Sunday, March 7, 2010

Roger Scruton on architecture: a few notes

Something in Roger Scruton's "The Aesthetics of Architecture" (1979) recalls George Steiner's 1978 "On Difficulty".

But first the imagination.  Scruton pg79 confidently asserts that in the selfless experience of the dog, all that we find is perception but not imagination.  Scruton simply may not have met very many intelligent dogs, such as those who know how to play "find the toy".  But perhaps in 1977-1978 it was still possible to imagine that animals have perception without the self: this we now think is not true of some dolphins, elephants and most primates.  A cat momentarily startled by her reflection in a large familiar mirrored wall should be enough to give us pause.  More decisive should be the crow which solves the problem before it in a single try.  Perhaps Scruton would have us believe that the crow simple "sees" the solution.

Scruton's views in A of A are entirely parasitic upon his earlier "Art and Imagination" (1974.)  For the moment, let's consider this quote from A of A:
Aesthetic pleasure is not immediate in the manner of the pleasures of the senses, but is dependent upon, and affected by, processes of thought.
You might think that Scruton is making a philosophical point, but in truth his point is rhetorical: it follows immediately upon his one brief consideration of Frank Lloyd Wright and the sensuous surfaces of one building.  If you consider that buildings with wood, metal and glass surfaces of distinctive texture, colour and reflective properties were visible in architecture prior to 1979 ( arguably the most impressive are more recent ) you can detect the attack on the modern and its desacration of public spaces in London.  There is no mention of the notable success of Wright's Tokyo Hotel surviving the great earthquake.

Scruton neglects to mention that appreciation of a great many buildings has changed since one hundred years or more of soot and grime has been removed or the role of colour on the surfaces of much of the buildings of antiquity.  He ignores the effect of the first concertos to begin with a chord on the solo instrument rather than a gracious introduction by the orchestra or music not the less aesthetically successful in all regards despite being music for a single occasion.

But what is even more obvious is the lack of consideration of the ugly in the architecture that matters so mcuh to so many: public housing.  Both "grotesque" and "ugly" are missing from the index.

Scruton devotes time to psychoanalysis (1979 ? ) leaving you to wonder who he is addressing, and where he has been.  Kleinian thought?

What is missing is literature.  he is not alone: when Hugo Friedrich opens on poetics, he mentions all of the arts except dance and architecture.  But the problematic structure of the novel is what comes closest to the problematic of architecture - and even the problem of the mere "facade".  The analog to architecture is the setting of narrative and the presence and development of characters - he is right to think that sculpture has little to teach in the aesthetics of architecture.

Music that interests you little can be allowed to continue on the edge of awareness.  But try to keep an interest in dance, a play or a novel which does not appeal to you.  Only a poem of no interest is more difficult.

There is a prospect to put Scruton to the test with the internet and 3-D virtual worlds: we will soon be able to experiment on which virtual buildings in which arrangements most appeal to intelligent participants in elaborate and clever pursuits.  One thing of which I am certain will be the importance of colour and texture and reflectivity.

My favourite building here in Minneapolis is the new Federal Reserve building at the foot of the Hennepin Bridge and near the Federal Post Office.  The Reserve has its counter-part some blocks away in the new Federal Courthouse (a less successful building but on a more restricted site) and no doubt one or the other is missed by some visitors (link: the old reserve building abandoned due to asbestos issues.)

To appreciate the Reserve building it is important to be on foot and to return to see it in the evening (electric architectural lighting.)  In the case of the Courthouse, the landscape architecture is essential (utterly neglected by Scruton.)

No doubt when Charles* becomes King we will see Scruton knighted for his service to the educated sensibility and to good taste, but until then we can continue to enjoy building and hope for better.

In the case of architecture, failures are very important, as they are in science.  The World Trade Center's architect did the new building so of my alma mater - one result was thick winter dust in the air of the enclosed passageway in front of the entrance to the library: he did not understand the challenges of the Saskatchewan winter and the use of sand on icy walkways.  The buildings leaked hopelessly, the fountains all cracked and the library was missing a mezzanine for an error in calculating the weigh of books.  I could go on.  Seem from across the man-made lake, the library was a lovely site at night.  To work in, it was less a failure than the appallingly ugly cement MacLennan Library of McGill University (with its appalling lighting and worse - recycled city air)  or the monstrosity that is the Robarts Library of U of Toronto (they thought the stacks would be closed.)  Yet a simple red brick library can be a great success and a pleasure to most any visitor if certain features are attended to in the design - features ignored by Scruton but emphasized by those he denigrates.

Buildings which succeed find their success in aspects far more diverse than Scruton imagines - and those that fail do so for reasons far more obvious in some cases, and for causes and reasons often rather obscure and difficult in others.  The aesthetics of the ugly, mindless, stupid and grotesque are essential if we are to understand the sheer folly of committee selections and their total misreading of the models and presentations upon which they have -in part - formed their judgments.

Had Scruton given slightly more attention to the challenges facing the phenomenology of the literary work of art, he might have been less hasty in his assessment of what can be learned from careful relfection upon our experience, its context, horizon, expectations and preconditions regardless of his highly personal biases.

[note: I have become acquainted with a pair of Scotch terriers, Oscar and Duke - the one white, the other black - the former barks readily and the latter is extremely shy - but barks at cartoon animals on television and persons imitating animals in his presence (the other is unperturbed by these.)
If we one day establish that animals using signs have invented a novel combination for an unfamiliar experience, perhaps this division of image and percept can be extended to animals or dropped as inadequate.]
[note: I have become acquainted with a poodle-bichon mix named Clarence who puts his toys "to bed" somewhere at night - even in a strange house - but will whine inconsolably if he misplaces one particular one of those toys - or sometimes - but only sometimes - if he finds it lying in plain view during the day.  He sits at the top of the stairs staring at the door when his master has left him too long at our home - but I am sure he does not imagine her coming through that door - although the arrival of any car in the drive does seem to stir some belief in something on his part - and his many disappointments are surely imagined by us alone.]

* The key to the book may be Phyllis Lambert and her institute: a Seagram archive photo is on the dust jacket and the Seagram building finds a place in one of the photo plates #85, pg 226

There is a mention of Roman Ingarden in a note, pg 276, dismissive of the notion that there might be something like a phenomenological method - surprising in 1979 years after Spiegelberg's two volumes.
Mikel Dufrenne's book is disparged but said to be "clear" but Scruton does not say what it is clear about.
The influence of perceptions of Japan on home and villa design in North America and elsewhere finds no mention.

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