Standing on Precendt: An Argument for Instrumentalizing Architectural History

One of the most fundamental and still pressing questions within the pedagogyof architectural schools is how to frame the relationship between thedesign and history/theory curricula. Should the teaching of history remain adiscreet and autonomous field in which students study images and memorizedates? Or should historical knowledge be framed as “useful” to thedesigner, “a vitamin to invest his designs with new vigour” as Henry Millonmemorably phrased it in 1960? Conversely, how should design instructorsincorporate the analysis and study of precedents into their studios, if at all?The relationship between these two aspects of the architectural curriculumhas morphed and changed over the years, responding to trends within theprofession and the academy. We have seen everything from Bruno Zevi’s callthat architectural history subsume all aspects of the curriculum, to WalterGropius’s famous near-total banishment of history altogether. More recently,in the wake of postmodernism’s seemingly facile historicist appropriations,history curricula have become more or less detached from design studios,and design instructors have shied away from any apparent appropriationof the past. Although none has yet approached a Gropius-style fervor ofhistorical excisement, there has nevertheless been a questioning of history’sultimate relevance within the confines of professional architectural schools.This paper proposes a model for re-instrumentalizing architectural historyfor designers. It does so by reconsidering the question of influence, therole of appropriation on the part of designers and historians, and how bothunderstand history as relevant to the “new.” How does the architecture ofthe past affect contemporary architectural production? What does it meanfor an architect to reference, copy, incorporate, or acknowledge precedent?What are the strategies for doing so? These are longstanding questions in architecture,questions that lie at the very heart of our disciplinary definitions,but there are opportunities today to answer them in new ways.My focus will be on specific strategies by which architects reuse the past—strategies that we can locate and analyze throughout various exampleswithin architectural history. The emphasis, in other words, will be on understandingthe operation performed, the way in which the past is broughtforward. Importantly, these operations aren’t tied to any one time period.This transhistorical analysis offers a way to see commonalities and differencesthroughout history.Ultimately, this paper aims to provoke discussion as to how we might developa more sophisticated approach for engaging the past within architecturalschools and to offer a richer and more productive language through which totalk about influence. To do so, I consider various theorists—from Bloom toJonathan Lethem—as well as recent models for understanding the uses ofthe past, both within and outside of the academy. As architects tentativelydip their feet in these ideologically charged waters of the past, we must askwhat it means to “stand” on precedent, once again.

Volume Editors
Martha Thorne & Xavier Costa

ISBN
978-0-935502-83-1