11/3/15, 7:07 PMUnified Architectural Theory: Chapter 6 | ArchDaily

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Unified Architectural Theory: Chapter 6

We will be publishing Nikos Salingaros’ book, Unified Architectural Theory, in a series ofinstallments, making it digitally, freely available for students and architects around the world.The following chapter discusses the extent to which architecture can be consideredsuccessful, i.e. adaptive to its specific locality. Although recognizing the merits of “CriticalRegionalism,” Salingaros here explains why that framework is not enough to analyzearchitecture in terms of its environmental, cultural and emotional impact. If you missedthem, make sure to read the previous installments here.

Suppose that we have successfully documented and catalogued all form languages,including those from vernacular traditions, past times, and contemporary practice. Ascientific approach requires the next step, which comprises both analysis and classification.A catalogue is a useful store of information, but it is only the beginning of a systematicstudy.

What do some form languages have in common, and on what qualities do some of themdiffer? One measure is their degree of complexity, as documented by the length ofdescription of the form language. Another is adaptation to locality. How far does a formlanguage justify itself as being regional? Here, regional is the opposite of universal.

It is therefore useful to classify form languages by how much they adapt to a certainlocality. If it does adapt, each language will, of course, adapt to its own specific locality:what we measure is how good that adaptation is. Success of adaptation is measured ifbuildings are energy efficient in the low-tech sense, so that the majority population can profitfrom them. By contrast, high-tech energy efficiency may be very useful, but it usually relies

Bagsværd Church, by Jørn Utzon, is commonly cited as an example of "CriticalRegionalism." However, according to Salilngaros' Unified Architectural Theory, "Critical

Regionalism" does not go far enough in removing architecture from the influence ofModernist principles. Image © Flickr User seier + seier - http://www.flickr.com/photos/seier/ MORE ARTICLES »

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upon imported technology and materials, and is thus global, not regional.

Let’s try to derive a theoretical result: “is the complexity of a form language related to itsdegree of regionalism?”

Regionalism measures to what degree local materials are used, how local culture isrespected in the geometry of the building, how evolved adaptations to climatebecome part of the design, etc. Conversely, we measure to what degree these factors areignored for the purposes of imposing a top-down stylistic conception.

In the past, transport was difficult, so people were forced to use locally-available materials.There is a related philosophy of regionalism that respects the landscape and nature. Aretrees, rivers, hills, and lakes respected, or are they just cleared indiscriminately to makeroom for a building? Also, if a building uses good local materials, it is long-lived with thenecessary repair and maintenance. There is a sense that it belongs to the place and theculture. But buildings that do not respond to the local environment often decay relativelyquickly. If they don’t, they can become hated intruders.

There is another, vast topic of further investigation, and it has to do with how a personreacts emotionally to a building. This has more to do with the form language, while only alittle of the response is specific to a building.

This question makes sense only after we accept Christopher Alexander’s claim that 90% ofour emotional response to a building is shared across cultures. It is not a matter ofopinion, like whether we “like” something or not. That depends upon education andconditioning, and is less fundamental.

Something feels connected to our person, to our deepest self, and we identify with it. AsAlexander says, it becomes “personal”. This connective effect is due to geometricalproperties, a few of which we know (and are going to study here).

Geometrical coherence in a structure, when it achieves an optimal value, induces anintensely positive feeling in us. This could paradoxically be coming from a structure that, forother reasons, we don’t particularly like, or we judge it to be not of great artistic orarchitectural significance. The contradiction between what our body is experiencing, andwhat our rational mind is telling us, could induce cognitive dissonance.

An intense degree of connectivity with an artifact or structure establishes a personalrelationship with the physical object or space. We experience a healing process, a sense ofhappiness, unless of course we are instead experiencing cognitive dissonance. (Thatcreates a state of stress.)

This discussion has important philosophical implications. It proposes a post-Cartesian viewof the universe. Recall that Descartes viewed natural things as machines detached fromeach other. By contrast, we view a person and the object he/she is interacting with as twocomponent parts of a larger system. The act of experiencing an artifact or building ties theobserver with the observed.

Modern physics is in fact based precisely on this concept of close interaction between theobserver and what is observed. The experiments demonstrating this phenomenon work onthe quantum level. What we are discussing here occurs on the macroscopic level, however.Thus we have to rely upon our perception rather than any physical measurements.

And yet, during the past several decades, philosophical Cartesianism has triumphed,becoming ever more extreme. The universe and its highly-complex mechanisms were allassumed to be like simplistic machines, which is false. Our perception of the world hasbecome reductionistic in many fields, including design, ignoring science as it did so.Nowadays, architectural discourse never considers the complex binding of the observer withthe observed.

Tracing the origins of this development leads us to an old political philosophy. A group ofphilosophers known as the “Frankfurt School” proposed a set of radically new rules forsociety to follow. This occurred in the 1930s as part of a Marxist drive for a new society.Their writings, labeled as “Critical Theory”, ignore human nature, and hope rather naively tomold a new human being to inhabit a proposed utopian world. But any philosophy that isdetached from science is bound to be misleading and even dangerous, and this is certainlytrue of the “Frankfurt School”.

A central tenet of Marxist ideology is that the past and all traditions stand in the way ofhuman progress. The only way forward, it claims, is to first reject the past, and to destroy itso it no longer contaminates our newly-constructed Utopia. This thinking has profound

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consequences for the design of the environment. Traditional notions of connecting toarchitecture are deemed to be politically incorrect and are strongly condemned.

The problem for architects is that a body of writings labeled “Critical Theory” is mistaken forarchitectural theory. They are nothing of the sort; in fact, they are not a theory of anything.“Critical Theory” is simply a roadmap for a revolution based on Marxist and technocraticprinciples. Traditional societies are to be disbanded, and people treated as cogs in a vastindustrial machine.

A core of resentment arises here against traditional notions of beauty, and that applies toarchitecture as well. Traditional form languages are declared to be undesirable, fit only forextinction. They are to be replaced by one universal language that expresses technology,industrialization, and collectivization.

“Critical Regionalism” is a movement to adapt design to local climatic and site conditions,and to some degree, locally-available materials. It represents a healthy reaction to the non-adaptiveness of the International Style of Modernism. Unfortunately, the inclusion of theword “critical” creates a contradiction, since it is tied to an anti-regional and anti-traditionalphilosophical and political movement. In practice, critical regionalism willfully perpetuatesthe form languages of Modernism. Our understanding, however, is that regionalism hasto protect and re-use traditional form languages. True regionalism has to free itselffrom any global form language imposed from above, and from any forces ofuniformization and conformity.

This raises the issue of form languages being linked to particular philosophies. That mayvery well be true. But I disagree with almost all other authors, and I insist that philosophycannot be considered a substitute for architectural theory. Regardless of how a formlanguage arises, theoretical tools from architecture and human biology can be usedto explain how effective it is in providing useful buildings. This is the true objective ofarchitectural theory.

Putting the cart before the horse, i.e. labeling philosophical or political discourse attached toa form language as “theory”, totally confuses what theory really is. Unfortunately, mostbooks on “architectural theory” are simply historical accounts of thinking that is used tojustify a particular form language using criteria other than human use.

Similar form languages have evolved in different cultures that, however, share localmaterials, climate, and topography. This is an example of parallel convergent evolution,much like the dorsal fins of sharks and dolphins in biology. By leveling cultural andgeographical differences, however, one ends up destroying the evolved sustainabilityand energy efficiency encoded in traditional form languages.

For about a century, we have experienced project-driven theory, which, again, is not theoryat all. An architect designs a building intuitively, usually using an unarticulated formlanguage, and subsequently creates some explanation after-the-fact. This is puremarketing. Architectural critics play the game and elaborate on this ad hoc explanation,discussing it as if it were theory, but that makes it neither scientific, nor an honestdescription of the actual design process.

Very often, the architect invents a “look” that has no rational basis, being only a visceralinspiration of how to express certain favored images. At other times, the architect may bedriven by conscious or subconscious forces of destruction, and this motivation is reflected inthe built project having a “transgressive” look. The proffered “theoretical” explanation ofsuch a form is never honest about its source of inspiration.

I do not believe that after-the-fact justifications of contemporary buildings can be useful toolsfor architecture students. They only confuse the basic issue: distinguishing betweengenuine theory and marketing.

Further Readings:

Christopher Alexander, The Phenomenon of Life, Chapter 7: “The Personal Nature ofOrder” (Center for Environmental Structure, Berkeley, 2001).

Léon Krier, “Building Civil Cities”, Traditional Building, 2005; available from<http://zeta.math.utsa.edu/~yxk833/KRIER/Leon-civilcities.html>.

Nikos A. Salingaros & Kenneth G. Masden, “Politics, Philosophy, Critical Theory”,Philadelphia Society, 2011. Since this is a Chapter of the present book, we will bepublishing it online.