Vitruvius
355
The Journal of Architecture Volume 2 Winter 1997
What Vitruvius Said
Richard Patterson
Department of Architecture, De Montford University, Leicester LE1 9BH, UK
Vitruvius’s De architectura has long been subject to critical commentary on the grounds that its language is irregular and even untranslatable, that its technical treatment of the Orders is incomplete and inconsistent, and that its organization does not present its technical material in the most coherent way. Yet, it has also been referred to as the origin of the theoretical basis of architecture through its citation of Greek metaphysical concepts as the grounding principles for an architectural science. This paper argues that Vitruvius’s substantial contribution lay not in theoretical speculation but, through the invention of technical discourse, in the introduction of critical values to ‘technical’ matters and, through the submission of technical matters to the dynamic of language, in the constitution of technology as a developmental process.
. . . the analysis of codes perhaps offers an easier and surer historical de nition of a society than the analysis of its signi eds, for the latter can often appear as trans-historical, belonging more to an anthropological base than to a proper history. Roland Barthes Image Music Text that it alone, amongst the treatises on architecture mentioned in classical writings, managed to survive into the modern era. In the practice of architecture, however, its in uence has been relatively modest. During the Renaissance, it was the later and derivative commentator Palladius Rutilius Taurus Aemilianus (ca. AD 400) who was more frequently referred to.1 Then, as in all periods, architects sought inspiration from authors whose language and style addressed their own preoccupations, interests, and orientation. There was obviously something attractive to the Renaissance mind about the way in which Palladius limited his discourse to the reduced scope of what we
The Journal of Architecture Volume 2 Winter 1997
What Vitruvius Said
Richard Patterson
Department of Architecture, De Montford University, Leicester LE1 9BH, UK
Vitruvius’s De architectura has long been subject to critical commentary on the grounds that its language is irregular and even untranslatable, that its technical treatment of the Orders is incomplete and inconsistent, and that its organization does not present its technical material in the most coherent way. Yet, it has also been referred to as the origin of the theoretical basis of architecture through its citation of Greek metaphysical concepts as the grounding principles for an architectural science. This paper argues that Vitruvius’s substantial contribution lay not in theoretical speculation but, through the invention of technical discourse, in the introduction of critical values to ‘technical’ matters and, through the submission of technical matters to the dynamic of language, in the constitution of technology as a developmental process.
. . . the analysis of codes perhaps offers an easier and surer historical de nition of a society than the analysis of its signi eds, for the latter can often appear as trans-historical, belonging more to an anthropological base than to a proper history. Roland Barthes Image Music Text that it alone, amongst the treatises on architecture mentioned in classical writings, managed to survive into the modern era. In the practice of architecture, however, its in uence has been relatively modest. During the Renaissance, it was the later and derivative commentator Palladius Rutilius Taurus Aemilianus (ca. AD 400) who was more frequently referred to.1 Then, as in all periods, architects sought inspiration from authors whose language and style addressed their own preoccupations, interests, and orientation. There was obviously something attractive to the Renaissance mind about the way in which Palladius limited his discourse to the reduced scope of what we