From the meager beginnings of the development of industry as a major force in Europe, and later in America, the housing of the machine existed as a major issue to be addressed. Pierson, in his analysis of early industrial architecture, suggests that the form of the building was infinitely dependent upon meeting “the requirements of power-driven machinery” (2). In fact, the technical specifications of these new machines, even in their simplest forms, dictated the “association with the planning and building of factories [to] the names of engineers, not architects“ (2). The factory was from the start an extension of the machine that it housed, thus the architecture was not rightly architecture, that is to say, not built around people but some other dictating the decision-making of a design. Despite easily apparent complications with this new architectural theory, the rationale behind it, the energy that seized hopeful nations, nullified these issues to some. There was something exciting about the new prospect that “[man’s energy] was limited only by the capacity of the machine itself; and the number of machines which could be set in motion was limited only by the amount of power which could be brought to bear upon them” (2). Their limitations were blown out of the water, economic profit seeming infinitely large, and they saw no alternative outcome save their success.
Not all the world was so easy to accept this drastic turn of events, as change is never immediately well received; there will always be negative impacts on parts of society, and the people who notice them. One man particularly fond of detail was John Ruskin, a theorist who had very strong feelings about the happenings of his time. Of the resultant mass increase in labor, he felt that it was “fundamentally undermined by mechanization, the division of labor, and a capitalist system that increasingly alienated workers from the products of their efforts” (Raizman 10). He also observed that art had an improving quality on the human spirit, and could be the saving grace of society, despite the wrath of industry. In his Seven Lamps of Architecture, Ruskin writes as an aside:
So long as men work as men, putting their heart into what they do, and doing their best, it matters not how bad workmen they may be […] and if a man’s mind as well as his heart went with his work, all [these slight windows to humanity through mistakes and pauses] will be in the right places […]; and the effect of the whole, as compared with the same design cut by a machine or a lifeless hand, will be like that of poetry well read and deeply felt to that of the same verses jangled by rote. (229)
Much of the world embracing the mundanity of the regulated twelve-hour workday – Stearns includes a strict set of rules for such a factory in France during the eighteen-hundreds, including the regulation of every movement by the sound of a bell (27) – while Ruskin was rejecting regularity and consistency for preference of the sense of humanity found in irregularities and signs of the craftsmen’s existence within their work. Through all of his conflicts with the time period, Ruskin remains with the faith that the world of art as he knows it will not collapse into complete desuetude.As machines continued to grow in size and complexity, there arose a demand of more suitable architecture, and materials. At one point, Pierson discusses the use of wooden gears and their becoming obsolete, despite high efficiency, because they could not take the strain of the machines (6). This breakdown and rejection of the organic can begin to reflect the backbreaking nature of the work itself and its toll on the workers of these factories – if wooden gears, which had been perfectly suitable before, could not withstand the crushing power of new machinery, how could men be expected to work the same number of hours with these machines? This change in materials was not overlooked by Ruskin, who recognized this and called for a reversal of progress on this front.
In the “Lamp of Truth,” Ruskin spills out his woes about what he considers to be dishonest elements of architecture. “A direct falsity of assertion respecting the nature of material, or the quantity of labour” dissolves the human quality of architecture (59), and Ruskin goes all out in calling each lie “an imposition, a vulgarity, an impertinence, and a sin” (84). Structural honesty determines the nobility of the building, thus the level of respect and appreciation it receives. One sublayer of his accusations includes the use of unnatural materials, despite advancing technologies that make metal, etc. a necessity:
Architecture’s first existence and its earliest laws must, therefore, depend upon the sue of materials accessible in quantity, and on the surface of the earth; that is to say, clay, wood, or stone: and I think it cannot but be generally felt that one of the chief dignities of architecture is its historical use, and since the latter is partly dependent on consistency of style, it will be felt right to retain as far as may be, even in periods of more advanced science, the materials and principles of earlier ages. (67)
Metals, however, can be used, if only to serve the same purpose as an existing material: cement (68). To use iron and other metals in some new, unspecified manner, would taint the building with what he calls the “anarchy of iron” (69), taking away from the neutrality of other materials if used in a juxtaposed fashion, and destroying all traces of the craftsman if used on its own.Ruskin is completely enamored with ornamentation, its intricacies and its functioning role as a transfer of personality from the craftsman to the craft, so it is no wonder that he views the use of machine-generated ornament as a degradation of architecture, and a lie. The “two entirely distinct sources of agreeableness” of ornamentation as defined by Ruskin are “the abstract beauty of its forms [and] the sense of human labour and care spent upon it” (82-83). Although it takes him more than a few pages to articulate it as he becomes obsessed with the richness and admirable qualities of man-made ornament, the machine-made elements are just as much a lie to the viewer of a building as the use of wood painted to look like stone.
Not long after Ruskin’s emergence on the world as a theorist set on reforming the progress at hand through book after book critiquing the Industrial Revolution at hand, French architect and theorist Eugène Viollet-Le-Duc began to similarly explore the honest nature of material and its interaction with the architecture it was used to create. He asserts that “stone, marble, wood, cast or wrought iron, and the various forms of baked clay have widely different properties: in view of this variety and even opposition of character in the several materials, the form that suits one of them cannot suit the other” (169), going on to critique his peers for not paying attention to the properties of such materials and using them in a careless, dishonest way. In fact, he accuses them of not utilizing new materials at all – not exactly what Ruskin is calling for. Any attempts have been “timid” and lack any change in how they are used – again, almost the exact opposite of what Ruskin is saying in his Seven Lamps. The composition of a structure should, according to Viollet-Le-Duc, derive from the materials used and the assembly process of the construction, and forgetting this is the first fallacy that will inevitably domino its way into poor architecture (171).
The new way that Viollet-Le-Duc suggests architects use metals in their design is actually not very new, although in an artistically historical sense it is so. Inspired by the organic world, by the form of creatures (182), including bone structure and joints, he proposes these unnatural materials take on a natural form. The absolute inclusion of both natural form alongside mechanical qualities of iron is strange at first, especially after reading Ruskin’s definition of structural honesty. Viollet-Le-Duc seeks to emphasize the imagination, “the power given to man to unite and combine in his mind thinks that have struck his senses” (197), and when previous have these two clashing properties had such an impact on society? The change in technology produces new juxtapositions as it is layered along with historical technologies and the ever throbbing heart of progression in civilization.
As Stearns puts it, “It was, in sum, as basic a change in human history as has occurred since the advent of settled agriculture (25).” Change is imminent and constant, whether or not artists, theorists, and society at large choose to accept the fact. From caves to cows to cities to cars to computers and beyond, human nature is about evolution and the intricacies of a dynamic organism. The implications this has on culture are apparent through society’s reactions to its own art, and of course through the art itself. Architecture, an experiential art form not restricted to visual, physical, or acoustical means, is paradoxical in nature because it is a supposedly static form committed to the site and the spaces it creates, but at the same time is composed of wholly dynamic elements unavoidably linked to all that is outside. And unlike the other categories of art, architecture is embedded with responsibilities to protect and cultivate a society so that it may continue successfully.
Ruskin’s infatuation with the love handles of an imperfect architecture is not so delusional as it might seem. If architecture is about experience, the more humanity is embedded into its cracks and hiccups, the more we can feel its curves and get into the spaces that the creator slaved over – and to appreciate that construction on this other level. Meanwhile, Viollet-Le-Duc had every right to call-out the Pinocchios of the nineteenth century. Truth allows for precision and understanding; it also allows for mistakes and confusion, adding a convoluted layer of humanity – everybody lies. But when architecture becomes less than these things, when it becomes simplified down to Modernist ideals and the stripping of all ornament, the mechanization of structure itself, it becomes nothing more than a singular symbol. Although Viollet-Le-Duc’s theories and practice did make an impressionist on the Modernist movement, like a bad game of telephone, some of the key words were lost. The definition of purity and truth shift dramatically as the twentieth century progresses at a speed comparable to that of the Industrial Revolution, with a similar lack of attention paid to the shuffling of cards under the table.
As the twenty-first century unfolds, architects scramble to conceive these structures in the hopes that their buildings, their metaphorical children, will outlive them a hundred times over; they will influence the conception of hundreds, thousands of other buildings scattered across the globe; they will impact design, art, culture; they will mark some milestone in humanity’s ever-shifting sphere of history. In that sense, an architect is immortal: even as his buildings crumble, his art lives on through the art of others. But in all of these lofty ideals and a Ruskin-like faith that terms will improve if only one loves and believes in art enough, there lacks a fundamental stability that encourages society to share a similar faith in architecture. Technology adds to this unrest and skepticism; one major example of this is the fact that so many architects and clients are unwilling to embrace the digital resources at hand, and continue to rely on analog preconstruction representations as a crutch. The way that technology is being utilized now is far from maxed-out. Currently, computers are being used to replace what was once done by hand (i.e. drafting in a program like AutoCAD instead of hand-drafting a structure), most often to save time and decrease the chance of human error. Potentially, though, technology could be used to reorganize the fundamentals from the bottom up, rather than top down – how things are looking now. Improvements have certainly been made in all aspects of the field, from design to construction to business relations – architecture is, after all, an all-spanning discipline that envelops a range of subjects – but the improvements tend to lack the dynamic directionality necessary to implement a change of the capacity aforementioned by Stearns. Many have suggested that architecture is the marriage of science and art: if both of these two facilities has not only embraced new technologies but have played a role in their development, why should architecture be left behind? Social responsibility and morality, though pertinent to all occupiable structures, sometimes contribute our cautious, circulatory approach towards new technology. Beyond this, our fear of change lacks justification.
When the Big Bad Wolf is a few doors down, about to blow down another house, it’s probably not such a good time to add detailing to your brick dwelling. It might also not be the best time to get out your wireless keyboard and mouse and generate wolf-proof algorithms for structural modifications. But maybe there exists some middle ground from which we can begin to understand the complexities of architecture in a new light.
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