Classic Illiteracy

Classical Comments by Calder Loth

Senior Architectural Historian for the Virginia Department of Historic Resources and a member of the Institute of Classical Architecture & Art’s Advisory Council

For this month’s essay I am departing from my usual approach of discussing some special detail of the classical language. Instead, I will deal with an issue I think all advocates of classical and traditional architecture should be aware of and understand its implications. The Institute of Classical Architecture & Art is dedicated to the promotion and use of the classical language of architecture, recognizing that it is a viable approach to contemporary practice, and that a vigorous market for informed classical design exists. The creation of the ICAA came about in part as a reaction to the Modernist Movement, a movement that espoused Modernism as a morally superior medium for design. Indeed, Modernism was seen as a primary adversary of classical design. Hence, the ICAA, through its various programs, determined to maintain the validity of the classical idiom as a respectable and indeed legitimate concurrent pursuit.

Nevertheless, we have finally grasped that most Modernists today will never recognize the legitimacy of classicism. Constructive discourse with them is seldom fruitful. The more practical stance, therefore, is to live and let live. Each approach has validity and each will always have its dedicated clients. So the best way to promote the use of high-quality classical design is to produce high-quality classical works. Yet there will always be those who will not miss an opportunity to vilify any contemporary buildings employing a classical vocabulary. We must realize that what fuels the naysayers are not necessarily the high-quality works produced by members of the ICAA and its disciples, but rather the plethora of illiterate classical-style building spread across American’s landscape. They contribute substantially to the disdain for the achievements of the ICAA, and are a primary adversary of our mission.  Under the circumstances, I believe the ICAA must deal with this issue and do its best to promote connoisseurship of classical design among architects and clients alike. We should deride illiterate classicism as much as the Modernists. Criticism should extend as well to the manufacturers of ill-informed classical details such as capitals, cornices, moldings, and scores of other such products in order to generate recognition of what are suitable commercial interpretations of the language and what are not.

To illustrate the problem I am showing a number of embarrassing examples of ignorance of the classical canons, buildings that are the architectural equivalent of an uneducated person saying “We was”, or “It don’t make no difference.” Such ungrammatical statements are very hard on the ears of those who know better. I have previously shared some of these images on the TRADARCH Listserv, but they are worth reconsidering. The examples here are all public or commercial buildings. They are all visually accessible 24/7, and thus impose on the public domain far more than most illiterate private residences. These buildings are intended to speak confidence and prestige but instead they say: “I don’t know any better.” Several are in my home state of Virginia despite the fact that we have an abundance of models of literate historic classical works for inspiration.

While we could dismiss such buildings as not worth bothering with, I am pointing out their most obvious solecisms in an effort to encourage an avoidance of such gaffes. I realize that the majority of the readers of this blog know better, but I hope this exercise will help us acknowledge that buildings of this ilk are a serious obstacle to our credibility. We also need to keep in mind that we cannot assume commissions of literate classical works from uninformed clients. The ICAA does a commendable job of training architects, but it is equally important for it to educate the eyes of the laity as well. So I hope many non-architects will take this blog essay to heart.

Figure 1: corporate office building

Figure 1 is a corporate office building prominently sited on a busy suburban strip. It’s not an inexpensive work and its portico is there to impress. The Corinthian columns are correctly detailed and set, but one has to search for terms adequate to describe the pediment. We wonder what was in the mind of the designer. Does the cyclopean window light a special chamber beneath the vast roof? If the purpose here is to grab attention, then the building succeeds. If it is also meant to convey sophistication, then it misses the mark as surely as using the wrong fork at a formal dinner.  A free but knowledgeable interpretation of the classical canon is one thing; a free interpretation grounded in ignorance of the canon’s rationale is another.

Figure 2: university student housing

Figure 2 is student housing at a well-known state university. We rely on universities to uphold standards of learning; should we exempt them from being informed about architectural principles?  What possessed the building’s designer to have the entablature over-sail the columns?  Bringing them to the end as any reasonable person would expect would properly align them with the balustrade pedestals.  Also, we have more convincing ways to treat a blind arch of a Palladian window than with thin spokes and painted panels. Finally, increasing the height of the lower-level windows is standard procedure to avoid the compressed appearance of the ground floor. We might think such a building doesn’t deserve our time but a few simple adjustments would make a difference and respect its users.

Figure 3: historic district infill

Figure 3 is an infill building on a historic city street and is located diagonally across from a famous Federal-period museum house. We would think that proximity to an elegant work of architecture would inspire better design; however, we can only say that it would have been advisable in this instance to have avoided the classical palette altogether. The building is hopeless. Space does not permit explaining all that is wrong with the portico, but I must note that it’s always best to stay away from a two-column job. It has an inescapable visual weakness. The cylindrical metal column shafts demonstrate why the ancients developed entasis and diminution. Clumsy as well is the pair of windows under the portico.

Figure 4: professional office building

Figure 4 is a professional office building on an attractively landscaped site at a major suburban intersection. It attempts to offer a “Southern Plantation” theme, however the long wait for the intersection’s green light provides an opportunity to contemplate what’s missing in this image.  Where is the crown molding? Where are the bed moldings? Where are the abacuses? Who shrunk the modillions? What’s missing from the column bases? What happened to entasis?  The portico is dysfunctional since there isn’t room to squeeze behind the columns. The first-floor windows want to be taller. Such details are a small part of an overall budget.

Figure 5: insurance office

Figure 5 is an insurance office in a registered historic district, one replete with important early classical-style buildings. It’s difficult to believe that this structure was not intended as jest. We might wonder about a manufacturer who would hawk a dwarfed Tuscan order among its wares. Should the ICAA offer the company some advice? As for the building itself, a design point worth noting is the pair of windows (a void) immediately beneath the principal structural beam of the portico. If the motive of this blooper was to create a visual tension, the designer succeeded.

Figure 6: prep school dorm

The colonnade and airlock vestibule on Figure 6 is a recent addition to an early 20th-century dormitory at a highly prestigious and expensive preparatory school.  We fear what students (many of whom will be future leaders) might learn from this disquieting composition. Truly, we have the entablature from Hell. And can’t we obtain durable base plinths without tiptoes? This is a fearsome work for a serious institution. The optimal way to deal with it is to find its architect and stop him.

Figure 7: public library entrance

Equally jaw-clenching is the entrance porch on the new wing of a 1920s public library seen in Figure 7. More stiletto plinths. Why is the end column set back from the corner? A round abacus should always be avoided.

Figure 8: college auditorium

We turn again to academe with Figure 8, an auditorium at a historic private college. What would Serlio or Palladio, or even the Emperor Hadrian think of this steroidal version of their signature motif? Did the architect have Buckland’s lovely (but tiny) porch at Gunston Hall in mind? As we see too often, the columns are tightly tucked under the entablature. What’s with the panels in the frieze?  What’s with the black cornices? And was the architect seeking recognition in the Guinness Book of Records for the biggest arched window of them all? This building hollers on an otherwise genteel campus.

Figure 9: big box church

Porticoes were developed by the ancients to inspire awe, to front buildings housing gods. The big box church in Figure 9 attempts to do the ancients one better by having a pair of porticoes on its temple. Unlike most porticoes, however, neither of these porticoes provides entry; the entrance is in yet another portico around the corner. The “architraves’’ here are double thick, adding an extra burden to the skinny columns. Highlighting the architraves’ additional layer are very flat dentils, a novel treatment. As we might expect, the columns are well set back. We also might ponder whether such a temple merited divine approbation.

Figure 10: county courthouse addition

The courthouse addition in Figure 10 is an all-too-common example of a Modernist architect’s attempt to reduce classical design to its bare bones. The 1930s gave us credible examples of Stripped Classicism, but they were the products of classically trained architects. We can imagine the self-confident designer here declaiming: “You may make me do classical but I’ll show you I can dispense with the ornament and give you its essence. Who needs capitals? Who needs moldings?” Are we to think that the asymmetrical vestibule is a clever bit of irony?  Nevertheless, the sawed-off whiskey barrel planters provide populist relief.

Figure 11: county public library

We see more of the same in Figure 11, a nearby county library. Are we dealing with the same creative architect? Do we call those frieze things polyglyphs?

Figure 12: suburban bank

Banks were once the objects of some our best classical designs. Their architecture made them symbols of security, permanence, and patrician taste. A lugubrious attempt was made to instill these same qualities in the suburban bank illustrated in Figure 12. We have monumental scale, grand porticoes, and masonry walls, all striving to achieve a prestigious neoclassical image. Yet a list of classical design rules violated would be very long. I’ll leave it to the reader to start one.

Figure 13: corporate headquarters

Figure 13 is a corporate headquarters on a busy U.S. Highway. [The smudge in the portico frieze is where I have erased the name to protect the ICAA from legal action.] The designer (one hesitates to say architect) apparently had visions of Williamsburg’s Governor’s Palace in mind, but why cover the cupola bays with clapboard? We have the usual compacted ground-floor windows. The dormers sprout bushy eyebrows. The pumped-up arched window takes a cue from the college auditorium above. Boring brick veneer adds to the building’s discount frivolity.

Figure 14: county courthouse

Finally, the monumental new county courthouse in Figure 14 tries hard to be an important work of New Classicism but misses on numerous points. Its cupola is dinky for a building of this scale. The composition is weakened by having all the windows the same size, and too small at that. Also weakened are the columns by having pedestals too large—why have pedestals at all?  And, like the stumpy insurance office, we have windows immediately beneath the end beams of the portico where there should be solid masonry.  We will give credit to the handsome brickwork, but cannot forgive the formless treatment of the pediment. The crown molding skirts the base of the pediment where it should not be but is absent from the raking angles where it should be.

People pay good money for these and hundreds of other risible works of illiterate classical design.  We are all being cheated. A Michelangelo or a Lutyens could master the classical language and give us wonderfully inventive creations, many of which played loose with the classical canons. The designers of the buildings shown here also played loose with the classical canons but it’s because they never learned them in the first place. They damage the credibility of contemporary criticism and demonstrate the need for the ICAA’s educational endeavors far more than the starchitects and their solipsistic concoctions.