Architecture and human purposes

Abstract

The philosophy of architecture, like the philosophy of anything at all, asks and seeks to answer questions of a very general nature. What is architecture? What is its status when compared with the other arts? How do we come to understand architecture per se ? The 1998 Annual Conference of Teachers of History in Schools of Architecture, a collaboration between South Bank University and the University of Westminster, asked: 'Are There Enduring Principles of Architecture?' The papers collected here are developed from that conference, and bear testimony to the range of interest in the theory of architecture as a discipline. The only conference paper not to be published was that given by Roger Scruton, who declined the invitation to be included. (Scruton, commenting on another's paper, in his typically roguish manner surmised there never was a 'Le Corbusier', for no architect could draw so badly. Rather, he supposed, the works attributed to the Swiss modernist were really a hoax perpetrated by some wit, perhaps Evelyn Waugh.) For reasons of space the paper given by Caroline van Eck- 'Enduring principles of architecture in Alberti's On the Art of Architecture '- will appear in the Summer issue of the Journal. Her paper and those included here cover a wide sweep of the work being carried out in the theory of architecture. In my paper that follows, from the perspective of an analytical philosopher, it is argued that understanding architecture requires imaginative experience. But since all experience is particular (or, more technically, is of particulars) how can we reconcile the very general with the uniquely particular? What we need is an understanding of how detailed imaginative experience of architecture, within its history, can be reconciled with a theoretical description of enduring principles that organise such experience.