ASPECTS OF THE PROBLEM

Through the eyes of Ruskin, Scruton and El Wakil

Symptoms of the disarray of #architectural #aesthetics, examples of which shall be seen here, are universal and, by many indications, seem to be an outcome of modernity. The opinions of Ruskin, over a century ago, and those of Scruton and El Wakil, both contemporary voices, share a similar repulsion towards the architectural built environment of their time and all three impugn modernity and its attendant mindset. It is interesting to note that since the early nineteenth century up to today, the twenty first century, architecture appears to be suffering the impact of modernity without repose. 

Ruskin’s insight into the problems created by modernization still holds today. His publication, 'Poetry of Architecture' (Ruskin and Phusin, 1855: p.83) stresses the nobility of the science of architecture by referring to it as not being merely a science of the “compass and the rule” but that...

"...it is, or ought to be, a science of feeling more than of rule, a ministry to the mind more than the eye. If we consider how much less the beauty and majesty of a building depend upon its pleasing certain prejudices of the eye, that upon its rousing certain trains of meditation in the mind, it will show in a moment how many intricate questions of feeling are involved in the raising of an edifice; it will convince us of the truth of a proposition, which might at first have appeared startling, that no man can be an architect who is not a metaphysician..."

Ruskin describes aspects of the mendacious characteristics of the buildings of his time as...

"... plaster and stucco … substituted for granite and marble; rods of splashed iron for columns of verd-antique; and the wild struggle after novelty, the fantastic is mistaken for the graceful, the complicated for the imposing, superfluity or ornament for beauty, and its total absence for simplicity… "

Buildings today suffer lack of harmony in function and form and a senseless haphazard copy paste adaptation in design, structure and finishes. To use Ruskin’s words “we have pinnacles without height, windows without light, columns with nothing to sustain, and buttresses with nothing to support.” These descriptions pretty much sum up the status quo of our contemporary architecture.

Scruton is a consistent critic of the modern city. In his article “The Modern Cult of Ugliness” (2009), he blames the “triumph of function over form” as being the main cause of the dehumanization of towns and cities by “drifting away from beauty.” He further sustains that “what we look at, listen to and read affects us in the deepest part of our being. Once we start to celebrate ugliness, then we become ugly, too.” He goes on that the “official uglification of our world,” is due to the “mania for modernization” that is doing away with “beliefs that have stood the test of time for millennia”.

In another article titled “How to change the world” (2013), Scruton describes the modern buildings of Amsterdam;

"...The architecture that litters the roadsides from the airport to the edge of the old city is architecture of nowhere. It does not create a place, a dwelling, a settlement. It lies there by the side of the road as if some giant had dropped it as he strode across the landscape..." 

He suggests that it is a sense of “detachment” that is the root of “loneliness and isolation” of the modern-day city dweller; detachment from obligations and responsibilities to the community. He refers to the works of John Bowlby and Hegel, stating that “humans stand in need of attachment. It is the condition from which responsibility grows – responsibility for oneself, and also for those to whom one is bound in relations of dependence.” Scruton surmises that the “moral development of mankind” is dependent on the satisfaction of the innate human “need for attachment”. He suggests that the solution lies in resisting change, “in the name of what we all secretly want, which is to re-attach ourselves to the community, to the place and for the form of life that is ours.” In his article, “Cities for Living” (2008), Scruton touches on the pedagogical failings of architecture, blaming the modernists for “vandalizing” the curriculum of architecture by ensuring the elimination of the “classical discipline.” He states that;

"... European architecture schools no longer taught how to understand moldings, or how to draw existing monuments, urban streets, the human figure, or such vital aesthetic phenomena as the fall of light on a Corinthian capital or the shade of a campanile on a sloping roof; they no longer taught appreciation for facades, cornices, doorways, or anything else that one could glean from a study of Serlio or Palladio...." 

Contemporary architect and staunch traditionalist, Abdel Wahed El Wakil, blames the loss of traditional values and the deviation from religion for the sad state of the built environment today. He proposes that tradition is the single defense against the current deviation and that the only way forward is to re-establish the essence of religion through the maintenance of the chain of tradition. El Wakil (Hutt, 1984; p. 26) relates the loss of tradition to the loss of identity and maintains that;

"...Change is intrinsic to all living organisms and institutions, but the anchor of change is continually safeguarded by tradition. Without this safeguard, change becomes not part of a cyclic progression but a kind of centrifugal violence that disrupts and fragments the arts, and none more than architecture..."

El-Wakil suggests designing within tradition as the solution, saying that “Only through the re-establishment of our spiritual identity can the dynamic and continuous process of consolidation and reorganization be truly assured” (Hutt, 1984: p. 28).

Having witnessed the effects of the construction boom in the Arab cities of the Middle East, El Wakil, in the Future Arab Cities Summit in Qatar (2012) blamed the spectacular pace of urban development of robbing the Arab city of its physical uniqueness and identity and destroying its cultural and environmental balance. He claimed that it is a deviation and not a development that is “failing economically, socially and environmentally”, and one which has resulted in confusing and disorienting architects practicing in the Arab and Muslim World. El-Wakil sees the Arab city as a sprawling giant adapted more to the scale of the motorway rather than to that of man. He blames the blatant imposition of imported Western-style developments that have proved unable to cope with the specific cultural and environmental requirements of Islamic Societies. He explains that the application of these foreign systems to Arab cities and the unprecedented speed of development did not leave any chance for an evolutionary process, where new technical methods could be tested and adapted in order to respect the laws of the indigenous cultural system. The result is lack of a consistent and meaningful architectural urban setting that has undermined man’s continued interaction with, and attachment to his environment. In an interview (Young, 2012; p. 40) El Wakil said that architecture should be based on the use of archetypes;

“...drawing on traditional architecture and lessons from the past …. a way to guard against the material mindedness, architectural ego or the spurious novelties of commercialization”, and argues for more focus on “spirit and less on pushing materials to their limits...”

Would love to hear your thoughts and comments on this article .... I'm working on the sequel, so stay tuned!