1989 Architectural Educator Fellowship
The Concepts of Natural and Artificial Production in Architectural Theory

“We make no distinction between man and nature: the human essence of nature and the natural essence of man become one within nature in the form of production or industry, just as they do within the life of man as a species. Industry is then no longer considered from the extrinsic point of view of utility but rather from the point of view of its fundamental identity with nature as production of man and by man.” [1]

The expression “paradigm shift,” introduced by Thomas S. Kuhn in his seminal study The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, is not limited to the development of science, but can be applied to the realm of art and its production. [2] In architecture, the concept of paradigm shifts identifies transitions from an established system of beliefs to a fundamentally different structure of understanding. Such restructuring, as applied to the historical development of architecture, implies changes of accepted values, presuppositions, and ideological frameworks suggesting new attitudes for conceiving architecture. This study traces the change of paradigm in architecture in view of the introduction of modern science. In order to limit the realm of the investigation, the analogy between the human body and the architectural artifact—one of the traditional themes of a classical conception of the discipline—has been addressed in reference to the emergence of scientific thought.

Analogy—The Classical Conception

Rudolf Wittkower, in Architectural Principles in the Age of Humanism, describes the accepted belief of the Renaissance period that as “man is the image of God and the proportions of his body are produced by divine will, so the proportions in architecture have to embrace and express the cosmic order.” [3] A building was to mirror the proportions of the human body as given by nature. This was a demand that became universally accepted on Vitruvian authority. Vitruvius considered the human body as the model for symmetrical harmony that was understood to represent the proper relation between the parts of a building integrated into a whole. [4]

As was expressed in the transfer of human proportions to architecture, artificial creation followed the order of nature. Francesco di Giorgio Martini (1439–1501), as Wittkower asserted, showed the correspondence between architecture and nature by developing anthropomorphically derived modular grids in which the proportions of the human body were used to determine plan, facade, and certain specific detail of buildings. [5] By inscribing the human figure to the diagram of a church plan and facade elevation as well as by superimposing the head of a man to drawings of column capitals, the connection between nature and architecture was established. The making of artifacts, the design of buildings and temples, was derived from an order that was analogous to the natural creation.

Analogia in Greek means proportion and is translated in Latin as proportio. Analogy, in its broadest sense, was the mode of reasoning that depended on the recognition of a relationship of similarities and was applied to the art of building in the use of proportional systems to realize the comparison to nature. Following in this line of reasoning, artificial creation derived its order from natural and divine creation. Architectural form was essentially representational, suggesting an analogy between natural and artificial production as founded on visual resemblances.

The Atomic Model

The analogy between nature and architecture was explicitly stated in Leone Battista Alberti’s (1404–1472) work. In his treatise on architecture, however, the analogy to the human body was made, not exclusively in reference to traditional understandings, but in view of a possible systematization of buildings in terms of functional criteria. Alberti repeatedly mentions that a building is like a human body, so that in the formation of architecture one ought to imitate nature. [6] Consequently, in order to discover the roots of architectural beauty, Alberti analyzed those of natural beauty. He concludes: “That the Beauty of all Edifices arises principally from three Things, namely, the Number, the Figure, and Collocation of the several Members.” [7] The analogy to nature in general and to the human body in particular further supported the understanding of a building as a system, implying a systematic approach to architecture.

Alberti conceived of a building as an entity made of parts or elements, which according to specific rules were constructed to achieve a certain purpose, thereby defining form. The art of building was understood to be divided into six primary entities pertaining to specific aspects of the building site and fabric: “. . .the whole Art of Building consists in six Things, which are these: The Region, the Seat or Platform, the Compartition, the Walling, the Covering, and the Apertures.” [8]

For Alberti, the concept of entity and part played a significant role in conceiving of architecture. He divided the building into various systems, as Leonardo da Vinci and Vesalius do with their anatomical drawings and dissections of the human body. Alberti’s systematic division of a building into elements, arranged to form an entity, pertained at base to an atomistic conception of the world. The proximity to atomism was specifically expressed in Alberti’s description of the compartition, providing a definition that could generally be applied to the entire system of his model:

“The whole Force of the Invention and all our Skill and Knowledge in the Art of Building, is required in the Compartition: Because the distinct Parts of the entire Building, and, to use such a Word, the Entireness of each of those Parts, and the Union and Agreement of all Lines and Angles in the Work, duly ordered for Convenience, Pleasure and Beauty, are disposed and measured out by the compartition alone: for the City, according to the Opinion of Philosophers, be no more than a great House, and on the other Hand, a House be a little City; why may not be it said, that the Members of that House are so many little Houses; such as the Court-yard, the Hall, the Parlour, the Portico, and the like?” [9]

The conceptual divisibility of material things asserting an autonomy of elements while maintaining a system of relationship between part and whole was based on an abstract logical conception. Alberti’s reference in Della Pittura to mathematical structure for the art of painting paralleled his propositions pertaining to the systematization of architecture, in which general and abstract relations among building components for the art of building were suggested. Such abstract structures were taken to indicate the underlaying aspects of reality. Systematization furthermore constituted a mode of procedure for the design which furthered a conceptual approach to the processes of architectural creation. Problem solving proceeded by the methodical decomposition of any complex problem into its logical components. Architecture in this sense had to a certain degree become scientific.

Alberti’s rational model indicated a gradual shift of emphasis from a philosophic to a scientific atomic theory. In a general sense atomism may be defined as the theory that nature is composed of relatively simple and unchangeable particles too small to be directly observable. Visible changes in nature can be explained by changes in the configuration of atomic particles. The multiplicity of the existing forms in nature is similarly based upon differences of forms and configurations of basic elements. While the atomic theory traditionally supported the idea of order in nature, including the aspect of a certain universal permanence, the new atomic theory within science changed the perception of nature insofar as it became a mechanical order. The laws of nature were not only the signs of the rationality of nature but also the means for its manipulation. The significance of scientific inquiry lay in the conviction that nature formed a unity which could be analyzed quantitatively as well as qualitatively. Thus, the concept of the division of entities into parts received a new significance. The relation between the forms of particles and the form of a compound could be determined in its structure, allowing science to conceive of artificial processes through which nature could be transformed. The scientific atomic model, conceived as an explanatory framework for natural phenomena, was essentially transferred to those disciplines that enraged in the physical making of the human environment.

Analogy—The Modern Conception

While geometry and number traditionally offered the metaphysical justification for a transfer of promotional systems from the human body to architectural form, the development of science in medicine and biology necessitated a redefinition of the established analogy. The sketch books of Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519), as well as Andreas Vesalius’s (1514–1564) treatise on anatomy in the early sixteenth century, disclosed a new understanding of the human body. The study of man no longer was exclusively founded on formal characteristics as derived from the analysis of external features, but instead was determined by a thorough analysis of internal structures.

Leonardo da Vinci’s work was guided, according to C. Maltese, by the idea “to render everything visible.” [10] Da Vinci’s method initially led to direct registration of existing phenomena (as perceived by the eye) and, subsequently, to the discovery of new propositions made visible in sketch and drawing form. In his anatomical drawings, as well as in the design of machines and structures, da Vinci contributed a precise method for the representation and description of reality. [11] Since observation was followed by experimentation, empiricism became experimentalism, making way for active investigation. Because of his involvement with the Florentine workshop tradition, da Vinci was acquainted with the properties of materials and various methods of their utilization. From practical knowledge he was able to project new ideas for the construction of technical apparatus and machines. He recognized individual actuating mechanisms as essential parts of the machine. The descriptive method of observation used in his anatomical drawings, in which the different parts of the body were shown as separate functional entities, allowed him to systematically structure his technical constructions according to the purpose of their performance.

The analogy of man’s anatomy to machine parts had already been made by Alberti in Della Pittura (1435–1436), in which the human body was considered as a system of weights and levers, balances, and counterbalances. [12] Da Vinci’s repertory of screws, springs, wheels, and other mechanical devices constituted the parts of machines that were to function as mechanical organisms. Many of da Vinci’s technical drawings bear the character of practical workshop sketches from which the individual parts of the machines could have been manufactured; however, most of them were probably never realized. Of significance, nevertheless, was da Vinci’s structured approach which divided the functioning processes of machines into a series of operative steps and divided the machine itself into identifiable parts assembled within a system of unitary character. Such a concept applied to the machine was conceived in affinity with the understanding of anatomical systems. The reference to the human body was further made explicit in an analogy between medicine and architecture mentioned in a letter written by da Vinci regarding the work of the Milan Cathedral:

“You know than when medicines are rightly used they restore health to the invalid, and that he who knows them well makes the right use of them if he also understand what man is, and what life is, and the constitution of the body, and what health is. . . . The case of the invalid cathedral is similar. It also requires a doctor architect who understands the edifice well, and knows the rules of good building from their origin, and knows into how many parts they are divided, what are the causes that keep together an edifice and make it last, what is the nature of weight and of energy in force, and in what manner they should be combined and related to one another and what effects they will produce when combined.” [13]

The systematic approach to architecture exhibited in this extract proposed the concept of a unifying body of knowledge with rules and principles for the art of building. Da Vinci describes the division of structures into parts, their systems of relation, and methods of assembly that together identify the form of building. On this basis, it is possible to understand da Vinci’s awareness of the nexus that had to be established between theoretical structure and practical activity, both in medicine as well as architecture. Such attempts toward systematization of disciplines, as based on the unity between theory and practice, was essentially modern in its foundation, disclosing an affinity to the structure of scientific thought.

Theory and Practice

A unity of theory and practice was strongly advocated within medicine by the Flemish anatomist Andreas Vesalius, who had undertaken medical studies in Paris and received the degree of Doctor in Medicine from the University in Padua at a very young age. He was opposed to the doctrine of the theoretical sciences which “despise the work of the hand.” [14] His critique was directed toward the professor of medicine, who, as Vesalius describes, is “perched on a high pulpit like a crow and with an air of great disdain repeats to the point of monotony accounts concerning facts that he has not directly observed, but has learned by rote from the books of others.” [15] The division of the medical arts between those who performed the dissections of the human body and those who engaged in discourse reinforced, according to Vesalius, the separation between manual work and the elaboration of the theories. He therefore argued in favor of scientific method which would allow the practitioner to guide his work according to the structure of thought and the theoretician to base his intellectual assumption on practical experience.

Versalius’s treatise, De humani corporis fabrica (1543), a significant contribution to the new science, was based on the conviction that the condition of a particular field of knowledge required vast preparatory work of precise observation and description of factual material. [16] Such an approach had to be rationally structured following systematic procedures of analysis. In order to achieve a high degree of accuracy, the techniques of observation as well as the methods of recording required improvement. The dissection of the human body was the primary source for the gathering of factual information (in fact, constituting an important component of Vesalius’s teaching activity at the university). That a professor descended from his academic chair to dissect and demonstrate personally was entirely novel.

The various publications on anatomy by Vesalius had a similar didactic intention. The precise illustrative techniques of these works presented the results of scientific observation in clear and comprehensive graphic images. The illustrations, probably made in the workshop of Titian, disclosed the inherent systematic structure within Vesalius’s approach. The human body was presented as a series of different functional systems, such as skeleton, muscles, nerves, veins, and arteries. These were further subdivided into their constituent components; the different bones and muscles, for example, where shown as independent parts, detached from the functional system to which they belonged. The illustrations also identified the various parts of the human body with numbers and letters, thus exhibiting the analytical intention of Vesalius’s method. In other words, Vesalius’s contribution to modern science was in the field of communicable and descriptive techniques which contributed, through observation and the systematic organization of data, to the formation of modern knowledge.

Da Vinci’s and Vesalius’s understanding of the human body through dissections led to new methods of judging and seeking truth as the base for the formation of knowledge. Their efforts were contributions to the development of science and led to an initial formation of the early modern era.

Seeking Truth

The development of modern science continued to influence the understanding of architecture during succeeding centuries. Architects of the seventeenth century such as Claude Perrault (1613–1688), Guarino Guarini (1624–1723), and Christopher Wren (1632–1723) were scientists as well. Their theoretical work on architecture disclosed a predominant interest in scientific thought allowing a transfer of principles from other disciplines, as for example anatomy, mathematics, astronomy, and medicine, to the field of architecture.

The writings of Claude Perrault offered one of the most specific contributions to the understanding of architecture conceptually based on the structure of scientific thought. [17] Perrault possessed a wide knowledge in the fields of science and art ranging from scientific and scholarly work to the design of buildings. He had originally been trained as a physician and was appointed as a comparative anatomist to the Académie des Sciences. [18] As documented by an engraving by Sébastien Leclerc, Perrault conducted animal dissections that constituted the base for his drawings on comparative anatomy.

Perrault’s ideas on architecture formed a departure from traditional architectural theory. [19] He questioned the premises of the “classical” doctrine, abandoning the idea that the forms and rules of architecture were something a priori given. The analogy to the human body, as founded on proportional systems, therefore was essentially questioned. If there were a rule that dictated the imitation of antiquity, he believed, architecture would have never progressed and “we would not need to search for new means to acquire the knowledge which we are lacking and that every day enriches agriculture, navigation, medicine, and all the arts.” [20] This was a proposition that presumed an analogy to the methods and sources of natural science.

The concept of architecture as an evolving art was influenced by the idea of scientific progress. Modern science was not regarded as a hermetic field, but as developing, thus allowing the continuous growth of knowledge. This modern concept of knowledge stood in opposition to the traditional view of the world. While the old system based its premises on universal order founded on the belief in transcendental causes, modern thought focused on empirical phenomena. In his scientific writings Perrault questioned the a priori value of a conceptual system that traditional philosophy postulated. Rather than limiting knowledge to one single and exclusive model, Perrault accepted the relativity of various positions. He thus viewed critically the importance traditionally given to true causes. Ultimately, according to Perrault, “truth is but the totality of visible phenomena that can lead us to the knowledge of that which Nature wanted to hide. . . . It is an enigma to which we can give multiple explanations, without ever expecting to find one that is exclusively true.” [21] Theoretical systems were no longer connected with the order of a cosmological scheme, but with the structural laws of reality as perceived by man. The traditional metaphysical structure was replaced by a modern one that gave priority to the truth inherent within the conditions of reality.

The arguments that Perrault considered essential within scientific thought were equally valid when applied to the arts. Architecture was not to be seen as a closed system of predetermined transcendental concepts but needed to be expanded to the advancement and progress of modern thought. One of the primary questions was how to apply the propositions of scientific knowledge to architecture, to the formal vocabulary of the discipline, and ultimately to beauty. The rational discussion addressing fundamental problems of architecture led Claude and his brother Charles Perrault to differentiate in theoretical terms between “positive” or “convincing” beauty that were inherent within the laws of building—in analogy to the laws of nature. They were considered to be “naturally” found and directly applied as they are. [22] Arbitrary beauty, on the other hand, depended on taste and custom.

According to Claude Perrault, “positive” beauty was determined by clearly perceivable criteria “founded on solid convincing Reasons.” These were visible components of the art of building generated by three fundamental categories: (a) the quality and richness of building materials, (b) the delicacy and exactness of the workmanship, and (c) the general disposition or symmetry of building parts to one another. [23] Although not explicitly mentioned, Perrault’s criteria inherent within “positive” beauty were all essentially based on considerations of building construction. Such categories provided architecture with the expression of “positive” beauty as disclosed in visible form. The representation of constructional logic and tectonic quality implied in Perrault’s text was considered a constituent aspect of formal definition. [24]

Truth and Utility

With the emergence of modern science and its predominant emphasis on rationality, a new interest resulted in the manifestation of technique within formal expression. This approach to architecture evolved as an important tenet within architectural theory during the nineteenth century. The writings of Eugène-Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc in France and Gottfried Semper in Germany addressed the exigencies of building construction within the general understanding of architecture as an art form. Such theories did not advocate a direct correspondence between technique and form in which formal expression was exclusively derived from technical consideration; instead, the art of building was to receive its intellectual justification from an abstract and ideal understanding of the processes of production that were to be rooted in fundamental principles. In analogy to the developments in the natural sciences, the field of architecture was to evolve as a strict discipline, founded on universal laws.

Architecture was to be the truthful manifestation of essential principles inherent within construction. The laws of structural mechanics, the qualities of building materials, and the principles of production procedures could thus contribute to the definition of a formal order. Such an understanding, in which form was considered to be essentially tied to the process of building, adhered to the unity of truth and utility. The seeking for truth inherent within construction constituted the new metaphysical and spiritual foundation of architectural form.

The unity of truth and utility was for Viollet-le-Duc a matter of rational thinking. This concept could be considered the underlaying theme of his operative works: the Dictionnaire raisonné and the Entretiens sur l´architecture. [25] Following the rationalist tradition of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, he sought to show that architecture was founded on a structured system of organization. He was interested in researching the interrelation between building components, their assembly, and entire systems of construction. The very idea of a system, as applied to architecture, implied the breaking down not only of the constructed whole into its constituent elements but also of each of these elements into their component parts. [26] In attempting to identify the logical principles from which the unity and the cohesion of architectural systems could be understood, Viollet-le-Duc’s approach adhered to a method of analysis that was rooted in scientific thinking. The structure of relationship between architectonic parts was determined by the very physical structure of building.

The interconnection of components forming architectonic entities was considered by Viollet-le-Duc in reference to the organization of natural organisms. In a small publication entitled Historie d’une maison (1873) he asserts that “when a work is completed . . . the architectural organism we have built will always allow us to see its organs, and how these organs preform their functions.” [27] A similar analogy is offered in Viollet-le-Duc’s last work Historie d’un dessinateur (1879). He writes:

“When you have studied and understood these principles of anatomy, you will examine with more interest and knowledge the machinery of the factory; for man, in the art of mechanics, seldom does more than apply these elements. . . . Having neither these supple and strong ligaments that fasten the articulations of the bones, nor the tendons and muscles, man replaces these beautiful inventions with bolts, axles, or pivots, and eccentric; but generally the organic parts of his best machines are made in conformity to the principles by which his body moves.” [28]

The reference to the construction of natural organisms was both founded on technical and aesthetic considerations. Natural principles, while suggesting beauty, were equated with principles of construction. Beauty was not considered apart from the concrete and necessary parameters of production but instead derived its very meaning from the order underlying the physical creation of artifacts.

A similar understanding of the relation between architectural form and building construction was developed in Germany by Gottfried Semper. The relation between art and industry was for Semper one of the significant questions to be addressed by the nineteenth-century theories of aesthetics. His most important written work, entitled Der Stil in den technischen und tektonischen Künsten order praktische Ästhetik, involved the question of style within the technical arts. [29] The expression “practical aesthetic” used in the title of Semper’s work indicated the essential bond between form and technique, which was later to evolve as one of the clearest tenets of a modern conception of architectural aesthetics.

The unity of truth and utility, a concept discussed above in relation to Viollet-le-Duc’s writings, was a guiding idea of Semper’s theory. Function, material, and technique that belonged to the realm of utility not only contributed to the creation of a work of art but essentially embodied it with meaning. Semper’s interest was directed toward an understanding of the artwork as the product or result of a process, a creative act that takes into consideration a whole series of parameters. This idea was summarized by Semper in the formula Y = F (x,y,z, etc.). [30] Such variables not only included material considerations but also the unknown factors pertaining to the creative act of making, such as the search for symbolic and aesthetic expression. [31]

Beauty was considered inherent within the internal structures of natural phenomena; Semper examined snowflakes, flowers, and astronomical patterns to understand the order of beauty in symmetry, proportionality, and unity of movement. Similarly, the beauty of man-made objects lay within their essential structures as determined by the functions, materials, and techniques underlaying artificial production. This concept of beauty, while being defined as the truthful expression of internal structures, addressed the concept of art as a system of production.

The theoretical work of Viollet-le-Duc and Semper disclosed a search for a new conception of architectural aesthetics. The understanding of construction techniques in their ontological dimension, a concept resulting from the search for truthful conditions advocated by scientific thinking, was integrated into the theory of form. While the traditional and classical relation between form and technique was essentially representational in its structure, assuming a priority of formal over technical concerns, the modern conception of architecture instead offered a reconciliation between the means of production and the realm of visible expression. Architecture maintained its symbolic value by reference to the means and methods of technical processes that were considered analogous to the principles inherent within natural laws. The increasing interest in technique and the renewed priority given to practice constituted a search for truth in architecture. Its meaning was manifested by the revelation of the conditions of being inherent within the processes and products of architecture.

The Concept of Evolution

While founded on scientific methodology, the search for truth as well as the concept of the building as made of identifiable parts integrated within functional systems and subsystems evolved as guiding models for architecture during the succeeding century. An understanding of the anatomical analogy within architecture necessitates, however, a more specific examination of the role of the process inherent within natural and artificial creation. Traditionally, nature and man were considered a product of divine creation, for God was the Maker of the world. The formation of the world was subject to the will of the Creator who was considered the ultimate Craftsman, Sculptor, or Architect. The making of every plant and every animal was, to a certain degree, a unique event and was seen in analogy to the creation of objects by man.

The concept of God as the Maker of the world is perhaps best expressed in a French mid-thirteenth century Bible illustration showing God with a compass tracing the limits of the universe. The compass used by God to delineate the world was an instrument commonly used by master masons to transfer measurements from drawings to actual full-scale size. Divine creation was described by means of a technique used by the guilds of the masons in the construction of buildings. Conversely, as natural creation was described in analogy to the processes of production: art was thought to imitate nature; the making of artifacts derived its order from natural and divine creation.

The description of natural creation in analogy with the results and activities of human production gained further significance with the increasing influence of science on society. The processes of art, particularly the concept of mechanical means of production, served as models for understanding nature. [32] René Descartes (1596–1650) compared the machines built by artisans with the structure of natural bodies. The assertion, made by the major exponents of early modern science, of no substantial difference between the products of art and those of nature, however, maintained the belief in God and divine creation. [33] William Paley (1743–1805) in his Natural Theology, published a few years before Darwin’s Origin of Species, was a strong believer in the concept of a “designed” world. In explanation Paley compared the making of a man-made object with the creation of living organisms.

“If you find a watch, you will scarcely doubt that it was designed by a watchmaker. Similarly, if you consider a complex organism with all its purposeful organs, you cannot escape the conclusion that it was designed by the will of a Creator. For it would simply be absurd to suppose that the eye of the mammal, for example, with the precision of its optics and its geometry, could have developed by mere chance.” [34] The art of making objects through craftmanship constituted the model of reference for describing God as the Maker of the world. Natural creation was explained by artificial creation. “Just as God was considered the artificer of nature,” Giambattista Vico (1668–1744) wrote, “so was man of the things formed by art.” [35]

The foundation of a new paradigm was established by Charles Darwin (1809–1882) and other scientists in the mid-nineteenth century with the theory of evolution. With the publication of Darwin’s seminal works The Origin of Species (1859) and The Descent of Man (1871) an entirely new understanding of natural processes became generally established. [36] Living organisms were considered to have developed into specific species through a continuous process of biological variation. This proposition, while advocating the variability of organic beings, considered natural selection and the survival of the best adapted organism as the determining force in the creation of various species and their characteristics. Darwin writes:

“Until recently the great majority of naturalists believed that species were immutable productions, and had been separately created. This view has been ably maintained by many authors. Some few naturalists, on the other hand, have believed that species undergo modification, and that the existing forms of life are the descendants by true generation of preexisting forms.” [37]

The concept of Divine Creation for understanding the formation of different living organisms was fundamentally challenged. The argument of design, advocated by authors like William Paley, whose work had been studied by Darwin at a young age, was put into question. This is strongly expressed in Darwin’s autobiography:

“The old argument of design in nature, as given by Paley, which formerly seemed to me so conclusive, fails, now that the law of natural selection has been discovered. We can no longer argue that, for instance, the beautiful hinge of a bivalve shell must have been made by an intelligent being, like the hinge of a door by man. There seems to be no more design in the variability of organic beings and in the action of natural selection, than in the course which the wind blows. Everything in nature is the result of fixed laws.” [38]

In opposition to the traditional view of a “designed” world, Darwin showed that it was possible to explain what appeared to be special creation by the chance variation of characteristics, followed by natural selection. Significant to the theory is the notion that type forms are established, through the gradual modification and variation of original, preexisting forms. Natural creation, in this sense, was considered a process rather than a unique act. Nature was understood to be a complex and open system, in a continuous state of development, marked by successions and progressions of specific characteristic features. This view, which gave emphasis to natural processes, reproduction, as well as the idea of evolution, had a significant impact on scientific conceptions and their understanding within the modern area.

The work of D’Arcy Thompson, for example, derived the development of natural bodies from understanding of scientific laws. In his study On Growth and Form, published in 1917, biological processes were explained in view of natural principles, including their mathematical as well as physical aspects, and the impact on the evolution of organic formations. Emphasis was given to the functional parameters that determined form, suggesting a direct adaptation of living bodies to the physical forces of their natural surroundings. He writes:

“My sole purpose is to correlate with mathematical statement and physical law certain of the simpler outward phenomena of organic growth and structure or form, while all the while regarding the fabric of the organism . . . as a material and mechanical configuration.” [39]

Natural phenomena, in other words, were explained in analogy to the functioning of artificial bodies and the laws guiding their construction. The knowledge of the physical sciences was, according to Thompson, of essential significance for comprehending the performance of natural mechanisms. The form of organisms, for example, could thus be described in reference to the action of forces acting upon them, contributing to their growth and evolution. The sciences of kinetics and statics could offer understandings of the development of natural forms. Thompson referred to the “Principle of Similitude,” suggesting a comparable method of analysis for artificial constructions and natural organisms. From the description of physical objects, understandings could be gained of the determining forces underlying the formation of natural bodies. Mathematics and physics, while of necessity for determining the configuration of iron girders, structural frames, and bridges, could similarly pertain to the study of natural forms such as the development of cell membranes, bone structures, and entire living organisms. An equivalence was herein suggested between biological and artificial creation as founded on physical laws and their role in understanding the fundamental existence of things.

This search for the foundations of biological processes in modern science was paralleled by similar developments within the domain of artificial production. In order to consider the man-made object in terms of its conditions of existence, priority was gradually given within the modern era to the processes that lead to the creation of artifacts. This importance assigned to manufacturing and production was paralleled by the significant role given to process within the scientific inquiry. In architecture, the concept of process was similarly valued. The increasing reference to the exigencies of building construction during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries was an indication that considerations of production gradually became understood as constituent factors of architectural design. Rather than conceiving of architecture exclusively in terms of formal concerns, a new approach to the architectural object emphasized the processes of its making. The understanding of form in view of the parameters of construction as well as the possibilities of mechanical reproduction was made possible, thus preparing the foundation for the development of the modern movement.

Essentially modern in its foundation, the concept of process found its manifestation in the architecture of the early twentieth century. The analogy between the human body and architecture was advocated by propagators of the modern movement, for the idea of the building as an organic entity was considered a basic factor of architectural production. [40] The development of prototypical solutions suggested by Le Corbusier was founded on the belief that industrial methods were determined by an evolutionary process of selection. In Vers une architecture (1923) Le Corbusier described the creation of standards in reference to the biological idea of the survival of the fittest organism: “When once a standard is established, competition comes at once violently into play. It is a fight; in order to win you must do better than your rival in every minute point . . .” After stating that “all men have the same organism, the same functions,” Le Corbusier concludes: “Standardization is imposed by the law of selection and is an economic and social necessity.” [41]

In L’Art décoratif d’ aujourd’ hui (1925), Le Corbusier addresses the notion of prototypical objects, or objets-types, that gradually evolve from specific needs. [42] His argument is founded on a comparison between the evolution of the human body and the development of man-made artifacts. Type forms, according to Le Corbusier, are to be understood as responses to functional parameters. The type quality of our needs, he argues, require certain type solutions. Le Corbusier borrows from the Larousse dictionary an illustration depicting different parts of the human anatomy that he considered as natural type systems required for satisfying specific functions. Similarly, common objects of daily use are to be seen as representing type forms that evolved from type needs.

Similar propositions are to be found in a small book entitled Aircraft, published in 1935, in which Le Corbusier establishes a clear analogy between biological and mechanical reproduction. He understands “the precise new anatomy of architecture” as an “organism” in agreement with “the mechanism” and “the essential law of nature.” [43] The same idea of shared by Antoine Saint-Exupéry in a text describing the development of an airplane fuselage:

“It is as if there were a natural law which ordained that to achieve this end, to refine the curve of a piece of furniture, or a ship’s keel, or the fuselage of an airplane, until gradually it partakes of the elemental purity of the curve of a human breast or shoulder, there must be the experimentation of several generations of craftsmen. In anything at all, perfection is finally attained. . .” [44]

A similar interest in natural perfection is to be found in a text entitled “The Home of Man” in which Le Corbusier shows different sketches of the human body and comments: “Nature, the eternal lesson, Architecture, town planning, determination of functions, classification of functions, hierarchy. Architecture, town planning = impeccable biology. Final harmony crowning a complex work, an arrangement of perfection.” [45] Le Corbusier’s analogy is based on the classification of functional categories allowing an understanding of the building as an organism, conceived as a set of interrelated systems, (i.e., structure, circulation, mechanical distribution, and the building envelope). A corresponding list of biological systems is shown in Le Corbusier’s sketches showing the human skeleton, the circulatory system of the blood, the organs of the digestive system, and the skin. [46]

This idea, implying an essential correspondence between artificial and natural phenomena, was taken to its logical consequence in the work of Hannes Mayer. His assertion that “building is a biological process” and “not an aesthetic process” suggests an explicit reference to Darwinian theory as applied to architecture. While refuting the concept of design, Meyer emphasizes the directness of operational criteria as founded on biological efficiency. Architecture, he writes, is “a product of the formula: (function times economy). [47] In addressing the processes that lead to the creation of objects, Meyer’s position specifically emphasized the role of reproduction as a mechanical system of industrialized production. Here a tenet of modern architecture was defined: objects, artifacts, and buildings were seen in their inherent structure as pertaining to the processes that contributed to their creation. This was a concept that fundamentally altered the architectural paradigm of the early twentieth century.

Within this context, the trace of a different relationship between the natural and artificial can be discerned. The reference to nature is not considered at a metaphorical level, nor within analogical comparisons. Science, in the sense of the German word Wissenschaft, referring to the system of human knowledge, offers within the epistemological structure of the twentieth century the possibility for considering an equivalence between natural and artificial production. Nature is as much “naturally” given as it is considered an artificial, intellectual construct. Mechanisms and organisms are not perceived as counterparts, but as different models for addressing understandings of the world. Traditional science was founded on a materialistic philosophy of nature, whereas its modern equivalent introduces the concept of nature as a model pertaining to the interaction of organic entities. [48]

This concept, as applied to the domain of art knowledge and production, suggests a fundamental change of attitude as well as of approach for the making of artifacts. Architecture can be considered in accordance with the natural and artificial as equivalent industries of production. “Industry is then no longer considered from the extrinsic point of view of utility,” as asserted by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, “but rather from the point of view of its fundamental identity nature as production of man and by man.”

Notes

[1] Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, Anti-Oedipus Capitalism and Schizophrenia, trans. R. Hurley, M. Seem, and H. R. Lane (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1983), 4.

[2] Thomas S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 2nd ed. (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1972), 10, 11.

[3] Rudolf Wittkower, Architectural Principles in the Age of Humanism (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1971), 101.

[4] “For the human body is so designed by nature that the face, from the chin to the top of the forehead and the lowest roots of the hair, is a tenth part of the whole height; . . . The length of the foot is one sixth of the height of the body; of the forearm, one fourth; and the breadth of the breast is also one fourth. The other members, too, have their own symmetrical proportions, and it was by employing them that the famous painters and sculptors of antiquity attained to great and endless renown.” Vitruvius, The Ten Books on Architecture, trans. Morris Hicky Morgan (New York: Dover Publication, 1960), 72.

[5] See Francesco di Giorgio Martini, Trattati di Architettura Ingegneria & Arte Militare, ed. Corrado Maltese (Milano: Edizioni Il Polifilo), 1967. Wittkower, Architectural Principles in the Age of Humanism.

[6] Leone Battista Alberti, Ten Books on Architecture, ed. Joseph Rykwert and Alec Tiranti, trans. (Italian) Cosimo Bartoli and (English) James Leoni (London, 1955), book IX, chap. V, 194.

[7] Ibid.

[8] Ibid., book I, chap. II, 2.

[9] Ibid., book I, chap. IX, 13.

[10] C. Maltese, “Il pensiero architettonico e urbanístico di Leonardo,” in Leonardo, saggi e ricerche per le onoranze di Leonardo da Vinci nel quinto aniversario della norte (Rome, 1954); quoted from Paolo Rossi, Philosophy, Technology and the Arts in the Early Modern Era (New York: Harper & Row, 1970), 24.

[11] Leonardo da Vinci, The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci, ed. Jean Paul Richter (New York: Dover Publication, 1970). See also, Leonardo da Vinci, Leonardo on the Human Body, trans. Charles D. O’Malley and J. B. de C. M. Saunders (New York: Dover Publications, 1983).

[12] “I have noted that the movements of the head are almost always such that certain parts of the body have to sustain it as with levers, so great is its weight. Better, a member which corresponds to the weight of the head is stretched out in an opposing part like an arm of balance. We see that when a weight is held in an extended arm with the feet together like the needle of a balance, all the other parts of the body will displace to counterbalance the weight.” Leone Battista Alberti, On Painting, trans. John R. Spencer (New Haven: Yale University, 1956), 79, 80.

[13] Leonardo da Vinci, Codex Atlanticus, fol. 270 r-c; see Carlo Pedretti, Leonardo de Vinci Architecte (Milano: Electa, 1978); (French) trans. Marie-Anne Caizzi (Paris: Electa), 34–35. English text from F. Klemm, A History of Western Technology (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1964), 95–97.

[14] Andreas Vesalius, De humani corporis fabrica (Basileae, 1543), preface; quoted from Paolo Rossi, Philosophy, Technology and the Arts in the Early Modern Era, 7.

[15] Ibid., 8.

[16] Andreas Vesalius, The Anatomical Drawings of Andreas Vesalius, ed. J. B. de C. M. Saunders and Charles D. O’Malley (New York: Crown Publishers, 1982).

[17] The significance of Perrault’s work in relation to the origins of modern architecture has been pointed out by Eduard F. Sekler in Wren and his Place in European Architecture (New York: Macmillan, 1956), 37–57. See also Joseph Rykwert, “Positive and Arbitrary,” The First Moderns (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1980), chap. 2; and Alberto Pérez-Gómez, “Claude Perrault and the Instrumentalization of Proportion,” Architecture and the Crisis of Modern Science (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1983), chap. 1.

[18] A summary of Perrault’s scientific career is given by J. Lévy-Valensi, La Médecine et les Médecines Français au XVIIe Siècle (Paris, 1933), 521 ff.

[19] Claude Perrault, Ordonnance des Cinque Espèces de Colonnes, selon la Méthode des Anciens (Paris, 1683); A Treatise of the Five Orders in Architecture, trans. John James (London, 1722). For an account of Perrault’s work and a discussion of his Ordonnance, see Wolfgang Herrmann, The Theory of Claude Perrault (London, 1973).

[20] Ibid.; see also Pérez-Gómez, “Claude Perrault and the Instrumentalization of Proportion,” 27.

[21] Claude and Nicolas Perrault, Oeuvres Diverses de Physique et de Méchanique (Leyden, 1721); see also Pérez-Gómez, “Claude Perrault and the Instrumentalization of Proportion,” 26.

[22] Perrault, Ordonnance des Cinque Espèces de Colonnes, iv–vii.

[23] Ibid., vi.

[24] The theory advocated by Claude Perrault was, however, not without contradictions. While the rules of architectural proportions were regarded as being derived from custom, they were nevertheless fundamental, according to Claude Perrault, for what was considered to be successful architecture. He believed that the role of the architect was to elevate the building above the “merely commonsensical positive beauties,” as Joseph Rykwert puts it, “by endowing it with its clothing or arbitrary beauty.” Rykwert, “Positive and Arbitrary,” 93.

[25] Eugène-Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc, Dictionnaire raisonné de l’architecture française du XIe au XVIe siècle, ten volumes, Paris, 1854–66; see Viollet-le-Duc, Le Dictionnaire d’architecture, ed. Philippe Boudon and Philippe Deshayes (Bruxelles: Pierre Mardaga, 1979). Eugène-Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc, Entretiens sur l’architecture, two volumes (Paris, 1863 and 1872; Ridgewood, NJ: Gregg Press, 1965).

[26] As described in a recent article by Hubert Damisch entitled “The Space Between: A Structuralist Approach to the Dictionary,” Viollet-le-Duc’s method discloses certain traits of structural thinking. Damisch writes that “it is not difficult to detect the language of modern structuralism in Viollet-le-Duc’s work, for the text of the Dictionnaire is full of references to elements and functions, systems, logic and structural equilibrium, reasoning, deductions, reactions and counteractions.” Hubert Damisch, “The Space Between: A Structuralist Approach to the Dictionary,” in Architectural Design 50, no. 3 (1980), 84–89.

[27] See The Architectural Theory of Viollet-le-Duc, ed. M. F. Hearn (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1990), 222.

[28] Ibid., 225.

[29] Gottfried Semper, Der Stil in den technischen und tektonischen Künsten oder praktische Ästhetik – Ein Handbuch für Techniker, Künstler und Kunstfreunde, München, 1861–63; reprinted with an introduction by Adrian von Buttlar (Mittenwald: Mäander Kunstverlag, 1977).

[30] “Jedes Kunstwerk ist ein Resultat, oder, um mich eines mathematischen Ausdruckes zu bedienen, ist eine Funcktion einer beliebigen Anzahl von Agentien oder Kräften, welche die variable Koefficienten ihrer Verkörperung sind. Y = F (x, y, z, etc.);” see “Entwurf eines Systems der vergleichenden Stillehre,” in Kleine Schriften, ed. Manfred & Hans Semper (Berlin and Stuttgart: Verlag Spemann, 1984), 267.

[31] “Die Stillehre . . . fast das Schöne einheitlich, als Produkt oder Resultat, nicht als Summe oder Reihe. Sie sucht die Bestandheile der Form die nicht selbst Form sind, sondern Idee, Kraft, Stoff und Mittel; gleichsam die Vorbestandtheile und Grundbedingungen der Form.” See Semper, Der Stil in den technischen und tektonischen Künsten oder praktische Ästhetik, vii.

[32] The image of God using a compass was probably inspired by Proverbs 8:27, which says: “When he prepared the heavens, I was there; when he set a compass upon the face of the depth . . .” See Eduard F. Sekler, Proportion, a Measure of Order (Cambridge, MA: Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts, Harvard University, 1965), 50.

[33] See also “The Nature-Art Relationship and the Machine of the World” by Paolo Rossi, Philosophy and the Arts in the Early Modern Era (New York: Harper & Row, 1970).

[34] François Jacob quoting William Paley’s Natural Theology (London: Charles Knight, 1836), in The Possible and the Actual (New York: Pantheon Books, 1982), 13.

[35] Giambattista Vico, Opere, ed. F. Nicolini, (Milano, 1953), 293, 307.

[36] Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species by means of Natural Selection or the Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life and The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex (New York: The Modern Library, 1859 and 1871).

[37] Excerpt from a text originally published prior to the first edition of The Origin of Species and later included in the preface of the work under the heading “An Historical Sketch of the Progress of Opinion on the Origin of Species,” Ibid., 3.

[38] See The Autobiography of Charles Darwin 1809–1882, ed. Nora Barlow (New York: W. W. Norton, 1958), 87. The autobiography first appeared in print as part of Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, edited by his son Francis and published in 1887 by John Murray.

[39] D’Arcy Thompson, On Growth and Form (1917), edited by J. T. Bonner (Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press, 1961), 9.

[40] Natural unity was to be equated with the concept of an architectural entity as for example suggested by Frank Lloyd’s Wright vision of an organic architecture. Every part of a building was to be subordinated to the overriding structure of the whole system. A building was considered an organism and part of a larger ecological system placed in a delicate balance between its own structure and external conditions.

[41] Le Corbusier, Vers une Architecture (1923); Towards a New Architecture, trans. Frederick Etchells (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1960), 123–138.

[42] Le Corbusier, L’Art décoratif d’aujourd’ hui (Paris: Les éditions Arthaud, 1980); The Decorative Art of Today, trans. James Dunnett (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1987).

[43] Le Corbusier, Aircraft, first published in 1935 (New York: Universe Books, 1988), 8, 19, 24, 49.

[44] Antoine de Sain-Exupéry, Terre des Hommes, (Paris: Gallimard, 1939); quoted from Barry Maitland, “The Grid,” in Oppositions 15/16, (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1980), 96.

[45] Le Corbusier and François de Pierrefeu, The Home of the Man (London: The Architectural Press, 1948), 124. Quoted from Maitland, “The Grid,” 96.

[46] A more literal comparison between biology and architecture is made by Le Corbusier in his project for the Musée à croissance illimitée in which a direct correspondence is established between the principle of natural growth and the process of building construction. See Le Corbusier, Oeuvre complete, ed. W. Boesiger (Zurich: Artemis), vol. 1929–34, 72, 73 and vol. 1938–46, 16, 17.

[47] Hannes Meyer, “Bauen” and “Mein Hinauswurf aus dem Bauhaus,” in Bauten, Projekte und Schriften, ed. Claude Schnaidt (Teufen, Switzerland: Verlag Arthur Niggli AG, 1965), 95–97, 100–105.

[48] See Alfred North Whitehead, Science and the Modern World (New York: The Free Press, 1967), 102, 103, 131.

Publication

Angélil, Marc. “The Concepts of Natural and Artificial Production in Architectural Theory,” in “Dwelling: Social Life, Buildings, and the Spaces Between Them,” ed. Anthony Alofsin. Special issue, CENTER 8 (September 1993): 85–99.

Essays

“Introduction: Learning to Dwell,” Robert Mugerauer
“Dwelling, Archetype, and Ideology,” Kimberly Dovey
“On Patios and Fireplaces: Building, Dwelling, and Order,” Enrique Larranaga
“Representation and Respite: The Interior and Women's Domestic Work in the Nineteenth Century,” Kirsten Belgum
“Domesticating the World: Nature and Culture in the Victorian Home,” Cynthia A. Brandimarte
“Building the World of Tomorrow: Regional Visions, Modern Community Housing, and America's Postwar Urban Expansion,” Greg Hise
“The Corner Store of Galveston: A Family's Residence, A Neighborhood's Parlor,” Ellen Beasley
“Creating a Sense of Community: Low-Income Urban Neighborhoods in Lima, Peru,” Henry A. Dietz
“The Concepts of Natural and Artificial Production in Architecture,” Marc M. Angélil