postcolonial openings architecture

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Toward Postcolonial Openings: Rereading Sir Banister Fletcher's "History of Architecture"Author(s): Glsm Baydar and NalbantoluSource: Assemblage, No. 35 (Apr., 1998), pp. 6-17Published by: The MIT PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3171235 .Accessed: 06/12/2014 23:33

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1. "Tree of Architecture," fron-tispiece of Sir Banister Fletcher,A History of Architecture onthe Comparative Method forthe Student Craftsman, and

Amateur,sixteenth

edition,1954

Giilstim Baydar Nalbantoglu teaches

history and design at Bilkent University,Ankara, Turkey. She is the coeditor ofPostcolonial Space(s) (Princeton Archi-tectural Press, 1997).

Assemblage 35: 6-17 ? 1998 by theMassachusetts Institute of Technology

Guilsuim a y d a r

albantogluTo w a r d Postcolonial

Openings: RereadingSi r Banister Fletcher s

H i s t o r y o Architecture

And this world takes place neither simply inside you nor outsideyou. It passes from inside to outside, from outside to inside yourbeing. In which should be based the very possibility of dwelling.

Luce Irigaray, Elemental Passions'

The twentieth edition of Sir Banister Fletcher's monumen-

tal A History of Architecture n the Comparative Method forthe Student Craftsman, and Amateur appeared n 1996 andmarked the book's one hundredth year of publication. Byall standards, History of Architecture has been a canonical

text that has played a formative role in the history educa-

tion of generations of architects in English-speaking insti-

tutions. There is something uniquely remarkable about

Fletcher's text: unlike other monumental histories (for ex-

ample, those by Fisher von Erlach or James Fergusson)that now lend themselves predominantly to historiographi-cal analysis, it has been continuously "updated" to preserveits

"original"purpose to be one of the most

comprehensivesurveys of world architecture. The preface to the twentieth

edition reads:

The central aim behind this edition reflects and continues cer-tain of the key directions established in the nineteenth edition.The scope has been widened to include more coverage of ar-chitecture from non-European regions and to contain moreinformation about vernacular buildings and engineered struc-tures and works by architect/engineers such as bridges and for-

7

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assemblage 35

tifications. There s also more attention paid, n the part dealingwith the twentieth entury, o urban design.2

More non-European coverage, more vernacular buildings,more engineering structures, and more attention to contem-

porary design: Had it not been for the omission of morewomen architects, the twentieth edition of Fletcher's book

would have been considered most appropriately eformedbased on the concerns of the late twentieth century. Thefinal edition bears testimony to the fact that, at least for aconsiderable fraction of architectural historians, he book'scanonical status survives - not surprising given the com-

prehensiveness achieved by A History of Architecture.3 s Itrace various editorial changes to Fletcher's original text,however, I discover that although the latest edition marks

only a quantitative expansion in geographical coveragecompared to the previous one, the book had seen a numberof significant structural changes prior to that.

Until the fourth edition of 1901, A History of Architecturehad been a relatively modest survey of European styles. Thefourth edition, however, appeared with an important differ-ence: This time the book was divided into two sections, "TheHistorical Styles," which covered all the material rom ear-lier editions, and "The Non-Historical Styles," which in-cluded Indian, Chinese, Japanese, Central American, andSaracenic architecture. Curiously, n the posthumously pub-lished seventeenth edition of 1961, the two parts were re-named "Ancient Architecture and the Western Succession"

and "Architecture n the East," respectively. The nineteenthedition of 1987, on the other hand, consisted of seven partsbased on chronology and geographical ocation. Culturesoutside of Europe included "The Architecture of the Pre-Colonial Cultures outside Europe" and "The Architectureof the Colonial and Post-Colonial Periods outside Europe."

Why the restless change in names? What is so (dis)com-

forting about naming the other? As I work through hese

questions, my initial reaction against Fletcher's original cat-

egorization of"nonhistorical tyles" akes a different urn. AsI discover he text(s), I begin to see that what is at stake hereis not merely the boundary between Western architectureand its outside, but also between architecture and its outside;between architecture and nonarchitecture. The latter ssue

has also been addressed by Karen Burns and others n thecontext of Western architectural thought.4 n "Architecture:That Dangerous Useless Supplement," Burns ocuses on howthe category of building is constituted as "a space continuallyinvoked as outside architecture's wn internal space."5 hesurfaces he tenuous nature of the inside/outside boundary ofarchitecture by thinking architecture as an identity categoryand signification rather han a stable and secure autonomous

entity. I argue that historical constructions of the non-West

figure at the precarious boundary of (Western) architecture's

presumed nside. Moreover, as Fletcher's ext discloses, they

are reminders of the precarious nature of that very boundary.

My questions multiply: What are the mechanisms thatdefine the inside and the outside of architecture and howdo they operate? How are architectural boundaries con-structed and on what basis? These are large questions that

continuously define and redefine Fletcher's, his successors'and my spaces of writing. Architecture, as a fixed category,becomes a burden. I discover how, through Fletcher's andhis successors' work, the boundary between the inner andouter worlds of architecture s carefully maintained for the

purposes of disciplinary regulationand control.

Workingwith and through Fletcher's text, I discover that he knewthe need to construct a seamless boundary o retain the dis-tinct nature of the inner and outer realms of the discipline.

As I trace Fletcher's world history, I recognize instancesthat gesture toward something different than Western

architecture's ired insistence on constituting the norm; theso-called canon. These isolated instances, I shall argue,

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Nalbantoglu

suggest strategies o postcolonial discourses in architecturebased on negotiations of incommensurable differences be-tween architectural cultures - an entirely different endthat is far beyond Fletcher's aims and scope. StephenCairns makes a similar suggestion in his historiographicalanalysis of the Javanese house. Based on the historian Wolff

Schoemaker's denial of architectural status to the Javanesehouse, Cairns points to the possibility of reconceiving anarchitecture of radical difference.' Fletcher's and his suc-

cessors' texts mobilize further questions by the ways they in-

corporate non-Western architectures nto their own textualframeworks: How does the inner/outer binary of architec-tural discourse articulate with the cultural/geographical bi-

nary of West/non-West? How do disciplinary boundaries

negotiate with geographical, cultural, and political ones?

And,as

youwanted words ther han hose

already ttered, wordsnever yet imagined, unique n your ongue, o name you and youalone, you kept on prying me open, further nd further pen.Honing and sharpening our nstrument, ill it was almost mper-ceptible, piercing urther nto my silence.

Irigaray, lemental assions7

Let me work closer with Fletcher. Coined in his fourth edi-tion of A History of Architecture, he term "Non-Historical

Styles" referred o

those other styles Indian, Chinese, Japanese, Central Ameri-can, and Saracenic which remained detached rom WesternArt and exercised ittle direct nfluence on it .... These non-historical tyles can scarcely be as interesting rom an architect'spoint of view as those of Europe, which have progressed ythesuccessive olution of construction roblems, esolutely met andovercome; or n the East decorative chemes seem generally ohave outweighed ll other considerations, nd in this would ap-pear o lie the main essential differences etween Historical ndNon-Historical rchitecture.'

Why, I ask, should "A History of Architecture" nclude

"nonhistorical rchitecture" n the first place? Why would

proper history desire its lack? The frontispiece of Fletcher'sbook depicts a tree that "shows he main growth or evolutionof the various tyles." The "Tree of Architecture" as a verysolid upright runk hat is inscribed with the names of Euro-

pean styles and that branches out to hold various cultural/geo-graphical ocations. The nonhistorical styles, which unlike

others remain undated, are supported by the "Western" runkof the tree with no room to grow beyond the seventh-centurymark. European architecture s the visible support ornonhistorical styles. Nonhistorical styles, grouped ogether,are decorative additions, hey supplement he proper historyof architecture hat is based on the logic of construction.

It seems strange hat Fletcher valorizes and disqualifiesnon-European styles at the same time. "A history of world'sarchitecture would be incomplete," he says, if he did notreview "those other styles." Yet a history of Western archi-

tecture, whichought

to lacknothing

at all initself,

shouldnot require to be supplemented. It seems paradoxical hatthe desire to be comprehensive and complete carries n it-self the destiny of its non-satisfaction. Let me return o thenotion of the supplement, in the sense that Jacques Derrida

exploits the term. According to him, the supplement isboth an addition, an excess, and a substitute that points to alack in the original entity. "Whether t adds or substitutes

itself," contends Derrida, "the supplement is exterior, out-side of the positivity o which it is super-added, alien to that

which, in order to be replaced by it, must be other than

it."'' or Fletcher, nonhistorical styles are at once in excessof the conditions of Western history and point to a lack inthe essentially complete history of Western architecture.When they are added on, architectural history becomesboth better (complete) and worse (impure).

Like all identities, "Western architecture" and "historical

styles" are constructs constituted through the force of exclu-sion. These are terms that produce a constitutive outside as

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assemblage 35

the condition of their existence. The "non" of nonhistorical

styles bears the mark of externality. Their reentry nto the

history of architecture hen, points to their role as supple-ment. "Nonhistorical styles" are signs that are allowed entryto fill up a void. They point to a deficiency in the originaryspace and yet they are alien to that which they replace.

Fletcher's narrative inadvertently omplicates the plenitudethat is constructed by the precarious alliance of the terms"architecture" nd "Western architecture."

Fletcher superimposes the historical/nonhistorical andWest/East dichotomies with another familiar binary catego-rization of the architectural discipline: structure/ornament.He opposes the "successive resolution of constructive prob-lems," which characterized Western architectural history,to the "decorative chemes" of the East, which "outweighedall other considerations." Familiar indeed, for at least sinceAlberti's De re

aedificatoriaornament has been

relegatedan

inferior status n Western architecture. It has been associ-ated with dishonesty, impurity, and excessiveness as op-posed to the essential nature of structure. My argument isthat in Fletcher's discourse, the seemingly cultural basis ofthe East/West categorization represses an ambivalenceabout the definition and limits of the architectural disci-

pline. Fletcher states in an unexpectedly apologetic intro-duction to the nonhistorical styles:

Eastern rt presents many eatures o which Europeans re unac-customed, and which therefore ften strike hem as unpleasing

or bizarre; ut it must be remembered hat use is second nature,and, in considering he many orms which to us verge on thegrotesque e must make allowance or that essential differencebetween East and West.'11

It seems interesting that Fletcher momentarily suspends hisauthorial position in these statements. It is the Europeanswho are unaccustomed to Eastern art, which strikes hem as

unpleasing and bizarre. The potential critical distancingdissolves, however, when he goes on to his analysis of the

nonhistorical styles. He then readily concurs that ornament

is acceptable only when it is subordinate to, or in the ser-

vice of, structure. Overly elaborate decoration, excessive

ornamentation is to be relegated to the grotesque." In a

strikingly vivid account of Saracenic ornament, for ex-

ample, Fletcher explains:

The craftsman who added the typically Saracenic detail had analmost limitless scope in the combination and permutation oflines and curves, which crossed and recrossed and were laid oneover the other, till nothing of the underlying ramework was

recognisable. There was a restlessness, too, in their decorative

style, a striving after excess which is in contrast to the Greek

spirit that recognised perfection in simplicity and was content tolet a fine line tell its own tale. Thus we find everywhere intri-cacy instead of simplicity: there are brackets of such torturedforms as to be constructively useless and of such elaborate deco-ration as to be grotesque.l'

On Jaina architecture:

Sculptured ornament of grotesque and symbolic design, bewil-

dering in its richness, covers the whole structure, leaving littleplain wall surface and differing essentially from European art."1

Then again, on Hindu architecture:

This varies in its three local styles, but all have the small'vimana' or shrine-cell and entrance porch, with the excessive

carving and sculpture ....The grandeur of their [Brahman

temples] imposing mass produces an impression of majesticbeauty, but the effect depends almost wholly on elaboration ofsurface ornament, rather than on abstract beauty of form, in

strong contrast to Greek architecture.14

I am interested in Fletcher's simultaneous fascination and

disdain for non-Western architectures. In his narrative con-

struction, Western architecture is faced with what-it-is-not;non-Western architecture is the symptom of Western ar-

chitecture. I use the term "symptom" as it is explained by

Slavoj Zizek: "If... we conceive the symptom as it was

articulated in the late Lacan - namely, as a particular sig-

nifying formation which confers on the subject its very on-

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NalbantoIlu

tological consistency, enabling it to structure ts basic, con-stitutive relationship towards ouissance - then the entire

relationship [between subject and symptom] is reversed: fthe symptom is dissolved, the subject itself loses the groundunder its feet, disintegrates."'' What is important or mehere is the dimension of enjoyment (jouissance) n the

symptom. And indeed, Fletcher exposes a momentaryenjoyment in such expressions as the "bewildering rich-

ness" of Jaina architecture and the "majestic beauty" of theBrahman temples. He cannot recover full pleasure fromthese as that would mean to admit the loss of Westernarchitecture's elf-identification. Hence he reverts o otherterms that complicate his argument in interesting ways.

"Excessive" nd "grotesque" re terms that appear again and

again in Fletcher's analysis o indicate undesirable exaggera-tion. He is equally excited and disturbed at the sight of thelines and curves n Saracenic decoration hat cross and re-cross till the underlying ramework s totally written over.

Structure, what gives life to Fletcher's history, s devoured byornament. The visible boundary hat separates tructure romornament has disappeared nd has given rise to the unaccept-able, the grotesque.1" letcher's eyes are troubled since theycannot peel off the ornament o reveal what is behind. Whatcauses his unease, I would argue, is not the reversion of thestructure/ornament pair whereby, n his non-Western x-

amples, the second takes he dominant role: it is the insep-arability of the two. Mikhail Bakhtin suggests hat in the

grotesque, displeasures caused

bythe

impossibleand im-

probable nature of the image.'" n architecture, he negationof structure s unimaginable. Yet in the grotesque magery,the architectural bject, defined by structure, ransgresses tsown confines, ceases to be itself. The demarcation betweenstructure and ornament s dissolved. Reason s threatened.

Beauty becomes unacceptable when it cannot be ordered byreason. Bakhtin's point, however, s that there is a productiveambivalence n the grotesque and hence it cannot be seen

TABLE

OF THE

COMPARATIVE SYSTEMFOR EACH STYLE

1. Influences.I. GEOGRAPHICAL.

II. GEOLOGICAL.III. CLIMATIC.

IV. RELIGIOUS.

v. SOCIAL.vI. HISTORICAL.

2. Architectural haracter.

3. Examples.

4. Comparative nalysis.A. Plans, or general rrangement f buildings.B. Walls, heir construction nd treatment.c. Openings, heir character nd shape.D. Roofs, heir treatment nd development.E. Columns, heir position, tructure, nd decoration.F. Mouldings, heir form and decoration.

G. Ornament, s applied n general o any building.

5. Reference Books.

2. "Comparative ystem for each style"

merely as a negation. In the grotesque, he maintains, he lifeof one is born from the death of another: "The grotesquebody . .. is a body in the act of becoming. It is never fin-

ished, never completed; t is continually built, created, andbuilds and creates another body."'8 s it possible, then, thatnonhistorical styles create possibilities of another architec-

ture/architectural history hat glares at us from the cracksthat Fletcher inadvertently xposes n his own analysis?

On the relation between architectural exts and buildings,Mark Wigley argues that "the role of the text is to providethe rules with which the building can be controlled, regula-tions which define the place of every part and control everysurface."'' So far, I have focused on aspects of Fletcher'stext that surface a desire that exceeds the bounds of regula-

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assemblage 35

tion and control. As I read it, his discourse is caught up inthe tension between the desire for pleasure and the demandto control for self-preservation. he latter appears n very ex-

plicit terms. Fletcher's ext is structured by what he calls a

"comparative ystem for each style." This is an astoundinglycomprehensive system that controls and regulates every sec-

tion in the book. What I find interesting s how Fletcherexposes the disciplinary power of his system:

In considering he many orms which to us verge on the gro-tesque we must make allowance or that essential difference e-tween East and West which s further ccentuated n purelyEastern rchitecture y those religious bservances nd socialcustoms of which, in accordance with our usual method, we shalltake due cognizance.2"0

Fletcher recognizes that what appears "unpleasing or bi-

zarre" o European eyes can be made comprehensible by a

particular method of analysis. The self-consciously dis-

tanced grip of Fletcher's method tames the nonhistoricalstyles by submitting them to the same framework of archi-tectural analysis as the Western ones. Not only East andWest but also Indian and Chinese and Renaissance andmodern turn into conveniently commensurable and hence

comparable categories. Fletcher's text is clearly marked bythe nineteenth-century nterest in the non-West, which

carries he double burden of curiosity and control.2" His

totalizing history, however, bears the mark of its own impos-

sibility; his gaze witnesses its own historiographical iolence

prior to his appropriation f the non-West into his com-

parative method.2 What I am interested n here is not thecriticism of Fletcher's method per se, but his momentary

recognition of how his framework iolates difference; howthe writing of history makes history.

Could t be that what you have s just he frame, not the property?Not a bond with he earth but merely his fence that you set up,implant wherever ou can? You mark ut boundaries, raw ines,

surround, nclose. Excising, utting out. What s your ear? Thatyou might ose your property. What remains s an empty rame.You cling to it, dead.

Irigaray, Elemental Passions2

In 1961 R. A. Cordingley, who revised Fletcher's book forits seventeenth edition, made a fundamental change in the

outline of the book by, as noted above, renaming the twomain sections "Ancient Architecture and the Western Suc-cession" and "Architecture n the East." The scandal of

nonhistoricity s erased. East and West are turned into

seemingly neutral geographical categories. Cordingley ex-

plains: "The former general heading [The Non-Historical

Styles] or Part I was anomalous; he architectures f theEast are just as historical s those of the West."'24 etwhatseems o be the most obviously roper tatement rom a his-torian unexpectedly iolates he hidden ambivalence fFletcher's remises. n revising he book, Cordingley om-

pletely rewrote he introduction o the second part andturned t into a brief historical ccount of the geography fEastern tyles.All references o the grotesque, o the exces-siveness f ornamentation, o impropriety, o the unaccus-tomed Europeans, nd the qualifications f unpleasing ndbizarre re erased. would argue hat n trying o eliminateFletcher's eemingly egative qualifications or the East,Cordingley rased ll traces f potentially ritical openingsin the earlier ersion.

The two succeeding ditions ntroduced urther hanges.

In 1975 James Palmes liminated ll broad lassificationsand provided straight un of forty hapters.2 Followingthe first hapter n Egyptian rchitecture, ight chapterscover all the non-Western ections. The "pure" ontinuityof Western styles from ancient Greece to the twentieth

century is preserved. Non-Western sections are almost rel-

egated a "pre-Western" tatus. Yet his is not the result of a

chronological ogic to the outline, since, for example, hesection on India and Pakistan tretches o the eighteenth

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NalbantoIlu

century. Palmes gives no explanations or his changes how-

ever, and the format was again changed in 1984, when John

Musgrove published the nineteenth edition of the book.26

Musgrove's sections are strictly chronological. Three of theseven parts cover non-Western architectures: parts hree,four, and seven, entitled, respectively, "The Architecture of

Islam and Early Russia," "The Architecture of the Pre-Colo-nial Cultures outside Europe," and "The Architecture ofthe Colonial and Post-Colonial Periods outside Europe."2For the first time, "The Architecture of the Twentieth

Century" covers Africa, China, Japan, and South andSouth-East Asia together with Western Europe.

Both Palmes's and Musgrove's evisions of A History of Ar-chitecture consolidate Cordingley's response to Fletcher's

classification.28 All attempts o rename Fletcher's historical/nonhistorical categories n the later editions of his book are

attemptso overcome a fundamental

difficultyhat Fletcher

had discovered and had quickly covered over. The seem-

ingly innocent categories of West/East (geographical) and

precolonial/postcolonial chronological) do not disclose the

ambiguities nherent in the loaded terms historical andnonhistorical. Cordingley, Palmes, and Musgrove normalizewhat Fletcher had found problematic but had failed to

problematize. Their premises are based on cultural diversityrather han cultural difference. Cultural diversity, accordingto Homi Bhabha, is a category of comparative thics and aes-thetics that emphasizes liberal notions of multiculturalismand cultural

exchange.Cultural

difference,on

the otherhand, "focuses on the problem of the ambivalence of cul-tural authority: he attempt to dominate in the name of acultural supremacy which is itself produced only in themoment of differentiation."29 ordingley, Palmes, and

Musgrove consolidate Fletcher's framework, which, to be

sure, is also predominantly based on cultural diversity butoffers momentary possibilities o think cultural difference.The underlying premise in all four versions of the text is that

cultures can be aligned on the same plane of reference;

compared and contrasted by the tools of the historian. Thismulticulturalist approach comes from well-intentioned posi-tions against prejudice and stereotype. t covers over, how-ever, issues of incommensurable difference and problems of

representation hat prevail at every cultural encounter.

Fletcher's ext is multilayered nd complex. At first sight, it

displays arrogant olonialism by naming non-Western rchi-tectural cultures "nonhistorical." his is the level by which hissuccessors engage with Fletcher, o correct his prejudicedapproach. At another evel, by including non-Westernarchitectures n his "comparative pproach" e adopts amulticulturalist perspective, with all its inherent problems.This is the level where his successors ollaborate with him.

They expand on Fletcher's ext and make additions based onlatest archaeological nd historical findings, but do not chal-

lengehis

comparativeramework.

arguehat there remains

another way of engaging with Fletcher's ext, capturing hebrief moment that makes t possible o think cultural/architec-tural difference. letcher offers his moment when he displayshis unease with his own approach; when he shows both fasci-nation and disdain or the nonhistorical styles; when he speaksambivalently f the excess, the grotesque, he bizarre. The firstand second historiographical nstances, of arrogant enial andtamed equality, violate difference: he first n a blatantly bvi-ous way; he second with the best liberal ntentions. The com-

plicity between these two seemingly very different approaches

cannot be overlooked, however. This is made strikingly bvi-ous in the library opy of Fletcher's ixteenth edition that Ihave been working on, not by Fletcher, but by an imprudentprevious reader. As a mark of apparent mpatience with the de-

rogatory mplications of the term "nonhistorical styles," bluemark has crossed out the term "non" rom the title of the sec-ond section - a crude replication, ne might say, of what

Cordingley and his successors had done in a scholarly man-ner. But here violence takes a further step. I was astonished o

13



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assemblage 35

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3. Anonymous reader's marks

see the same blue mark ppearing n the facing page, on topof the map of India, his ime crossing ut the word "Tibet" o

replace t with "China." he page tares t me as a marker f a

continuing uestion f inclusions nd exclusions, epresenta-tion and naming. talso reminds me of the importance fDerrida's roposal hat he problem s not to show he interior-

ity of what had been believed s the exterior, ut rather to

speculate pon he power fexteriority s constitutive finteriority."3

An opening fopenness. nencounter fcountries ndofclear-ings aying utan other, thers, hich reate ir, ight, ime.There salwaysmore lace,more laces, nless hey re mmedi-ately ppropriated.

Irigaray, Elemental Passions"3

As the title of my article uggests, nd as I have mpliedthroughout my analysis, certain reading f Fletcher's extsurfaces strategies o postcolonial iscourse y way of rec-

ognizing he impossibility f containing he other n one'sown terms of reference. Fletcher gestures oward dis-course hat nvolves he staging f his positionality nd

that marks iscontinuities among knowledges. He gesturestoward uestions bout he validity f taking Western his-

tory as the necessary orm and the measure f architec-tural udgment. want o emphasize, owever, hat myreading f Fletcher has been intentionally artial. have

only ooked at one aspect of the work hat, I think, hascritical ignificance n cultural epresentations n architec-ture. I have not, for example, dealt with Fletcher's re-mises based on assumptions f an autonomous, ormal,linear, and progressive istory f Western rchitecture.Then again, my analysis s based on a particular eading f

the term "architecture," ot as an a priori nd self-evidentcategory ut as a signification.32 Only then could I beginto question he underlying laims hat have supportedarchitecture's elf-proclaimed utonomy its presumed"inside." letcher's urvey oes not, in any way, providethe paradigm or Western istoriography's reatment fnon-Western rchitectures. o work an take on such a

charge. t does, however, ontain a number of threads hatcan be productively oven nto arger ssues hat address

postcoloniality. et me retrace hese points with referenceto Fletcher nd from a broader erspective.

At one level, Fletcher's extcontains races f awareness fits own textuality. t shows hat only a particular ethod-

ological igor f thought, textual ramework, an containhis version f a history fworld rchitecture; ut only at acost of interpretive iolence. This framework s a representa-tional ool that consolidates ll reference nd meaning none's in this case, nineteenth-century estern istoriog-raphy's) wn terms; t refuses o recognize he irreducibility

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of the other to the terms of the self. Cordingley, Palmes, and

Musgrove do exactly this by erasing all traces of ambivalencefrom the earlier ext. They subject an entire world history ofarchitecture nto a singular machinery hat eventually re-duces all difference to chronology and geography. n his

analysis of non-Western architectures, Fletcher introduces

his readers o such terms as nonhistorical and grotesque,which disturb he logos of his text. He exposes what exceedsand cannot be contained by his framework. He uses termsthat are impossible o assimilate n his logic but that are nec-

essary or it to function. Non-Western architectures xert an

unsettling force on the apparent laims and concerns ofFletcher's enterprise. n doing so, they enable him to surface

enjoyment and desire; elements customarily uppressed bydisciplinary egulations and control. Furthermore, Fletcher

straightforwardly eclares his subject position - as a West-erner and as a scholar - in naming non-Western architec-

tural cultures. Awareness s a necessary but not sufficientcondition of critique, however. As Gayatri Spivak argues, "if

you make it your task not only to learn what is going on there

[outside the Western centers] through anguage, through spe-cific programs f study, but also at the same time through ahistorical critique of your position as the investigating person,then you will see that you have earned the right to criticize,and you will be heard."" The question here is not, who isentitled to write about what? The issue of cultural represen-tation cannot simply be reduced to that of Western or non-Western scholars writing heir own history. Ethical positions

of enunciation are irreducible o nationality, thnicity, orrace. Yet representing thers, speaking n the name of others,is a problem, and as Spivak reminds us, "it has to be keptalive as a problem."14 What I find interesting n Fletcher isthat he "points o" the problem in explicit ways.

Lastly, on categorization: Is it at all possible to speak of thenon-West as a category as opposed to the West? Is it pos-sible to speak of a postcolonial experience, approach,

theory? And, then again, is it possible to speak of an insideand an outside to architecture? Or do these categories con-sist of historically constituted relational terms made in and

through language? My reading of the story of Fletcher'sbook attempts to understand how the category of the non-West is produced and restrained by a particular hread in

Western historiography. The same category operates in verydifferent ways in other historiographical pproaches or, say,regionalist discourses. Similarly, the (post)colonial experi-ences of Africa, Asia, and South and Central America havenot held the same position in relation to any given center.35And architecture has not had a clearly demarcated nsideand outside. I am not making the impossible suggestion of

simply ignoring these categories and binary constructs. Theboundaries that demarcate them, however, "are muchmore porous and less fixed and rigid than is commonly un-

derstood, and one side of the border is always already n-

fected by the other. Binarized categories offer possibilitiesof reconnections and realignment in different systems."''6The task, then, is to work with these possibilities towardthose positive moments that disrupt the categorical bound-aries imposed on other cultures, to listen and attend towhat is silenced by and expelled from them.

Working through various editions of A History of Architec-

ture, my premise has been that writing postcoloniality inarchitecture does not merely entail an engagement with

previously colonized cultures; t is but one of the many

practicesthat make it

possibleto

engagewith the bound-

aries that guard architecture's cultural and disciplinary pre-suppositions; boundaries that remain intact through certain

exclusionary practices that remain unquestioned once theinstitutional structure of the discipline is established. Writ-

ing postcoloniality in architecture questions architecture'sintolerance to difference, to the unthought, to its outside.For it embraces the premise that "when the other speaks, tis in other terms."'

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(post)colonial architecture of thenon-Western world. In the related

chapter, it refers specifically toLatin America after Spanish and

Portuguese rule.

28. At some level, all three authors'

changes to Fletcher's text can berelated to the post-1950s historio-

graphical commitments of relatingarchitecture to larger societal phe-nomena; reactions against the ex-clusion of anonymous urban andrural environments from architec-tural history; and the emergingdisappointment with modern West-ern architecture. As Dell Uptonhas informed me, for example,Cordingley was a leading figure instudies on English vernacular archi-tecture. The analysis of the precisenature of these links falls beyondthe scope of the present essay.

29. Homi Bhabha, "The Commit-ment to Theory," in The Location ofCulture (London: Routledge, 1994),34.

30. Derrida, Of Grammatology,313.

31. Irigaray, Elemental Passions, 59.

32. Again, see Burns, "Architecture:That Dan"gertous seless Supple-ment."

33. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak,"Questions of Multi-culturalism,"interview with Sneja Gunev, in ThePost-Colonial Critic, ed. Sarah

Harasym New York: Routledge,1990), 62.

34. Ibid., 63.

35. Some of the problems with theuse of "postcolonial" are addressedin Ella Shohat, "Notes on the Post-Colonial," Social Text 10 (1992):99-113. Shohat questions theahistorical and universalizingdeployments of the term and its

problematic spatiotemporal desig-

nations, stating that "the conceptof the 'post-colonial' must be in-

terrogated and contextualized

historically, geopolitically, and

culturally.... Flexible yet critical

usage which can address he poli-tics of location is important not

only for pointing out historical and

geographical contradictions anddifferences but also for reaffirminghistorical and geographical inks,structural nalogies, and openingsfor agency and resistance." findmuch of her criticism very perti-nent to architectural tudies.

36. Elizabeth Grosz, "Architec-ture from the Outside," in Any-place, ed. Cynthia C. Davidson

(Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT

Press, 1995), 19.

37. Jennifer Bloomer, "D'or," n

Sexuality and Space, 168.

Figure Credits1-3. Sir Banister Fletcher, A His-

tory of Architecture n the Com-parative Method for the StudentCraftsman, and Amateur, 16th ed.

(London: B. T. Batsford Ltd.,1954).

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postcolonial openings architecture

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