Seeking a 'Symbolism Comprehensible' to 'the Great Majority of Spectators': William Lethaby's Architecture, Mysticism and Myth and Its Debt to Victorian Mythography

Abstract

A central theme of the writings of the English architect and theorist William Richard Lethaby (1857-1931) is the conviction that architecture must fuse the ideas and strategies of multiple disciplines and world-views, and in particular, those of 'art' and 'science'.' Victorian readings of 'myth' demonstrated that such a fusion of 'art' and 'science' was not only possible, but that it also had distinct advantages. Foremost amongst these was the belief that the language of myth possessed a clarity and efficiency - the ability to speak in multiple ' tongues' and communicate with both 'man' and 'child' - which had been lost in modern language? Suggesting that architecture, 'to excite an interest, [both] real and general', must' possess a symbolism immediately comprehensible [to] the great majority of spectators', Lethaby applied Victorian observations on myth to the invention of a modern architectural language? In Architecture, Mysticism and Myth (1891), Lethaby achieved this by arguing that a modern architecture, like the mythic construct of the 'temple idea', must give representation to both the 'known' - rational observations of the phenomenal world- and the 'imagined' - subjective inventions of the artisan or architect.'