Stories in Architecture

Le Corbusier stands as the figure in architectural history who overturned the standing order in place since the renaissance, for roughly 500 years. Although there were other players, Le Corbusier stands out perhaps because of his written work, Vers Une Architecture, which provided a justification for overturning the established order and proposed a replacement ideology. Besides detailing the characteristics of newly emerging construction methods, he also proposed a new architectural vocabulary which got so specific as to be broken into five points that encompassed this new architecture. The architectural world still reconciles itself to the revolution brought on by this new aesthetic order, yet the specificity of his five points can seem shockingly reductive to a modern reader. The points included inset columns to allow a free plan, which seems aligned with then emerging techniques of steel construction; but they got as oddly specific as mandating ribbon windows and a roof garden. Modernism is often presented as a liberation from an ancient order with its prescriptive column types and menu-like orders, yet the replacement with its five points seems little more than changing out the old for a new system of rules. Le Corbusier’s text became a manifesto of this new order, which spawned the International Style and changed the language of architecture. While most modern architects have strayed from Le Corbusier’s five points, his rewriting of the values of the art form has had a lasting impact. His writing became a new story that provided a justification for a new way of thinking. His story overturned the old stories, like Alberti or Vasari’s treatises among many others that summarized the renaissance orders and the proper way of their implementation. Modernism might have been viewed at its origin as the end of the old story, but can now be seen as a replacement – a new story – defining the way we should design in the new now.

According to Yuval Harari, creating stories is an indispensable - and in fact inescapable - fact of human existence. The ability to create stories and truly believe and adopt them is a defining characteristic of the human species and one of our unique assets. The history of philosophy, for example, is a series of epiphanies that point out the fatal errors in the last generation’s thinking and correct these errors to present a new understanding of things which stands until the next wave of thinkers points out the fatal oversights in this new thinking and replace it with yet another order. In the twentieth century Gilles Deleuze pointed out that this cycle was somewhat never-ending and labeled it not as a process of discovery of underlying truths and oversights, but a construction of ideas, of ways of understanding the world. As such, each generation’s contribution was no less revolutionary and no less an expression of the ideas of the day, but rather than being seen as a revelation of newly discovered truths, each iteration was an earnest if imperfect way of seeing reality. Each would serve as a framework for viewing the nature of existence until ideas changed and called for a new understanding. These changing ideologies then indicated not so much a narrowing in on elusive truths as a way for a new generation to understand the human need for meaning, and the inescapable nature of subjective thinking. Whether by constructing new visions of reality or a post-modern embracing of multiple perspectives, the human need for explanatory stories is virtually inescapable. In this light, Le Corbusier’s story rang true as an expression of the values of a newly industrialized world and holds power insofar as it was accepted as a new way of viewing architecture in modern life. Architects one hundred years later can see holes in his thinking and partiality in his methods, yet this does not invalidate his contribution. It rather underscores the need for stories that reflect modern values.

In today’s world, stories that cross the entire spectrum of the world of Architecture or Art are more difficult to come by. Robert Venturi made a valiant attempt with his introduction of Postmodernism, yet with time it did not seem to be a death blow to Modernism, even if it broadened the conversation. In today’s world establishing a worldwide story might be more difficult, yet having at least a project-specific story is no less necessary than it ever was. The story is a framework to make sense of the abstractions of architectural space. It is a reference frame in which architecture can add qualitative value beyond functional needs. Harari points out that the stories we tell ourselves, even if we recognize them as partial, fictional, and mythical, are among the most powerful forces in the reality of being human: “Whatever dreams, whatever stories we believe, become the most powerful force in the world. The very future of life will be shaped by human fiction, the stories in which we believe.”

I believe that in overturning the theoretical status quo, Le Corbusier created a new story within which modern architecture could thrive under a new aesthetic. Understanding Modernism as the end of the formulaic system of the Renaissance often tempted modern thinkers to believe it was the end of systems altogether. If we can dare to see Le Corbusier’s theories not as transcendent, untouchable truth, but as a new story in themselves, we can be freed to position Modernism as a step in architecture’s serial role of constructing spatial stories relating buildings to life. While this might demote Modernism from a pedestal many believed it to inhabit, it allows us to see its limits, its partiality, which allows for evolution, for the next idea. It allows Modernism to age, and gives place for another future. Placing Modernism and Renaissance traditions on more equal footing opens space for Postmodernism, and other architectural traditions throughout history that connect architecture with the values of its time. Architecture can have no higher goal than to be an expression of its time – its place, its values, the life from which it springs. We do not have to live in a medieval world structured around religion to feel the authentic power of a gothic cathedral. It is the authenticity that makes powerful architecture that transcends the physical limits from which it sprang. The small stories of modern life focus authentic expression.

In my practice, I intend to embrace the role of architecture in supporting and reflecting the stories we tell ourselves, and to leverage that partiality to create works of genuine, and hopefully transcendent, authenticity.

-Doug Staker-