Oechslin, Warner - Premises For The Resumption of The Discussion of Typology
Oechslin, Warner - Premises For The Resumption of The Discussion of Typology
Oechslin, Warner - Premises For The Resumption of The Discussion of Typology
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Werner
Oechslin
Premises
for
the
Resumption of the
Discussion of Typology
at the
WernerOechslinis Professor
InstitutforGeschichteund Theorieder
Architektur,
ETH, Zurich,and an editor
of Daidalos (Berlin).
The discussion of typology was at the front ranksin architectural circles in the 1960s and early 1970s, but has lately
fallen back to the second eschelon. The "post-modern"
now takes all the headlines instead. But this shift in
current events is not at all a matter of replacement. The
increasing r6clame in architecture,on the contrary,has
tended to favor superficialmethods of study, methods for
the most part oriented towardthe outer appearance,the
superficialimage of architecture.The discussion of architecture at present suffersespecially from these ills, and as a
result a deeper understandingof typology is hardlythinkable. What survivesof such an understandingoutside of a
restrictedcircle of initiates seems to have long since been
reduced to a trivial conception of typology. The misunderstanding stubbornlyendures that typology is a matter of
classifyingforms and functions as simply and unequivocally as possible. This banalized understandingof a conception so rich in traditionand so importantin intellectual
history joins forces with what is furtheredand practicedas
"economic functionalism." Standardizationand typification
have long since occurred in this sphere but not towardan
ideal reduction of the architecturaldesign processto its
universalfoundations, not even for the purpose of guaranteeing light and air, but ratherfor the sake of increasing
productivity.As we know, this economic functionalism has
led neither to more dwelling space nor to a more livable
environment and, even more than in other partsof the
field, it has been oriented towardthe no longer profoundly
examined laws of production (and of the producers).
37
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20-22. These diagrams substitute the more severe schematization of fig. 1 by choosing
figures derived from the
square, indicating their immediate transformation into
architecture.
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d'edificesresultantdes divisionsdu quarrd,du parallelogramme,et de leurscombinaisonsavec le cercle,"publishedin his Precisdes leqons,is commonlyseen as an
exampleof thatnarrowconceptionof typologythatturns
to the solidbasisof the universallanguageof geometryto
a manneras possibleto conapplyit in as unadulterated
cretearchitectonicobjectsthemselves.That Durandrelated
("pure")
directlyto the designprogeometricconfigurations
cessemergesclearlybothfromhis publishingthe tablein
the relevanttractof the Precisand also fromthe immediate
of geometricfigureand architectural
juxtaposition
typein
the secondeditionof the table(1813).
Yet a closerexaminationshowsthatDurandby no means
de
to Quatremere
represents
only a counterposition
of
discussion
of
the
"historical"
concept typology.
Quincy's
reduction
Not even Durandspeaksonly of a "geometrical
of architecture."
On the contrary,he is concernedwith
betweena conclarifyingthe relationshipin architecture
and
the
crete(historically)
generalform
existingtypology
basedon the universallawsof geometry.Whatresembles,
in the tableof 1802, a purely"Euclidean"
developmentof
a form,entirelyin the mainstreamof the attemptsat classificationthathad been extremelypopularsincethe eighteenthcentury,turnsout undercloserscrutinyto be a very
carefullydevelopedattemptto legitimizemorecomplexarchitectonicconfigurations.
Despitethe elementarynature
of the geometricfiguresshown,even in thesesimple
forms,one can makeout the architectonic
thoughtbehind
them. Durandrevealsthis himselfin the revised,1813version of the table,wheresimple("pure")
geometricfigures
and theirarchitectoniccorrelates,in the formof fully
developedtypes,are presentedtogetherin the same
illustration.
The reasonsfor Durand'sdecisionto takethis clarifying
in his time the relastepcan only be surmised.Apparently,
demandeda morecontivelyhigh degreeof abstraction
crete,but also moretrivial,clarification.For in contrastto
this secondillustration,one can see in the firstand more
abstractdiagramthe verygenesisin stagesof the architectonic/geometric
typologies.The old questionof findinga
fundamentalprinciple,or a radicallysystematiclayingof
46
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assemblage 1
23. J.-N.-L.Durand,formule
graphique applicable aux
edifices public vout6s: comparison of geometrical schemes
and possible adoption for
public structures.
48
Oechslin
Sequence of "large typology" schemes as used in the tradition of academic architecturalculture in the second half of the
eighteenth century and the early nineteenth century.
assemblage 1
Oechslin
tice would not (as, for example, Zevi seems to do) replace
the creativityof the design process that would necessarily
follow, but ratherwould merely set out more demanding
conditions and premises. The self-evident interactionwith
these conditions has been lost to the architect in the new
mythos of the unbound desire for invention. (Even the
doctrine of mimesis had decisively limited this!) This myth
leaves the architect wholely at a loss, so that architectureis
then surrenderedever more completely to accidents and to
forces foreign to architectureitself.
In its appeal to general geometrical forms, Durand'sdiagram also shows that an identificationof architectonicfigures with functions and interpretationswas prematureat
the least, prior to the confrontation- to be sought from
within contemporarydesign itself - with fully developed
or developing traditions.The theory of charactercan set a
similar contextual condition. Quatremerede Quincy
expresslymentions that the type must receive its conventional application (emploilusagenaturel) accordingto
necessity (besoin)and natural constitution (nature). So
architecturedoes not come about by blind translationof
geometries. The circle of the argumentationis rounded
out when one considers that elsewhere, namely, in his
Considerationsmoralessur la destination d'ouvragesde
l'art, along with other conventions of varyingdegrees of
necessity, Quatremerede Quincy drawson those basic Vitruvian concepts (firmitas/utilitas/venustras)that have for
so long acted as regulativeprinciples in architecture.Once
more, in such cases it is not a matterof his pinning architecture down to its societal actualizationsor its indispensable historicity. Instead, he is concerned with defining the
remaining freedom, within and despite this conditioning,
that guaranteesthe artistthe ability to function effectively
and the possibilityof affecting society, and in this way
passes on to him a precisely defined role.
In light of this broadenedconsiderationof the work of
Quatremerede Quincy, it furtherbecomes apparentthat
the discussion of typology is by no means a matterof simplification or standardizationor of a reductivemodel of
architecturalinvention. On the contrary,we must perceive
in his work an intelligently developed construct in which
the link is ensured between the systematicand the histori51
assemblage 1
34. C. Perrault,drawing of an
observatory.
Figure Credits
All illustrationscourtesy of the
author.
Oechslin
53