ARTH 405 ARCHITECTURAL CRITICISM Michael J Lewis

SYLLABUS Fall 2019

“There are three distinct kind of judges upon all new authors or productions; the
first are those who know no rules, but pronounce entirely from their natural taste
and feelings; the second are those who know and judge by rules; and the third are
those who know, but are above the rules. These last are those you should wish to
satisfy. Next to them rate the natural judges; but ever despise those opinions that
are formed by the rules.”
--Samuel Johnson

How do you judge a building? According to its structural efficiency or its aesthetic
qualities? Its social responsibility—or just its pizzazz? Depending on the building, and
the critic, any of these questions might be pertinent (or impertinent). This seminar
explores architectural criticism, that curious genre between literature and architecture,
and looks at its history, nature and function. We will read and discuss classic reviews by
historical and contemporary critics as John Ruskin, Mariana van Rensselaer, Ada Louise
Huxtable, Herbert Muschamp and Jonathan Meades. You will apply the insights you gain
from these text as you write your own reviews, which will likewise be discussed in class.
Early assignments will concentrate on mechanics: how to describe a building vividly and
accurately, how to balance description and interpretation judiciously, how to compare.
Subsequent ones will be more synthetic, encouraging students to write bolder critical
essays. The ultimate goal is to develop a distinctive and effective voice, and a better
understanding of criticism in general. Enrollment limited to 11 students.

Requirements: Students will write eleven short essays during the semester for a total of
30 to 35 pages. The course is writing-intensive.
 Sept. 11: The Function of Criticism

The first class meets at Paresky for an on-site inspection before we go to Lawrence Hall.

Readings: Please come to the first class prepared to discuss.

Marianna Griswold van Rensselaer, “The New Public Library in Boston: Its
Artistic Aspects,” The Century Magazine 28 (June 1895), pp. 260-264
Ada Louise Huxtable, “The Madison Memorial Library: Full Speed Backward,”
NY Times (Sept. 24, 1967)
Herbert Muschamp, “The Library That Puts on Fishnets and Hits the Disco,” NY
Times (May 16, 2004)

First written assignment: “Dear Mr. Ruskin, about that lamp . . . “

For John Ruskin, “Truth” is one of the Seven Lamps of Architecture; for Geoffrey Scott, it
is a “Fallacy.” Our age tends to be more sympathetic to Scott, and we are made
uncomfortable with morality as a basis for architectural judgment. Is there any place for
morality in architectural criticism? Must Ruskin and Scott be mutually exclusive?
Evaluate the readings in a succinct essay, and perhaps comment on their relevance today.

750 words (to be posted sent by noon, Monday, Sept. 16)

NOTE: Papers are to be sent via email as a word document, which I will post on Glow.

Sept. 18: The Historical Roots of Criticism

Readings (To be read before class):

John Ruskin, “The Lamp of Truth” (The Seven Lamps of Architecture, 1849)
Geoffrey Scott, “The Mechanical Fallacy” (The Architecture of Humanism, 1914)

Second written assignment: “I see it feelingly”: the Art of Description

Write a review of one of the new buildings on the Williams campus: either the new
Williams Inn, the science center, Horn Hall, or the bookstore. Make sure you describe
your building in a lively and vivid way so that someone who has never seen it could get a
strong sense of it. Items that might be discussed are plan, massing, materials, circulation,
space, color, and so forth. Your essay might draw from this week’s readings.

750 words (to be posted sent by noon, Monday, Sept. 23)

 Sept. 25: Judging Ourselves / Williams College architecture

Readings (To be read before class):

“Report of Olmsted Brothers on Plan of Buildings For Williams College” (1902)

Montgomery Schuyler, “The Architecture of . . . Williams College,” Architectural
Record (Dec. 1910): 424-442
Michael J. Lewis, “Forget Classrooms. How Big is the Atrium in the Student
Center?” Chronicle of Higher Education (July 11, 2003), B-7 – B9

Third written assignment: The Polemics of Criticism

For next week you will read conflicting reviews of two key buildings of the 1950s.
Evaluate the rhetorical strategies of the critics. How do they make their cases? Who is
more persuasive – and why? Writing the paper will require you to extrapolate for each
critic what he understands good architecture to be, and also what the duty of a critic is.

750 words (to be posted sent by noon, Monday, Sept. 30)

October 2: The Polemics of Criticism (or, Watch the Dealer; He Cheats)

Readings (To be read before class):

Lewis Mumford, “What Wright Hath Wrought,” New Yorker (Dec. 5, 1959)
Peter Blake, “The Guggenheim: Museum or Monument?” Architectural Forum
111 (December 1959) 86-93
William H. Jordy, “Medical Research Building for the University of
Pennsylvania,” Architectural Review 129 (February 1961)
Reyner Banham, “Louis Kahn: The Buttery-Hatch Aesthetic” Architectural
Review 131 (Oct. 1962): 203-206

Fourth written assignment: The tail that wags the dog—or doesn’t.

A characteristic problem of our day is the addition to an existing building, often quite
different in character. Sometimes it defers, and sometimes the tail wags the dog.
Williams has handled the problem in a variety of fascinating ways: compare Lawrence
Hall to the Science Quad to the Stetson-Sawyer Library, etc. Look at these additions (or
others you know) and take a strongly worded polemical position on the ethics of adding.

750 words (to be posted sent by noon, October 7)

 Oct. 9: Style and Criticism

Readings (To be read before class):

William H. Jordy, “Seagram Assessed,” Architectural Review (December 1958)

Vincent Scully, “The Art and Architecture Building at Yale,” Architectural Review
(1964)
Michael J. Lewis, “In What Style Should We Write?” (2003)

Fifth written assignment: The Museum Today: Hype, Hype, Hooray!

What building type has gotten more attention and hype in the past decade than the
museum? The Getty in Los Angeles; the Guggenheim in Bilbao; the new Whitney; the
Clark Art Institute, just transformed by Tadeo Ando. Based on your readings, what does
the modern museum say about us and our time? Discuss in a short essay.

750 words (to be posted sent by noon, October 14)

Oct. 16: Critiquing Building Types / The Museum

Readings (To be read before class):

Herbert Muschamp, “The Miracle in Bilbao,” NY Times (Sept. 7, 1997)

Jonathan Meades, “The Curse of Bilbao” (2007)
__________, “A Mountaintop Temple Where Art’s Future Worships Its Past,” NY
Times (December 1, 1997)
Michael J. Lewis, “The ‘New’ Barnes,” New Criterion (June 2012), pp. 24-29
Michael Sorkin, “Big MOMA’s House,” The Nation (2014)
Alexandra Lange, “Clark Art Institute: Contemporary Haven, But no
Masterpiece,” Curbed (Sept. 8, 2015)
Jonathan Nix, “What Have They Done to the Clark Art Institute?” Boston Globe
(July 24, 2014)
Michael Sorkin, “Big MOMA’s House” (The Nation, 2014)

Optional readings
Quai Branly, Paris: N, Ouroussoff (NY Times, 2006); Jonathan Jones (Guardian, 2006)
Crystal Bridges, AK, M. J. Lewis (Commentary, 2011); Roberta Smith (NY Times, 2012)

Sixth written assignment: Traveling Alertly

Find a building you have encountered during your travels, find its most urgent issue or
theme, and write a vivid essay on it, taking a strong position. The goal will be to find a
literary style that works in harmony with the architectural style so as to make the building
live. (Your classmates will tell you if yours does). Give us at least one good image.
750 words (to be posted sent by noon, October 21)

October 23: On Styles – Architectural, Literary and Otherwise

Readings (To be read before class):

Martin Filler, “Goodbye Columbus (Columbus Circle, New York),” New Republic
(August 28, 2000)
Tom Wolfe, “The Building That Isn’t There,” NY Times (Oct. 12 and 13, 2003)
Nicolai Ouroussoff, “Norman Foster’s New Hearst Tower Rises From Its 1928
Base,” NY Times (June 9, 2006)

Seventh written assignment: My Monument, and Ours

We are in a memorial building-age: Vietnam, World War II, Ground Zero, and so forth.
Can we build meaningful memorials today? Why? Or why not? Take a position on the
monument wars, and defend it in a short essay.

750 words (to be posted sent by noon, October 28)

October 30: Memory, Monuments, Tragedy

Readings (To be read before class):

Ada Louise Huxtable, “Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Buildings?,” NY Times (May
26, 1966)
Mark C. Taylor, “Beyond Mourning, Building Hope on Ground Zero,” NY Times,
( December 29, 2002), 40. 13
Marvin Trachtenberg, “A New Vision for Ground Zero Beyond Mainstream
Modernism,” NY Times (February 23, 2003)
Martin Filler, “Back to Babel,” New Republic (February 3, 2003)
Benjamin Forgey, “War and Remembrance; The World War II Memorial Offers a
Fitting Salute to a Time of Great Heroism,” Washington Post (April 25, 2004)
M. Lewis, “Into the Void with Daniel Libeskind,” Commentary (May 2003)

Eighth written assignment: “First, the bad news: I hate it”

You have just read four critical assaults on a building; now it’s your turn. Pick a
building that has offended you personally – and take no prisoners.

750 words (to be posted sent by noon, November 4)

 November 6: The Art of the Pan

Readings (To be read before class):

[Montgomery Schuyler?], “Architectural Aberrations No. 9,” Architectural

Record III (October-December, 1893), pp. 207-210
Ada Louise Huxtable, “The Rayburn Building: A National Disaster,” NY Times
(May 30, 1965)
Sarah Goldhagen, “Calatrava’s Moment. For the Birds” (New Republic, January
23, 2006)
Paul Goldberger, “Miami Vice: Is this the ugliest building in New York?” New
Yorker (October 7, 2002)

Ninth written assignment: Criticizing the Critics

Write an essay on the style, voice, technique, language and polemics of your
chosen critic. You might want to use as a model the readings from next week.

750 words (to be posted sent by noon, November 11)

Also, Please select one short review by your designated critic for next week’s reading
packet and make 12 copies for the class, and bring it to class next week.

November 13: Criticizing the Critics

Readings:

Infighting (Sorkin vs. Goldberger, 1985; Lange vs. Ouroussoff, 2010)

Michael J. Lewis, “Architecture (Bling!)”, Commentary (October 2004), 71-75

Also, we will read the eleven reviews you have chosen by your own designated critic.
They will serve as the basis for today’s discussion of the different approaches and
backgrounds of the major critics active today and key figures of the past.

Tenth written assignment: How I Judge

You are invited to explore what your architectural ideals are, and to characterize
them. Do they rest on principles of any sort (principles of which you might be
unaware)? If not, what sorts of things delight you, or offend you? Is there a
pattern to your architectural likes & dislikes? You might be autobiographical
(suggesting what childhood or family experiences helped shape your taste) or
philosophical (suggesting the abstract and universal principles you respect). Last
week you performed this sort of forensic investigation on a stranger; this time,
you are the subject. You might use this week’s essays as possible models. Please
pay attention to literary qualities, aiming for formal precision in your language.
750 words (to be posted sent by noon, November 19)

November 20: How I Judge (or, May I Judge?)

Readings (To be read before class):

Three excerpts from William S. Saunders, ed., Judging Architectural Value (2007):

Kurt W. Foster, “Why are some buildings more interesting than others?”
Roger Scruton, “Most Architecture Should be Modest: On Architecture and
Aesthetic Judgment”
William S. Saunders, “From Taste to Judgment: Multiple Criteria in the
Evaluation of Architecture”

Eleventh written assignment: The Building That Breaks My Heart.

Give a personal account of a building or space that formed your relationship to

architecture. It should be tactile and experiential, and affect the reader on a
sensory level. It will be read aloud, so adjust it to the spoken voice, and qualities
such as cadence, pacing and rhythm. Only 500 words – bring to class without
your name on the paper (we will guess who wrote what).

December 4: Finding Your Voice (literally)

Reading (To be read before class):

John Betjeman, “Three Churches,” from First and Last Loves (1952)
Jonathan Meades, “Neo-Georgian” (2002) and “Framed” (2002)

Tonight we convene at 179 Park Street for dinner. The final papers will be shuffled and
read aloud by others—and we will try to guess who wrote which, on the basis of the your
idiosyncrasies of voice as we have come to learn it over the course of the semester.
Menu: burritos (vegetarian and with beef), salad, cerveza, vino, coffee & ice cream.
 CHOOSE YOUR CRITIC (for November 26 assignment)
Reyner Banham (Architectural Review, Architectural Forum, etc.) 1950s-1980s
Robert Campbell (Boston Globe) 1970s ff
Martin Filler (New Republic) 1990s ff.
Ben Forgey (Washington Post) 1980s ff
Paul Goldberger (New Yorker, NY Times) 1970s ff
Sarah Goldhagen (New Republic), 2006ff.
Mariana Griswold van Rensselaer (The Century Magazine)
Christopher Hawthorne (Slate)
Ada Louise Huxtable (New Yorker) 1960s ff
Robert Ivy (Architectural Record)
Alexandra Lange (Curbed)
Jonathan Meades (London Times) 1990s ff
Lewis Mumford (New Republic, New Yorker) 1920s ff
Witold Rybczynski (Slate)
Montgomery Schuyler (Architectural Record) 1860s ff
Michael Sorkin (Village Voice) 1980s ff.