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The Cosmology of the Architecture of Cities

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 April 2024

Tilo Schabert
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Let us imagine that we decided to visit cities at different places in the world. During our journey we would probably consult often one or more of these books known as “travel guides,” which, in our case, describe one or more cities for the benefit of the traveler who knows nothing about them or has only a slight idea of what they are like.

Presumably we would be told not infrequently that in the cities being described something is “reflected” - that the city architecture of Paris reflects the immortality - obsessed self-glorification of French kings, emperors, or national presidents; that the baroque layout of Rome reflects the triumphant Catholicism of the counter- Reformation ; that the skyscrapers of Manhattan reflect the unbridled creativity of American civilization.

Type
Research Article
Information
Diogenes , Volume 39 , Issue 156 , December 1991 , pp. 1 - 31
Copyright
Copyright © 1991 Fédération Internationale des Sociétés de Philosophie / International Federation of Philosophical Societies (FISP)

References

Notes

1. Cf., for example: W. Braunfels, Abendländische Stadtbaukunst: Herrschaftsform und Baugestalt, Cologne, 1977 (see especially 7-17); L. Benevolo, Storia della Città, Rome-Bari, 1975 (especially introduction to chapters 13, 14, and 15).

2. Cf. H. Morrison, Louis Sullivan: Prophet of Modern Architecture, New York, 1935.

3. L. H. Sullivan, Kindergarten Chats and Other Writings, New York, 1918, reprint, 1979, 65, 114.

4. Cf. Ibid. 110.

5. "Cum in omnibus enim rebus, turn maxime etiam in architectura haec duo insunt: quod significatur et quod significat." Vitruvius, De Architectura Libri Decem-Zehn Bücher über Architektur, ed. C. Fensterbusch, I, 1, Darmstadt, 1976, 22.

6. Cf. O. Sirén, The Walls and Gates of Peking, London, 1924; A. Boyd, Chinese Architecture and Town Planning, Chicago, 1962; N. J. Wu (Wu No-sun), Architektur der Chinesen und Inder: Die Stadt der Menschen, der Berg Gottes und das Reich der Unsterblichen, Ravensburg, 1963; P. Wheatley, City as Symbol, London, 1969; idem, The Pivot of Four Quarters: A Preliminary Enquiry into the Origins and Character of the Ancient Chinese City, Chicago, 1971; A. F. Wright, "The Cosmology of the Chinese City," in The City in Late Imperial China, edited by G. Williams Skinner, Stanford, 1977, 33-73.

7. Cf. W. Kirfel, Die Kosmographie der Inder, Bonn-Leipzig, 1920; T.N. Ramachandran, "Śiśupālgarh," in Journal of the Andhra Historical Research Society (Rajahmundry), 19, 1948, 140-153; B.B. Lal, "Śiśupālgarh 1948," in Ancient India, Bulletin of the Archaeological Survey of India (New Delhi), 5, 1949, 62-105; R.E.M. Wheeler, The Indus Civilization, Cambridge, 1953, 1968; St. Piggot, Prehistoric India, Harmondsworth, 1961, 159ff.; W. Müller, Die heilige Stadt, Roma quadra ta, himmlisches Jerusalem und die Mythe vom Weltnabel, Stuttgart, 1961, 115ff.; P. Wheatley, City as Symbol; idem, The Pivot of Four Quarters; K. Fischer, M. Jansen, J. Pieper, Architektur des Indischen Subkontinents, Darmstadt, 1987.

8. Cf. G. Tucci, Teoria e pratica del Mandala: con particolare riguardo alla mod erna psicologia del profondo, Rome, 1949; J.E. Cirlot, A Dictionary of Symbols, London, 1967, the section on "Mandala," 190-194; J. Chevalier, A. Gheerbrant, Dictionnaire des symboles, Paris, 1969, the section on "Mandala," 487-489.

9. Cf. B. Brentjes, Die Stadt des Yima: Weltbilder in der Architektur, Leipzig, 1981, 12ff.

10. H. Wöfflin, Kunstgeschichtliche Grundbegriffe: Das Problem der Stilent wicklung in der Neueren Kunst, München, 1915, 1923, 241.

11. Die Romrede des Aelius Aristides (Greek-German), ed. R. Klein, Darm stadt, 1983,13.

12. Revelations 21: 10-24 (Revised Standard Version).

13. P. Bommersheim, "Das Ewige und das Lebendige: Zur Philosophie der Architektur," in B. Taut, Frühlicht 1920-1922: Eine Folge für die Verwirk lichung des neuen Baugedankens, Berlin, 1963, 114.

14. Cf. Plutarch, Vitae, Theseus and Romulus, 9, 4; Dionysius of Halikarnassus, Romaiké archaiología, I, 88, 2. On the traditional under standing of a round sky and a rectangular earth (t'ien-yüan ti-fang) in ancient China, cf. N.J. Wu, Architektur der Chinesen und Inder, 10ff.; on "espace carré," "terre carrée" and "centre" in Chinese thought, cf. M. Granet, La pensée chinoise (1934), Paris, 1968, 80ff., 91ff., 255ff., 323ff. For further parallels, cf. M. Eliade, Le Mythe de l'Eternel Retour, Paris, Gallimard, 1949, 21-29, 20-37; idem, Traité d'Histoire des Religions, Paris, Payot, 1949, 321ff., 325ff.; idem, Das Heilige und das Profane, Hamburg, 1957, 20ff. Cf. also E. Testa, Il simbolismo dei giudeo-cristiani, Jerusalem, 1962.

15. Cf. Plutarch, Vitae, Theseus and Romulus, 9, 5ff.; Dionysius of Halikar nassus, Romaiké archaiología, I, 85,6-88,3; Ovid, Fasti IV, 807-832; K. Kerényi, "Mythologie und Gnosis," in Eranos 8, 1940-1941, Zürich, 1942, 172-178; W. Müller, Die heilige Stadt, 9ff., 33ff., 37ff.; J. Rykwert, The Idea of a Town: The Anthropology of Urban form in Rome, Italy and the Ancient World, London, 1976, 45-71.

16. Cf. Plutarch, Vitae, Theseus and Romulus, 11, 2; Ovid, Fasti IV, 830-832.

17. Cf. Vitruvius, De Architectura, op. cit., p. 414 "Mundus autem est omnium naturae rerum conceptio summa caelcumque"; and Ovid, Fasti II, 683-684; "Gentibus est aliis tellus data limine certo Romanae spatium est urbis et orbis idem." Compare, too, W. Dahlheim, "Die Funktion der Stadt im roemis chen Herrschaftsverband," in Historische Zeitschrift, Beiheft 7 (NF), Stadt und Herrschaft: Roemische Kaiserzeit und Hohes Mittelalter, ed. F. Vittinghoff, 1982, especially 155-222.

18. Cf. Aulus Gellius, Noctes Atticae XIII, 14; Plutarch, Vitae, Theseus and Romulus, 11, 1-5; Dionysius of Halikarnassus, Romaiké archaiología I, 88, 2; Varro, De Lingua Latina V, 32, 143; Tacitus, Annales XII, 23.

19. For the striking parallels between Chinese and Indian surveying rites, see P. Wheatley, The Pivot of Four Quarters, 426ff., 462ff.

20. Cf. W. Krickeberg, Mythe, Mensch und Umwelt, Bamberg, 1950; C.T. Bertling, Vierzahl, Kreuz und Mandala in Asien, Amsterdam, 1954; C. Hentze, Tod, Auferstehung, Weltordnung, Zurich, 1956; W. Leschhorn, "Gruender der Stadt": Studien zu einem politisch-religioesen Phaenomen der griechischen Geschichte, Stuttgart, 1984; W. Krickeberg, "Bauform und Weltbild im alten Mexiko," in Paideuma IV, 1950, 295-333; P. Westheim, Arte Antiguo de México, Mexico City, 1950; W. Krickeberg, Altamerikanische Kulturen, Berlin, 1956; G.E. von Grunebaum, "Die islamische Stadt," in Saeculum 6, 1955, 138-153; Ph. Stern, Le Bayon d'Angkor et l'évolution de l'art Khmer, Paris, 1927; J. Dumarcay and B. Ph. Groslier, Le Bayon: Histoire Architecturale du Temple. INSCRIPTIONS DU BAYON, Paris, 1973, especially Chapter 10, "Mandala et Yantra," 235-249; P. Wheatley, City as Symbol; idem, The Pivot of Four Quarters; W. Mueller, Die heilige Stadt; J. Rykwert, The Idea of a Town.

21. Vitruvius, op. cit., VI, 1, 263. Compare too 281.

22. Ibid., I, 6, 65.

23. Cf. E. J. Eitel, Feng-shui: Principles of the Natural Science of the Chinese, Hong Kong, 1873; J. Needham, Science and Civilization in China, vol. 2, History of Scientific Thought, Cambridge, 1956, 359-363, and vol. 4, Physics and Physical Technology, Cambridge, 1962, 239-245.

24. On tabbur eres, cf. Ezekiel 38:12 and Judges 9:37; on gēs omphalos, cf. Plato, Politeia, 427c; on the other sources, compare the works of Wheatley, Müller and Eliade cited in notes 7,8, and 15; also J. Soustelle, La pensée cosmologique des anciens mexicains: représentation du monde et de l'espace, Paris, 1940, especially Chapter VIII, "Les Points Cardinaux," 56-78; W. H. Roescher, Omphalos: Eine philologisch-archaeologisch-volks kundliche Abhandlung ueber die Vorstellung der Griechen und anderer Voelker vom Nabel der Erde," Leipzig, 1913; reprint, Olms Hildesheim, 1974; idem, Der Omphalosgedanke bei verschiedenenVoelkern, besonderes den semitischen: Ein Beitrag zur vergleichenden Religionswissenschaft, Volkskunde und Archaeologie, Leipzig, 1918; reprint, Olms Hildesheim, 1974.

25. Chou Li (Ta-ssŭ-t'u), 3, 14.

26. Cf. G. Coedès, La date du Bayon, in Etudes Cambodgiennes XIX, Bulletin de l'Ecole Française de l'Extrême-Orient, XXVIII, 1928, 88.

27. Histories I, 98, Aubrey de Selincourt translation. Herodotus also describes very precisely in the Histories (I, 178, 180, 181) the square lay out of the city of Babylon and the square temple district of Babylon (We know the accuracy of this description from contemporary archeology). Also, cf. Plato's sketch of Atlantis (Critias 115c ff.), which is character ized by a circular layout, ziggurat-like palace and midpoint, and archi tectural color symbolism.

28. Cf. W. Mueller, Die heilige Stadt, 53ff.

29. Cf. Ibid., 78ff.

30. Revelations 21:12-13,16.

31. Chou Li (K'ao-kung-Chi), 12,14.

32. J. Legge, The Chinese Classics, vol. 4, The She King, Hong Kong, 1960, 646 (Chinese text with English translation). On the problem of translation, cf. P. Wheatley, The Pivot of Four Quarters, 475.

33. Ezekiel 40:1-43:11 (Revised Standard Version).

34. Book of Wisdom 11:20.

35. Plato, Timaeus 28c, 69b.

36 Homer, Odyssey VI, 5-10.

37. Cf. Vitruvius, op.cit., I, 1, 30.

38. Cf. L. Kitschelt, Die fruehchristliche Basilika als Darstellung des himmlis chen Jerusalem, Munich, 1938; H. Sedlmayr, Die Entstehung der Kathedrale, Zurich, 1950; G. Bandmann, Mittelalterliche Architektur als Bedeutungstraeger, Berlin, 1951; O. v. Simson, Origins of Gothic Architecture and the Medieval Concept of Order, New York, 1956; C.

Schneider, Geistesgeschichte der christlichen Antike, Munich, 1970, 480- 494.

39. Eusebius quotes here Psalms 47:9, Eusebius, Hist. eccl. X, 4; Migne, PG, 20,849.

40 M. Roriczer, Das Buechlein von der Fialen Gerechtigkeit, Facsimile of origi nal Regensburg edition (1486), ed. F. Geldner, Wiesbaden, 1965, 46ff.

41. H. R. Hahnloser, Villard de Honnecourt, critical edition of ms. fr. 19093 of the Paris National Library, Graz, 1972, 49ff.

42. Ibid. 107ff.

43 Suger [of Saint Denis], Liber de rebus in administratione sua gesti, in Oeuvres complètes de Suger, edited by A. Lecoy de la Marche, Paris, 1867; reprint, Olms Hildesheim, 1979, 189.

44. Vitruvius, op. cit., III, i, Frank Granger translation, Loeb Classical Library.

45. Cf. R. Wittkower, "The Arts in Western Europe: Italy," in The New Cambridge Modern History, vol. 1, The Renaissance, Cambridge, 1957; G. Santinello, Leon Battista Alberti, Florence, 1962; R. Wittkower, Architectural Principles in the Age of Humanism, New York, 1965; E. Forssman, Palladios Lehrgebaeude: Studien ueber den Zusammenhang von Architektur und Architekturtheorie, Stockholm, 1965; S. Braunfels, "Vom Mikrokosmos zum Meter," in Der "vermessene" Mensch: Anthropometrie in Kunst und Wissenschaft, Munich, 1973; St. von Moos, Turm und Bollwerk: Beitraege zu einer politischen Ikonographie der italienischen Renaissance-architektur, Zurich, 1974.

46. W. Gilpin, Three Essays: On Picturesque Beauty, On Picturesque Travel, and On Sketching Landscape, London, 1794; reprint, Gregg International Publishers, 1972.

47. C. Perrault, Ordonnance des cinq espèces de colonnes, selon la méthode des anciens, Paris, 1683, Préface, i-xxvii. Claude Perrault, brother of Charles Perrault, the protagonist of the "Querelle des anciens et des modernes," did not, of course, follow the "method of the ancients"; like his brother, he stood completely on the side of the modems.

48. B. de Fontenelle, Entretien sur la pluralité des mondes, 1707. Cf. G. Buchdahl, The Image of Newton and Locke in the Age of Reason, London, 1961; T. Schabert, Natur und Revolution, Untersuchungen zum politischen Denken im Frankreich des 18 Jahrhunderts, Munich, 1969; S. Sambursky, "Die Raumvorstellung der Antike: Von der unendlichen Leere zur Allgegenwart Gottes," in Eranos 44-1975, Leiden, 1977,167-198.

49. D. Hume, Philosophical Essays Concerning Human Understanding, 1748, especially sections VI and VII.

50. Voltaire, Lettres anglaises (also known as Lettres philosophiques), 1734, especially Quatorzième Lettre, "Sur Descartes et Newton"; idem, Les élé ments de la philosophie de Newton, 1738.

51. E. Kaufmann, Von Ledoux bis Le Corbusier: Ursprung und Entwicklung der Autonomen Architektur, Vienna, 1933, 16, 19. Compare also 43, 46, 61.

52. S. Giedion, Space, Time and Architecture: The Growth of a New Tradition, Cambridge, Mass./London, 1956, 431ff.

53. V. Considérant, Description du Phalanstère et considérations sociales sur l'architectonique, Paris, 1979, 59ff.

54. Cf. W. Schneider, Ueberall ist Babylon: Die Stadt als Schicksal des Menschen von Ur bis Utopia, Düsseldorf, 1960; M. Ragon, Prospective et Futurologie: Histoire mondiale de l'architecture et de l'urbanisme modernes, vol. 3, Tournai, 1978.

55. J. Guadet, Eléments et théorie de l'architecture, vol. 1, 1929, 139.

56. B. Taut, Die Erde eine gute Wohnung (1919), extracts reprinted in W. Pehnt, Das Ende der Zuversicht: Architektur in diesem Jahrhundert, Ideen, Bauten, Dokumente, Berlin, 1983, 324-326.

57. F. L. Wright, The Disappearing City, New York, 1932. Wright recom mended to counteract this, that the entire U.S.A. be inhabited by single-family homes as "Broadacre City." The "individual home" is the most important unit in the city," the "center and the only centralization allowable" (Ibid. 80). Already in his Princeton lectures of 1930 Wright had declared: "I believe the city, as we know it today, is to die" (The Future of Architecture, New York, 1953, 182).

58. E. Saarinen, The City: Its Growth, Its Decay, Its Future, New York, 1943. Compare also Le Corbusier, Urbanisme, Paris, 1925, 88: "Le centre des villes est malade mortellement, leur pourtour est rongé comme par une vermine…. Je pense donc froidement qu'il faut arriver à cette idée de démolir le centre des grandes villes et de le rebâtir."

59. A. Sant' Elia, L'architettura futurista, in M. Drudi Gambillo and T. Fiori, Archivi del futurismo, Rome, 1958, 85.

60. F. L. Wright, Schriften und Bauten, Munich, 1963, 187.

61. C. N. Ledoux, L'architecture considérée sous le rapport de l'art, des moeurs et de la législation, vol. 1, Paris, 1804; reprint, Nördlingen, 1981.

62. Le Corbusier et Pierre Jeanneret, Oeuvres Complètes de 1910-1929, ed. W. Boesiger and O. Stonorov, Zurich, 1937, 111.

63. A. Brust, Worte an die Meister aller Werke, in B. Taut, Fruehlichtt 1920-1922, 65.

64. Le Corbusier, Urbanisme, op.cit. 1.

65. Cf. G. Ciucci, F. Dalco, M. Manieri-Elia, and M. Tafuri, La città ameri cana dalla guerra civile al New Deal, Rome-Bari, 1973, 348, n. 66; 344ff., n. 56; 136, nn. 215, 216; 400, n. 146; R. Fishman, Urban Utopias in the Twentieth Century: Ebenezer Howard, Frank Lloyd Wright, Le Corbusier, New York, 1977, 165ff; J. Rykwert, Ornament ist kein Verbrechen: Architektur als Kunst, Cologne, 1983, 68-80.

66. Griffin's plan for Canberra (1925 version) is, for example, reproduced in W. Pehnt, Das Ende der Zuversicht, 99; in the 1912 version it can be found in C. Ciucci, et al., La città americana, 138.

67. The plan is reproduced in Le Corbusier, Urbanisme, 168-169; also in R. Fishman, Urban Utopias in the Twentieth Century 114ff., W. Pehnt, Das Ende der Zuversicht, 51.

68. Howard's plans for the "Garden City" are to be found in R. Fishman, Urban Utopias, 114ff. Compare also the plan for Washington, D.C. (1900) of Can Gilbert in G. Ciucci et al., La città americana, 75.

69. Numerous related statements and texts can be found, for instance, in the collection of Ulrich Conrads, Programme und Manifeste zur Architektur des 20. Jahrhunderts, Frankfurt, 1964. Compare also B. Miller Lane, Architecture and Politics in Germany 1918-1945, Cambridge, Mass., 1968, especially Chapter II, "The New Architecture and the Vision of a New Society."

70. F. L. Wright, Schriften und Bauten, 25.

71. Ibid.

72. Cf. The Living City, New York, 1958, especially 120-121.

73. Le Corbusier, Vers une architecture, 1923, Paris, 1977, xviii. Cf. idem, Urbanisme, 37.

74. Cf. Le Corbusier, Précisions sur un état présent de l'architecture et de l'urbanisme, 1929, Paris, 1960, 23-26. Cf. idem, Urbanisme, 143, 281ff.

75. Le Corbusier et son atelier rue de Sèvres 35. Oeuvres complètes, 1952-1957, edited by W. Boesiger, Zurich, 1957 168; Le Corbusier, Oeuvres com plètes, Les dernières oeuvres, ed. W. Boesiger, Zurich, 1970, 49, 65, 67; idem, Sketchbooks, vol. 3, 1954-1957, Cambridge, Mass., 1982, J 38,411; J 38, 417; J 38, 429.

76. Compare my two essays: "Modernity and History," in Diogenes, 123, (Fall 1983) 110-124; "The Decentralization and the New Urban Policy in France," in Urban Law and Policy (England), vol. 7, No. 1, March 1985, 57-74.