In my haphazard stumble through the world of architects and architecture, I came across Robert Venturi. Whilst not perhaps directly appreciating his work when seen on the page in print (his emergency service building for Disney World in Florida is a Fire Department HQ straight out of a Mickey Mouse cartoon), I do appreciate and agree with his concept of “vernacular” architecture. In simplistic terms it entails taking the building and design trends of a country or locality and using them as an architectural guide.

In his 1972 work “Learning from Las Vegas” he highlighted the common architectural features of neon lights, advertising hoardings and false shop fronts found in LA and advocated them as an alternative to sometimes stilted architectural rationalism.

As can be seen from Mickeys fire-station there is a degree of irony, humour and a powerful sense of appropriateness in his work – all of which appeal to me.

The tying of architecture to the reality of a place, rather than some idealised or fictional notion is what appeals to me. There is a view of how agricultural buildings should be converted to dwellings that is sometimes at odds with my own sensibilities. Rendered walls with stone dressing, gravel drives and varnished window frames present a disneyfied view of the countryside and don’t represent the true beauty and sense of place that I seek. Venturi’s vernacular architecture recognises this and presents an alternative approach.

A Frank Lloyd Wright quotation:

Organic architecture more or less means organic society. An architecture inspired by this ideal cannot acknowledge the laws imposed by aestheticism or mere taste, just as an organic society should reject any external imposition on life that contrast with nature and the character of the man who has found his work and the place where he can be happy and useful in a form of existence suited to him.

In short, architecture should follow the needs of society and the individuals within that society; that any awkward imposition caused by aestheticism or mere taste should be rejected. This struck me as a powerful quote that pretty much sums up my own personal approach to architecture. Whilst architectural styles and movements can entice with their aesthetic beauty, discipline and rigour, my personal needs for an attractive and yet functional environment drive me down a more pragmatic route.

Form follows function…

The functions of a house, setting aside all other ‘romantic cobwebs’ are to provide:

”
1. A shelter against heat, cold, rain, thieves and the inquisitive.
2. A receptacle for sun and light.
3. A certain number of cells appropriated for cooking, work and personal life.
“

Le Corbusier … keeping it simple.

I was recently wandering around the web rooting through building and design related sites and came across a reference to John Ruskin’s Seven Lamps of Architecture intrigued by the title, I decided to do some more digging and came across one of the foundations of architecture over the last 150 years.

I’ve not yet read the book, just some of the reviews and write ups scattered around the web, but it looks like fascinating stuff.

In the book, Ruskin expresses his belief in the nature and role of architecture and its aesthetics in relation to both current and future human existence.

The lamps of the title are the various modes by which architecture produces meaning – various perspectives from which we should seek meaning in the buildings we experience. The lamps can be used to judge and evaluate our buildings.

The seven lamps are:

• Sacrifice,
• Truth,
• Power,
• Beauty,
• Life,
• Memory,
• Obedience…

One of Ruskin’s key charges is that in society (and don’t forget this was written in 1849) our material concerns out-weigh spiritual concerns – the body now tends to supplant the soul in our priorities.

In consideration of material concerns we must include contemplation of technology and the great gains made in this aspect of materiality since the industrial revolution. As such technology can blind us to spiritual concerns in pursuit of the material. We can fail in our spiritual obligations.

I found this particularly attractive and very relevant quote:

“The idea of self-denial for the sake of
posterity, of practising present economy for the sake of
debtors yet unborn, of planting forests that our
descendants may live under their shade, or of raising
cities for future nations to inhabit, never, I suppose,
efficiently takes place among publicly recognized motives
of exertion. Yet these are not the less our duties; nor
is our part fitly sustained upon the earth, unless the
range of our intended and deliberate usefulness include,
not only the companions, but the successors, of our
pilgrimage. God has lent us the earth for our life; it
is a great entail. It belongs as much to those who are
to come after us and whose names are already written in
the book of creation, as to us, and we have no right, by
any thing that we do or neglect, to involve them in
unnecessary penalties, or deprive them of benefits which
it was in our power to bequeath.”

John Ruskin 1849

…Ruskin, a Victorian with green credentials?

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