Photo by Chris Naffziger
The Temple of Hera in Italy. Look for its classical proportions all around you.
In light of the interest in my recent story about George Ingham Barnett, I thought it might be worthwhile to look into the sort of education a young architect such as he would have received back in the early 19th century. By that time, architecture since the Renaissance was considered a liberal art, not a craft, as it had been deemed during the Middle Ages. The shift was the result of two books that were required reading. The first, by Marcus Vitruvius Pollio, is the Ten Books on Architecture, first published around 2,000 years ago. The second, written by Leon Battista Alberti largely as a response to and a Renaissance update of Vitruvius, is the more than 500-year-old On the Art of Building in Ten Books. Whether we’re talking about George I. Barnett, the influential brewery architect Edmund Jungenfeld, or Louis Sullivan before he designed the Wainwright Building, these two books were directly or indirectly influencing the built environment of St. Louis. (Both are available to read at the Saint Louis Public Library.)
Vitruvius served under the first Roman emperor, Caesar Augustus, the adopted son of the famous dictator Julius Caesar. It was during this period that Roman art and architecture owed its greatest debt to Greek culture, and we can see that influence in Vitruvius’s 10 books. He repeatedly cites famous temples in the Greek world, and while certainly Rome had its own architectural patrimony borrowed from the Etruscans, it is obvious by the 1st century A.D. that “Captive Greece took captive her savage conqueror and brought the arts to rustic Latium,” in the words of the poet Horace. And logically, since he hailed from Campania—the Greek-influenced area around Naples in southern Italy—that would be the case.
Fast forward 1400 years, and Alberti was busy correcting the errors of the previous millennium. He’d already laid down the next 500 years of painting in his seminal work on that subject; for the beautiful finished drawings of Cass Gilbert or Louis Sullivan, we can credit Alberti’s insistence on the primacy of the art of draughtsmanship. And his own 10 books on architecture are far more than just footnotes for Vitruvius. Alberti not only expands upon Vitruvius but also invents new concepts and creates brand-new work for a new era: the Italian Renaissance. Like his Roman predecessor, and even moreso, Alberti’s writing is dense and can be intimidating; there are countless references, anecdotes, and tangents, and since he wrote before editing became a profession, he’d even apologize in the text for having gone off topic. But the central argument of Alberti is that there is a logical and intelligent solution for every problem.
So how do these two men’s legacies still affect the physical world of St. Louis? Perhaps we should start right from the beginning and first state that it easier to speak of them both as a team. For Vitruvius and Alberti, the human body was the beginning unit upon which everything else was based. Take, for example, the fact that all animals have an even number of limbs (any zoologists out there who can dispute this, please let me know). For our architects, that is a sign that Nature has given us a message about the primacy and beauty of even numbers. Thus, when examining an ancient Roman temple or Renaissance building, the number of columns along the primary façade should always be even. Likewise, when explaining the original proportions of the “masculine” Doric order, Vitruvius recounts how a Greek architect discovered that a man’s height is six times the height of his head. Conversely, the more “effeminate” Ionic order is based on a woman’s proportions, where the height of a woman is eight times the height of her head. At least theoretically, right? Consequently, the Doric order should be used for gods such as Neptune and Jupiter, and the Ionic for goddesses such as Minerva.
Alberti’s discussion on Vitruvius’s proportions would of course later influence Leonardo da Vinci’s famous Vitruvian Man drawing, which further illustrates the ancient world’s belief in the role of geometric shapes as the building blocks of the world. After all, it is certainly not a coincidence that a man’s body can fit inside a square and circle at the same time, or that his height and the breadth of his arms are the same. Vitruvius and Alberti tell us to look around to see this sacred geometry and mathematic influencing everything around us. Perhaps less enjoyable than Leonardo’s drawing are both architects’ excursions into mathematics and proportions, which allow for the exacting perfection of temples. Unlike Gothic architecture (its name itself an insult from Italian humanists), Alberti’s commissions leave no measurement to chance. In the façade of Santa Maria Novella, every dimension is carefully proportional to every other dimension. Roman architecture is supreme; Alberti does not even use the word church in his book but uses the word “temple” for Christian houses of worship. It is not an idle decision.
I was particularly intrigued by Alberti’s description of cemeteries and their placement in relation to great cities. In the ancient Roman world, no one except Vestal Virgins and the members of a few famous families could be buried within the precincts of the city of Rome. Consequently, roads such as the Via Appia are lined with monuments and tombs of Roman patrician families. Alberti likewise suggests that cemeteries, with elaborate mausoleums, should be placed along the major roads into cities. Therefore, as travelers approach they can be educated about the great feats and noble families of the city simply by viewing the tombstones and graves, which serve as advertising for the greatness of the urban center ahead. Also, Alberti suggests using rugged, hilly land for these cemeteries, since it is not easily farmed. Think of the cemeteries along North Broadway, St. Charles Rock Road, or Gravois. They match Alberti’s prescription exactly. In fact, Bellefontaine Cemetery’s original entrance along North Broadway even follows Alberti’s suggestion to include a gradual incline that surreptitiously leads the visitor to a high vista, with a beautiful view as the reward at the top.
There are countless other examples of how Vitruvius and Alberti have influenced architecture and city planning, but perhaps the greatest lesson shows in the attitudes of one of George I. Barnett’s sons, who also was a highly influential architect. Tom P. Barnett betrays his debt to his two predecessors in 1913:
I firmly believe that no architect can break away from traditional style. I do not believe it is possible to do anything original in architecture and yet, I do believe that a man can build his own individuality into his work, even though he builds through the traditions of other ages.
While I certainly sympathize with the younger Barnett’s philosophy, I am thankful that Modernist architects in St. Louis, such as Gyo Obata, did not believe we needed to be quite so tightly chained to the past. Vitruvius and Alberti provide us with a framework for inspiration, but one that we should break out of whenever necessary.
