program vs paradigm (colin rowe)

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Program vs.Paradigm

Colin Rowe

T ho se w ho re fu se to go beyond facts rarely gel as

I ar as I a c r. . .almost every great d is cove ry bas been

m ad e b y ' th e an tic ipa tio n o r n atu re '. th at is b y th e

i nv en ti on o f h yp ot he se s wh ic h. t ho ug h v er if ia bl e,

o fte n h ad lillie fo un daiio n to slat! with

Thom as H enry H uxley

Facts. then, com e to be Iike figures in hiero-

g ly ph ic w rit in g . .. . Th er e th ey a re . h ol di ng u p th eir

clean profiles to us so osrcnratiously; but thai

v er y a pp ea ra nc e o f c la ri ty i s t he re f or p re se nti ng

LIS w ith an enigm a. of producing in LIS n o t c la ri ty

b ut c on fu si on . T he h ie ro gl yp hi c fi gu re s ay s 10 us.

"You s ec me c le ar ly ? Goud-cnow w hat you see of

ITIL 'is n ot m y true being. I all) here to w arn youthat J am not m y e seruial reality, M y reality, m y

m ean in g, lies b eh in d m e a nd is h id den by me , a nd

thi: m eans that in order to arrive at the true and

inw ard m eaning of this hieroglyph, you mUSI

search for som ething very different from the

a sp ec t w h ic h i ts f ig ur es o ff er ."

Jose O nega Y G asser

Facts, then, are like sacks. T hey w on't sta nd up

until you put som ething in them .

Luigi Pirandcllo

What follow s concerns t~e status, the virtues and.Ihe di ~biJilies

of two prevalent and rival proposals as to the corr cr means

o f a rch itec tu ra l a nd urbanist i c p r ob le m s ol vin g, I n other w ords. w hat

follow s is concerned w it h the exa m in ar io n of two men ta l o r ie n ta ti o ns

of the present day which are often presented as m utually exclusive.

One of these is the w idespread presumption that an act o f a n al y si s

w ill automatically result in an act of synthesis: and the other is no

m ore than the inversion of this point of view-the presumption that

a s yn th et ic s ta te m en t. of its nature, m ust be invariably preceded bya n in te ns iv e a na ly ti ca l activity,

S o , e vi de nt ly . Ifind both these positions to be, if not false, at

least inadequate. and it is for this reason that I have entitled this

fairly brief collection of note Program I'S. Paradigm.

A program is defined by the O xford Dictionary in relation to

theater, concert, prospectus, yllabus; and then, w ith a date of 1837.

there is a further definition. A program is "A definite plan or schem e

of any Intended proceedings: an outline or abstract of som ething to

be done": and it is in this sense that the w ord progra/11 h a s p e ne tr a te d

th e 11 rc h iteet u ra I v oca b u lary,

Then, as to paradigm w hich the Oxford Dictionary, w ith a date

of 1483. defines as " a p att er n, exemplar, exam ple." In this case

Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scienti fic Revolutions m ay. for

present purposes, give a m ore useful specification. For, according to

Kuhn, paradigms are: " niversally re co gn ize d s cie ntific a ch iev e-

ments that ror·a tim e provide model problems and solutions to a

community of practitioners."! Thus, on the one hand, there is the

presupposition that a docum ent entitled the program i s t he l eg it im a te

a n d n e ut ra l. /On s et origo of all acts of synthesis: and the proponents

of this belief arc both very excited and very certain about it. To

quote:

T h e, C h a ll e ng e . for- Process, the Progra m : The practice of

design has increased in com plexity. Im errela tionships and

constraints previously unrecognized or considered less

important demand increased attention. No single disci-

p lin e, J et a lo ne i nd iv id ua l. car l h op e to s uffic ie ntly ad dre ss

the multifaceted problems of building. N ew disciplinesspring Into existence creating new bodies of know ledge; the

number f specialists increases. ow ners, users and consum -

ers become more aware of potential solutions and conse-

quently look for cornpre hensivc design services. A s a result.

the organizations and operations of the professions creating

and m aintaining the built environm ent are rapidly chang-

ing. integrated learn design, project rnanagernent tech-

niq ucs and m anagem ent opera ti ons concepts, for i nsta nee,

b ec om e a rea lity .:

The foregoing was con veniently accessible and it m ay be a

statem ent of the program matic argument at its m ost extrem e. On the

other hand, we are increasingly bombarded w ith a notion that an

entity, generally specified as the typical of the typological and

apparently a reserve of collective m emories and Platonic indis-

cretions, i s, w h et he r we will or not. alw ays the insuperable starting

point for inve ligation. A nd this position, as a general drift of ideas,

wlll c le ar ly p la ce high value On the concept of paradigm .

Therefore. w e arc confronted by two doctrines, and let m e

repeal that I am convi need by neither. The first (which m ight be

called program-worship) is in decline a nd i s in cr ea si ng ly d ep lo re d.

The second is emergent and increasingly gains the cuhu ral u ppe r

hand. To me. the first seem s to be unduly determ inist and the secondto disclose an unwarrantable pessim ism . For surely both of them

disallow (he possibilities of genuine novelty and, in the end, both of

t hem e nv is io n the solution, the synthetic statem ent, as no m ore than

a n extrapolation of the existing. O n the one hand. the procedures are

tOO nat and empirical and, on the other, they ate too exalted. too

idealist and too a priori. Both positions, I think. leave the world

w ith ou t h op e.

Forin both eases the possibility of intrinsic novelty (by w hich I

do not m ean what W hitehead calls "novelty in the use of assigned

patterns") is i m pl ic it ly d en ie d In th e first c ase, the future is to be no

more than a prolongation of the present (surely inroterabte) and, in

the second case, both present and future are to be no more than a

conti nuation of the past (surely no beuerj. And . by this . may one not

suggest that both of these Implied theories condemn us to no more

than sim ple repetition? Fo r the possibilities of break out and

revolution neither of them allow ; and, saying so much, I m ean to

suggest that alternative theories w hich can neither of them envisage

the emergence of ignificarit novelty must be in rather a bad way.

For, in spite of all academ ic belief, new ness continually occurs w ithin

the world: and, w ithout any sense of this perm anent effervescence

(too often like tbe corks of chea p champagne bottles popping),

w ithout this conrinucus=-and erratic-regrow th. serious existence

w ould be even less than faintly tolerable.

Therefore to agitate and 10 anim ate a very few ideas we w ill

begin wit h a set piece which is going to be partly history and partly

parable. Therefore to imagine that the time is 1839 and the place is a

new political society; the problem is the location and pla n of a capitalcity: and the result, which will here be used as a counter in an

argum ent. is A ustin, Texas. Should one say a m iniature W ashington

as contrasted w ith G alveston Island's m iniature M anhattan?

In any case. the problem itself-the inability of the Republic of

Texas-. in all its initiatory innocence, to accept the apparently

obvious choice of Galveston as capital-is extremely Am erican in its

nature. One only needs to think of that pairing of m ajor cities w ith

state capitals , of N ew York! A lbany, ChicagorSpringfield. Phila-

delphia/ H arrisburg San Franciscor Sacram ento. to recognize the

issue. For all of these couplings of cities disclose a conviction

(w hether right or w rong) that the seat of governm ent and associated

bureaucracy should, preferably, be far removed from the free-

wheeling associations of commerce and from corruptions even

worse.

T I' Cornell Journal of Architecture 9



A nd, therefore, even at Its in ce pt io n, th e mere project o f Au st in ,

Texas reveals a cult ural prejudice of probably Jeffcrsonla 11 artie-

ulation. Plausibly either New Y ork or Philadelphia Just m ight have

become the capital of (he U nited Stales-and, Just possibly, either of

these choices might have been to the general good But the plausible

sinks i nt o i n si g ni fi c an c e whe n con fr on te d with the p refe rre d, w hen

exposed to the still. persisting ideal that both governm ent and law,

not to m ention education. should be intensively protected from thetheaters of temptation and the blandishments of vice, A nd hence

W ashi ngton, w hich presum ably repud iared not only the potential

evils of M anhattan but also th e Q uakerish idiosyncrasies of Phila-

de Iph ia: a nd h en ce A u sii n, al most certei H I Y c o n ce i v ed as a cri t ique of

likely, though scarcely obvious, goings on in Galveston.

Now this is to guess; but. very probably, such were the almost

innate prejudices of the founders of A ustin. G alveston w as m appro-

priatc because it prom ised to be w icked H ow ever, very visibly, there

existed the alternative of San Antonio, almost-vRemember the

A lamo"-a sacred site; but the iconography of ball le and slaughter

apart, San Antonio w as eq ually unavailable. Its associations w ere

Spanish and M exican; and, if a properly gringo and Anglo-

American demonstration could not there be made, then Austin is to

be construed as the result. l!ma y be relatable to Am erican ideas of

purity (absurd though these m ay of l en seem ) and to American ideas

of " destiny (exaggerated though these ma y o cc as io na ll y a pp ea r) .So, in 1839, the problem of a capital. city [or Ihe Repu blic of

Texas-s-a t least as regards its location=-was solved in what could

n ow ad ay s seem to b e a h ig hly p erfu ncto ry , e ve n V itruvian -A lbcrrian ,

m anner; arid, one imagines, the choice w as made w ithout cerem ony

a nd w ith ou t soothsayer'S. A location w as chosen sufficiently close to

the ocean but sufficiently far rem oved from the appalling clim atic

excesses, the swearbox, of the Gulf Coast". T he l oc ati on , at the

intersection of what prom ised to be acceptable cattle and cotton

country, w as. almost certainly, provi-ded w ith an adequate agricul-

tural base; very likely it was provided w ith good w ater: and. if the

founders of the c it y th ou gh t about such things, then toward its

western extremities the site w as also equipped w ith a brilliant

topography w here Poussin and, later, Cezanne m ight have felt a!

h or ne , a to po gr ap hy w hich. could never be lacking in stim ulus.

It seems reasonable reassume at least this much and to imagine

the founders of Austin as being influenced by most of these

arguments w hich, for the mOSI part, are surely rule of thum b. BUl,

with so m uch (or so little) said as regards criteria for location, now to

approach the plan.

The founders of this contracted W ashington w ere not exactly

highly sophisticated beings (colonists rarely are such). They were

unacquainted with the splendors of France and Italy w hich, in any

case, they m ight have rejected-along with London. V ienna, SI.

Petersburg-as being too profuse, too aristocratical for the demo-

c ratica lly in sp ired a nd , if notconnected to the Pope (the W hore of

Babylon as in Fundamentalist P rotestant sccieues he was then

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conceived), ellen very probably connected to something even more

dreadful

However, ethnic and religious asides apart, now to examine the

plan of Austin. It is a surveyor's grid into which a number of

representational ges tures have been qui te conventional ly in terjected.

r othing at allingenious, nothing in the least bit clever; It is more or

less a replica of William Penn's plan for Philadelphia which, in its

Iurn, was an approximate replica of so rna n y sixteen! h-century and

utopian proposi tions . A centra I .square is10be the seat of governmentand around it are 10 be grouped the various ministries of an

independent political society. Four avenues are to converge upon this

central square a nd in each of the resultant quarters there is 10 be

another public place, Th is i s approxima tely all. I t i s a highly innocent

diagram; it is almost a child's idea or a rown.and, indeed, Austin,

Texas does possess 50me of Ihe cha ra c teris tics of a toy. More gra n d

and less unassuming than what could be considered its offspring-

such adjacent. courthouse towns as Lockhart and Lampasas-along

with these it still displays many of ihe charms which Levi-Sua uss

auri bures to t he miniature or many of the characteristics which we

mi.ght associate with the model, In other words. it makes no

pretensions to infinity and no proclamations of artistic sublirn ity,

But, with a 1. 1 t his, it is not exactly disrnissable A Ii nle infantile, it is

almost the urbarusticequivalent or a large dollhouse: we might feelthat we can play wnh it; we might even feel that we can wind it up.

For, like the perspectives or Palladio's Tearro Olympico (another

miniature ), It possesses the capac it)' to engross and even to obsess the

attention. Like good lays. and like good miniatures, it operates with

the maximum of thematic economy. parades the vesseruiat," and

corweniemly suppresses the rest. It is one of the most economical of

stages, emphaticaily a stage framed by a proscenium. just as a small

and one -time capital city, Parma awa ited its Stendhal, so Austin may

be Imagined as awailing the writer who will forever celebrate us

myth, awaiting that imagi nary novel which js 10 be entitled, no

doubt. The Baleones Faull.~But if it has been intimated that the Austin, Texas diagram rs

altogether too laconic to be completely real, there is now some

obligation to observe the characteristic style of its failure. it is a

diagram recognizing neither aspect, prospect. topography, nor

possible function; and this lack of accommodation. sooner or later,

could only make itself apparent. Increasingly the real could only

invade the ideal; and thus, while activities came to be generated

eccentric to the major motif, certain quarters came to be preferred

and others to experience relative neglect. Only one of the four

subsid iary squa resyor pa rks, was ever undertaken; a casua 1 railroad

erratically entered rhe picture; and, to the north and oblique grid

(signifying most ly the univers ity) emerged In indecisive competition

with the pr imacy of the original statement.

Hence the phenomenon of the city as it is todays a surveyor's

grid with some Plato nic pre te nsions; a relat iveIy pr is ! ine ( if somewhaI

naive) image which has become warped and distorted by the

accumulation of unenvisaged pressures and energies . 11is , never the-

less, an image which continues to be legible, respectable and. a lmost,

exemplary.

For it is impossible to forget that, inherently. Austin is a

manifesto piece; and an ultimate argument, or admonition, still the re

continues 10 survive, surely to be construed as a very elementary

celebration or a basic notion-the idea of government under law.

The central square and the domed capitol are the icons of this idea.

About one hundred and forty years ago, without sophistication, and

in the face of awe inspiring emptiness, the Republic of Texas wished

to illustra te an endorsement of princ iple, of principle having nothing

to do with the contingencies of time and place, or principle assumed

to be unquestionable. "We believe these truths to be self-evident. "

"This is a government of laws not men."

ow this is not the occasion to enlarge upon that persistent

theme In frontier Texas, the preoccupation, in spite of violence". with

the ideas of equita bi!ity and law (it is in any case rehearsed in so

many almost rus tic courthouses which s til l exhib it great explanatory

power) ; but i t should s ti ll be possible to asser t that , ina f inal analysi s,

Austi n was propounded as a didac tic illustration of Just such themes.

For in Austin, with a cer tain la rge generality and a casual unconce rn

for detail, fantasies re la ted to the res publica provide the scaffold and

fanta sies related to the res privata furnish the inf ill ,Probably there are few cities in North America-indeed few

citi es in Ihe world -which one can address in precisely these 'terms,

Iimited te rms which may. on occasion, be incornpa ra bly gra tifying.

But if, for these reasons. Austin, Texas may be categorized asa city

of the mind (meaning a cilY which the mind, without undue

endeavorccan readily comprehend), we are. today, very far indeed

removed from the happy certainties and even some of the unha PPy

frontier ter rors or circa 1839. So, since distance is alleged to provide

perspective, and si nee Austin is here being used as a clinical

specimen. it may now be allowable to envisage the problem-capital

city for a new polit ical sociely~as, most likely, it might still be

in terpreted ci rca 1982,

Of course, simply by stipulating the time as the present day,

the re is a fa r mote complex methodology \0 be inferred, Fi rst , there

would be the minimum of simple deduction and ingenuous do-it-

yourself; and, second, the SOlving of the capital city problem

(locarion and plan) wou ld be aided by foreign governments and

abetted by research foundations. 1ndeed the whole interminable

parade of modern knowledge would become focused upon it. The

government of the United Slates, the Russians, the United Nations,

the representatives of the Common Markel (with possibly the French

and the British acting independently and separately), would all be

eager 10 offer aid and expertise. For is not. the topic, "A capital city

for a 'Deve loping Nation', "at pre sent completely 'irresistible for all

those :;0 very many who are entirely unwilling 10 leave anything

alone? One wo uId Ihink so; and, therefore, 0 ne conceives planeloads

or those who know would be Down in to examine andio advise. Tbey

The ComellJournal of Architecture 11



would be m oderately excited, proud of thei r know-how , and one can

imagine their appearance, Preceded by a descent of secretaries.jeeps,

IIlin g ca bi n e ts. Q u o n se t h u Is. air co ndi t i0nersvco rnputers , caleu-

lators, X erox m achines .. there w ould Iollow a m iscellaneous troupe

o f geo log i st s , rnereorolcgists, an th ro po log ists. p sy ch olo gists, d em og -

r ap he rs . e th no gr ap he rs . g eo gr ap he rs . statisticians, s oc io lo gi st s; a nd ,

from then on, a positive orgy of expensive but impeccable iruer-

d isciplina ry colla bora t io n wo u ld. h opcf u l ly . e ns lie.

So, on e perceives the idea: and now to examine t he r ea li ty .

I t shou Id be a ppar ent that the team of experts w hich is here

conceived would be concerned with an inventory of information

which might then permit an opti m um deli nearion or policy, I n other

w ords, the team w ould be engaged In the preparation of 1: 1 program. a

co mp reh en siv e pro gra m. 11 schedule of requirements not only for a

city but also for a society, For how [0locate the site, let alone trace

the m odel for a.city, w ithout the m ost exhaustive consideration of its

em pirical context? O r so. one believes, lhe argum ent would run,

An d, a cc or di ng ly . our research team w ould proceed to issue

questionnaires (although, in a w ilderness, one w onders 10 whom 1hey

wo uld be addressed), to qua m ify returns, to ta b ula re sp ecific s, an d \0

assign prinriues. Its operational procedure w ould be analytical and

inductive. It would classify p re su ma ble a cti vit y and specify possible

performance. As the position papers and the memoranda ,. the

graphic g en era lizatio ns, an d th e p rin tou t sh ee ts ac cu mu la te d, as thescru tin y of th e ex isting p rog ressiv ely yield ed significan; g uid elin es fo r

action, then. w ith all due ci r curnspect inn, indices of expansion w ould

be traced, rates of growth projected, predom inant 'futures defined,

an d lik ely de velo pm ents ex trap ola te d.

We are all familiar with this approach. Its exponents proceed

with the greatest caution and a pparcnt m odesty. T heir discrim i-

nations are conducted with a scrupulous- regard for local details of

every kind. The site of their city (also its form ) is to be rationaliza ble,

not to term s of any 'arbitrary' or 'intuitive' choice. but rather rn terrns

of an assumed complex of 'necessity '; and thus, they are prone to

aw a rd to ind igenous resources-w hether hum an, anim al, vegetable,

miners L present, or prospecuve=-rne mos t c o ns id e ra te respect. N O !

atall preoccupied w ith 'invention ', their practical object is t o d is cl o se

the irn rnanent, to ass is t a particular condit jon (presum ed to be latent)10 'discover' itsell; and. anxious 10 a vo id t he le as ! p os si ble i mp os it io n.

their practice could be said to derive from a never too precisely

formulated theory-that of maximum nonintervention, (Let us do

nothing to impede the course of the future. Let uS db nothing to

inhibit the creative unrolling of tirne.)

Now the theory of maximum nonintervention, which is so

evidently conscientious and w hich seems \0 be prom pted both b y - the

illuminations of science and by the dominant mood of an educated

liberalism , m ay proceed to an infinity of ram ifications and results.

But. fOJ t he p re se nt . it should be enough 10 notice that. though

co n te rn p 0rary proced ure is mcorn para bl y more el IIbo ra te t 11an Ihe

frontier practice of one hund red and forty years ago, it too is Ii ke!y to

lead to diagrams n o l es s p re di ct ab le .

So the p red ic ta ble d ia gram s of today, the ourcroppings of a

clamoring for 'fact' and of a simultaneous obsession with the

'im perativ es' of g row th and cha nge, will, as m ight be expected, vary

just a bit from year to year. However, all this being said, quite

possibly to date one is still confronted with two versions of 1 1 1 C same

thing, w ith two diagram s which both imply high volatility and

apparent horror of the Q priori. There is an old style diagram,

proba bly deriving from the Fifties, exhi biti ng a l oo se , cur vi linear and

biornorphic condition w hich is vaguely suggestive of Brazilia. Then

there is a new style graphic piece. rather more jagged in outli ne and

rending to look like a h ig hl y c omp li ca te d specimen of elect rica I

circu itry w hic h in vite s c om pa riso n wi th , as yet. no known place. A II

the same and whatever the differences, since the twa are very

evidently icons, i.e the contracted representatives oft, state of m ind,

it may now be both entertaining and convenient 10 com pare them

with the Aus\1 n, Texas diagram of way back.

N or need rhe undertaking be all that difficult. For If, on the on e

hand, in Austin we are presented with a highly belated piece of

pseudo- Platonism and, on t h e o th er , we are the recipients of a fairly

easy to reco gn ize a na ly tica l m an eu ver, then.apart [rom certain highly

restr i c red arc h i tec t ural ci rc les. w hih 11 re never less t ha IJ cyu ical,

t he se f ig ur es will b e w id el y r eg ar de d as:

bad

siatie

Closed

coercrvc

n, 1 1 : 1

good

dynamic

open

I.iberra ria n

retros pect ive a nt iei pBlory

SICr!le ex p lora tory

However, if we ca n restrain the far too easy assern bly of a

repertory of quick value judgm ents, these opposed eva lua t i ons ateperhaps som ew hat differently to be construed. T herefore, an d by th e

way oJ critique, once more to retu rn to the year! 839 and to assum e

the im possible; to im agine a gang of performers, com parable to our

inter disci plinary tea rn, ha ppily d esc en d ing upon the Republic of

Texas. A m iscellaneous collection of Benthamites, Owenitcs, Saint-

S ir no ni an s. C or nt is ts , d i sc ip lc s or Fourier, w ith possibly the strayHegelian ph ilosopher no doubt sponsored by the influence of the

Prince of Sotrn- B raunlels.? they lOO w ould have rem orselessly

accumulated data and sponsored predictions and they too would

have attempted 10 formulate a city uncontam inated by cultural (or

t ra d it i o na l) pan! pris, a city of innocence, a rnecha n ism , or

alternatively an organic event, which would be no more than

resp onsiv e to re aso n an d circu mstan ce,

Bu t th e n - a fi er t h e l ap se 0f 0rie hu nd red a nd forty years- what

va lu e w ou ld appertain today to th ose facts an d an nex ed pre dictio n,

upon w hich their program and its graphic conclusions migh: have

been based'! Would these facts and predictions simply have been

invalidated by ti me, com ing to appear as no more t ha n the engaging

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12



com pOn cn lS 0 f an Ea r ly Victor ia n, B iederrneier p er i od p ie ce ? W 01..1Id

t he n ev er -t o- be -a nt ic ip at ed v ag ar ie s o f h is to ry l on g a go h av e f al si fi ed

w hatever facts and predictions cur interdisciplinary team of 1839

m ig ht h av e t ho ug ht it j ud ic io us o r p la us ib le 10 fr am e? A nd , in de ed ,

Just w hat developm ents or events m ight our experts and savants of

th ai dale have b een able, or d isposed, to predic t?

A railroad up from G alveston they m ight w ell have supposed:

buti he transcoruinental r ai lr oa d n etw or k 50 shortly 10a rr iv e m ig ht

not have appeared so IIkety. A n econom y based upon cation w ould

perhaps have seemed a logical inference; but, 5 1 nee neither the

refrigerator nor the internal com bustion engine could have been

envisaged, the importance which cattle and pet roleurn were to

a ss um e w ou ld b ar ely h av e im pin ge d u po n th e h oriz on o f p os sib ilitie s,

T hen , w hat to say abo ut an ec ono my giv .in g q uite a Iew in dic atio ns

that it promised to b e based o n slavery '! A nd , prec isely, how w ould

our team have addressed this highly delicate issue? BUl if, very

r ea so na bly , o ur in te rd is cip lin ary te am m ig ht h av e p re dic te d th at th e

R ep ub lic o f T ex as c ou ld n ev ers urv iv e, th en , J us t as r eas on ab ly , this

is a pred ic tion w hic h, alm ost c ertainly , it w ould h av e refrained fro m

uttering . For in the case of this particular prediction, there were

surely the dangers of being run out or town on a rail and.

c on sequently , the V irtues or silenc e and d isc retion m ig ht very Iik ely

have p reva il e d. "

B y proposing the irnpossibte and by inserting present-dayprocedures into a context w ithin which, under no circum stances,

c ou ld they have been fo und , is to carric ature certain c ontem porary

m odes of analysis (and presum ptive synthesis) but net seriously to

d is to rt th eir im plic atio ns . B ac k in 1 83 9 (if w e c an s us ta in o ur f an ta sy )

an 'all-acc om mod atin g' p lan w ou ld have b een p repared ; but. based

on an illusionary 'fact' structure and a still m ore illusory 'future'

s truc ture, lik e th e ex ec uted p lan of 1 839 . th is t oo w ould hav e bec om e

e qu ally d ef or me d a nd in vad ed by evenrs w hic h c ould in n o w ay have

been an ti c ip a te d .N ow ,if th es e re ma rk s a re ap pr ox im ate ly r ela ta ble lO common-

sense, w e thu s fac e tw o issues, one or the other or both of which are

g erm ane to any urbanistic problem solv ing. A n d,if im plic itly. th ese

a re d iv erg en t th eo ries a s 10 the m eans b y w hich auth en tic and u seful

configurations are to be generated . to illustrate these issues I haveconstructed a parable .. Perhaps for reasons lillie more than the

ac cidents of autob iograp hy, sentim ental add ict ion. and a taste fo r a

s pe cif ic la nd sc ap e ( liv e o ak s, tu mb le we ed , m es qu ite, b arr an cas . an d

th e beg in ning of m esa fo rm atio ns), I have ex hibited A ustin , T exas as

a retarded d escend an t of th e id eal c ities of t h e R en ais san ce ; an d th en .

w ith a m ore polem ical purpose, next to it. I have presented a pair of

planner's diagrams deriving from a far more complex pedigree.

W hich, 50 far as I am concerned, means that I have, more or less.

arranged tile confrontation of tW O phenom ena about neither of

w hic h sho uld it be nec es sary 10 b ec om e u nd uly e xc ite d.

N o d oub t, exc ep t in term s of a pathos-inc uc ing c on flic t betw een

pu rp os e a nd re su lt, the AUSl! rt, T exas diagram is no t very sa t isf a CI0 ry

and almost the best thi ng W hich can be said about it i s t ha t it is

saturated w ith a not unrewarding iconic intention. All the sam e, asth e rep resc ntarivc of a sp ec ies. as a plan without a program, It ma y

s till in vite u s to c on sid er 1 1 1 C a lt er na ti ve p re di ca me nt , t tl at p re se nt -day a n d strange confusion of the analytic w ith the synthetic, liz!'

program without a plan. And do not all of LIS know this s pe ci es s o

wel'l-the overt denial of typology and then its surreptitious en-

d orsemen t. I he p rogra m m a lie r es ea r ch a nd t he n" t h e d es ig n lea p', t he

'irrefutable' colleotions of data and then the populis: veneers, the

p lan ne rs ' in ve stig atio ns a nd th en th e c os metic v ig nette s? H ow ev er ,

the program w ithout a plan , that curious undertaking conceived to

b e d em o cr at ic al ly u n cc er ci vc , w hi ch p ro fe ss es lO be iconographical ly

neutral bot which is patently an icon of what is thought to be

scientific m ethod (both phy sics in term s o f"'c enain tyvand bio lo gy in

t erm s o f' gr ow l h 'J is s ur ely a to pic w hic h in vo lv es m an y is su es -th e

c on stitu tio n o f " f ac t' a nd th e c on stitu tio n o f 'h is to ry ',' n atu re ' v ers us

'c ultu re', p re de sti n atio n v er su s f re e w i.ll-a s a bu nd an tly to in dic ate

that the lime. has now com e for a change of gear.

So the issue is still pragmatics and program versus idea and

p ar ad ig m; a nd , h av in g u se d A us tin , T ex as (w he re. in cid en ta lly . id ea

and paradigm were almost certainly largely employed as simple

em piric al c on venienc e) as a p iec e of litm us paper w hich , acc ording

10 approach. turns red or blue, rem aining observations wi n be

c on cerned w ith pos sible m ov em en ts throug h that g laring n o m an 'sland ensuing from the architect's unw illingness to think except in

term s of built s olid an d tile plann er's disd ain to be p reoc cupied w ith

any thing so c rud e as a ph ysic al statem ent. A nd it is partic ularly w ith

reference 10 th is u na ss ig ne d ter rito ry , s om etim es r ath er im per fe ctly

e ntitle d 'u rb an d es ig n', w he re n o e leg an t lc gic p re va ils an d w he re th e

r i v al c c nt es ra nisconcea I t he ir l ar ge ly i na r ti cu la te d if fe re nc es by a

joint usc . o f sm arm y graphic s and oth er w ould -be alluring tac tic s of

c heap d iplom atic m aneuver, th at s om ethin g n ow m ust be said abou t

the declining status of the program and the, reviving status. of the

paradigm.

"The p ro b lem with th e b eh av io ra lis rs is th at th ey a lw ay s m an ag e

to exclude them selves from their theories. If all our acts are

c on ditioned behavior, s urely ou r th eo ries are 100." T hi s, p er ha ps

helpful little quote is extracted from the obiter dicta of W.H.Audeu". a useful p ro p like th is aside, II beco mes inc reasing ly c lear

that the whole existential situation of the program , the high.

vatuat ion placed upon an allegedly neutral com pilation of data,

w hic h S If J oh n S um m er so n o nc e p ro po se d 'IS t he c ru c ia l c ompo n en t,

almost the motivating force of modern archirecturc 'v, is a very

vulnerable affair; and, particularly is this so when the program

professes to include a predictive dim ension. For, insofar as the

51ruct U re 0 f t he I'u [IJ re is to be rei a led to !e s t ru c t u re o f f ut u r e id eas ,

evidently no predictions can be made about it. "For to predict an

idea is to h a ve an idea, a nd if Wr: have an id e ll. il c ann o longer be th e

s ub je ct o f a p re d i ct io n. "IIA nd . ift he truth o r this ass ertion s hould be

no less than apparent, then it should be equally evident Ihat,in the

The Cornell Journal of Arehttecture 13



wild super- tropical jungle of almost self -pro li ferating information

which we al! inhabit, in the end, a prejudiced d is-crimination of

relevance will always occur. Even wit h the greatest of good will, some

aspects of a problem will always be downgraded and others

preferred .. In other words , the program will always (and, mostly,

inadver tently) be biased It will never be Ie simple staternenr of a

problem so much as rhe impl lcar ion of a solution. II will be like

almost any question. 11 will frame a highly restricted repertory of

possible replies, And, if a question can only rarely be neutral, then

what to say about [hat complex of largely dissimulated value

judgments which s eem s i nv ar ia bl y r el at ab le to any extreme Infatua-

tion wit h programmatics?

AboUI this topic. quite the best remarks have 'been made by

Alan Colquhoun.O who has accused the devotees of data as being,

quite naively. the not so innocent victims of an aesthetic doctrine.

But, apart from Colquhoun on the program. what else does there

remain to suggest? That the program, except for the iconographical

program, must be of fairly recent origin? That the program. as a

listing of empir ical requirements , begins as mostly a French business

of the third quar ter of the eighteenth centurj'J) That preoccupa tion

with the program is possibly the great thread which unites the

'doctrmes' of modern architecture with the practice of the Ecole des

Beaux Arts? That the role of the program was probably immensely

reinforced by the characteristic conviction entertained by nineteenth-century positivists that the enlightened individual. the apex of

iruellrgenoe , was-at last-vcapablc of making judgments (like those

of the idea! and my th ic al p h ys ic is t) which would be absolutely

Objective and impartial?

"Je ne suppose rien, je n i /11pOSe rlen, Je lie propose rien.

J'expose ". One has forgotten the name of the nineteenth-century

French character wh o made this intell ectual ly bizarre remark;'~ but

its abundant response is surely to be found ma rather mote famous

piece of mid-Victorian repartee=Disraeli to' the Dean of Windsor.

The very old, very scept ical, very romant ical ly minded, very Jewish .

Prime Minister of England, had, one imagines. become infinitely

exhausted by the dinner table praulingof the desperately open"

minded Dean who. most depressing of ali. had confessed to a

disbelief in dogma; and the lone of Disraeli's r eply is completelyopposed to that of French Positivism: "Well, Mr. Dean, wdl-I am

sadly disposed to say no dogma no dean, Mr. Dean." And Disraeli,

apart from his constitutional anxiety to be witty and his dista ste for

liberals was he re, surely, implying a c ritique of the whole Positivist

point of view. He was surely invoking the u lt im a te ly p re ju di ce d

nature of all observation the re: we see what we wish to see and we are'

honest when we admit this limitation.

So, with the respective iattitudes of French Positivism and

Benjamin Disraeli in mind, then what to say about the constitution

of 'fact' that has not already been intimated by the prefatory quotes

10 this particular essay? Do we add another quotation, this time f rom

Dorothy L. Sayers, one of whose stupid and mildly rustic cops

14



suddenly produces the statement that "Facts a r e like cows. If you

look at them in the face long enough they will probably go away"? Or

do we concern ourselves with issues much more stern and serious?

With, for instance, such issues as: ar e 'fac tsinvariably exte rna l to the

human consciousness, a'nd is an accumulation of 'facts', apparently

without any human intervention, infallibly equipped to promote its

own controlling hypothesis?

S t ern and serious. these questions, or absurd? 1n any case they

are rarely confronted by the devotees of programmarics and the

enthusiasts for data collection whose practice (otherwise known as

wailing for printout) might, as a policy. be summarized as follows:

we can't am until we have all the facts, and then we won't need to act,

_ince, then the facts wil l automat ically arrange themselves.

About the cultural ingeniousness of an attitude of mind which,

in the end, is scarcely able to envisage the existence of mind, which

can in no way conceive of a transcendence of the tyranny of the

contingent; which, in the name of 'scientific', 'historical', and

'democratic' exigency, is impotent to imagine even the most modest

theater for the exercise of free will, no doubt there is much which

require s to be said. All the same , since. in this particular essay we are

already part of the traffic of an autostrada and can in no way permit

ourselves t he luxury of digression. there is no more that need be said

other than 10 remark that, in tile failure of the tradition of modern

a rchitecture and the related tradition of the contemporary planningestablishment to addres the va lue-impregnated quality of all obser-

vation, there is to be discovered a large part of the reason for our

present urban squalor.

For, as the r eta rded descendants of Positivism, these traditions

retain uie horrible presumptions of their origin: and, not the least, a

basic notion that between 'matter' and 'mind', between 'reality' and

'speculation', be tween 'fac t' and ' fantasy', ther e exists an asbestos and

fireproof stage curtain which is never to be breached, 'M alter',

'reality', and ' fact' are apprehensible without serious problem. They

are ir reducible , i rrefutable and= if we abandon prejudice-painlessly

easy to articulate. They are what can be measured and what can be

qua ntified; and, of course, if such are to be considered the criteria of

'reality', if 'reality' is to be such a very small affair, there is no way to

be imagined in which factual substance might also appertain to thecircumstantial statements of important intelligence-to such intel-

lectua l constructions as the Dec lar ation of Independence; Liberte-Egalite-Fraternite; the Communist Manifesto, the Dogma of the

Immaculate Conception, to itemize just a few among the so many,

For, if metaphysics is to be excluded from any conspectus of the real,

any propositions such as these must be considered irrelevant, null,

and vacuous.

There are, therefore, thoroughly ample reasons as to why the

architectural community, and par ti cu larly the communi ty of students,

over the last few years. has come to divorce its attention from strict

programmatics . For , increas ingly, and par ti cu larly s ince 1968-69, the

pretensions of an old intellectual consortium-academic liberalism,

technopbilia. and every form of determinism-have become intol-

erable, have ceased to appear either enlightened, progressive, or

reasonable; and, as a consequence, ,it has been among the great

vir tues of the protagonists of architettura razionale-of..Aldo Rossi,

the brothe rs Krie r, et ai-to have staged an extremely noisy revolt,

implicitly against a theory of the program which is an assault upon

common sense, against the Unspeakably odd assumption that at best

the architect should be no more than a transparent filter, a lens

(interjecting nothing) between the 'scientific' program and the

'popular' r esult. Because, no doubt about it, it is evidently architettura

raztonale which has eff ected this revolution so suddenly called into

question the credentials of that consortium which, only recently,

seemed to bc so solidly establi shed.

Which, cer tainly, must now be the occasion to transfer attention

from what. so far .. has mostly been an Anglo-American to a

Continental focus, from what one knows only too well-by exper-

ience, to what one knows only too slightly-by hearsay, from the

innocent empiricists whose ac tivities ar e to be discove red whereve r

the English language prevails. to those many others, equally

innocent, who can never undertake the slightest intellectual journey

unat tended by Pascal' s esprit de geomilrre (very rarely by his esprit

de finesse), who, without Baedeker, a lways make the ir cultural trips

with Descartes in one pocket and Marx in the other.'! For.

conceding all its merits and all it has sought to redress, j U 5 L how torespond to that spectrum of typological ( and anti-programmatic)

br illiance to which the world has late ly been exposed?

How to react to that spectacle of semiotic argument, circular

courtyards, nco-Greek per istyles, high stacca to, Fellini billowing

curtains, semi-Tuscan altane, the pseudo-Boullee, the nco-Schinkel,

the revived Von Klenze, and all the other current, and 'metaphysical' ,

graphic paraphernalia? That the visuals are too easy and the

apologetics too opaque? That, when it comes with all the now

standard decoration of quotes from early Structuralist criticism,

probably from Adorno, and (emphatically) from Quatrernere de

Quincy, it is an a lmost but not a completely convinc ing tr ansac tion?

That, if one is quite willing to suppress the more exacting require-

ments of the pragmatic intelligence and to avail oneself of the

equivalent of stencils, then-surely-one will be enabled to arrive atresults of engaging schematic ideality? That, all the same (and even

with the pleasant possibility of a sale of the drawings to Leo Caste lli) ,

Durand, De Chirico, and Morandi cannot entirely be the solution to

aU the problems of the city and all the quandaries of the drawing

board?

In my preceding exhibition of Austin, Texas I have. I hope,

disclosed my own symp.athy with the typological concerns of the

Nee-Rationalists and my own absence of 100 much belief in those

assorted (and often still highly advertised) academic doctrines which

presume that a factual accumulation will lead-quite simply-to a

scientific conclusion with the corresponding liberation of a disciplined

and completely authentic creative impulse. But, all the same and

The Cornell Journal of Architecture 15



having said so much, though frequently charmed. I am still lei"!

unpersuaded byNeo-Rationali srn's Iorrnal reper tory and par iicular ly

unpe rsuaded by its a ttendant polemic .

So, as we speculate on the problems of program versus type, on

the problem of an academy become recently extinct and the

problems of another academy not" yet in full working order. might it

not-possibly- be argued thai we find ourselves confronted wit h no

more than the superficia I alternat ives of a false empiricism and a

false idealism? And, if an empiricism which refuses to conce rn itself

with the fabric of ideas can only be illusory and, ifan idea lism wh ich

rejec ts involvement with empirical detail will only be inadequate,

rhen must it not fur ther be argued thai it i sexactly wi th in th is theater

of the mind that today we find ourselves placed'!

Ithink it must so be a rgued. But 1also think that this argument

should not be allowed to impede a recognition or that diverse but

devoted band which has done so much to restore the possibility of a

r enewed debate between architectur e and tile city. So 1 refer again to

Leon and Robert Krier. to Aldo Rossi and .. most particularly to

Matthias Ungcrs, But, in sa luting these individuals ( and others could

be included), r also ask why. with the occasional exception of

Ungers, the Neo- Rat iona list s in general ar e so characteristically

uptight? Just why do so many of them, while rejecting the

morphology of LeCorbusier, reel obliged, a fte r a good fifty years has

gone by, to reeapitu late the extr avagant pitch of his polemic? Why,when forms are repudiated, does a certain psychology per sist?

And !JlIght there be suggested the very obvious affiliation of

architecture and urbanism to left-wing politics? And might there

further be suggested the ve ry chasacteristic pre ference of lef t-wing

poli tics foran abs t racred . .a generalized, a s implif ied, a diagrammatic

diagnosis and prognos is of the human condi tion? And such questions.

if they may be answered in the affirmative, are no way intended to

denigrate left-wing politics. For, from this source and ever since its

inception in the late eighteenth century. such enormous ameliorations

have ensued that the world would seem a very small and smelly place

were it not for this particular contribution. No. Such questions are

not, in any way, intended to illuminate the virtues of the political

r ight -possibly , though not always,apl [0proclaim an adherence !O

specificity, to things as found, and 10 the obdurate complexity ofexistence. Nor are they intended to draw attention to that ironical

condition of the present day in which multina tional corporations,

o il companies, and the rnos t cal lous explo iters of real esta te regular ly

clo the themselves in what were once the ves tments of an architectural

and social utopia. Rather-these questions (and after all these

qualifications the initial questions a re becomingsligbtly remote) a re

propounded in order 10 advertise the interrelarionship between a too

simple political style and what may be a too simple architectural

strategy. For, if everyone is more conservative today than many

people were in the 1920s. if imaginable horizons. and spaces have

shru nk , it may still be argued that, for all the shrin kage,.in its

ideo logica Iesse nce Ihe citta nueva of architettura rationale i s far 100

16



often not so very remote from the ville radieuse an d Ih e a p pa l li n g

Iigm enrs of L udw ig H ilberseimer's irnaginatiorr. For far too often it

d is pl ay s i ts elf as no more than more of the aprioristic same.

Now we all know a lady from Latin Arnenca. D oes she m ostly

come from Mexico. from Caracas. from Havana, or from Buenos

A ires? I suspect principally from Beunos Aires. But s he s pr ea ds

herself wide, she is U topian and she arrives m a variety of related

ed i t ions. In va ria b Iy she is elega nt, cne rget ic. in te ll ec t u al Iy eh ie,

ambitious. perhaps a lin le loud. A I rnost a f emme type o f a c erta in

background, she is dedicated 10 the m emory of De Saussure and the

texts of A dorno, to s ern io t ic s and to fashionable M arx ism; and,

there, I shall call her La Passionaria ..But, always a pleasure to m e et ,

La Pass ionaria is invar iably a problem to consider-and I myself

often spend quite a lot of tim e considering her For her tastes and her

intellect ual passions are at varia nee. Indeed, La Pa ssions ria's

emotional life is unconsciously but scrupulously divided. For. in

term s of precepts and things to buy, La Passionaria is never to be

lm!lgined 100 far away from the perpetual parade of Madison

Avenue , the Rue SI . Honore, Knightsbridge. and the V ia dei

C on do tli, n ev er too painfully divorced from the prospect of' endless

shopping I . n th e ca pita list b az aa rs de luxe. I n terms of concepts and

sociopolitical toys .. h ow ever apparently, for her, M oscow is a b as ic

necessity. A nd just how w ould La Passion aria be enabled 10 shop in

M oscow , either for shoes (no Gucci) or for Ideas"So , at e ve ry m e et in g (in her various editions she isn 't hard 10

find), i always love La Passionaria: and J always think how very

quaintly sim ilar is her predicam ent to that of so many of the Neo-

R ationalists, w ith their not so soph isricated dam nations of the pillars

of the capitalist w orld. the banks of N ew Y ork. Zurich, London, andtheir apparent willingness to avail them selves of the products of just

these .i ns t i u n io n s.

So my trouble w ith the Neo-Raiicnalists m ay be quite simply

expressed 1 n term s of pract ical politics they may be astute (and

hence their rapid rise to prominence): but, in terms o f t h eo r et ic a l

politics-their ideal world-they are prone \.0 b e s im plistic. N eve r-

theless to repeal, the Neo-R auonalists have done very much to

restore a possible balance betw een the circumstantial and I e

representational; and, w ith their graphic cam paign. probably one

only argues thai, per ha ps, the ba I a nee has been overrestored wit h an

excessive preference for the Platonic dim ension. For how can we

who have surely lived with the influence of M ondrian, who have

been exposed to his superlative equilibrium of contingency and idea 1

state, just calm ly and without m ore ado, simply wish contingency

( an d t he re fo re prograrnmatics) a perfunctory goodbye? F or s ur el y,

confronted w it h an y overt classicism. most o r us , for better o r wo rs e,

are p rotesta n ( an d equ ipped wi : han em ba rrassmen t 0f reserva t i ons .

And with all these reservations, can we-so very easily-s-revert to a

pre-Enlightenment condition of unem pirical In n ocence? A nd call a

rom antically proclaim ed M arxian devoutness-the verbal cam paign-

be seriously im agi ned as helping 10 bring such a condition about?

And, for that matter, are not M ani.ism and classicism (however

so ph istic ate d th eir p re sen ta tio ns m ay be ) in co mp atib le states o f m in d

which can only be held toget her w ith rhetorical glue '?

I n sp ite of t h e d i sc rim in a ti on s of the late Joseph Stalin one

would have thought so. For, surely, one 15 obliged to think of

classicism as an heroic an d magnificent attempt to defy the

lim itations of chronology. geography, latitude, longitude, and all the

rest. And,if in universalistic term s such as these, one may a ls o t hin k

about Marxism , then one should also consider the profoundly

retrospective and pessim istic com ponents. of classicism -a doctrine

which, presuming the existence both of the Golden Age and the

Platonic Idea, locates the one at the beginning o f tim e a nd c on ce iv es

the other 10 be permanently inaccessible. A dosed and tragic

doctrine which can only invite stoical response. Surely .. in the end,

such is classicism . And, by com parison with such an attitude, then

what an overture to M arx are both the music and t he words of the

f ou rt h m o ve me nt of B ee th ov en 's N in th S ym ph on y!

The words are not to hand bUI the music is p ers is te nt; an d,

com pared with classicism (which one may well prefer), how expan-

sive, h ow f ut ur e. o ri en te d. how exuberant all this is. A n d, s ur el y, it is

in such a fram ework. the 'dyn.amic ' context of ninereemh-ceruury

Rom anticism , against the Hegelian background of historical m elo-

dram a, against the background ofWe/lschmerz. optim ism and

scepticism , against (he w hole tourbillon of m id-V ictorian L ondonand Second Empire Paris, that M arx should properly be placed.

Indeed, to imagine his walk LOg:;, backw ards and lorw ards (w ith

E ngels) from H averstock H ill to Regent's Park Road, to know this

.terrain, and io im agine the tw o negotiating the Chalk Farm

Underground Station, is already to place M arx in an historical

context as neither hero nor bogey man but as a manifestation of a

culture and a period alm ost com pletely estranged from any compre-

h en sio n of th e c las sica l idea,

But even if (w ithout som e snea ky creeping up from behind) the

physique of classicism and the morale of M arxism m ight be

imagined as precariously fusible, the question rem ains would the

private sw eat, the intellectual effort. and the b ure au cratic ty ra nn y

really be worthwhile? And , 50 far as I a m concerned, they would not.

O ne must, of course, concede the need of the architect 10 avail

him self of highly sim plified critical schem es (exactly like those w hich

have here been under review) But, w hen heuristic convenience

b ec om e s i nt er pr ete d as universal panacea, when useful metaphor

becomes translated as naive prescription, w hen paradigm (without

apology) is sim ply substituted for program , (hen surely (he funda-

m ental error of m odern architecture is y et a ga in r eh ea rs ed (this l ime

in reverse). a nd, yet again, we are confronted w ith the glare from the

eyes of M edusa .. w hich so m uch rheoret ical concern seem s determined

to impose upon t he w or ld .

'IN hich is a lmost to complete an argum ent. W orship of program

(or data addiction) and w orship of paradigm (or excessive typological

concern) are, both of them , relatively easy to destroy. N eit h er

The Cornell Journal of Architecture 17



position is even faintly adequate, and there 1 wish simply to notice

that. when confronted with two doct rines which are both incomplete ,

intelligent humanity-when it thinks-will be inspired to consider

the possibilities of their dialectical interanimation-the method of

not only Marx. but also of Aquinas and the Talmud.

So why not try'? A nd as a first step (and not to be pre tentious), I

suggest that when confronted with a problem, it might be a good

idea to observe the inferent ial evidence of the detective novel-

allegedly the invention of Edgar Allan Poe, so much admired by

Baudelaire and the French, and by his own compatriots neversufficiently regarded.

And what to say about Edgar Allan Poe except that he was the

progenitor of Sherlock Holmes Arsene Lupin, Hercule Poirot, Nero

Wolfe, Peter Wirnsey, and all the rest" That, before Karl Popper was

born, Poe was Popperian 01'0111 la lettre? That quite privately and

st ill scarcely noticed , he invented the hypothetico-deducrive method.

the proposition that in all problem-solving operations, it is the

hypothesis , the paradigm, which, of necessi ty. preceeds all empir ical

investigation? For, with Poe as with Popper, it is the Initial

conjectu re that awaits either refutation or confirmation. 1n other

words, related to a particular situation of crime, the investigator

should have a knowledge of the great criminal paradigms because

without it he will not be able to place 'facts' in their proper place.

This was Edgar Poe's invention, one for which he deserves to bemore celebrated than he is. He invented-or recognised-s-a par-

t icular structure of mental interaction. In other words, he postulated

a classic s trategy of investigation between not -so-amateur amateurs

and not -so-profess ional profess ionals; and s ince his t ime, h is method

has per sisted as the traditional presumption of the detective novel.

For the great detective has very little use for simple Induction.

He leaves this to the id iot-friend whom. so very often, he has

conveniently acquired; and, while the idiot-friend consunnly pre-

scribes action, energy, movement. (he grea t detective is prone to sit a t

home and to contemplate the typology of crime. lndeed, for him.it is

almost a matter of intellectual chic to be, physically, highly

immobile. So he restr icts his in situ investigations. He medi tates and

he postulates. And, meanwhile, the police who mostly despise the

great detective, scurry around, active as little ants. collecting the

most absurd accumularions of typically i rrelevant detai l and . usually.

arriving at the most wildly premature conclusions. For, in the

mythology of the detective story, the police must surely be, the

equiva lent of those supposedly many Anglo-Saxon empiricist who it

is often supposed can never know very much because. with a fatal

facility, they so i nstantly reject specu lation and so readily assume the

painless accessibili ty of "fact ."

But. also. it is of the essence of the great detective. working from

hypothesis, to be equally sceptical about hypothesis. For. whatever

his private opinion about the police who. for the most part. are the

idiot-friend turned into an institution. the great detective never

waivers in his politeness and patience towards them. For, though his

18



8 Sketch: R a i . , . e ' i f " j;lg;pl!- r, t 9 6 7

:9' Sketch: Rainer J;lg:at~.f967

1 0 C iL y Drcnm-Pantasy Or Visl an: RL..Iiin~'r . 1 lg : a : !s . _ 1 9 6 " ]

e ss en ti al. i nte ll ec tu al s ty le seems to be mostly a stereotype of what is

conventionally thought to be 'Latin ', in spite of II preponderant

ability to leap to abstract conclusions, the _great detective also k n ews

that naive and disem bodied abstractions w ill never help the solution.

H e remains responsible and he knows very well that only the

police-with all their offic ial resources-can provide him with the

u lt im a te , e mpi ri ca l, material to wh ic h, o th er w is e, he could have no

access. And of course, the great detective further knows-and quite

Infallibly-just how and i n t erm s of which t yp olo gy ( or p ar ad ig m ) all

this material is, usefully, to be organized.

So Who Cares Who Killed Roger Ackroyd? But, if along w ith

Edmund W ilson, one neither can nor should care extremely much ,

a II the sarne-s-ano literary snobbisrn apart-s-there still persists the

suspicion that, b oth p sy ch olo gica lly a nd h eu ristic ally . the detective

story is an illustration of the probrem-solving process (deprived of

funny m ystifications) as it is w idely understood to be. M eaning that,

in spite of the show y histrionics of the final presentation, the

detective story i s a lwa y s a relatively modes! affair It is two-pronged

and hybrid; and its success derives from a conflation of Ilrtdinga= -the

often na ive discoveries of unsuspecting cops and the alternative

suppositions of the all-suspecting detective. the ultimate sceptic,

who. in spite of his t em pe ra me nt . n ev er im agines that pretentious

specu lation Wi ll c o nc e al the lesion between things as they seem <HId

the solution as it m ust be.W hich is so much for the model and the orchestration of the

d et ec tiv e s to ry . But, considering the detective story, L~it apparent

that anything so positive and interesting is to be said for the current

styles of urbanrsriej archirectural investigationand projection? Tome , it is not ~ 'e ry a pp ar en t that [here is. For, so far as I am

co nee rned, the re st iII ex ists a highly presu rnptu ous and istitu-

nonalized em piricism (Iictiona! cops. real planners. and in spite of its

disarray, the predom inant apparatus of architectural education). In

contradistinction to this, there is a sH ghtly hysterical som ething else

w hich exhausts itself in una vailing protest against a prevalent ethos.

But. w ith all this observed-an em piricism w hich is dreadfully

tedious and a Platonisrnj M arxism which is a pp al lin gl y a bs tr ac t,

bo t h 0 r t hem in tell ectually u nd ist Ingu is hed {m uch mo re u nd i$7

tinguished than Corbul=-then w hat to say?

.1 n Berlin, in November '81, I m ade a lecture related to these

topics and I ended with a l it tl e exhibition of things which gave me

JOY. Convenien tly . they came from Berlin, [967; but to me they are

universal. They are the graphic speculations of Rainer Jagals who ,

about 10 die. felt obliged to draw . H e w as only tw enty-seven and he

wa s dying: but alm ost follow ing M ichelangelo 's instructions. 10

Tomm aso dei Cavahere-Disegno, disegno e non pad' if /empo-hedrew and drew and he used w hatever lim e was available.

So , to the results of all this , I gravitate; and, about this

individual l t hi nk thai one m ight say that if Friedrich G illy w as the

Giorgine 10 Schinkel'S Tiria n, then he is the G illy-G iorgione to

something whieh is 10 come. H e has no! been paraded by [he

exponents of architeitura razionale. Hewell could have been. But,

m eanwhile w ith his draw iogs=-funny derivatives from K lee, Mira,

and the pr:im itive-he indicates w hat J b el ie ve : t ha t a visual idea,

properly recorded, w ill. always transcend, if not polem ic, at least

practice. Because, in the end, I am compelled to s up po se . t ha t it is

draw ings such as these-desperate, translucent, eclectic . elegant, an d

Ironical-and not the programm atic compilations of the data

collectors that are going to affect our vision of the city.

W hether so m uc h m ig ht be said for the products of the Cornell

U rb an D esig n S tu dio -o ver a period of 1 9 years=- I do 110! know. I

h av e b ee n too connected w ith it to be ab le to ju dg e; and. therefore, I

am left S Im ply w ith a recapitulation of what Im ig ht h av e been I rying

10 say. That a reliance on either program at paradigm is

impoverishing; that if we arc to talk t yp olo gy , th en . a more expa nded

conception of type becom es necessary; that, if the programmers are

on the w ay out, then the nee-Rationalists h av e r ec ei ve d on Iy a very

small slice of the typological pizza and, ou t of it, they are trying 10

erect the substance of a large urbanisric dinner party. _

Il

10

The Cornell Journal or Architecture 19

program vs paradigm (colin rowe)

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