Chapter Six: CLUES AND DETERMINATIVES
1 Different Kinds of Adaptation
Since the conditions of the plural state admit typological variety, one would at first expect there to be a diminution, if not disappearance of decoration from the form of buildings. In fact, this is not the case, for the types which arises during a period of Evolutionary change face representation problems which are as severe as those which beset the Involutionary Type. The only historical phase of an architecture where there is an actual reduction in decorative activity is the developmental period. In the classic Type, it is possible for architecture to be both 'one' in the sense of having distinctive characteristics (limited in number), and 'many' insofar as its typical set can be applied to many contexts without radical distortion. It is both unified and flexible. In this way, it is the only architectural Type which can close the representational gap which generates decoration. The Involutionary Type and the evolutionary type (which can be referred to as a pragmatic type, since it responds differently to each context), both require decorative devices to offset the semantic problems posed by their use.
The problem with the former is that the ubiquitous use of its strict typology no matter what the context can lead to semantic problems of a high order. For instance, when the lunatic asylum looks like the town hall, which looks like the public library which looks like the abattoir, and so on, then architecture is faced with a crisis of meaning. It is quite simply inadequate to the purposes for which it exists. It is clearly unable to effectively organise existential space in such a way as to indicate its territorial sub-divisions. In this situation one cannot predict the kind of territory which lies behind this uniform facade. Here, once again, the concepts of meaning and prediction coincide at the most pragmatic level of architecture. If one cannot predict the nature of the context from an analysis of its representation, then, at the connotative level, that representation is meaningless. No matter how coherent the form of the building, it remains ambiguous at a very fundamental level. It does not prepare the individual for the relationships which they will be required to enter into in a particular context. There is just not enough information available from these buildings for the individual to place themselves in a 'state of readiness' for the roles they must fulfil within the building. In strictly aesthetic terms, the building lacks the sympathetic qualities by which it can influence their attitudes, emotions or behaviour.
Decoration alleviates the more ludicrous failures of meaning by acting as determinative signs on each building. One can see examples of this in the sculpture, script and graphics which are added to buildings to differentiate them from one another. For instance, on a public library one might find determinative signs which represent the allegorical figures of learning and the arts, the poetic muses, knowledge triumphant, and so on. One might also find an inscription on the building giving the name of the purpose which it serves, the name of the architect, when it was built, its patron and, perhaps some ennobling quotation. The fact that all this additional information might be written in Latin and the allegorical allusion might be unknown to the general public does not matter. What matters is that the decoration on that building will be identifiably different from others, which will have perhaps equally obscure determinative devices. For the architect forced to comply with the constraints on the combination of typical elements from the Involutionary Type, the central issue in design is to differentiate this building from all others. This is not to say that in doing so the architect is, in any sense, being arbitrary at this secondary level of design activity. There too the issue is one of achieving authenticity not only in the choice of allegorical determinatives relative to the function of the building, but also in making the building as a whole more responsive in the relation between its different parts. The architect 'softens' the final image of the building by using this flexible medium of decoration which appears to unite the highly-specialized forms of the building into a single whole. Indeed, it is the pliability of the decorative material which allows it to resolve complex junctions to which the hardened primary elements cannot respond.
The creation of fictitious differences between buildings (while their primary elements and relations may be identical), is the allegorical function of decoration. It is allegorical, not because in many cases it uses symbols drawn from other forms of discourse such as religion or mythology, but because of what it does. It is the making of illusionary differences on a fixed set of forms which designates decoration as allegory. Especially during an Involutionary period with its crushing stylistic uniformity, architecture is still required to clearly identify the specific experiences or social institutions to which its inert forms refer. There has to be some kind of appropriate response to context. Do they refer to government, commerce, the arts, learning, pleasure, war or death? While decoration may differentiate one building from another by its form, it is the content of those forms which makes the connotative dimension of the building explicit. The elimination of the connotative dimension during an Involutionary period (due to the overwhelming similarity of its products) is, again compensated for at the secondary level of the architecture.
There is a resort to the symbolic lexicons which are available during such periods in order to find relevant symbols which can be incorporated as decoration and thus give a unique and very specific meaning to the primary elements of the building. These ready-made symbols link the building to a more general semantic dimension outside architecture. They give the building an explicit meaning which it otherwise would not be able to generate out of its own over-specific forms. Thus decoration unifies architecture not only by the flexibility of its forms but by the generality of the meaning of its content. Manfredo Tafuri refers to this situation in his book, 'Theories and History of Architecture' where he says in connection with Cesare Ripa's 'Iconographia':
In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, allegory and symbolism were ways to hold back a residue of universality in the meaning of artist-images; in order, on one side, to stop the total undoing of the classicist figurative system compromised in its last ideal moments; on the other to escape - through rhetorical amplification - a genuine critical introspection. But an art that accepts only directly programmed content, that rejects the communication of transcendental dogmas in order to speak to man of the history of humanity, and deals directly with his psyche, must also reject the entirely mundane universalism of symbolism and conceptism because it exploits, with the single purpose of persuasion, the emotional reactions generated by ambiguous and esoteric images.
It is at this point that architecture realizes the impossibility of finding its own reasons exclusively in itself". (Tafuri, Page 82).
Indeed, as Tafuri points out, the goal of such symbolism is one of persuasion. Both in its allegorical function and symbolic content, decoration attempts to evoke from the observer of a building, an emotional response, rather than an analytical response. In this, it serves to protect the symbolism of the architecture - its wholeness - by deflecting critical attention from each of its inert and, more fundamentally, meaningless forms. The symbols which it extracts from other discourses thus help to disguise the petrification of the involutionary Type by covering its disintegration and giving it a spurious meaning. In this context, the term 'emotional' refers to a holistic appreciation of an event which ignores all the intermediate levels may contradict that overall impression. In other circumstances, the 'emotions' may allow an individual to transcend the endless displacement of meaning in a symbol (from part to part) and thus get at the meaning of the whole symbol all at once. Decoration presents itself as a symbol whose meaning is eminently accessible. In this way it can deflect attention from the growing arbitrariness of the real symbol of architectural production, the Involutionary Type. These admittedly rather superficial devices of decoration and set-rotation (e.g. mirroring, reversals, etc.), can endlessly prolong the life of an inauthentic architecture until it is finally dissolved by socioeconomic change.
The crucial point in the deflection of crisis is that the information which is added to buildings in the form of decoration and determinatives is what the Type had ejected from the typical set earlier in its history. Originally it had turned the unpredictable diversity or production into a highly predictable typical set by selecting and combining only its most recurrent features. It now finds that it must increasingly utilize that diversity in order to maintain its credibility as the most comprehensive and most representative architecture. It reintroduces the marks of difference (in fact it merely emphasizes their presence which already exists as a sub-routine), in order to protect the value of the precise repertoire which it has accumulated in the typical set. Theoretically, without this 'democratic' facade, which makes it look more responsive to events than it actually is, the Type would be forced to modulate and adapt its typical elements to meet real circumstances.
Since decoration is a means of resolving semantic problems generated by a typical set, so it must perform the same function for architecture during its Evolutionary phase. Now, however, it must reverse the role which it played out in Involutionary times; it must reduce the differences between one building and another. Decoration makes the variability and pragmatism of the Evolutionary type appear more unified and coherent than it actually is by linking its necessarily different manifestations together within a standardized decorative formula.
The relation of decorative activity to Involutionary Types and Evolutionary types can be outlined as follows:
Standardized typical sets must rely on diversity of decoration in order to protect their semantic value.
Evolutionary typical sets must rely on standardized decoration in order to protect their semantic value.
When looked upon as determinative signs, decoration provides the pragmatic type with a stable identity which covers the constant mutation of its typical set. It also provides it with a semantic frame within which its various trial-and-error adjustments can be made predictable and thus meaningful until such times as the set itself has settled into a constant (predictable) routine.
In the case of both these architectures, decoration is used to achieve a balance between information (the new, the unpredictable, the surprizing or, more basically, the different), and pattern or redundant (the habitual, the predictable, the known and the same). Although 'meaning' can be defined in terms of the 'predictable', this does not automatically link it exclusively with the concept of redundancy. Information and difference are still necessary attributes of any system which claims to be meaningful. Therefore, it is clear that these communicational categories provide constraints within which meaning can be said to exist. If a systems behaviour becomes too predictable then the meaning of the system's activities will be lost. If, on the other hand, its behaviour is unpredictable then, equally it will cease to have any meaning. Same behaviour in different contexts and different behaviour in the same contexts leads to the same confusions of meaning. It is worth noting that the advantage which decoration has as a compensation for deficiencies in the type can be seen as a chronological one. Very simply, it takes a long time for a typical set of architectural elements to become established as conventions and it takes a long time for architecture to divest itself of an arbitrary typical set. Decoration, however, is the one category of form which is allowed to respond spontaneously to circumstances, no matter what they are. It is this immediacy of response which makes it so valuable as a regulator of architectural activity.
The Evolutionary architectural types which arise in plural conditions are too flexible in their response to contexts - too ready to adjust their characteristic elements to new combinations. There are still so many options available from its repertoire that it continually hovers on the edge of being just an aggregate of different buildings. Although there are still enough similarities between these buildings for them to be recognizable as a type, they are not similar enough. Standardized decoration applied to these almost similar buildings turns their real dissimilarities into a fictitious similarity until such times as the typological process can condense real similarities out of their diversity of characteristics. Decoration acts as an armature upon which a truly consistent type can be built and which, as the most repetitive element amongst these buildings, masks their irresolution and inconsistencies. At first glance such buildings may appear to be variations on a fixed set of architectural elements, but on closer inspection it will become clear that their unity is more the result of the constant use of the same decorative devices or the same articulation of different elements. The unity which is peceived is, therefore, an IMAGINARY unity of an incomplete SYMBOLIC order.
2 The Real, The Symbolic and the Imaginary
Since the terms 'Real', 'Symbolic' and 'Imaginary' have been used in conjunction with each other throughout this discussion, it is worthwhile clarifying their relationship to each other.
The 'Real', in the sense in which it is used here corresponds to the dimension of experience. It represents things, events circumstances and all that exists or can be experiences including all works of architecture and the contexts which they represent. Since it includes all possible phenomena, it is, by definition, infinitely diverse and plural.
The 'Symbolic' dimension is the classification of the Real in all its plurality. It is the reorganization of experience in order to unify it around its most essential characteristics. It thereby represents the Real with a distinctive and singular NAME. In this respect, all works of architecture are aspects of this Symbolic order since they unify experience as built form. Since works of architecture are also real, it is clear that the Symbolic is a subset of the Real.
The 'Imaginary' is a classification and a subset of the Symbolic order. However, it does not classify it on the basis of what it IS, but, rather on the basis of what it is NOT. One can see clearly what this means by looking at the decorative activity described previously, which regulated the involutionary and pragmatic types. In both these cases, decoration compensated for what the type was unable to be, namely, a perfectly predictable and perfectly authentic symbol of architectural production. The Imaginary dimension indicates and acts towards the establishment of the Ideal Type.
In this representational hierarchy, the Imaginary opposes the Symbolic with a perfected model of itself and against which it must measure the degree of its own semantic coherence. Unlike the Symbolic order of the type, the Imaginary order of the Ideal Type is not a product of history; it does not go through the stages of evolution, development or involution. It remains a fixed ideal against which architecture at each of the stages of its history must match itself. Needless to say, except for a very short period at the end of the developmental stage when a classical perfection is reached, architectures are always faced with their own inadequacies when matched against the perfections of the Ideal Type. It is for this reason that the pragmatic type is forced to clothe itself in a fictitious unity and why the Involutionary type is forced to disguise itself with fictitious marks of difference. In both cases, these types are the result of what it is possible to do at the time and under existing socioeconomic circumstances. In history, the Symbolic order which is created by the action of the typological process on the diversity of the Real can never be both completely unified AND completely authentic; it can never fully realize the goal proposed for it by the Imaginary Ideal Type. Architecture can only ever approximate to this ideal condition which represents what the typological process would do if it were not constrained by the infinite diversity of the world. Thus no type can conform to this perfect model because 'reality' is always a state of the 'more or less' and the 'almost' and, more fundamentally because it is always a product of its immediate socioeconomic environment. Decorative devices, articulation, inflection, illusion and the many fictive elements which architecture uses represent, not facets of the Imaginary Ideal Type, but empirical attempts to achieve the goals outlined by the idea of that type.
In any discussion of dynamic systems it is simpler for most purposes, although inaccurate, to conceive of them as having goals or intentions to which they are directed in their actions. This teleological conception of systems, however, hides within it the idea that a dynamic system 'knows' what the result of its actions will be, and that this 'knowledge' guides its actions. One cannot assume that a system knows anything or that it has an intention to do anything. Therefore, the 'goal' of the system is not what it 'intends' to do, but, rather is the result of what it does. In this conception, there is no need to posit the idea that the system is future-orientated in its present actions; nor any need to suggest 'final causes' to which it is directed. The abstract 'goal' which the system is assumed to desire is, in fact, endlessly deferred - it is always in the future - and can never be realized in history. Therefore, it is more useful (in some discussions) to consider the goal of the system to be an organizational event rather than an historical one. In this the goal is a projection of the system's organization and function (its constancy), into the future. It is an attempt to name and thus 'close off' the true nature of the system which is that of continuous creation and in doing so to make it comprehensible as a whole. In rounding the system's function off into goals, intentions, purposes or final causes in this manner, it becomes a thing which has a beginning, a middle and an end is therefore made amenable to understanding.
From this point of view, the nature of the Symbolic activity is that of continuous creation and transformation of the Real and, as such, is always incomplete and unfinished. The Imaginary Ideal Type is a projection of this activity into the future, but a future which has a definite end, a completeness and a resolution of all the complexities of the present. The Imaginary poses a question for present Symbolic activity: 'What would this form require to be in order to be perfect?' In asking themselves this question and in assuming that there is such a state as 'perfection', artists bring the Imaginary dimension to bear on real problems and constrain their Symbolic activity accordingly.
It is in this more fundamental sense that one can consider decoration in its many forms to be a 'secondary' system of representation: not because it is 'applied' to buildings nor because it can clearly be distinguished from primary architectural forms, but rather than acts as the means of communication in architectural form. It frames architectural forms with determinative signs which ‘mark up’ their semantic value. It compensates for the inflexibility or the over-flexibility of the architectural language by superimposing, in a figurative and sometimes in a literal sense, the outline of the perfect Imaginary type on to the buildings derived from an actual type. The deficiencies of the latter measured against the perfections of the former designates that area of ambiguity which must be filled with decorative devices and articulation. Thus, the 'amount' and the character of decoration is arrived at by matching the Symbolic to the Imaginary - the actual to the potential - in order to fulfil the ‘quota of meaning’ for each and every type. Both the amount and the character of decoration will vary from type to type depending on the particular socioeconomic organization of the society in which they arise. For instance, one would expect that in plural conditions, decoration would, as suggested be more standardized than it would be in Involutionary periods. Although, during plural states, there will be several different architectural types, each having a different kind of decoration (e.g. Neo-Gothic or neo-Classic) they will be required to use standardized versions of those characteristic devices. This is the only way these evolving types can hold together the continuous mutation of their respective typical sets. The necessity for such decoration and the degree of standardization or variety it exhibits will depend on how near or how far a type is from that relatively short-lived period of classical versatility when it is BOTH unified AND flexible. All this points to the temporary status of any particular kind of decoration, for in the evolution, development and, finally, involution of an architectural type, the kind of decoration used will be required to be different to what it was before; it will be required to perform different representational tasks at each of these historical stages.
When architecture reaches that point of classical perfection, where the connotative and denotative aspects of meaning are dealt with by combinations of its typical set alone (almost), then the Symbolic and the Imaginary dimensions coincide and the determinative function previously supplied by decoration will be integral part of the function of the type itself.
3 The Quota of Meaning
The fantastic world of decoration invented by an Involutionary Type to siphon off the multiple differences and pressures of the real world of production performs a vital representational task. It represents the Involutionary surfacing of that diversity which the Type has extruded from its typical set of elements and combinations. One can perhaps suggest that the variety of this decorative invention corresponds to the actual plurality of many contexts breaking through the rigid behaviour of the Type. The fact that this plurality is so superficially expressive in the Involutionary Type does not mean that this Type is, therefore, 'more representative' than, say the classical Type with its relative sparseness of decoration. On the contrary, this exuberant display expresses the failure of that Type to incorporate flexibility at its very core. The dearth of decoration in a classic Type is a sign of its representational 'health' and flexibility. What needs to be expressed by combinations of this typical set can be expressed without recourse to a plethora of decorative devices and added contextual clues. Each and every necessary difference which must occur in a building is not separately identified and articulated by decoration but is handled with a slight modulation of existing elements. In terms of the typological activity required to express the nature of particular contexts, the classic Type is a much more economical means of representation than its Involutionary counterpart, for it performs many tasks simultaneously.
The term 'Quota of Meaning' can be understood as the difference between the actual and the potential capacity of a Type to represent contexts. In other words, can it both be a unified language able to represent the similarities between different contexts and, simultaneously able to represent the differences between those contexts. Can it be both many and one? On this basis one can analyse an architecture on the basis of how it achieves this quota. What means does it use to represent many different contexts while retaining its integrity as a distinct and unified language? The means it uses, whether as typological flexibility or allegorical substitution depends on the historical stage of the architecture, but in both cases, the result of manipulating primary or secondary mechanisms must be semantic coherence. The buildings which result must be predictable at the level of the context (connotative meaning) and at the level of the language (denotative meaning). The Quota of Meaning refers, therefore, to the capacity of the Type to signify, by whatever means, the existence of these two dimensions of meaning. As suggested above, there are economical ways of doing this (modulation of typical elements) and there are uneconomical ways (determinative signs), but whatever way is used, the resultant form of buildings must express both levels of meaning. If they do not, the buildings will not serve their representational function of producing a comprehensible order to existential space. They will not provide that necessary frame of orientation by which people may organize their activities in society.
Since the choice of the means of expression is determined, not by the individual architect, but by history in the form of plural or integrated conditions and their duration, the use or otherwise of decoration is not a 'moral' issue but a practical one. It may be that in certain historical periods it is the only means of adequately representing the complexity of contexts if the typical set has been reduced to a few architectural EXCLAMATIONS. That is expressions which do not refer to any context in particular. Thus the repression of typological diversity in the contained environment of the integrated state will inevitably lead to an apparent unravelling of the unity of the language into a many-headed creature which must invent a new response for every context. By this means (the only one at its disposal), it may cope, but only just, with the complex needs of its society. This visible disintegration of an architectural Type is the final and pathological attempt to maintain communication with its society by covering its few laconic symbols with a mass of determinative signs. In this way it can still fulfil the quota of meaning required of it and thus register itself as active at the functional base of architecture - as a reliable predictive mechanism - a routine for all seasons. Locked into a time and a socioeconomic condition from which it cannot escape and forced to utilize inarticulate material, architectural activity turns to the weaving of illusions which present an image of wholeness but behind which there lies only the fossilized remains of a once authentic architecture.
4. Type and Decoration as Complementary Events
Decoration arises out of a desire for precision in the meaning of forms. The diversity of form and function which is displaced from the Symbol is materialized in the form of decoration. (One must remember that the functional definition of this ‘Symbol’ is that of the limited set of forms which an architecture has for the representation and communication of social experience. It is not , therefore, an abstract concept since it refers to the expressive power of the vocabulary and grammatical rules available for recombination as buildings in range of contexts). For this reason, decoration is initially varied and fluid in character since its task as a sub-routine is to articulate the sharply-defined elements of the Type; to make them responsive to a variety of circumstances. If decoration begins its life in this plastic and spontaneous state, then clearly it does not remain so for at a later stage in this mythical history of architecture, it must become standardized. It must become a secondary form which can give a semblance of unity to new and overly-flexible architectural types. As with everything else in architecture, it will be subject to typological action which will transform its original spontaneity into the standard formulae of the pattern books. Its recurrent features, for at some level there will be similarities, will be drawn out and condensed into types of decoration which can be repeated in similar determinative circumstances. Once again, as with the primary architectural elements, typological action displaces diversity, but this time out of decoration. This splits it into a routine and a sub-routine for the articulation of architectural form. Almost similar contexts, incidents, junctions and other architectural events can now be identified and named by the economical use of ONE decorative form. Like the typical set, this conventionalized decoration acts as one comprehensive routine for many different incidents between and within buildings. The more radical or unusual forms of decoration which are irreducible to conventions are categorized in the sub-routine as 'special cases' which can be used for unorthodox events requiring very particular determinative signs. it is from this (inevitable) reduction of decoration that the standardized decoration used by pragmatic types is developed. It will be shown later that, in the long life-span of an architecture, this process of standardizing decoration will be compensated for by new waves of decorative invention which maintain its spontaneity vis-a-vis the Type.
It is noticeable that the decorative intention always run counter to the state of the prevailing Type. For instance, when the type has become rigid and over-precise, the decoration is diverse and fluid. When the type is too flexible and responsive to context, decoration is conventional and repetitive. Whatever the situation, decoration must screen the type from conflicts with the exigencies of experience. In a sense, decoration both confirms and denies the type: it confirms it by allowing it to function as a totally comprehensive set of elements, and yet denies its validity by suggesting that it needs supplementary forms in order to function.
One must view the reversal of signs between decoration and type, not as a contradiction, but as a complementary relationship occurring within the one organism. Nor, more fundamentally, must one assume that the typological process has split itself into two separate functions which deal separately with decoration on the one hand, and typical set on the other. The typological process is absolutely singular in its function. It is one distinct, continuous activity which never changes its method of action. It is also 'neutral' relative to the material upon which it acts in the sense that it does not impose diversity OR integration, but always both. On the face of it, since the typological process is so singular in its activity, it would seem more consistent for it to produce a form of decoration which was similar in sign to the typical set. For example, this would mean that a pragmatic type would have fluid decoration and an Involutionary Type would have standardized decoration. This way, there would be one sign for each organism - similarity or diversity. In fact, as it has already been shown, this just would not work architecturally (even if it were possible). It would not allow a building or a type to fulfil its representational role of signifying the unity AND diversity of experience; it would not fulfil its quota of meaning and would be more or less incomprehensible as a representation. One can understand HOW the typological process manages to incorporated two apparently opposing signs within the one organism if one imagines it taking place in real-time.
The type is formed first through the exchange of experience between architects, as the most economical way of producing buildings for a wide variety of different contexts. However, once formed, it no longer simply represents contexts; from an architectural point of view, it is the context. It defines the limits of the material which the typological process is now forced to act on. Further recursive actions of the process are constrained by this material fact. This 'fact' in turn is constrained by external conditions of plurality or integration. Thus the type (of whatever kind) becomes the surface on which the typological process operates. If the typical set is already homogeneous, any attempt to distinguish its internal similarities, will, relative to the Type, only generate differences. Typological action can now only be a COMMENTARY on the set, for it is already what it is. Although it refers to the qualities of the prevailing type, this formal commentary must, of necessity be different to that which it comments upon. (Logically, the typical set cannot comment itself). The same rule applies to action on the pragmatic set. There, however, the commentary may signify what is similar in the set and produced a unified type of decoration. In both cases, typological attempts to unify the type - to name it at another logical level - must result in the name being different from the thing named.
The typical set is simultaneously being transformed by the typological process operating on a much longer time-scale than its decorative commentary. If one compresses these two aspects of the one analytical activity together towards simultaneity as it would actually occur during the design process, then each form would emerge bearing its decorative echo. The not-quite-adequate behavioural routine of the types will come into existance already equipped to stave off any semantic crisis until it has achieved some linguistic balance between unity and diversity in its forms.
Homogeneous typical sets will require heterogeneous decoration.
Heterogeneous typical sets will require homogeneous decoration.
5 An 'Immortal' Architecture
At those periods in its history when architecture gives itself over to the unrestricted powers of the Imaginary, to voluptuous decoration and caprice, it is then that one can see rational thought extinguished by its own success. Having reduced the diverse world of experience to a single pure image of itself (the world and thought mirror each other), it has successfully reduced the symbol of the unity of experience; it has vaporized it. What remains when that frame which bound everything together is essentialized out of existence? All that is left is the decorative commentary which gave the Type a semblance of authenticity. The whole great cycle of an architecture's history ends with this paradox, that in seeking to utterly reduce the representation of variety from 'many' to 'one', it ends by reducing the 'one' to 'many'. At such a point, the buildings of the Involutionary Type are overwhelmed by decoration. Indeed, one can say that they BECOME decoration for their primary elements of wall and column and the relations of distribution of parts of the building either become a simple backdrop to decoration or disappear altogether underneath it. For an architectural historian to discover the canonical elements and relations underneath this encrusted surface of decoration requires the techniques of an archaeologist.
There are many examples of the eventual obliteration of the primary forms of an architecture by its secondary devices; among them one can point to those of the late Roman period (especially its colonial buildings) late Medieval architecture; 13th and 14th century Islamic; 12th to 14th century Hindu; Spanish colonial architecture in Peru and Mexico in the 18th century; Spanish, Southern Italian and Portugese Baroque of the 18th century. The 19th century in Europe produced among its several architectural types, several which approached this degree of decorative expression. The most extravagantly decorative buildings at this period could be found in the architectures of the smaller European countries such as Belgium, Holland and Italy. The reason for this and the reason for the fact that colonial architectures seem to be more highly decorated than those of the imperial country itself lies in the contradictory nature of colonialism as it applies to architecture and other cultural forms. The imperial power introduces into the colony an ideology which must appear to belong to the indigenous population and yet, as an obviously imposed form, will also appear to be distinct from the local culture. Colonial power reveals itself in architecture by resolving the clash of cultures at two different logical levels of the work of architecture; namely at the level of the type and at the level of decoration. Of necessity, colonial administrations will use the most orthodox and essentialized cultural forms of the imperial society in their attempted reduction of indigenous culture, language and social institutions. Only by the strict application of imperial traditions and norms can the colonial authorities ensure what they consider to be a predictable order. However, the impossibility of ever fully digesting the local forms of architecture and, therefore of making it the same as that of all other parts of the empire requires that its character be siphoned off into secondary areas of architectural activity. Thus, colonial architecture evolves using and combining these two different modes of expression; the strictly-applied building and architectural types of the Imperial power and the decorative techniques and craftsmanship of the local culture.
It is only by this means that colonial architecture will have any meaning for the local populations, for the imperial symbols will be covered by determinative signs recognizably derived from local cultural traditions. The more rigid the imposition of alien forms on the local population (e.g., the Jesuit colonies in Latin America), the more reliant will the architecture become on contextual signs. The more different the symbols are to their context, the more they must appear to be the same. The colonial situation, where one society attempts to reduce the difference of another WHOLE society, illustrates the functional necessity of decorative activity perfectly. As an example of displacement of difference and diversity into secondary activity, the colonial architecture is extremely useful for it seems to telescope this Involutionary development into a very short space of time. The imposition of a 'ready-made' and, by definition, arbitrary, architectural symbol on to a productive base will automatically generate compensations for its incongruity. There is no clearer example of this than that of colonial power and its cultural effect.
In other situations it is the chronological continuity of architectural activity on the same characteristic type, which produces the same result, but necessarily over a much longer period of time. The typological process has not become more intense, but has simply applied the same rules of selection and combination to it over and over again, resulting in its transformation into a stereo-type. One need not assume any actual diversification in the organization of the society in order to account for the proliferation of decoration. If, as suggested, decoration represents diversity, it is not 'new' diversity which the Involutionary period then seeks to represent, but is only that which is progressively extruded from the existing architectural Type. Increasing decoration of buildings is a 'sign' of changes taking place in the language of architecture, not in the society which it represents. The typological process over time will filter more and more of the material of architectural production as non-recurrent or random. But, it will only be so relative to the contraction of the flexibility of the typical set. At its more extreme Involutionary state, the typological categories used by the Type will be unrealistically precise; almost nothing will be able to get through the tight net of similarities by which the Type classifies production and which is itself the classification of production. Almost all elements and combinations produced for particular contexts will be distortions relative to that Type; distortions of 'essential truths' which has been condensed previously out of production. At this stereotypical stage, it will be unable to incorporate these necessary adaptations to context as variations of its typical set. It will be forced, therefore, to dump ever greater amounts of 'unclassifiable' material into its sub-routines of decoration, finally extinguishing itself in a welter of decorative effects. In ecological terms, the irreversible process of extraction of diversity out of the typical set in order to produce a highly-refined and precisely calculable architectural material, ends with the extinction of the Type in a cloud of decorative pollution.
No comments:
Post a Comment