14 - SACRED GAMES: The urn and the chamberpot

Abstract

Loos and Wittgenstein make a distinction between architecture as art and as building, and thereby point to what they hold to be a division as sharp as that between the sacred and the profane. It has been said that “What Kraus, Loos, and Wittgenstein have in common is their endeavor to separate and divide correctly.” What concerned them all was the question of normality, a normality that presides over discrete categories of experience and fiercely rejects any spillage across frontiers. Every student is familiar with the assumption made by Vitruvius that firmitas, utilitas, and venustas come together as if grown from the same root. The key to every one of the architectures of the past that inspire us lies in the varied balance of forces achieved in bringing the three competing elements into resolution; the agent of that resolution is a missing fourth element.