William Lethaby, Symbolism and the Occult by Amandeep Kaur Mann

Abstract

Reviewed by: William Lethaby, Symbolism and the Occult by Amandeep Kaur Mann Zachary R. Schwarze amandeep kaur mann. William Lethaby, Symbolism and the Occult. London and New York: Routledge, 2022. Pp. 264. In William Lethaby, Symbolism and the Occult, Amandeep Kaur Mann identifies and analyzes occult influences upon the work of British architect William Lethaby (1857–1931). More precisely, Mann is interested in visual symbols of occult origin which populate Lethaby's oeuvre and, according to the architect, communicate profound truths about the cosmos. Among her goals is to show that these influences are not irrational or otherwise foolish quirks of the architect's mind, but rather constitute proof that Lethaby, along with a number of other architects and artists from fin de siècle Europe, worked within a sphere of profound occult influence. That is to say, occult symbols do not decorate Lethaby's drawings and realized structures, but instead inform at the most fundamental level what an architectural space is meant to do, i.e., affect spiritual transformation within a person inhabiting [End Page 472] that space. In crafting her methodological approach, Mann mirrors Lethaby's semiotic/allegorical mode of selecting symbols: if Lethaby selected symbols based on intrinsic, occult meanings or properties, then Mann's task is to identify those meanings and properties to understand the functions of individual compositions and structures. The book is divided into three parts. The first, titled "Lethaby, Occultism and Symbolism," situates Lethaby within the occultist milieu of fin de siècle Europe, particularly that of Victorian Britain. Here, Mann identifies the Theosophical Society, the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, and Éliphas Lévi as ideological influences. Lévi appears to be particularly significant, as the author inserts a scanned page of one of Lethaby's notebooks where he draws one of Lévi's magic squares and writes iterations of the word "abracadabra" (20). This section also lays out theoretical frameworks used by the author to interpret Lethaby's use of symbols. These include: semiotic theory, with particular attention to Carl Jung and Charles Sanders Pierce; a theory of magical symbols concerned not only with semiotic meaning, but also with tangible outcomes associated with the reproduction of certain symbols; and finally Victorian psychological associationism, as represented by John Ruskin and Wilhelm Worringer, which is concerned with a universal set of symbols and colors that evoke particular responses and may be learned and manipulated (26–33). The second and longest part of the book, titled "Elements of the Occult in Lethaby's Work," deals with identifying particular symbols which appear in Lethaby's oeuvre and tracing their meanings back to sources either encountered by or available to the architect. Mann separates symbols into two categories, alchemical and occult magical. Lethaby's use of alchemical symbols is predicated on the principle that people should not be passive observers of architectural space, but rather participate in it. His alchemical preoccupation is correspondingly concerned with journey and transformation. As an example, the author adduces references to the journey and transformation of the character Poliphilo in the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili—which Lethaby read (45)—as a direct inspiration for the frontispiece he designed for the 1889 Architectural Association Sketchbook (59). The other category of symbols, the occult magical, communicates more general "esoteric" meanings (91). The author draws examples of symbols of this category from Lethaby's drawing A Beryl Shrine (1888). Here, Mann interprets the serpent, a principal symbol in the composition, to represent "man's lower, material nature," (101) as evidenced by direct influence from Dante Gabriel Rosetti's poem Rose Mary (1871–1881). The final part of the book, titled "The Occult and Lethaby's Legacy," uses William Lethaby's work to argue for occult ideas, themselves dating back to [End Page 473] at least Europe's medieval period, as fundamental to the history of modern architecture. Here, the author capitalizes on the breadth of examples to show that Lethaby, like other artists and architects of his time, did not develop occultist ideologies in a vacuum, but rather in direct connection to his sociocultural surround. Mann shows how Lethaby, as a predecessor to architects, artists, and designers of the mid-twentieth century, exerted influence...