entablatures: March 2013

RUSKIN’S FINAL WORDS ON ARCHITECTURE

In his Lectures on Architecture, Ruskin has added Addenda to specifically address the criticisms arising from the lectures on architecture that he gave in Edinburgh. In the introduction to the Addenda, he notes:

But as this volume may perhaps fall into the hands of readers who may not time to refer to the works in which my views have been expressed more at large, and as I shall now not be able to write or to say anything more about architecture for some time to come, it may be useful to state here, and explain in the shortest possible compass, the main gist of the propositions which I desire to maintain respecting that art; and also to note and answer, once and for all, such arguments as are ordinarily used by the architects of the modern school to controvert these propositions. They may be reduced under six heads.

That Gothic or Romanesque construction is nobler than Greek construction.
That ornamentation is the principal part of architecture.
That ornamentation should be visible.
That ornamentation should be natural.
That ornamentation should be thoughtful.
And that therefore Gothic ornamentation is nobler than Greek ornamentation, and Gothic architecture the only architecture which should now be built.

p. 85-86

Ruskin then proceeds to elaborate on each of the propositions he has listed.

This is food for thought: is ornamentation the principal part of architecture?

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