Chapter 6
The Space of Fiction On the Cultural Relevance of Architecture Louise Pelletier
What is it that moves us when we enter certain buildings? Why do some places give us a sense that we belong, whereas we feel ill at ease in others? Some might call it “architectural meaning,” others, the “poetry of architecture.” Either way, architects have always been concerned with this expressive power of architecture to touch human emotions while at the same time positioning itself in the public domain, playing a political role in ordering human interactions. Traditionally, and until the end of the seventeenth century, this “language” of architecture was firmly established in the notion of decorum, the appropriate use of ornament, “the faultless ensemble of a work composed, in accordance with precedent, of approved details” (Vitruvius 1983: Book 1, Ch.2). Based on natural proportions and therefore a sense of harmony, architectural expression implied a common ground that made it possible for an entire society to share the meaning of a given work, understand its destination, read its story (Pelletier 2006). As early as the first century BC, Vitruvius understood the role of narrative in communicating an architectural intention. He tells the story of the Caryatids (Figure 6.1), these women from Karyai, a Peloponnesian city, whose inhabitants having sided with the enemy, Persia, against Greece were taken captive after their defeat. But rather than simply exhibiting them in a single triumphal procession, architects “incorporated images of these women in public buildings as weight-bearing structures” so that they be “weighted down forever by the burden of shame, forced to pay the price for such grave disloyalty on behalf of their whole city” and be recalled to future generations (Vitruvius 1983: Book 1, Ch.1). Today, in our multicultural societies, one often gets the sense that some buildings are intentionally hermetic to any form of interpretation or appropriation, and that they can only be perceived as aesthetic objects. The cause in part is the loss of a common language, a common ground of interpretation. But it also comes from the belief that architectural expression derives from a rational development of
Figure 6.1 Caryatids from the Erechtheion, Acropolis, Greece
architectural program understood in terms of functional requirements. For example, if all the required functions of a given building, let's say an airport, are positioned in their appropriate location, we would expect to experience the place as a coherent structure — its meaning should emerge from its functional expression. Yet, our experience of many sophisticated airports often leaves us with a sense of disorientation and confusion. Providing a sense of orientation is an implicit role of architecture. Yet, with the rise of functionalism at the beginning of the twentieth century, this role seems to have been neglected. If we look at the problem historically, we realize that the complex paradox between function and expression in architecture is a relatively recent problem. Ever since Antiquity, architecture has played a crucial role, for it not only provided shelter to human kind, it also expressed the order of the universe. This expressive role, never distinct from the purpose of the building, was conveyed by the architectural orders. The temples of Minerva, Mars and Hercules, for example, were built in the Doric order because its simple, potent form was appropriate to the gravity of these divinities. According to Vitruvius in De Architectura, “because of their might, buildings [devoted to these divinities] ought to be erected without embellishments.” Temples to Venus, Flora, Proserpine and the Nymphs, on the other hand, required the Corinthian order, which was more appropriate to the gentleness of these goddesses. But the architectural orders were not abstract formal transformations, they were grounded in a common understanding of natural proportions and mythological stories that were shared by all: they were a common language. It is during the second half of the seventeenth century that a sense of arbitrariness started to disturb the commonly accepted expressive power of the architectural orders and proportions with the publication of works such as R. Fréart de Chambray's Parallèle de l'architecture antique avec la moderne (1650) and Claude Perrault's Ordonnance des cinq espèces de colonnes (1683). Perrault radically questioned the natural foundations of architecture, arguing that the proportions of architectural orders were the result of social conventions and a general consensus among architects, rather than being based on natural and therefore absolute principles as was generally understood
since Antiquity (Pelletier 2006: Ch. 1). Confronted with the problem of a discipline that was gradually losing its universal language, architects started looking for new ways of maintaining the expressive role of architecture. At the end of the eighteenth century, architects such as Étienne-Louis Boullée, Claude-Nicolas Ledoux, and Nicolas Le Camus de Mézières explored the power of narrative and fiction in very innovative ways to convey the emotions and the sensations of architectural spaces. For Boullée, his theory on the essence of bodies (De l'essence des corps) classified forms from nature according to their specific character and the various sensations they could evoke. His funerary architecture, for example, was directly inspired by the modulation of light and shade in winter (Figure 6.2). He writes: In order to create sad and sombre images, I have tried in funerary monuments to present the skeleton of architecture through bare walls, and create the image of a buried architecture, using nothing but low and sunk proportions, buried in the ground, made of substances that absorb light, thus the dark picture of an architecture of shadows drawn by the effect of even darker shadows. (Boullée 1968: 77–8)
Boullée's theoretical position, like that of many late-eighteenth-century architects, was greatly indebted to the sensionalist philosophy initiated by John Locke and developed by Étienne Bonnot de Condillac for whom the arts had a common origin in expression. Boullée and others used “natural forms” as a basic language to announce the destination of buildings. Ledoux, on the other hand, used narrative in a more direct way to invent architectural programs for a new ideal community. He took his quest for architectural expression and individual affirmation to a new level in L'Architecture considérée sous le rapport de l'art, des mœurs et de la législation (1804). For the new city of Chaux, he invented specific architectural forms to express the particular nature of every architectural program. These architects from early modernity used language to recreate new worlds and expand the limits of architecture. Fiction and story telling became their favoured means of expressing architectural intentions.
Figure 6.2 Étienne-Louis Boullée's buried architecture inspired by the winter season, entrance to a cemetery
In The Genius of Architecture, a treatise on the distribution of the hôtel particulier (mansion) by Le Camus de Mézières, architectural spaces are also modulated by fiction. The precise succession of rooms described in his treatise makes use of a famous boudoir novel of the time to structure his architectural theory: Jean-François de Bastide's The Little House, first published in 1758. Le Camus literally borrows the tension described between two lovers in the novel in an attempt to recreate an emotional climax typical of fictional story telling, and ultimately to draw the reader/visitor into the private spaces of the hôtel particulier. As in other boudoir novels, architecture plays an active role in portraying the state of mind and emotions of its inhabitants. The fundamental assumption of both Bastide's novel and Le Camus's treatise is that architecture has the power to create feelings that are
equivalent in essence and intensity to sensations induced by a lover. The story of The Little House begins as a wager between Mélite, an educated young woman, and the Marquis de Trémicour who believes he can seduce her solely through the architectural charms of his little house, a clandestine country house. The Marquis knows that the gradual increase in ornamentation throughout the house creates a temporal unfolding that will gradually lead his guest to an emotional climax. Le Camus de Mézières describes the emotional structure of the plot in architectural terms: Because of the gradual increase of ornamentation, “each room makes us desire the next; and this agitation engages the mind, holding it in suspense, in a kind of satisfying bliss” (Le Camus de Mézières 1780: 44–45). The admitted objective of architecture for both authors was indeed to create this culmination. From the start, it is clear that the little house is an extension of the Marquis' wit and a materialization of his charms. As he guides Mélite throughout the house, the succession of spaces are qualified in terms of shapes, proportions, and various sensuous ornaments. The calculated placement of light is also most important in this lovers' abode, for it heightens the emotions of its inhabitants. In The Little House, a long sequence takes the reader through the first vestibule, the living room, a bedchamber, and finally to a boudoir, “a place that needs no introduction to the woman who enters, her heart and soul recognizing it at once” (Bastide 1995: 75). Here, more than anywhere else before, the lighting effects are carefully controlled to create the magic and optical effects of a natural grove enhanced by art. The walls of the boudoir are thinner than the partitions in the rest of the house, and in a wide corridor surrounding the boudoir, the Marquis has placed musicians who have been waiting for his signal to begin playing. In the little house, all the senses are addressed in an attempt to seduce its guest. As Mélite fears for her virtue, she tries to escape from the boudoir but enters the bathroom where she is even more touched by the artistic beauty of the place. Mélite confesses that she is seduced by the charms of the little house, but Trémicour, who senses his victory, delays Mélite's defeat and lightens his tone. Mélite is allowed to retreat as the Marquis hopes that the architectural charms of the following apartments will convince her to concede his victory. They return to the living room, where he opens the door to the garden. Trémicour guides his guest through the garden like a playwright directing spectators through a dramatic sequence. Nothing was spared to impress his young prey, including fireworks that introduced the gleam of a tender and submissive love into the eyes of the Marquis. Mélite anxiously rushes back inside to escape the enchanted garden. She quickly passes through some cabinet, before entering the dining room, where a meal is waiting for them. By now, all of Mélite's senses are stimulated, and she becomes most vulnerable to the seductive powers of the place — and to the Marquis de Trémicour himself. Suddenly aware that she can no longer resist the charms of the place and of its owner, Mélite attempts one last escape, but in her confusion, she takes the wrong door and finds herself in a second boudoir, where she ultimately loses the wager. In boudoir novels of the time, architecture often played an active role in portraying the state of mind and emotions of its inhabitants. In The Little House, the succession of rooms and their gradual increase in ornamentation conveyed the idea of gradation of sensuous delight through the different kinds of voluptuous pleasures. Le Camus de Mézières compares this gradual progression of architectural ornamentation to the development of dramatic action in a play. This analogy with the theatre is crucial for Le Camus, as we shall see later. He also uses the notion of “gradation,” an explicit term of seduction, to explain the central concept of his architectural theory: “The gradation of
opulence, as one progresses further into the interior, casts the spell and stimulates the senses” (Le Camus de Mézières 1992: 128). However, the intimate connection between The Genius of Architecture and the sensuous architecture of Bastide's novel is based on more than their shared language of seduction. Le Camus de Mézières makes direct use of the narrative structure of The Little House, borrowing the room-by-room description of the distribution and decoration of a hôtel particulier that follows the exact same sequence as the route described by Bastide in his novel. The reader follows the same progression that led to Mélite's seduction, which implicitly reveals an architectural space of desire in The Genius of Architecture. As in Bastide's novel, the sequence of rooms in Le Camus's treatise begins in the vestibule, followed by a series of anterooms that best exemplifies Le Camus's notion of gradation. Every doorway becomes a proscenium announcing the character of the rooms to come, as the stage sets at the theatre give the tone for the action. This first progression toward the main apartments of the hôtel is an extended threshold that delays the entrance of the visitor into the centre of the house while gradually increasing the level of decoration, and with it, the emotional tension. This sequence gradually leads the reader to the living room, which is used for festive occasions and must display the magnificence of the place. Then comes the bedchamber immediately followed by the boudoir, and there, the level of detail is developed to the highest degree. Its decoration appeals to all the senses, and invites a visitor to abandon any resistance to the pleasures of the senses: “Here the soul rejoices; its sensations are akin to ecstasy” (Le Camus de Mézières 1992: 116–118). The general effect of the whole is better experienced than it can be described, Le Camus emphasizes, which again confirms the distinctiveness of his architectural theory of expression: the specificity of distinct spaces can be perceived intuitively through the senses, but resists discursive identification Of all the rooms described in Le Camus's treatise, the boudoir most closely resembles the depiction in Bastide's novel; Le Camus's description of its ornamentation is taken almost word for word from The Little House, insisting on the sensuous qualities, the optical illusions and the lighting effects of this abode of sensual delight. The mirrors framed by sculpted tree trunks and arranged in a quincunx, the candlelight veiled with gauze, and the illusion of a natural wood artfully lit, are found almost literally in Bastide's novel, making evident the influence of the libertine novel on the architectural treatise. This unacknowledged borrowing of a literary description was not perceived as a lack of imagination in the context of the Enlightenment. Rather it confirmed the need to operate within a shared reality — a known story. In The Genius of Architecture as in The Little House, the bathroom is the main room that follows the boudoir. It is the apartment whose decoration is determined most specifically by its occupant. It is the refuge of Diana and therefore is characterized by elegance and lightness: its proportion is Corinthian. Le Camus suggests surrounding the bathtub with a curtain of the whitest fabric to create more intimacy. However, Diana sometimes roams through the forest, where the scorching sun may tan her skin. In this case, he suggests, blue curtains might be more appropriate and would suit her skin tone better. “Foresight is all,” he claims: “What is proper for a blonde has not the same advantage for a brunette” (Le Camus de Mézières 1992: 124). The decoration of the bathroom thus becomes an extension of one's clothing, an interface between skin and walls. In Bastide's novel, Mélite escapes from the bathroom and runs off to the gardens for a moment of respite before returning to the house where dinner is waiting for them. Le Camus follows the same progression, and accordingly concludes the enumeration of the main rooms inside the hôtel
particulier with the dining room. Even though Mélite felt her determination falter during dinner, it is not there that she loses her virtue, but in a second boudoir where she enters by mistake while thinking she is leaving the house. Trémicour sees that in her confusion Mélite is taking the wrong door, but does not try to stop her. Instead, he distracts her at the threshold by putting his foot on her dress. As she turns her head to disengage her dress, she does not notice that she is entering, in fact, a green boudoir. Using a similar literary deceit, Le Camus de Mézières also pretends to lead the reader toward the exit, but suddenly makes a volte-face and introduces a second boudoir. Indeed, the last chapter of The Genius of Architecture is a description of the stable yards and related carriage houses. As the reader prepares to take leave after a long enumeration of rooms that concludes with the riding school, Le Camus then returns in the very last pages to a final boudoir, suggesting that the roof above the riding school would be an ideal location for it, since “Mars and Venus always agree” (Le Camus de Mézières 1992: 176). A contrast of light and shade enveloping architectural elements in the most voluptuous way characterizes this last boudoir. Le Camus describes the slow and sensuous movement of light softened by the roundness of the shafts, gliding voluptuously around columns, before falling plentifully on the ground where the surrounding peristyle reflects its brightness. Le Camus's treatise implicitly addresses the architectural space of desire in a scheme of seduction as it shares the same “plot” as Bastide's story. Throughout his treatise, Le Camus insists that it is essential for the architect to determine the primary narrative that the house must convey — its intention. In The Genius of Architecture, the narrative is clear: the delayed fulfilment and extended threshold of the hôtel particulier evokes the erotic tension between two lovers, a tension that becomes palpable and that addresses all the senses while defying objectification. Even though Le Camus de Mézières appears to have borrowed deliberately the structure of his architectural treatise from a well-known architectural novel of the time, this unacknowledged quotation points mainly at the importance of grounding one's discourse within a shared language, and ensuring that the work communicates a clear intention. Concealed in the narrative structure of The Genius of Architecture is the implied objective of the architect: to create a sensuous architectural experience modelled on the gradual seduction of a lover. However, one should not assume that Le Camus sought to reproduce the libertine space of seduction, typical of the gallant eighteenth-century society. Although Le Camus literally borrows some passages from The Little House and follows its narrative structure, he never explicitly acknowledges the influence of Bastide's novel on his architectural treatise. Even though seduction is an important part of his architectural theory, he clearly did not want his architectural treatise to be reduced to the erotic space of a boudoir novel. If one looks at his entire body of work, particularly his later literary writings, there is an explicit desire to recover a more original meaning of Eros, as expressed in classical tales, where desire and unrequited love offer the possibility of articulating an ethical position: finding an appropriate conduct between what is desired and what is given to the senses. The pleasure of the senses advocated by Le Camus de Mézières becomes clearer when considered in the light of his novel Aabba (1784) and his description of a picturesque garden, Description des eaux de Chantilly et du hameau (1783). These two literary works epitomize Le Camus's belief that narrative space can translate the noblest expression of love. Unlike the typical boudoir novels of the
Figure 6.3 Psyche revived by the Kiss of Love, by Antonio Canova at the Louvre Museum.
time, these two works do not rely on games of deception to manifest their spatial tension. When Le Camus writes explicitly about the space of desire in a literary form, he returns to classical sources and tries to redefine the role of Eros, the bittersweet, as an agent of disruption that perpetually delays fulfilment and characterizes the destiny of human life. In Aabba, his novel, Le Camus borrows extensively from classical romances from antiquity such as Longus's story of Daphnis and Chloe (second century AD) and the story of Love and Psyche, first articulated in writing by Apuleius (second century AD). AS in many classical myths, Venus (Aphrodite) plays a major role in maintaining the tension between purity and sensuality. Her jealousy often becomes the driving force behind the story, as Cupid becomes the executioner of his mother's revenge. In the story of Love and Psyche, Eros falls in love with a beautiful young girl, and takes her to a palace where he joins her every night, promising her eternal love if she agrees never to try to see his face. One night, she approaches with a lamp and sees Eros; a drop of oil wakes him up and he runs away. After many adventures, Psyche finds Eros again. The myth of Love and Psyche was interpreted as the destiny of fallen souls in constant search for complete and divine love (Figure 6.3). For Le Camus, the genius of architecture relied on the architect's ability to convey the effects of fiction through the tension of erotic narratives. This mode of expressing architectural meaning was part of a tradition in architectural theory that began with Francesco Colonna's treatise, Hypnerotomachia Poliphili (1499). The Hypnerotomachia is an original narrative articulation of the architectural space of desire. It demonstrates the potential of architectural meaning to involve the individual not only intellectually but also in an embodied way. It is the story of a dream in which the main protagonist, Poliphilo, visits many ancient marvels, classical architectural monuments, and wondrous structures such as a pyramidal monument, an elephant-based obelisk, a Temple to Venus, in search of his beloved Polia. The reach itself is the quintessence of architectural meaning. Poliphilo's journey takes him through a series of initiatory experiences in which he successively dies and is brought back to life following his encounter with the five senses impersonated by five nymphs (Colonna 1499: Preface). After acknowledging their mutual love, Poliphilo and Polia cross the water in Cupid's chariot and arrive triumphantly at the enchanted island of Cytherea, where geometric
gardens and ornate fountains epitomize the perfection of unearthly love. Hypnerotomachia is an original narrative articulation of the architectural space of desire. “It expounds a poetic vision that sets a temporal boundary to the experience of architecture, emphasizing that architecture is not only about form and space but about time, about the presence of man on earth” (Pérez-Gómez 1998: 92). It demonstrates the potential of architecture to involve the individual not only intellectually but also in an embodied way. The space of desire characterizes humanity, a bittersweet condition between nature and culture. Interestingly, from the Renaissance onwards, erotic narratives became a powerful model to convey architectural meaning, a tradition in architectural theory that began with Colonna's treatise. But only at the end of the seventeenth century could architectural writers understand that places were no longer simply given with meaning in the current cultural climate, like the genius loci of antiquity, and that architects had to create qualitative, expressive spaces. Le Camus de Mézières' architectural theory, like that of many of his contemporaries, developed a spatial interpretation of current experiential perception based on the narrative temporality of fiction with a beginning, an emotional climax, and an ending that resolved the dramatic tension. As in Colonna's story, in which the garden and architectural spaces offer a privileged setting for the lovers to express their passions, Le Camus's narratives define a space of erotic tension in which an architectural intention is translated into built form. This use of narrative to convey the temporal experience of architecture and involve the individual in an embodied way constitutes an important precedent for restoring the communicative dimension of contemporary architecture and may indeed continue to be a powerful strategy in the design of our built environment.
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