“The Architectural Polemic”

AboutA wide-ranging essay on the state of architectural criticism and theory at mid-century, arguing that modern architects rejected historical precedent and "de gustibus" relativism simultaneously, leaving critics without either traditional or agreed-upon modern standards for judging quality. Surveys shifts in architectural theory from Gothic scholasticism and Renaissance Neo-Platonism through eighteenth-century empiricism to contemporary functionalism, arguing that criticism has confused "expression" (style) with "formal design" (composition), which the author identifies as architecture's true, if neglected, basis for aesthetic judgment. Discusses Louis Sullivan repeatedly as a case study in this confusion: notes that despite Sullivan's polemical rejection of "fugacious" historicist theory, his Wainwright Building in St. Louis retained classical axial planning and tripartite elevation; discusses historians' tendency to cast Sullivan as the heroic dissenter at the 1893 Columbian Exposition against Charles McKim's classicism, despite Sullivan's own Beaux-Arts training; and examines critical responses to Sullivan's stated rationale for the two-story base of the Prudential (Guaranty) Building in Buffalo. Surveys architectural criticism from Herbert Croly and Montgomery Schuyler through Lewis Mumford, citing Sullivan's own attack on the Chicago Tribune Tower competition as an instance of architect-authored criticism.

PURL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0021-8529%28195912%2918%3A2%3C143%3ATAP%3E2.0.CO%3B2-2