Seven Misunderstandings About Classical Architecture

https://qtarchitects.com/publications/essay-seven-misunderstandings/




I try to practice as a classical architect today, and I enjoy it.

I have come to this position not by listening to lectures or intellectual arguments (because it is not primarily an academic subject), but by working for eleven years side by side with a great architect, Raymond Erith RA, who died in 1973.

In the past, architectural students started as apprentices working in offices and coming together in the evenings to discuss their ideas – ideas that they had picked up from their masters and the practical world around them. Today, the modern system of architectural education requires that students spend five years full-time in academic theory before being allowed out to start forming a theory based on practical experience. It is possibly because of this process of indoctrination that students often ask questions of a theoretical kind which do not relate to the practical world and the art of building. It is this relationship between theory and practice that causes frequent misunderstandings about the relevance of classical architecture today.

There are many ways in which classical architecture is misunderstood, and the theme of this paper is based on seven of the more frequent misunderstandings. These concern the following subjects:Pastiche
Functionalism
New building types
Materials
Cost
Tradesmen
Politics

Let us start with misunderstanding 1. A popular misconception is that classical architecture is pastiche; it is often said that it is a simple matter of cribbing from the pattern books. I notice that many art historians are full of this and – like all people who are protected from reality – they will never learn until they start to practise. I believe there is something in the Gospels: ‘If you know these things, happy are ye if ye do them’. It is only in the doing that we learn.