Montreal

Architectural
Review

Before Architecture: Archai, Architects

Abstract
“The beginning (archē) seems to be more than half of the whole.” So claims Aristotle in the irst book
of Nicomachean Ethics (1098b8). Might this claim be as true for architecture as it is for philosophy? If so,
what can the irst philosophical statements concerning architects tell us about the aims, scope and limits
of an architect’s role?
This study gathers and interprets the earliest extant references to architects in ancient Greek
philosophy, as found in select works of Plato and Aristotle. Surprisingly, there has been little treatment
of these passages. Aside from isolated citations, the question of how and why Plato and Aristotle chose
to integrate “architects” (architektōn/αρχιτέκτων) and “architectonics” (architektonikē/αρχιτεκτονική)
into their discursive inquires has not been asked. Thus, one of my basic aims is to disclose what these
philosophical passages contribute to a critical and speculative discourse on architecture. Although the
Greeks had no word for architecture per se (architectura being a Latin word irst found in Cicero),1 Plato
and Aristotle—in the midst of examining political, ethical and epistemological problems and potentiali-
ties (in the 4th c. BCE)—began loosely to deine principled “architectonic” practices involving the knowing
direction of individuals, arts and materials toward comprehensively beneicial aims. Whereas the earliest
extant inscriptions naming “architects” (from the 440s and 430s BCE) yield only a few meaningful but

MAR Volume 2, 2015

largely techno-bureaucratic details,2 and Herodotus’ Histories (from the same decades) merely credit select
“architects” with a disparate assortment of “wonders” (thaumata),3 the philosophical sources introduced
below open more precisely articulable questions concerning what architects ought to know, do and desire.
As I have shown elsewhere, philosophical thinking about architectural practice was preigured
by dramatizations of architectural acts, as shown by the inclusion of “architects” and “architecting”
(αρχιτεκτόνειν) in select scripts of Athenian drama. Indeed, the earliest extant architektōn in Greek lit-
erature is found neither in inscriptions nor historical prose, but (arguably) in a fragmentary etiological
drama by Aeschylus (staged in 476 BCE), wherein a personiied Justice (daughter of Zeus) is presumed
“to architect” proportionate order.4 About ifty years later, in the wake of Pericles’ ambitious building
program and while Herodotus’ Histories were circulating in Athens, Euripides and Aristophanes featured
more medial (and mortal) architect-protagonists. Amid grave dangers, these agents—called “architects”
and called upon “to architect”—dared to initiate and lead collaborative schemes aimed at restoring social
order, regional peace, levity, and even theōria.5 These dramatizations, together with the philosophical
passages following them, represent substantial yet largely overlooked contributions to the beginnings of
architectural theory.
Bearing these precedents in mind, the “architect” and “architectonic” terms of Plato and Aristotle
will be our guide to renewed inquiry into the archē of architecture. While some may be eager to brush these
old words aside, this study seeks to grasp them afresh, taking them up as clues to discursive contexts that
open onto cultural problems and possibilities, still comparable and instructive to our own.

Plato: Toward a Syncritical, Synthetic and True Technē

The dialogues of Plato have been profoundly inluential in shaping architectural theory, at least since the
Renaissance. This is true particularly of dialogues concerning the constitution of the polis, such as the
Republic, Timeaus, Critias and Laws, wherein Plato’s interlocutors provide seminal formulations of topics
still pertinent to present-day architectural discourse. Such topics include: the desire for ideal cities; notions
of ideal forms; the paradigmatic role of geometry; nuances of representation; mimetic correlations of body,
city and world; the generative primacy of space; and the nature of the beautiful—a topic also central to the
Symposium, Phaedrus and Philebus. However, as architecturally relevant as all this may be, not one of
these dialogues mentions the Greek word architektōn. Even Timaeus is bereft of architects. The maker of
the cosmos featured in this dialogue is not called architect; rather, he is a dēmiurgos, one who performs
“work” (ergos) for the “people” (dēmos). This distinction should not be overdrawn, since a dēmiurgos was
a general designation inclusive of architects, and the demiurge in Timaeus is also qualiied with tektōn
terminology.6 Nonetheless, an inquiry into the beginnings of architectural theory must tackle the two
Montreal Architectural Review : Vol. 2, 2015 | Before Architecture 7

dialogues where Plato actually does involve “architects”: the Statesman and the Gorgias. In doing so, we
discover that these dialogues explore topics concerned less with the physical and geometrical premises
of cities (and cosmos), and more with the words and deeds, the intentions and practices, of leading civic
agents—those who ought to guide fellow citizens toward discerning and manifesting what is best for the
common good. As Plato suggests, such civic agents (statesmen and orators) perform roles comparable to
architects.
In two dialogues grappling with the interrelated arts of politics and rhetoric, the Statesman and
Gorgias, Plato introduces the example of architects to help clarify the powers and problems of civic
leadership. At the beginning of the Statesman (Politikos), having established that a statesman acts less
by means of hands and body and more by means of “intelligence (synesis) and strength of soul” (259c),
the principal speaker, a Stranger from Elea, begins elaborating this peculiar mode of intelligence with a
comparison to architects:

Every architektōn, too, is not himself engaged in work but is a leader (archōn) of workmen (ergatōn)… he
furnishes cognition (gnōsin) and not manual work (cheirourgian) (259e).7

In isolation, this statement seems merely to subordinate manual workers to (presumably) more knowing
architects, while rationalizing Plato’s notoriously dogmatic divisions of labour. However, in discursive
context, the passage opens onto broader and subtler elaborations. Immediately after separating “cognitive”
(gnōstikēn) and “practical” (praktikēn) sciences, the Stranger suspects the division is not so clear-cut; for
the example of architects reveals that the mode of intelligence under discussion is both cognitive and prac-
tical. Questioning and amending his provisional distinction, the Stranger realizes that the art (technē) of
statesmen, like that of architects, involves leading others in dynamic situations (260a). Such a socially and
practically involved agency demands not only a cognitive capacity to make critical judgments, discerning
and deciding what is best on behalf of others, but also an ongoing interpretive, communicative and inter-
active capability to make best use of that knowledge by leading a variety other skilled individuals and arts
toward mutually desired ends (260a). It would be insuicient, the Stranger contends, for those with civic
obligations to judge from a distance, like a “spectator” (theatēn, 260c); rather, they must enact judgments
by engaging an ensemble, leading others in their midst. Put another way, architects and statesmen translate
decisive judgments into appropriate collaborative actions. Although their art may not be productive in
isolation (in the same way that manual labourers produce artifacts), it is oriented toward external action,
and thus cannot be purely cognitive. The remainder of the dialogue is devoted to elucidating this hybrid
mode of practical intelligence, which the Stranger further subdivides as both discerning and directive, or
critical (kritikos) and epitactic (epitatikos, 260b). Although Plato’s dialectical method proceeds by logical
division, his ultimate philosophical aim, as well as that of statesmen (and architects), is to foster synthetic
practices and understanding.
8 Lisa Landrum | Montreal Architectural Review : Vol. 2, 2015

Architects are not mentioned again in the Statesman, aside from a subsequent observation that
an architect’s art difers from a statesman’s in that a statesman directs only animate kinds of becoming,
involving living “ensouled” citizens, whereas the “architectonic (art)” (architektonikón) extends also to
inanimate kinds of becoming, including the transformation of “soulless” building materials (261c-d).
Thus, ostensibly leaving architects behind, the Stranger proceeds to elucidate the political technē through
a variety of other revealing paradigms: comparing statesmanship, comically, to the shepherding of herd
animals (261d-267d); mythically, to the periodic taming of the unruly animal cosmos by a demiurge and
divine helmsman (268-274e); and, more analogically, to the art of weaving. Like weaving, the political art
harmonizes a web of heterogeneous elements into a complex whole, creating unity from multiplicity by
intermeshing opposites, including people of opposing but mutually reinforcing dispositions (279a-283a).
This prolonged excursus into weaving—one of the dialogue’s many “devices of indirection”8—draws crit-
icism from the Stranger’s interlocutor for its excessive length (283b). The Stranger, in turn, defends his
elaborately detailed paradigm with a lesson on measurement. In a way that recalls Socrates’ opposition to
speeches “hurried on by the clock” (Theaetetus, 172d),9 and anticipates Aristotle’s arguments for lexible
rules and diferent kinds of precision,10 the Stranger in the Statesman describes two modes of measuring.
One involves calculating by numbers, quantifying large to small, long to short, etc.; the other, more qual-
itative and “diicult,” entails evaluating in relation to situational contexts, customs and contingencies, in
accordance to what is moderate, appropriate, timely and obliging—or, as the Stranger puts it, measuring
relative to “the mean (to metrion), the itting (to prepon), the opportune (to kairon), and the needful (to
deon)” (284e). Since cities and human situations are so complex and variable, a statesman “with phronēsis”
(prudence, or practical wisdom) would be capable of acting through the latter, more pliant and comprehen-
sively accommodating mode of reckoning (294a-b). With this inely woven argument the Stranger defends
his elaborate excursus as itting for the topic and times, while arguing that prudent statesmen and good
legislators ought to exercise lexible decision-making, appropriately adjusting judgments (to be held more
tightly here, more loosely there) in relation to particular and changing circumstances. To rigidly impose
ixed laws without such practical accommodation would be to disassociate wisdom from action, separating
those cognitive and practical activities that statesmen (and architects) were said in the beginning of the
dialogue to integrate. Moreover, in divorcing thinking from doing, the imposition of ixed laws would risk
destroying all the arts, making the city “altogether unlivable,” as the interlocutors fear (299e).11 Thus, only
an intelligently practical technē—also qualiied as a combinatory “syncritical art” (283a) and “synthetic
science” (308c)—would, the Stranger argues, lead a city toward “beautiful, just, and good things” (309c),
enabling citizens to “turn out beautifully” and “become happy” (311b-c).
Although the Stranger often seems to be cutting the city to shreds with obsessive dichotomies,
there is a gradual shift of emphasis as the dialogue proceeds toward weaving the city’s opposing comple-
mentarities back together again into a lively and variegated whole. The Stranger does not explicitly bring
such restorative obligations back to bear on the discerning and directive capabilities of architects, but it is
Montreal Architectural Review : Vol. 2, 2015 | Before Architecture 9

productive for us to recognize their share in synthetically weaving the fabric of the polis; in collaboratively
manifesting happy ends; and in practicing phronēsis—a mode of situational interpretation that, as we shall
see, Aristotle associates with “architectonic intelligence.”
Whereas Plato’s Statesman investigates the discerning, directive and synthetic capabilities of polit-
ical agents in ways that illuminate architectural leadership, the Gorgias initiates a related inquiry linking
political, philosophical and pedagogical ends with the discursive potential of architectural intentions.
In Gorgias, Socrates engages the famed rhetorician after whom the dialogue is named, challenging
him and his two pupils to explain the scope and power of their art—if indeed it is an art (technē), or, as
Socrates quips, merely a “knack” (empeiria, 462c). Predictably, Socrates gains the upper hand, dismissing
his interlocutors’ misuse of rhetoric while demonstrating how and why the art ought to be performed. Al-
though Socrates’ mention of architects in this discussion may, at irst, seem inconsequential, his repeated
concern for improving the polis and for transforming its topography with temperance (not decadence)
suggests otherwise.
Near the beginning of the dialogue, Socrates urges Gorgias to acknowledge the limits of his rhe-
torical competence, saying:

Whenever there is a gathering in the city to choose doctors or shipwrights or any other dēmiurgic group, surely
the rhetorician will not then give his advice, for it is obvious that in each such choice it is the real expert [one
most skilled, or artistic (technikōtaton)] who must be selected. And when it is a question about the building of
walls or equipping of harbors or dockyards, we consult, not the rhetoricians, but the architektones (455b).12

In response, Gorgias insists, to the contrary, that rhetoricians and statesmen, including Pericles, have
indeed been successful in counseling the city on these matters, thus the advice of architects and other
demiurges would be unnecessary, even unwelcome (455e-456e). As the discussion unfolds, however, it
becomes clear that what’s most at stake in Socrates’ challenge is not simply the question of who ought to
advise on matters as important as civic transformation, but the nature of the advice: to what end is the
advice ultimately aiming; on what knowledge is it based; and is it fostering understanding of what is good
for the city?
The long and heated debate advances through many arguments, rebuttals and digressions concern-
ing the function of persuasion, the criterion of justice, the problem of power tending to corrupt, and the
plausible bases for genuine discourse—Socrates suggests these ought to be pathos, philia and philosophia
(common humanity, friendship and love of wisdom). In the end, Socrates, who speaks as if confronting his
own unjust executioners, recounts a myth about the fair judgment of one’s soul in the afterlife (523a-527e).
But before delving into the underworld, Socrates returns vigorously to his concern for the physical (and
moral) fabric of the living city, and to the need for proper advice on its transformation. Recalling Gorgias’
dismissal of architects, Socrates agrees that the speeches of politically empowered rhetoricians, includ-
10 Lisa Landrum | Montreal Architectural Review : Vol. 2, 2015

ing Pericles, had indeed persuaded the people to transform Athens, but they did so improperly: for they
merely succeeded in illing the Athenian landscape “with harbors and dockyards and walls and revenues
and similar rubbish” (519a).13 In paying no heed to “temperance and justice” and “true” persuasion these
politicians failed to improve the polis. Instead, they made the city “swollen and festering” (518e)—a con-
dition corresponding to the unhappy “festering” soul of an intemperate tyrant, which Socrates diagnosed
earlier in the dialogue (480b).
As Eric Voegelin has emphasized, the Gorgias is Plato’s declaration of war against corruption in
Athenian society.14 His enemy being the corrupting inluence of false public representatives who cater
inappropriately to the masses through lattery and manipulation, appealing to their self-serving and
shortsighted prejudices and passions instead of attempting the more diicult task of discursively building
a better society. But, even though Plato (via Socrates) reveals his disgust for corrupt imitations of political
and rhetorical arts as practiced in his day, Socrates’ dialogical manner of speaking demonstrates the pos-
sibility of restoring these arts to proper aims. For Socrates does not ultimately reject politics and rhetoric,
rather he attempts to recalibrate them, in part, through his own example, turning them toward genuine
inquiry of what constitutes true persuasion and the common good. For instance, early in the dialogue,
Socrates excludes himself from the tribe of demagogues he opposes, emphatically decrying, “I am no pol-
itician” (473e6). But, toward the dialogue’s close, having refuted Gorgias and his unscrupulous followers,
Socrates professes to be among the few Athenians who “attempt the political art truly (alēthōs)” (521d).15
Similarly, Socrates initially denies that rhetoric is an “art” (technē, 462b); but, in the end, he argues for a
“true rhetoric” (517a), insisting that a properly “artistic” (technikos) rhetorician would strive to engender in
others justice, temperance and goodness (504d-e). And this is exactly what Socrates attempts throughout
the dialogue. Thus, with the force of dramatic irony, Socrates opposes a narrowly and naïvely construed
technē by practicing a more exemplary technē, one that, like politicians and rhetoricians, acts through
persuasive speech, but persuades toward wiser, more comprehensive, and self-questioning ends.16 Whereas
his sophistic interlocutors admit to pursuing gratifying popularity, power and personal pleasure, Socrates
strives to awaken in others a desire to pursue what is good for the city. Whereas the teachings of Gorgias
impart opinion (doxa), or belief without knowledge, Socrates aims to cultivate awareness of one’s own (and
others’) ignorance in ways that enkindle a courageous yearning for genuine knowledge via discourse. Thus,
Socrates attempts to “lead the logos” toward both self-questioning and questioning of what is just and good
for the city (461c2-3).17 And what is good for the city is also good for one’s soul (the ordering of soul, city
and cosmos being always reciprocally mimetic of one another for Plato). In this discursively inquisitive
way, Socrates demonstrates not only the ethical and philosophical potential of rhetoric, but also what has
been called Plato’s “pedagogical deinition of politics,”18 since political competence both presupposes and
produces knowledge, and because leading entails learning, and learning leading.
Aside from fostering genuine dialogue, the particulars of what Socrates deems good for the city
are not disclosed. Nevertheless, the gist of his counsel is clear: transforming the polis ought to entail true
Montreal Architectural Review : Vol. 2, 2015 | Before Architecture 11

persuasion—self-doubt, self-questioning, desire for self-improvement, and probing discussion with others
on the most relevant and diicult questions. Through such discursive means, edifying advice concerning
what is good for a city may be discerned. Whether or not the “architects” Gorgias had dismissed would have
attempted such syncritical and synthetic inquiry if called upon to speak in public assembly is a question.
What is important is that Socrates suggests they had an opportunity to do so. Thus, we may take Socrates’
counter arguments and discursive manners in the Gorgias as a provocation that architects ought to attempt
their own political-pedagogical technē truly.
With these teachings of Socrates and Plato in mind, we turn now to consider how Plato’s student
Aristotle continues to practice habits of thinking in ways that implicate (and incidentally clarify) knowledge,
agencies and responsibilities of architects. Yet, whereas Plato’s manner of persuasive inquiry is dramatized
by multiple contending voices and symbolically enriched with interrelated mythic and metaphoric digres-
sions, Aristotle’s investigations proceed in more directly assertive, iterative and abstract manners. These
diferences, combined with the fact that Aristotle refers to architects much more frequently and diversely,
calls for a less narrative and more topical approach in the following review.

Aristotle: Pursuing Architectonic Beginnings, Middles, Means and Ends

In his historical work on the Constitution of Athens, Aristotle makes a relatively simple statement about
architects. Reviewing the functions of diferent institutions in his day, he notes that the Athenian Council
is responsible for inspecting public buildings and superintending ships, whereas “the Assembly appoints
architects for the ships by vote” (46).19 While attesting to architects’ competence extending to ship design
and their obligations to democratic processes, these facts (consistent with the sort of contractual details
found in ancient inscriptions) suggest little else about an architect’s role. The remaining sixteen references
to architects in Aristotle’s extant corpus are more revealing—and complex. In seven of his philosophical
works, Aristotle repeatedly draws on the example of architects, and what he calls “architectonic” arts, to
qualify variously interrelated kinds of knowledge and action. Although there are instances where Aristotle
discusses actualities and potentialities associated with “house-building” (oikodomikē), as in book theta of
Metaphysics, and describes optimum conigurations of a polis, as in book seven of Politics, these are not
the thematic contexts where architects arise. Rather, like Plato, Aristotle involves architects in epistemo-
logical, ethical and political inquiries to qualify and vivify capabilities and aims associated with synthetic
knowledge, practical reasoning and civic leadership.
The following review of relevant passages culminates with Nicomachean Ethics, where Aristotle
posits politics as the most “architectonic” art and identiies the political philosopher as “architect of the
end (telos),” i.e., of the common “good” (agathon) to which politics at its best aims. To understand how
12 Lisa Landrum | Montreal Architectural Review : Vol. 2, 2015

and why Aristotle draws architects into a political and philosophical quest for the good, we must consider
the use of “architects” in his other works, beginning from a simple starting point.
“All men by nature desire to know.” These are the generous opening words of Aristotle’s Metaphys-
ics. He then proceeds to outline four interrelated ways of knowing: sense perception (aisthēsis), experience
(empeiria), art (technē), and science (epistēmē). It is in striving to distinguish what each mode of knowing
entails that Aristotle involves architects. As he explains, perception gives rise to memory and experience,
and experience underpins art and science; yet, while experience gains knowledge of particulars, art and
science discern universals. In realms of production and practice, experience is invaluable, for those with
experience are capable of producing well-made artifacts and performing advantageous deeds. However,
arts and sciences reach for more comprehensive understanding. Put diferently, whereas those with ex-
perience know “that,” the others know “why,” and are thus capable of explaining and teaching their art.
Hence, Aristotle claims:

the architects (architektonas) in each technē are more honourable and know in a truer sense and are wiser
(sophōteros) than the manual artisans (cheirotechnōn), because they know the causes of the things that are
done (981a30-b2).20

Aristotle elaborates this distinction a few lines later, emphasizing it is knowledge of “irst causes and the
principles of things” that make the architektōn “wiser”—having more sophia (981b26-982a3).21
Underlying these opening arguments of Metaphysics are Plato’s distinctions between the focused
skills of laborers and synthetic concerns of architects, as well as Aristotle’s own recurring distinctions be-
tween productive, practical and theoretical knowledge. It must be noted, however, that Aristotle, throughout
his various writings, does not consistently hold these distinctions, and shows architects operating in and
across all three domains. Nevertheless, in Metaphysics, it is in articulating limits and kinds of knowledge
that Aristotle divulges key aspects of what he means by “architects.” Surprisingly, he refers to architects “in
each” technē, implying each art or sphere of action has its own leading agents deined more by what they
know and do than what they make; and, signiicantly, he asserts that their more comprehensive wisdom
entails knowledge of irst causes and principles.
For Aristotle, “causes” (aitia) and “principles” (archai)—better translated as “beginnings”—account
for how and why actions and things come into being and become knowable. Book delta (5) of Metaphysics
reviews the many senses of these key terms, including the material, formal, eicient and inal causes, or
teloi (1013a24-b3); and the varieties of archai, ranging from tangible starting points and foundations,
to elemental matter from which life originates, to basic premises and best hypotheses from which topics
become comprehensible (1012b33-1013a23). Archai also encompass willful “choices” that initiate change,
including the decisive directives and advice of civic authorities, as well as those “arts” (technai) that bring
about transformation. In this regard, Aristotle emphasizes that “the arts, and of these especially the archi-
Montreal Architectural Review : Vol. 2, 2015 | Before Architecture 13

tectonic arts (architektonikai),” are called archai (1013a13-14). He also clariies that “all causes are archai”
(1013a16), and archai include ends: for, as he explains elsewhere, “the end aimed at is the starting-point
of our thought, the end of our thought the starting-point of action.”22 Aristotle culminates his deinition of
beginnings with reference to ultimate ethical ends: “the good and the beautiful are the archē both of the
knowledge and the movement of many things” (1013a22-3). So, to summarize, for Aristotle, architects and
architectonic arts ought to have knowledge of archai, and these material, cultural and intellectual archai
appear to include all manner of pertinent beginnings, means and ends. As we shall see, this philosophy
of archai outlined in Metaphysics helps us comprehend the manifold and reciprocal agencies embedded
in the “architect of the end” in Nicomachean Ethics. But, what are we to make of Aristotle’s surprising
plurality of architects and architectonic arts?
Much as the Stranger in Plato’s Statesman recognizes that statesmen act like architects insofar as
they lead dedicated arts toward broader civic aims, Aristotle realizes that certain arts guide others. But
Aristotle goes further in naming the general class of such guiding arts architectonic. In other words, “ar-
chitectonic” does not solely concern the art of architects, but rather qualiies any individual or art capable
of knowingly leading others to more encompassing ends. Although Aristotle comes to cast politics as the
most deinitive architectonic art, several revealing variations may be found in his work. For instance, ship
design and navigation are architectonic arts compared to shipbuilding; on the topic of diction, elocution
and rhetoric are architectonic arts compared to poetics; and an architectonic physician would be involved
in judging matters concerning the art of medicine. Each of these examples warrants brief review.
In a discussion of matter and form in the Physics, Aristotle notes that while productive arts make
material objects (such as a ship), other arts govern their ends by directing production (as would a ship’s
architect), and/or by understanding use (as would a ship’s helmsman). Both of these directive and using
arts are “architectonic” (194b2-4).23 Aristotle’s example of an architectonic end user is worth elaborating: a
helmsman—by knowing the sea, the weather, the stars, the destinations, the arts of steering and navigation,
and the beneits and detriments of diferently shaped hulls—would know a ship’s overall performance and,
thus, have a signiicant share in directing its making toward the best results. Such a user is architectonic
not for knowing techniques of material construction, but for knowing the best form of use—“form” (eidos)
entailing not merely shape, but performativity. These architectonic arts are not mutually exclusive. In the
same passage Aristotle grants that some arts, like that of the “house-builder” (oikodomos), entail knowl-
edge of both making and use (194a25-27). Thus, Aristotle implies that architects would know the best
beginnings and ends of both production and performance—how and why what is made performs well in
use. In his Poetics and Politics, he extends the architectonic qualiication to arts more socially constructive.
Toward the end of his Poetics, having treated dramatic plot and character, Aristotle turns to the
topic of “diction” (lexis). However, he claims the theory of diction belongs not to poetry but to the actor’s
art of elocution, and the “architectonikēn” art, by which he implies rhetoric, or possibly the art of dra-
matic direction (1456b11). Whereas poetry is responsible for poetic composition, and elocution concerns
14 Lisa Landrum | Montreal Architectural Review : Vol. 2, 2015

dramatic delivery, the architectonic art would analyze, interpret and judge the composition’s performance
and reception, evaluating its inlections, turns of phrase, efects and pertinence to occasion.
A digression in Politics brings architectonic to the art of medicine, then back to the political elec-
torate. Questioning the capability of the populace to choose the best political leaders, Aristotle raises the
parallel example of evaluating physicians. The best judges of a physician’s work, he claims, are not laymen,
but medical practitioners, together with “architektonikos” physicians, and those who either study or teach
medicine (1282a3-5). However, he admits, experts are not always the best judges. In some arts, the better
judges are all those involved in an art’s beneits and use—the end users (as argued above). For instance,
“knowledge of the house is not limited to the builder only,” but extends to its inhabitants, just as the best
judges of a feast are its guests, not its cook (1282a20-23). Bringing these observations back to bear on the
public electoral process, Aristotle wisely concludes that, although some specialized igures (like treasurers
and generals) may be best appointed by political experts, the collective populace would (in healthy regimes)
best judge public representatives, since “each individual among the many has a share of excellence (aretē)
and practical wisdom (phronēsis)” (1281b3-4).24 And, so, in this digression, the architectonic qualiication
tacitly shifts from experts (who are vulnerable to self-interest) to the knowing polis as a whole—to the
heterogeneous community constituting the city and living with the political results.
Regardless of ield, what uniies the architectonic arts in the above set of examples is knowledge of
the worlds within which particular works and practices would interact. Such knowledge of relevant cultural
contexts—the world of the sea, of language arts, medicine, or city life—enables the direction of related arts
toward the best ends. Individuals with such knowledge would be capable of deliberating well and deciding
wisely, making the best possible decisions in view of their appropriately comprehensive understanding
and experience. The protagonists of architectonic arts do not necessarily have all the technical skills to
produce the work in question (the helmsman does not build the ship, the rhetorician does not compose the
dramatic poem). Rather, by involvement in the use and performance of what others make, architectonic
agents have the requisite capabilities and foresight to judge whether the work might be, in the end, good.
The next set of examples makes the processes inherent to architectonic judgment more explicit.
Here architects are tied to a trio of intellectual capabilities governing decision-making: reasoning (logos);
deliberating in view of practical action (phronēsis); and thorough thinking (dianoia)—literally, using the
mind (nous) all the way through, across, or from side-to-side (dia). These are powers not simply to reason
and think, but to reason and think in ways that are both pertinent to particular situations and compre-
hensive in their considerations and implications. In an aside of Eudemian Ethics, Aristotle calls such full
and cogent thinking “practical and architectonic intelligence (dianoia)” (1217a6-7). The ensuing passages
from Aristotle’s political and ethical inquiries expand on these cognitive capabilities.
In the opening book of Politics, as a prelude to examining political structures of cities, Aristotle
reviews the governance of those communities of which a polis is composed: domestic households. His
purpose is to critically identify and understand diferent kinds of leadership. In this context, he uses the
Montreal Architectural Review : Vol. 2, 2015 | Before Architecture 15

example of architects to help describe the directive agency of household managers. Initially, in a way that
is simultaneously poetic and ofensive (to modern ears), he explains that household managers require
slaves as “ministers of action” to operate the tools and instruments of production. For, he says, such in-
struments do not move of their own accord, “obeying or anticipating the will of others like the statues of
Daedalus or the tripods of Hephaestus,” for if they did, then “architects would not need assistants, nor
masters slaves” (1253b35).25 While rejecting Aristotle’s views on slavery, we may learn from his portrayal
of the dynamic between leading and assisting agents, which he euphemistically suggests can resemble that
magically anticipatory dynamic between mythic artisans and obeisant automata. Yet whereas Daedalus
and Hephaestus initiate wondrous works through inefable cunning, domestic and civic leaders need both
skilled collaborators and skill in leading them, since mortal leaders bring about transformation not by
magic, but through social interaction, persuasive communication, and, most importantly for Aristotle,
deliberative reasoning, or logos. Thus, ultimately rejecting house-masters (and slave-masters) as models
for statesmen (1255b16-39), Aristotle identiies logos (not familial blood ties) as the primary agent respon-
sible for fostering common bonds, equity and order in society. In the Politics, logos is deined, foremost,
as that discursive power which discloses what is helpful and harmful, just and unjust (1253a14-16). A few
chapters later, Aristotle personiies this justly and socially constructive power of logos as architect. While
every free member of a household and city would have some share in this intellectual capacity, leading
agents must have deliberative reasoning power “in its fullness” (telios), as they are obliged to discover
and choose (with and on behalf of others) the best means for best ends. This deliberative work, Aristotle
claims, “demands an architect, and logos is architect” (1260a18-19).
In a similar passage of Magna Moralia, phronēsis is architect. The personiication arises in this
way: following an inventory of moral excellences (courage, moderation, wittiness, and so forth), Aristotle
describes the intellectual excellences (aretai), especially phronēsis, the “capacity for deliberation” by
which one strives to choose, judge and see things “rightly” (1197b13-14). To portray the peculiar way in
which phronēsis is active and practical, Aristotle gives the example of architects, who possess the power of
making by virtue of their deliberations, decisions and directions. Thus, an architect is said to have made a
building as much as its builder (oikodomos). Extending this analysis to all excellences, Aristotle concludes,
“all the excellences are practical, and phronēsis is a kind of architektōn of them; for as she directs, so the
excellences and good men act” (1198b6-7).26 The subsequent passage tempers this authority by re-qualifying
phronēsis as a good housekeeper, or steward, appropriately dispensing work to others so that the head of
the house (sophia) may leisurely pursue philosophical study (1198b10-16). This governing yet medial (even
servile) role of phronēsis recurs in Nicomachean Ethics, when Aristotle admits it strange that “phronēsis,
though inferior to sophia, will exercise greater authority” (1143b33-4). But, as he clariies, this is because
phronēsis issues orders not to sophia but for its sake, providing for sophia’s “coming into being” (1145a8).
Thus, by implication, these passages cast architects, acting with phronēsis, as both serving wisdom and
generating preconditions for its lourishing.
16 Lisa Landrum | Montreal Architectural Review : Vol. 2, 2015

Aristotle argues for the activity of intellectual excellences also in book seven of Politics. Just prior
to presenting his celebrated description of an imagined best polis, Aristotle defends the practical value of
philosophical speculation. Against those who would value political life but dismiss a life of contemplation
(bios theōrētikos) as inactive, impractical and unproductive, Aristotle argues that theory is indeed an
excellent form of praxis:

the thoughts (dianoēseis) and contemplations (theōrias) which are independent and complete in themselves
[are practical]; since acting well (eupraxia), and therefore a certain kind of action, is an end, and even in the
case of external actions, [the architects (tous architektonas), through their thinking (tais dianoiais), are]
most truly said to act (1325b20-24).27

This passage makes clear what has been intrinsic in the above series of examples: that thinking oriented
toward action is more (not less) active than overtly productive arts; and that theoretical contemplation, if
practiced well, is an end in itself. In Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics (as in Magna Moralia) such cognitive
capabilities are discussed under the heading of intellectual, or dianoetic, excellences (aretai dianoetikai).
These thinking powers guide ethical and theoretical action toward manifesting and contemplating what
is “good.” With this we turn to a inal set of corroborating examples and to Aristotle’s most comprehen-
sive provocation that architects have political and philosophical obligations to contemplate, choose and
manifestly pursue such an end.
In Nicomachean Ethics Aristotle involves architects in three interrelated ways: to deine politics
as an “architectonic” art, one that leads and supports other arts in striving toward ends that are good for
the city; to distinguish (within this political art) an “architectonic” phronēsis, the scope of which entails
not personal choices made in isolation but representative decisions concerning civic afairs; and to identify
the political philosopher as an “architect of the end,” one capable of discerning the comprehensive “good”
at which a city ought to aim and making this target conspicuous for others. Since aspects of these points
have been sketched above, the following review of passages will also serve as a summary of the multifac-
eted practical, ethical and theoretical role Aristotle projects for architects and architectonic arts. Because
architectonic terminology is integral to pivotal arguments of his ethical inquiry, it is best to consider the
passages in relation to the philosophical work as a whole.
At the start of Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle optimistically claims that every art, inquiry, action, and
choice aims at some good as its end. However, he acknowledges, such ends vary: “of medicine, the end is
health; of shipbuilding, a ship; of generalship, victory; of household management, wealth” (1094a8-9). Aside
from varying in outcome, such ends vary in scope and signiicance. Some are narrowly focused, others more
encompassing. He gives an example: “just as bridle making and such other arts… fall under horsemanship,
while this art and every action related to warfare fall under generalship, so in the same manner, some arts
fall under one capacity, others under another” (1094a10-15). Honing in on his subject, he then explains:
Montreal Architectural Review : Vol. 2, 2015 | Before Architecture 17

in all of them [sc. sciences, arts, and capacities], the ends of the architectonic ones (architektonikōn) are
more choiceworthy than all those that fall under them, for these latter are pursued for the sake of the former…

If, therefore, there is some end (telos) of our actions that we wish for on account of itself, the rest being things
we wish for on account of this end… clearly this would be the good (agathon), that is, the best (ariston). And
with a view to our life, then, is not the knowledge of this good of great weight, and [if we discern it] would
we not, like archers in possession of a target, better hit on what is needed? If this is so, then one must try to
grasp, in outline at least, whatever it is and to which of the sciences or capacities it belongs.

But it might be held to belong to the most authoritative and most architectonic one (architektonikēs), and
such appears to be the political art (politikē). (1094a15-28).28

With these opening arguments, Aristotle establishes interrelated hierarchies of arts, ends, and goods. But
hierarchy itself is not the goal. His purpose is best understood not simply as vertical evaluation (ranking
certain arts higher or lower than others), but more as practical orchestration for the sake of mutually
beneicial results. The architectonic art would deploy and direct a plurality of civic arts (which, in turn,
direct others), deciding which ought to be performed and learned (and to what degree), with the aim of
securing and preserving what is good for the polis as a whole (1094b1-11). Employing a spatial metaphor,
Aristotle explains (in the passage immediately following) that the architectonic end “would encompass
those of the others” (1094b6), “encompassing” (periechein) meaning, literally, “to hold” (echein) “around”
(peri-). This implies the architectonic art would actively encircle, delimit and support multifarious goods
within its protective and edifying embrace—as a city would hold its citizens, and ether the earth.29 This
embracing gesture presents the architectonic art less as an upper rung on a hierarchal ladder and more
as a surrounding horizon, palpable yet ambient. The image is more inclusive than divisive. This embrac-
ing-encompassing function is also a feature deinitive of “place” (topos), as Aristotle describes it in the
fourth book of his Physics.30 Thus, we could say that the architectonic art of politics, at its best, creates a
bounded place—a supportive delimited situation—for many good things to come into being.
Together with supporting a city’s myriad goods, Aristotle posits the architectonic art as possess-
ing knowledge of a single comprehensive “good”—the best “end” (telos) and “target” (skopos, root of the
English word “scope”) at which a whole polis ought to aim. According to Aristotle, everyone agrees that
this target’s name is eudaimonia (conventionally translated as “happiness”), but they disagree on what it
actually is (1095a18-21). Working toward his promised “outline” of this ultimate good—a “sketch” he hopes
others will later ill in31—he comes to deine eudaimonia as an activity of “living well” and “acting well,”
consisting of eupraxia, “good-practice” or “good conduct” (1095a18-20; 1098b21-2). In his discussion of
magniicence, Aristotle ofers some examples of eupraxia at the scale of the city: hosting foreign guests;
leading diplomatic embassies; participating in gift exchanges; equipping ships; ornamenting one’s house
in ways that ennoble the polis; and supporting great (mega), beautiful (kalos) and wondrous (thaumaston)
18 Lisa Landrum | Montreal Architectural Review : Vol. 2, 2015

works, including sacred buildings, public oferings, choral performances, and civic feasts (1122b16-1123a19).
However, since the good of a city depends on good actions of citizens, Aristotle’s primary concern (the core
of his treatise) is to describe varieties of good conduct.
Books three to ive of Nicomachean Ethics outline eleven such “ethical excellences” (aretai ēthikai),
each deined as the middle, or mean (meson), between extremes. For instance, courage is the mean between
cowardliness and recklessness; and friendliness is a middle disposition between being unfriendly (quar-
relsomeness) and overly friendly (lattery). Such excellences (even magniicence) are, thus, in-between,
not on top. This is neither a valorization of mediocrity, nor a paciication of individuality, but rather an
agitation for appropriately empowering agency—even anger is praiseworthy in some situations (1125b33).
Excellent conduct entails both feeling and acting with apt moderation, “when one ought and at the things
one ought, in relation to those people whom one ought, for the sake of what and as one ought—all these
constitute the middle as well as what is best” (1106b21-23). However, discerning the exemplary middle
way in the variegated lux of life situations is diicult. It is not simply a matter of calculating a half-way
mark, as on a ruler; but more, as the Stranger in Plato’s Statesman suggested, reckoning with an array of
dynamic contingencies to discover and choose what is most moderate, appropriate, timely and obliging in
particular circumstances. Drawing on another spatial analogy, Aristotle clariies that, in practice, the mid-
dle is not a point, but a region: “there is a certain deining boundary (horos) of the middles” (1138b23).32
Horoi (plural of horos) were common boundary stones in ancient Greece, permanently marking perimeters
and thresholds of properties, such as the open public area of a temple precinct (temenos), a marketplace
(agora), or, more regionally, the frontiers of a city-state (polis). Just as multiple boundary stones would
delimit spaces of proper sacred and civic action in a polis, Aristotle proposes ethical horoi to delimit and
orient conduct in daily life. Thus, while looking to an excellent “target” one “tightens and loosens” the sinews
of conduct within a bounded region of appropriateness—between excesses and deiciencies (1138b22-3).
Aristotle’s treatise discursively demarcates these boundaries, establishing an ethical frame of reference—a
horizon (of which horos is root)—in relation to which various manifestations of good action (eupraxia)
and eudaimonia might play out.
Having established regions of ethical action, Aristotle, in book six, seeks to clarify the correct mode
of reasoning (orthos logos) by which one would become skilled in aiming at the excellent middles. Con-
sidering each of the various ways of apprehending truth,33 he predictably emphasizes phronēsis, which,
like an architect (as mentioned above), enacts lexible decision-making in the midst of diicult situations.
Aristotle then elaborates the deliberative, decisive and directive capacities of phronēsis, many of which
have been sketched above. However, he introduces a new distinction: “a certain architectonic”—within
the scope of political phronēsis—oriented toward framing those general limiting conditions that might
encourage good actions in particular circumstances (1141b22). He clariies, somewhat, a few lines later:
Montreal Architectural Review : Vol. 2, 2015 | Before Architecture 19

Of phronēsis that is concerned with a city, one part is an architektonikē phronēsis, namely, the legislative art
(nomothetikē); the other, concerned with particulars, bears the name that is common to them, ‘the political
art,’ and is bound up with action and deliberation. For a speciic decree is a matter of action, as it is the last
thing (in the process of deliberation). Thus people say that only those (who issue decrees) are engaged in
political life, for they alone act, just as cheirotechnai [manual artisans] do (1141b25-28).

Within the encompassing architectonic art of politics, Aristotle identiies an architectonic art of establishing
general laws, and this legislative practice is architectonic because it, in turn, encompasses and guides the
more particularized art of negotiating speciic decrees with a view to the good. In spite of what “people
say,” each of these domains is political and practical, and each is architectonic in its own way. Whereas
lawmakers (and city founders) framed general laws, any advocate in the Assembly could negotiate partic-
ular decrees—ultimately decided by popular vote.34 Both kinds of political agents would (ideally) act with
phronēsis; however, they performed diferently. Fashioning decrees involved hands-on politicking amid
the people, deliberating and adjusting laws in accommodation of speciic circumstances to ensure equity.
Aristotle compares this task to that of a mason working with a malleable leaden rule to it each irregular
stone into a cohesive whole (1137b26-32)—thus, his apt comparison to manual artisans. Alternatively, the
preliminary work of founding more general constitutional laws (conceived with appropriate looseness so
as to be adaptable) demanded more synthetic consideration of local and global archai: knowing the best
starting points to help bring a city’s good into being, and understanding this city in relation to others—past,
foreign and future. Those performing with “architectonic phronēsis” would make decisions in consideration
of an appropriate mix of particulars and universals, including remembered and imagined particulars of
cities—not only as they were and are, but as they might and ought to be.
This example again demonstrates the plasticity, inclusivity, and mobility of Aristotle’s architectonic
qualiication. Its scope and capabilities are general and loose enough so as to be adapted—like a malleable
rule—to diverse arenas of action, without losing sight of any architectonic art’s fundamental target: obli-
gations to the common good. In the inal example, Aristotle bends and extends the architect qualiication
to himself.
In book seven, Aristotle inds that to advance his inquiry he “must make another beginning (archē)”
(1145a15). He proceeds to describe kinds of conduct falling outside the bounds of appropriateness, ulti-
mately advocating for self-restraint and perseverance. He then returns to his sketch of the good. Seeking to
correct received opinion that eudaimonia can be reduced to the pursuit of pleasure and avoidance of pain
(criteria challenged in Plato’s Gorgias), Aristotle suggests that this exemplary mode of well-being entails
a middle disposition mingling the two. For he admits there are certain “wondrous” pleasures “intermixed”
with eudaimonia (1177a22-27), just as there are certain pains accompanying noble deeds (1104b11). But,
more importantly, Aristotle argues that this ultimate good is found not by pleasure-seeking in itself but
by careful thought and correct choice, guided by consideration of all aspects of the good:
20 Lisa Landrum | Montreal Architectural Review : Vol. 2, 2015

Contemplating (theōrēsai) what concerns pleasure and pain belongs to him who philosophizes about the
political art. For he is the architect of the end (tou telous architekōn) with a view to which we speak of each
thing as being bad or good in an unqualiied sense (1152b1-4).

While an experienced politician may bring about what is good in particular situations, the political phi-
losopher—in fully contemplating both particulars and universals—would, like an architect, be capable of
critically discerning and making manifest for others the ultimate common good at which a city ought to aim.
This optimistic pursuit should not be mistaken for suggesting that architects are good. There is nothing
inherently good about architects. Indeed, Demosthenes, the great Athenian orator and exact contemporary
of Aristotle twice refers to “architects” of deceitful and malicious schemes.35 However, Aristotle presents
architects not at their worst, but at their best—projecting architects as they ought and might yet be. In
efect, with these lines and throughout the subsequent passages, Aristotle posits the political philosopher,
the “architect of the end,” as a teacher of potential lawgivers,36 but also of any receptive citizen willing to
take pains to pursue and produce a shared ethos of eudaimonia.

Conclusion: Beginning Again

Aristotle closes Nicomachean Ethics with two books describing various forms of friendship, especially the
rare community of “complete friendship” (teleia philia) among those sharing in a pursuit of wisdom.37
Correspondingly, in the tenth and inal book he posits “complete eudaimonia” as an activity “coextensive
with theōria.”38 Yet, in spite of these eforts toward completion, Aristotle admits, in conclusion, that he
has not yet reached his “end” (telos), for his primary purpose has been to cultivate good actions not only
of individuals but of cities (1179a35-b2). Thus, Ethics becomes the archai for civic transformation. As is
well known, his closing chapters open an inquiry on political constitutions, anticipating his treatise on
Politics. And Politics, arguably, ends with a call for architecture, for establishing appropriate public build-
ings, monuments and festivals with a view to sustaining social harmony and participation in practices of
democracy (1321a35-1321b4).39
What, then, of architects? Throughout this review, Plato and Aristotle have been shown to con-
sistently present architectonic agents as exemplary civic and intellectual leaders acting in awareness of
their own (and others’) limits, with knowledge of the most appropriate archē, and with a view to the most
comprehensive aims—the common good. This discloses an alternative and more accurate etymology of
architects: not as master-builders but as leaders and makers of beginnings (archai).
The aim of this essay has been not only to rediscover the discursive beginnings for a renewed
philosophy of architecture, but to suggest how these philosophical archai might help present-day archi-
Montreal Architectural Review : Vol. 2, 2015 | Before Architecture 21

tects reimagine the full relevance of their still contested role. Plato and Aristotle give us no incontestable
answers to our predicaments, but their inquiries can assist us in arriving at the best questions concerning
what is good. As the scholar and teacher Christopher Long writes,

The good is thus at once elusive and alluring. Its transformative political power comes not to those who
pretend to possess it but rather only to those who recognize that the source of its power lies in the way it
requires each new generation to take it up as a question and work it out in living dialogue together.40

The closing line of Nicomachean Ethics looks forward to this subsequent task, which at the close of this
essay we must each take up as our own: “With this as our beginning, then, let us speak” (1181b23).

Notes
1 Cicero, de Oicii 1.151.

2 In these early inscriptions, which are more contractual than commemorative, an “architect,”
often called out by name, is made responsible for speciic tasks: namely, preparing overall
speciications (syngraphai) for designated works and, sometimes, detailed measures (metra),
models (paradeigmata), and templates (anagrapheus); presenting speciications to Council
(the Boulē); providing on-site direction; supervising ongoing construction together with
appointed treasurers and sacred oicials; and reporting back to the people in the Athenian
Assembly (the Ecclēsia). See especially, IG I3 35; IG I3 64; IG I3 52; IG I3 32; IG I3 79; IG I3 78;
IG I3 474; IG II2 1685; and IG II2 1666. IG = Inscriptiones Graecae (Berlin, 1873-), digitally
available at http://epigraphy.packhum.org/inscriptions/. For a translation and discussion of
one of the most intact inscriptions concerning Philon’s Arsenal at Pireaus (IG II2 1685), see
J.A. Bundgaard, Mnesicles. A Greek Architect at Work, Trans. Ingeborg Nixon. (Copenhagen:
Gyldendal, 1957), 117-21.

3 Herodotus, Histories 2.175.5; 3.60.3-4; 4.87.1-88.1; 7.36.1.

4 Aeschylus, Dikē Play 16. Lisa Landrum, “Ensemble Performances: Architects and Justice in
Athenian Drama,” in Architecture and Justice: Judicial Meanings in the Public Realm, ed.
Nicholas Temple, Jonathan Simon and Renee Tobe (Farnham/Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2013),
245-56.

5 Euripides, Cyclops line 477 (circa 424, or 408 BCE); Aristophanes, Peace 305 (421 BCE). Lisa
Landrum, “Performing Theōria: Architectural Acts in Aristophanes’ Peace,” in Architecture as
a Performing Art, ed. Gray Read and Marcia Feuerstein (Farnham/Burlington, VT: Ashgate,
2013), 27-43.

6 The demiurge is twice called a carpenter, builder, or “framer” (tektainomenos, 28c6, 68e5), and
is repeatedly said to engage in “framing” (tektainomai, a verb form of tektōn, 30b, 33b, 36e,
45b, 70e, 91a).
22 Lisa Landrum | Montreal Architectural Review : Vol. 2, 2015

7 Trans. Seth Benardete, The Being of the Beautiful. Plato’s Theaetetus, Sophist and Statesman.
Translated and with Commentary (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2006.
First edition 1984), iii, 1-67. My translation substitutes “architect” for Benardete’s “master-
builder” and “leader” for “ruler.” Subsequent translations of Statesman are from this edition.

8 For this expression, and the value of such digressions in advancing Plato’s key arguments, see
Eric Voegelin, The Collected Works of Eric Voegelin, Vol. 16, Order and History, Vol. III, Plato
and Aristotle, ed. Dante Germino (Columbia and London: University of Missouri Press, 2000.
First published 1957), 204.

9 Plato, Theaetetus, Trans. F.M. Cornford in The Collected Dialogues of Plato, ed. Edith Hamilton
and Huntington Cairns (Princeton: Pantheon Books, Bollingen Series LXXI, 1961), 845-919.
Theaetetus is the irst dialogue in a trilogy that also includes the Sophist and Statesman.

10 Nicomachean Ethics 1094b12-26; 1137b26-32.

11 On these consequences, see Voegelin, Plato and Aristotle, 219-20.

12 Plato, Gorgias, Trans. W.D. Woodhead in The Collected Dialogues of Plato, ed. E. Hamilton and
H. Cairns, 229-307. Subsequent translations of Gorgias are from this edition, unless noted.

13 “Revenues,” or “tributes” (phoros) were obligatory monetary payments made to Athens by

14 Voegelin, Order and History, Vol. III, Plato and Aristotle, 78.

15 This translation by Christopher Long, Socratic and Platonic Political Philosophy: Practicing a
Politics of Reading (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 45, with discussion.

16 Plato frequently involves technē terminology as a foil against which to qualify a technē of ethical
knowledge, which is not exactly technē in any instrumental sense. On these two types of technē
in Plato’s moral philosophy, see David Roochnik, Of Art and Wisdom. Plato’s Understanding of
Techne (University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1996).

17 On Socrates “leading the logos,” see Long, Socratic and Platonic Political Philosophy, 53-9.

18 Jean-François Pradeau, Plato and the City. A New Introduction to Plato’s Political Thought,
trans. Janet Lloyd (Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 2002. First published in 1997 as Platon et
la cité), 41-2.

19 Aristotle, Athenian Constitution, trans. F.G. Kenyon, in The Complete Works of Aristotle.
Bollingen Series LXXI, 2 Vols, ed. Jonathan Barnes (Clayton, GA: InteLex Corporation, 1992).

20 Aristotle, Metaphysics, trans. W.D. Ross, Complete Works.

21 In this passage, Aristotle sets up a series of overlapping and nested relationships of which the
architect is a part: “the point of our present discussion is this, that all men suppose what is
called wisdom (sophia) to deal with the irst causes (aitia) and the beginnings (archai) of things.
This is why, as has been said before, the man of experience is thought to be wiser than the
possessors of any perception whatever, the artist (technitēs) wiser than the men of experience,
the architektōn than the cheirotechnou, and the theoretical (theōrētikai) kinds of knowledge to
be more of the nature of wisdom than the productive (poiētikōn). Clearly then wisdom (sophia)
is knowledge about certain causes (aitia) and principles (archai)” Metaphysics 981b26-982a3.
Montreal Architectural Review : Vol. 2, 2015 | Before Architecture 23

22 Eudemian Ethics 1227b32-3, trans. J. Solomon, Complete Works.

23 Physics 194b2-4, “The arts (technai), therefore, which govern the matter and have knowledge
are two, namely the art which uses the product and the architektonikē art which directs the
production of it (poiētikēs). That is why the using art also is in a sense architektonikē; but it
difers in that it knows the form (eidous), whereas the architektonikē art which is directive
(diapherei) as being concerned with production knows the matter (hulēs).” Trans. R.P. Hardie
and R.K. Gaye, Complete Works.

24 For a related discussion of every individual’s capability and responsibility for judgment in
modern society, see Hans-Georg Gadamer, “The Limitations of the Expert” in Gadamer on
Education, Poetry and History. Applied Hermeneutics, trans. Lawrence Schmidt and Monica
Reuss (New York: State University of New York Press, 1992), 181-92.

25 Aristotle, Politics, trans. B. Jowett, Complete Works.

26 Aristotle, Magna Moralia, trans. St.G. Stock, Complete Works. The Athenian statesman
Demades, a contemporary of Aristotle, similarly personiied Nous as architect. In the midst of
a lengthy self-defense of his own skills as a counselor, Demades argues, “Force does not enable
a man to master even the smallest things. It was inventiveness (epinoia) and system (methodō)
that made him yoke the ox to the plough for the tilling of the land, bridle the horse, set a rider
on the elephant, and cross the boundless sea in boats of wood. The architektōn and dēmiourgos
of all these things is Mind (Nous).” On the Twelve Years, 42, J. O. Burtt, trans., Minor Attic
Orators, vol. II. Loeb Classical Library, No. 395 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,
1954).

27 Aristotle, Politics, trans. B. Jowett, Complete Works. My insertion restores the missing
“architects” to Jowett’s translation, following Richard Kraut, Aristotle Politics Books VII and
VIII (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987).

28 Trans. Robert C. Bartlett and Susan D. Collins, Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 2011).

29 In the opening lines of Politics, Aristotle presents the polis as the best kind of political
community since it “encompasses (periechousa) all the rest” (1252a6). The notion of ether
“encompassing” the earth is found in Plato (Timaeus 31a), Euripides (Frag. 919), and the
fragments of Anaximander. Elsewhere, periechein qualiies human embraces—both protective
and afectionate.

30 Physics 212a28-28, “Place (topos) is thought to be some surface and like a vessel and
surrounder (periechon).” For an important interpretation of Aristotle’s notion of topos, see
Edward S. Casey, Fate of Place: A Philosophical History (Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1997), 53-6, 89.

31 Aristotle’s word for “outline” is tupos, an impression like that made by a stamp on a metal coin,
a seal in wax, or a footprint in sand. Later he refers to his “sketch” of the good: “for perhaps
one ought to outline it irst and then ill it in later. It might seem to belong to everyone to
advance and fully articulate things whose sketch (perigraphē) is in a noble [or beautiful (kalōs)]
condition, and time is a good discoverer of or contributor to such things… for it belongs to
everyone to add what is lacking” (1098a20-26).

32 On Aristotle’s imagery of ethical boundary stones, see Sandra Peterson, “Horos (Limit) in
Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics,” Phronesis 33.3 (March 1988): 233-250. On the history of
24 Lisa Landrum | Montreal Architectural Review : Vol. 2, 2015

the trope, found especially in Greek tragedy, see Deborah Steiner, “Lines of Demarcation:
Aesch[ylus] Ag[amemnon] 485-6,” Classical Quarterly 62.2 (Dec. 2012): 476-85.

33 Aristotle introduces ive ways of apprehending truth: art (technē), science (epistēmē), practical
wisdom (phronēsis), theoretical wisdom (sophia), and understanding (nous). Honing in on
phronēsis, he provisionally sidelines epistēmē and technē, because epistēmē is concerned more
with universal and timeless matters, whereas human afairs are particular and changeable, and
technē is concerned more with things made than actions performed. He further deems sophia
to belong especially to epistēmē, the most theoretical kind of intelligence; whereas nous (like
logos), being a fundamental power of thinking and intuiting required to grasp archai and make
decisions, sufuses all.

34 “Law” takes its name directly from the word for a common “custom” (nomos), whereas “decree”
(psēphisma) is derived from “pebbles” (psēphoi) used as electoral ballots for calculating votes
in Assembly. Mogens Herman Hansen, “Nomos and Psephisma in Fourth-Century Athens,” The
Athenian Ecclesia: A Collection of Articles, 1976-83 (Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press,
1983), 161-76.

35 Demosthenes, Speeches, Against Boeotus, II (40.32); Against Dionysodorus (56.11).

36 Voegelin emphasizes this point, Plato and Aristotle, 337. It has been argued that Aristotle’s
primary audience consisted of young men eager to become political leaders. See Stephen
Salkever, “Teaching the Questions: Aristotle’s Philosophical Pedagogy in the Nicomachean
Ethics and the Politics,” The Review of Politics 69 (2007): 192-214.

37 1156b7, 1157a29-32, and in general all of books 8 and 9.

38 1177a11-17, 1178b30, and in general book 10, chapters 7 through 9.

39 Scholars have long debated the proper sequence of the eight books of Politics. For an
argument that places this sixth book as the last, see Peter L. Phillips Simpson, A Philosophical
Commentary on the Politics of Aristotle (Chapel Hill and London: University of North Carolina
Press, 1998).

40 Long, Socratic and Platonic Political Philosophy, 6.

About the Author

Lisa Landrum is Associate Professor of architecture at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, Canada,
as well as a registered architect in New York State and Manitoba. She holds a B.Arch from Carleton Uni-
versity, and an M.ArchII and Ph.D. in the History and Theory of Architecture from McGill. Her research
on dramatic agencies of architecture and architectural theory has been published in a number of edited
books, including Architecture as a Performing Art (Ashgate 2013), Architecture and Justice (Ashgate 2013),
Architecture’s Appeal (Routledge 2015), Economy and Architecture (Routledge 2015), and (forthcoming)
Chora 7 (MQUP), Filming the City (Intellect Books) and Confabulations: Storytelling in Architecture
(Ashgate).