the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the editors of The Journal of

Interdisciplinary History

Architecture and the Crisis of Modern Science by Alberto Perez-GomezReview by: Damie StillmanThe Journal of Interdisciplinary History, Vol. 16, No. 2 (Autumn, 1985), pp. 309-310Published by: The MIT PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/204183.

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REVIEWS

309

to be

unprofitable.

But

the

flow of

thought

is

always

clear,

the

argument

is

always

open,

and

the

subject

itself

is

not

only

of

his-

torical

significance

but also of

plain

human interest.

Ramsay

MacMullen

Yale

University

Architecture

and the

Crisis

of

Modern

Science.

By

Alberto Perez-G6mez

(Cambridge,

Mass.,

The MIT

Press,

I983)

400

pp.

$30.00

Although

Perez-G6mez is concerned

with

the

revolution

in

science

that

began

with

Galileo Galilei and

extended

throughout

the

seventeenth and

eighteenth

centuries,

the real

subject

of

his

wide-ranging, closely

argued,

and

stimulating

book

is the crisis

in

modern architecture

by

this

scientific

revolution. Based on an

extremely

broad

study

of works

not

usually

examined

by

historians of

architecture,

his book charts

a

scientific

development

leading

ultimately

to

positivism.

In

his

view,

this

transformation

of

scientific research from

philosophical

speculation

to

an

autonomous

activity

dominated

by

reason and

"a

blind

technological

intentionality"

also

converted architecture

from

an

art concerned with

meaning

and based on a combination

of

experience

and belief

(or

myth)

to a

field

in

which

efficiency

was the

primary

aim

(275).

Perez-G6mez

arrives at this conclusion

through

a careful

and

de-

tailed

examination of the

changing

natures of

number,

geometry,

and

technology during

the

two

centuries

preceding

the

French Revolution

and

the

effects

of

these advances

on

architecture.

He

begins

with Per-

rault,

who,

in

the

last third

of the

seventeenth

century,

questioned

the

traditional means of

calculating

the

proportions

of

the

classical

orders

and

advocated not

only

a more

scientific

approach

but also a

more

relativist one. From

there,

he

goes

on

to look

at

the

development

of

such

subjects

as

perspective,

fortifications,

and

descriptive geometry,

as

well

as

precise

means of

mensuration,

stereotomy

(stone

cutting),

and

the

calculation of

statics and

strength

of

materials,

all

of

which are crucial

to

the erection

of

buildings.

What

Perez-G6mez sees is the

progressive

reliance on

reason

and scientific

positivism,

culminating

in the

writings

of

Durand,

the

highly

influential

professor

at the Ecole

Polytechnique

in

the

years

around

800o,

who

argued

that architecture no

longer

had

to

be

meaningful,

only

convenient and economical.1

In

the view

of

Perez-G6mez,

this

shift has had disastrous

repercus-

sions

on the

architecture of the

last

two

centuries, and,

although

the

book

does

not examine

this

problem

at

great length,

that

is

one of its

important

messages.

For,

although

concerned with

history

and based

on

scholarship

of

the

highest

order,

it is

by

no

means a

purely objective,

REVIEWS

309

to be

unprofitable.

But

the

flow of

thought

is

always

clear,

the

argument

is

always

open,

and

the

subject

itself

is

not

only

of

his-

torical

significance

but also of

plain

human interest.

Ramsay

MacMullen

Yale

University

Architecture

and the

Crisis

of

Modern

Science.

By

Alberto Perez-G6mez

(Cambridge,

Mass.,

The MIT

Press,

I983)

400

pp.

$30.00

Although

Perez-G6mez is concerned

with

the

revolution

in

science

that

began

with

Galileo Galilei and

extended

throughout

the

seventeenth and

eighteenth

centuries,

the real

subject

of

his

wide-ranging, closely

argued,

and

stimulating

book

is the crisis

in

modern architecture

by

this

scientific

revolution. Based on an

extremely

broad

study

of works

not

usually

examined

by

historians of

architecture,

his book charts

a

scientific

development

leading

ultimately

to

positivism.

In

his

view,

this

transformation

of

scientific research from

philosophical

speculation

to

an

autonomous

activity

dominated

by

reason and

"a

blind

technological

intentionality"

also

converted architecture

from

an

art concerned with

meaning

and based on a combination

of

experience

and belief

(or

myth)

to a

field

in

which

efficiency

was the

primary

aim

(275).

Perez-G6mez

arrives at this conclusion

through

a careful

and

de-

tailed

examination of the

changing

natures of

number,

geometry,

and

technology during

the

two

centuries

preceding

the

French Revolution

and

the

effects

of

these advances

on

architecture.

He

begins

with Per-

rault,

who,

in

the

last third

of the

seventeenth

century,

questioned

the

traditional means of

calculating

the

proportions

of

the

classical

orders

and

advocated not

only

a more

scientific

approach

but also a

more

relativist one. From

there,

he

goes

on

to look

at

the

development

of

such

subjects

as

perspective,

fortifications,

and

descriptive geometry,

as

well

as

precise

means of

mensuration,

stereotomy

(stone

cutting),

and

the

calculation of

statics and

strength

of

materials,

all

of

which are crucial

to

the erection

of

buildings.

What

Perez-G6mez sees is the

progressive

reliance on

reason

and scientific

positivism,

culminating

in the

writings

of

Durand,

the

highly

influential

professor

at the Ecole

Polytechnique

in

the

years

around

800o,

who

argued

that architecture no

longer

had

to

be

meaningful,

only

convenient and economical.1

In

the view

of

Perez-G6mez,

this

shift has had disastrous

repercus-

sions

on the

architecture of the

last

two

centuries, and,

although

the

book

does

not examine

this

problem

at

great length,

that

is

one of its

important

messages.

For,

although

concerned with

history

and based

on

scholarship

of

the

highest

order,

it is

by

no

means a

purely objective,

I

Claude

Perrault,

Ordonnancedes

Cinq

Especes

de Colonnes

(Paris,

I683);

Jacques-

Nicolas-Louis

Durand,

Precisdes Lecons

d'Architecture

Paris,

I802-05).

I

Claude

Perrault,

Ordonnancedes

Cinq

Especes

de Colonnes

(Paris,

I683);

Jacques-

Nicolas-Louis

Durand,

Precisdes Lecons

d'Architecture

Paris,

I802-05).

 

310

DAMIE

STILLMAN

straightforward

account. Perez-G6mez

effectively

illuminates

the

var-

ious

significant

disputes

of

the

seventeenth

and

eighteenth

centuries,

but

leaves

no

question

as to

where

his

sympathies

lie.

To

him,

the

replace-

ment

of

meaningfulness by

functionalism

has not

been an

improvement.

This

viewpoint

must

be

recognized

if

one is to understand the full

import

of

the book.

It

should

also be

realized

that this book

is

a

history

of

the effect

of the scientific

revolution

on architectural

theory

and not

on

actual

buildings.

Perez-G6mez

argues

that

the

relationship

of

theory

to

practice

was

radically

altered

by

this

revolution;

he does

not,

however,

talk

about

many

works

of

architecture.

There

is

some

discussion

about four

distinguished

architects-Guar-

ino Guarini

and Bernardo Vittone

in

late

seventeenth-century

and

mid-

eighteenth-century

Piedmont

and Etienne-Louis Boullee and Claude-

Nicolas

Ledoux in

late

eighteenth-century

France-who,

despite

their

openness

to

the new scientific

ideas,

retained

a

concern

for

meaning

in

architecture.

But,

even

here,

Perez-G6mez concentrates

almost exclu-

sively

on

their

writings

rather than

on

their

buildings

or

even their

designs, although

he considers some

of the

unexecuted

projects

of the

two

Frenchmen.

His

evaluation

of

their

ideas

and

his

judgment

that

they

have

been ill-served

by attempts

to relate them to

twentieth-century

architecture

are

perceptive

and accurate.

Yet he

needs

to see Boullee

and

Ledoux in

their social and historical

context

as

architects,

not

merely

as

theorists,

and to relate

their

theories both

to the

society

of

which

they

were a

part

and

to

their

buildings.

In

one

of

the

few

instances in

which

he

attempts

to

do

this,

in his examination

of

Ledoux,

he falls

into

the

trap,

shared

by

a

number

of

others,

of

assuming

that

the latter's ideal

city

of

Chaux was

actually

begun.

It was instead the

theoretical out-

growth

of his

earlier,

executed

royal

saltworks

at

Arc-et-Senans.

There

are other

instances

where

either the

overall treatment

or

specific

points

raised

by

Perez-G6mez

could

be

challenged,

such

as his

strong

emphasis

on

France, but,

on the

whole,

his

arguments

are

ex-

tremely

well

supported

and

his

research

both

thorough

and

impressive.

By

marshalling

a vast

array

of

relevant,

but

generally

overlooked,

ma-

terials,

he has

produced

a

significant

interdisciplinary

study

that enables

us

to

see

the

intimate connections

among

science,

philosophy,

and ar-

chitecture

in

the

beginning

centuries of the

modern world.

Although

its

wealth of information

and

its

challenging

thesis are of enormous value

in

our

comprehension

of the antecedents

of modern

architecture,

the

book should be

understood

as not

only

a dialectical but

also

a

polemical

presentation

of architectural

theory.

Damie Stillman

University

of

Delaware