I would like to share with you some thoughts on language in architecture. I do not claim to be an art or architecture historian, and I suspect that I botch the timeline, references and influences in this short essay. However, I dare the reader to go back to the original sources and prove me wrong. Thus, this is a provocation to inspire one to dip into the theory of architecture.
The theory that architecture is a language has ancient roots. Two millennia ago, the Roman architect Vitruvius wrote Ten Books of Architecture, an artifact that is often considered to be the oldest surviving treatise on architecture. In it, he not only spelled out how to build buildings, bridges, roads and other structures using Roman technology, but also the correct way to design according to classical orders.
Renascimento (Renaissance in French) architecture began with the rediscovery of Vitruvius’ writing and its translation from Latin to more accessible Italian. Numerous architects of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries then wrote their own definitive treatises on the syntax, vocabulary, and meaning of architects. These include Palladio’s Four Books of Architecture, and Alberti’s On the Art of Building.
In the seventeenth century while living in Venice, Sir Henry Wotton, translated Vitruvius’s Ten Books of Architecture to English. The famous dictum “Well building hath three conditions: firmness, commodity, and delight” is the very loose translation from Vitruvius made by Sir Henry.
American architecture then owes much to the English classical tradition, carrying from Christopher Wren’s designs of churches to colonial cities such as Boston, Williamsburg, Philadelphia, and Charleston. The United States then enshrined the classical language in American governmental architecture, perhaps due to the efforts of Thomas Jefferson and the French designer of the city of Washington, L’Enfant.
There is also a long interest in vernacular architecture that builds from a highly utilitarian approach, mixed with the myriad cultural influences of our immigrant and First American heritage, and then inflected with formal architectural culture. Steven Holl's Pamphlet Architecture of American House Types is a great introduction.
Meanwhile, back in Europe the Beaux Arts theory moved to prominence, as the “age of exploration” led to knowledge of variations in architectural language from around the world. Victorian architecture can be seen as a rather racist expression derived from the British Empire in which the various subject nations of the Empire inspired cliché architecture styles and meanings. Thus, a bank is appropriately in Egyptian style to convey the permanence and security of the institution of a bank. A government building is appropriately in Roman style to reference the Roman Republic and Roman Senate (before the despots of Imperial Rome). An entertainment garden or beach house is appropriately in the style of India to reference the lavish pleasures of the Taj Mahal. A fascination with Gothic architecture by English theorists such as Ruskin and Pugin led to a level of establishment embrace of that style as the “truly English” style.
Modernists, while rejecting the historicist ideas of racially appropriate style presented by the Beaux Arts theorists, introduced their own linguistic concepts. Le Corbusier presented his five elements of Modern architecture. Zevi wrote his The Modern Language of Architecture as the “anti-classical language.”
Christopher Alexander developed the language concept with a focus on vocabulary in A Pattern Language. This was embraced by Prince Charles of Wales, and later inspired form-based codes.
Various books and essays have been written to answer Zevi’s The Modern Language of Architecture, which itself was an answer to John Summerson’s The Classical Language of Architecture. Arguably, every great architect has mastered a language of architecture to the extent of writing architectural poetry with it. Some great architects have invented their own languages, while others have adopted an existing language.
While of great use in structuring thought about architecture and in teaching people to be architects, the notion of a language of architecture is a bit forced. Architecture is not a language nor are their languages of architecture in the sense of English, Italian, French, and Sanskrit are languages. In architecture, the meaning is always ambiguous, the syntax is both rigidly determined by structures and relaxed by an absence of semantic imperative, and the vocabulary can be freely invented. The notion of architecture as a language is a useful and poignant metaphor. However, perhaps architecture is the oldest language, as even without a spoken or written language the sense of place can inspire recognition, assessment, emotion, and self-awareness.