ARCHITECTURAL THEORY.

Vol I: The Vitruvian Fallacy - a History of the Categories in Architecture and Philosophy

Vol II: Le Corbusier's Legacy - Principles of Twentieth Century Architecture Arranged by Category

David Smith Capon. Chichester: John Wiley. 1999. [pounds]100

At the outset David Smith Capon declares his purpose: 'To search for and set out the principles and doctrines that have governed twentieth-century architectural theory in the Western world'. To address this weighty subject he argues that he must first investigate the idea of categorization as it runs through the history of Western philosophy and the development of architectural theory. This investigation occupies the first volume of the work. Then, armed with the insights thus obtained, the discussion may return to its primary purpose.

The prospect of a text connecting architectural theory and philosophy has many attractions, but begs many questions of scope and method. The approach here is to begin, in Volume I, with the Vitruvian principles of firmitas, utilitas and venustas and locate them in a broad review of Western philosophy, beginning with the Greeks and embracing, in a broad sweep, a synopsis of medieval thought and the emergence and development of modern ideas. At the end architecture and philosophy are reunited in a discussion of developments in each during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

In many ways, this first volume achieves its end of linking architectural themes to the broader history of ideas. In such a synoptic treatment it is almost certain that complex matters will be treated with inappropriate brevity, but the picture that emerges makes a useful contribution to expanding the context in which we work.

The idea of categorization serves a useful function in establishing the background to the project, but is less successful in the second volume. The tripartite Vitruvian model is here rejected for an alternative structure of six categories, three primary: form, function and meaning, and three secondary: construction, context and the will. In a sequence of six chapters a procession of characters from the theory and practice of twentieth-century architectural is paraded by. These are drawn from all corners of the terrain and this means that we have little more than an apparently indiscriminate list of ideas and events. There are few indications why these particular characters have been chosen or clues as to the intention behind the process.

The two concluding chapters offer little to assuage these criticisms. The first begins with a superficial, comparative discussion of positivism versus phenomenology and then touches, with similar brevity, on aspects of romanticism, expressionism, rationalism and classicism. The whole work concludes with a recapitulation of Capon's categories, which have now become 'Six Principles of Architecture'. The problem is that, in this form, they become so generalized as to be almost meaningless. After all of the effort it is difficult to see how the Principles might be used, either to offer a new interpretation of the past, or to inform action for the future.