Morality and Architecture: The Development of a Theme in Architectural History and Theory from the Gothic Revival to the Modern Movement

by David Watkin

The Development of a Theme in Architectural History and Theory from the Gothic Revival to the Modern Movement.

Genres: Architecture, Cultural

126 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1977

About the author

David John Watkin, MA PhD LittD Hon FRIBA FSA (born 1941) is a British architectural historian. He is an Emeritus Fellow of Peterhouse, Cambridge, and Professor Emeritus of History of Architecture in the Department of History of Art at the University of Cambridge. He has also taught at the Prince of Wales's Institute of Architecture.[1]
David Watkin is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects. He is Vice-Chairman of the Georgian Group, and was a member of the Historic Buildings Council and its successor bodies in English Heritage from 1980-1995.

Reviews

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

The claim is that modern architecture was driven by a socialist dream, collectivist and anti traditional. The result was a style of building that is pragmatic, functional and mechanistic.

“This denial of the role of the architect to raise our spirits, this view the what he does is not the result of education, taste, and imagination but that he is merely the vehicle through which a material problem is resolved with what Pugin calls a “natural” answer, is ultimately degrading in its “lowest common denominator” conception of man and his needs.”

Page 103

[Kathleen Tahk · Rating 5 out of 5]

The claim that a style can be evaluated in moral terms has played a significant role in modern architectural history. Watkin's book is a classic work on this theme, tracing the history of moral arguments in architecture beginning in the 19th century and critiquing the justification of stylistic choice based on moral criteria. The book certainly has a polemical tinge to it, rather than being a scholarly tome, which invites one to agree or disagree with Watkin's ideas. The book's central thesis, which basically argues that architectural style involves personal choice by the designer rather than only some sort of historical zeitgeist and always involves ornamentation regardless of claims to pure rationalism/functionalism, challenges a long tradition of architectural theory. Like it or not (for the most part I personally am with Watkin) this critique of a major impulse in modern architectural theory helped open up a healthy debate, which continues to shape how architecture is designed and understood today, and for that reason this short book is decidedly worth reading.