this way that architecture, generalizing more and more the idea of its model, has succeeded in extending the sphere of imitation. It is not only the cabin from which it comes, nor man on which it is modeled, it is Nature in its entirety which has become the type of its imitation.”

Thus architecture creates also its own model: “Its model being the order of Nature, it exists everywhere, without being visible anywhere.” But this does not mean that it is invisible. On the contrary, it means that the order of Nature is not a thing but a set of principles, laws. “If then architecture is an art of imitation, it is not by having conserved, in embellishing them, the grotesque forms that necessity imprinted on the dwellings of the first men; but it is because it imitates Nature in the laws.”

Does one not see here a constant deferral of terms? Architecture, Nature, Principles, Reasons, Laws, Harmony, Proportion, etc. The meaning of these terms hangs on the ability to keep their chain intact. One is simply an expression of the other.

2. How does Quatramére de Quincy relate the idea of the organization of being to expression?

Organization is none other than the laws of order dictated by the Idea of Nature. Being just is this order and expresses itself in character. Here we are lead through another series of representations and the being of architecture is nowhere to be found but in this series. It exists as a transcendental value, an Idea, the premier examples of which are the human body and architecture. And, in turn, the human body and architecture constantly express this being as a series of representations.

This primitive model, of which you are only the copyist, will turn you from all those eccentricities of ensemble and detail which attenuate and enfeeble the appearance and effect of buildings: it will preserve you from these equivocal and mongrel forms . . . The art of characterization “is to make evident by material forms the intellectual qualities and the moral ideas which can express themselves in building. (34)

But again, this is related to the issue of imitation through Type. Type, through which architecture assumes its identity, is a kind of Idea (hence the neo-Platonism):

From this imitation, well proven by the reality of the model, by the necessity of the copy, . . . must rigorously follow the rules and laws prescribed for it by the model it has adopted . . . It is only then in recollecting itself continually before its model, in tracing itself . . . on the object of its imitation, that the art can hope to please.

But it is an idea only insofar as it is subject to the law of endless representation:

This type of which we must never lose sight, will be the inflexible rule which will reform all the practices . . .this precious type is in some way an enchanted mirror whose look the perverted and corrupted art cannot sustain, and which in recalling it to its origin, restores it to its former virtue. (32)

3. What laws relate the visible to the invisible in Quatramére de Quincy text?

Nature’s laws, of course, relate the visible to the invisible. But in reality, it is the law of successive representations. What is invisible is the Idea, Nature. Not because it is invisible in and of itself, but rather because it transcends the visible, organizes it, relates its terms one to another in an extended chain of meaning and reference. Or rather, it is invisible because it is the foundation of all that is visible. A foundation that because it is at once everywhere -- it is a set of laws -- and at the same time nowhere in particular. Being is character, but it is only character insofar as character too is part of this great chain of representation: “Character signifies a mark or figure traced on stone, metal, paper or any other material . . . in order to be the distinctive sign of something.” Character is “nothing but the sign by which Nature inscribes its essence on objects, its distinctive qualities, its relative properties, indeed all that could prevent mistaking it with another. (34)

Or rather, these are the laws of resemblance and similitude without which Idea, Nature, Image, Character, etc. would cease to function as identical and meaningful. Under “Imitation,” Quatramére de Quincy writes: “Thus to take nature as a model is to imitate her by giving oneself in certain works of art the same rules that nature follows herself, by investigating her intentions in the formation of creatures.” But again, to imitate her is not to imitate her appearance, but rather her “in her action,” in her organization, in the chain of representations.

Thus, despite Quatramére de Quincy’s ambivalence toward representation and similitude concerning the object of design, he nonetheless must endorse its implications: buildings must exhibit character,

the art of characterizing, that is to say, of rendering sensible by material forms the intellectual qualities and moral ideas which can be expressed in buildings; or of making known by means of the accord and suitability of all the constituent parts of a building, its nature, propriety, use, destination; this art, I say, is perhaps, of all the secrets of architecture, the fines and most difficult to develop and to understand; this happy talent of feeling and making felt the physiognomy proper to each monument, this sure and delicate refinement which makes perceptible the different nuances of buildings that seem at first unsusceptible to any characteristic distinctions; this wise and discreet use of different manners of expression, which are like the ‘tones’ of architecture; the adroit mixture of the signs that his art is able to employ to speak to the eyes and the mind; this precise and fine touch . . .


General comments on the text.
Note that each of the terms introduced by Quatramére de Quincy, Imitation, Idea, Type, Character, Architecture all stand in some type of transparent and representational relation to each other. As such, one finds very little in terms of a discussion regarding design method. Or rather, method amounts to ensuring that architecture will make these relations transparently available to each other.

Thus the ontology of architecture, what it is in its being insofar as it exists, depends on this transparent relation between an original set of truths, founded on Nature, and the form of architecture. The form of architecture, however, is simply the last in a chain of representations where explicit structure is manifest. But it is manifest meaningfully only to the extent that it also touches all the way back toward an original model that expresses Nature’s laws of organization.

If analysis has any meaning here, it is the analysis of the representative contents of architecture as a series of signs. True, the basis of representation is the Model, Nature’s “laws.” As such it is also immaterial. But there is no such thing as the invisible in Quatramére de Quincy’s text.

Architecture, Carpentry, Idea, Character, Model, Type, Imitation: what kind of organization of terms is this? Or rather, what is the ontological principle of their classification as though they provide us with the species of concepts from which architecture descends? Idea is to Ideal as Nature is to Laws. For every term there is an explicit horizontal correspondence to another term. And each in its turn is representative of some quality inhering in the latter. Architecture is a material thing, but its art lies not in its materiality, but rather its expression of certain general laws, founded on Reason and Nature. The embodiment of these laws is general and specific, hence the format of this body of knowledge as based on the encyclopedia.

II. Hübsch

Under Hübsch and Bötticher invisibility has another domain, another principle, another truth. It has another being, another ontology.

In this text he makes two claims: art has already abandoned the idea of the imitation of Classical styles, and the imitation of classical styles carries with it the assumption of universal truths such as the concept of beauty. Design, however, is not a function of beauty . . .

1. Why does Hübsch reject “imitation” as a principle of design?

Hübsch did not reject Greek architecture, but reinterpreted its role in history and emphasized that contemporary architecture’s relation to historical paradigms must be fundamentally reconstructed. If there was a truth embodied in Classical architecture, it was a truth based not on the appearance but rather on a system of certain types of relationships. And the latter was available only through analytical reflection. “I have become convinced that in order to arrive at a proper standpoint from which to make fundamental judgments [of architecture], one must depart from all contemporary notions of absolute beauty, order, and the like, and retain pure function alone.” We will find that this term takes on greater and greater emphasis during the 19th Century.

The imitation of a classical ideal, he notes, is often referred to as a concept of beauty. But this requires a principle, and neither the concept of taste or beauty can perform this function – they are too subjective. Only an investigation of practical necessity will yield “principles.” (see p. 64) He has thus invoked a major challenge to Neo-Classical precepts of design: “A building with a sham façade but with an interior that conforms exactly to its use may sooner find admirers than a building with a so-called pure façade for the sake of which the whole interior is either too high or too low and whose function is everywhere impaired by Greek proportions.” (see 82).

Whoever looks at architecture primarily from its decorative aspect and perhaps asks himself why he likes on form of leaf work on a capital better than another will easily despair of the possibility of establishing reliable principles. Yet whoever starts his investigations from the point of view of practical necessity will find a secure base. Now, since the size and arrangement of every building is conditioned by its purpose, which is the main reason for its existence, and since its continued existence depends on the physical properties of the material and on the resulting arrangement and formation of the individual parts, it is obvious that two criteria of functionality – namely, fitness for purpose (commodity) and lasting existence (solidity) – determines the size and basic form of the essential parts of every building. These formative factors, derived from function, are surely as objective and as clear as they could possibly be. (64)

Architectural form, in other words, is the consequence of the property of material, the refinement of structural techniques and the adjustment of the whole to the specific demands of climate, social systems, and economic structure.

2. What is the object of Hübsch’s analysis and what does that analysis reveal? Or rather, what kinds of analysis does he employ and how doe they relate the invisible (function) to the visible (Style)?

The object of Hübsch’s analysis is, in a way, change or transformation in the practical and material contexts in which buildings are produced. As such what is analyzed is not a model, or Idea, but rather a series of material systems. Two of the most important, historically, of course are the trabeated system and the vaulting system. But this is also linked to general material systems. (see p. 68) “The principle formative factors [of form in architecture] that can be deduced a priori as well as confirmed historically, are climate and building material.” (67). Hübsch then goes on to identify how the particular material qualities lead to the development of trabeated and vaulted constructions. Thus there is an argument also about the function of material. It is clear from this that there is no historically original model as such. Hence no analysis of an original type, model, or form. The analysis, then is quintessentially, one of organic structure and system:

“Having established the basis of the new style in every respect, it remains to define more precisely the form of the architectural elements. For this we turn once again to history in order to observe the gradually changing forms of vaulting and how they influenced every element. We shall trace this development up to the time when all reminiscences of ancient architecture disappeared and the form of each element was derived in an organic way from the vaulting, a stage finally reached in medieval architecture.” (85)

(See also 93: “let us learn from the one undisputed merit of the Spitzbogenstil: the way in which its forms, down to the smallest detail, derive in a consistent and organic manner from the construction of the vault . . .”)

Hübsch’s “object” of analysis, the material system, thus stands in no representational relation to the analysis itself. In Quatramére de Quincy, in contrast, the object of analysis was “reflected” by the analysis itself in the form of Idea.


3. What is the importance of “style” according Hübsch’s text?

Style is not the expression of character as some already known meaning, identity, or Idea (as it is in Quatramére de Quincy). Instead, it is based on the “essential parts of building” (of which he gives an account on p. 66) Style is based on the function of its parts in relation to one another. Hübsch places great emphasis on function, the formative factors in style derive from function. The essence of form as a condition of style, therefore, is a non-issue, there is no criteria for it. Only those essential parts of a building are the elements of style. There is not original form (no primitive hut model); there are only formative factors. Structurally there are only two basic conditions: the trabeated and the vaulted. And these change and develop according to internal dynamic laws, over time. There are four factors (which derive from function) in the formation of style, and the ones that we require today are opposite those that were used in Ancient Greece. The superimposition of Greco-Roman principles on architecture is simply just equal to decoration. On page 66 he essentially takes the romance out of style (and for good reason) and lists a series of parts of building that correspond functionally, structurally, programmatically in relation to each other and then says: “These are the essential parts of a building. They relate to the most basic task of architecture and must therefore be regarded as the elements of style.”

History is a dynamical process and it is in that process that we can find the development of style. Or rather, style is a function not of mimesis, but historical forces – history is not a representational foundation:

If we wish therefore to attain a style that has the same qualities as the building of other nations that are accepted as beautiful and are much praised by us, then this cannot arise from the past but only from the present state of natural formative factors – that is: first, from our usual building material; second, from the present level of technostatic experience; third, from the kind of protection that buildings need in our climate in order to last; and fourth, from the more general nature of our needs based on climate and perhaps in part on culture. (71).

After describing this particular history in Germany, Hübsch thus concludes: “Therefore, the formative factors that condition today’s architecture are completely different – almost diametrically opposed to those that affected the Greek style . . .”

If, again, we could say there was something like “analysis” in Quatramére de Quincy’s text, it is not anything like what we find in Hübsch’s. And the reason is that both the mode of analysis, its method, and its object have shifted. And within this shift, representation, has lost its ability to account for the order of the world, of architecture, and nature. Surely, Hübsch makes no direct claim to unravel the invisible. But is it not the case that it is not longer the visible order of nature, the law of nature, is consonant with architectural form. Architectural form, will cease to represent. Organic development and function are related to an entirely different sphere, and it is Bötticher who spells out for us that this sphere, this sphere of activity rather than Ideas, Forms, Principles, is hidden, invisible, and is the underlying cause of things.