Rusty Reno asked me why we can’t build like Ralph Adams Cram envisioned. The answer to that question, I think, is the architectural equivalent to what Reno himself said about education: “Fearful of living in dreams and falling under the sway of ideologies, we have committed ourselves to disenchantment.” Hence today, the Cram passage I quoted would likely horrify the same institution at which it was first delivered. It would be defused in a classroom (using critical theory), as quickly as someone would extinguish a fire in the wastepaper basket.
Ethan Anthony, an author and architect who is perpetuating Cram’s legacy today, put it this way: “Cram’s career, like that of his contemporary Frank Lloyd Wright, was a constant search for architectural absolutes.” Cram, a Gothicist, thought big: “We are handicapped by the deeds of our fathers, but the restoration must be accomplished, however arduous the effort!” Wright, a Modernist, did as well: He hoped to build a mile high structure that, had it been constructed, would have nearly doubled anything in present day Dubai.
But the Modernist ideology failed (see Glazer), and we are disillusioned. As Michael J. Lewis explains, architecture now (pockets of resistance notwithstanding) is All Sail, No Anchor. All Wasabi, No Sushi. A delicious Wittgenstein quote (sent to me by Steven Good) says it best: “Architecture immortalizes and glorifies something. Hence there can be no architecture where there is nothing to glorify” (Culture and Value, 69e).
It’s not, of course, that we shouldn’t sometimes be frightened by full-throated architectural rhetoric. Far from it. It’s just that I can think of those more deserving of our fears than Cram. In The Fountainhead, Ayn Rand created the architect Howard Roark (modeled after Wright), whose Wynard Building was to be “a gesture against the whole world . . . the last achievement of man on earth before mankind destroys itself.” In comparison to that, Cram was a kitten.
August 27th, 2010 | 5:35 pm
In line w/ Rustys explanation, although a few years older, is Heine’s comment from 1837, made while standing in front of the Amiens Cathedral. Explaining to a friend why we no longer build structures as beautiful as Amiens, Heine said: ” . . . the men of old times had convictions: we modern men have only opinions, and more than these are needed to raise cathedrals.”
This is, mind you, a good quarter of a century before Cram’s birth. So if you think that Cram’s work constitutes a genuine achievement, then perhaps the epochal fatalism of the Hegel / Heine / Reno / Milliner school should be taken with a grain of salt. There is certainly a lot of sense to the idea that we moderns know too much and are convinced of too little, but it at least seems that a person or group that does possess conviction, talent and a bit of luck can thrive even in this (perhaps) intellectually desiccated age.
A painter of Caravaggio’s vision and craft will find viewers whenever he emerges. Or a poet of Eliot’s seriousness and imagination. The thing is not to be a second-rate hackneyed imitator. Ours would indeed be a difficult age for a Carravagisti, but maybe not for a genuine Carravagio. Of course Carravagios and Eliots are few and far between. But if one cares to work towards cultural renewal, I think that Pound’s dictum is still the best shot – make it new!
August 28th, 2010 | 6:58 am
Another perspective: To make something new, to “refract the light” in an original way, does not negate the fact that the Light being refracted, the source of all being, does not alter.
August 28th, 2010 | 11:12 am
I was fortunate to be educated from kindergarten through 12th grade in a building designed by Ralph Adams Cram in Glens Falls, New York: St. Mary’s Academy. I’m thinking now about how and to what extent my faith was nourished by being within that structure and by the structure itself.
Our “Great Hall” (reminiscent of Westminster) served as a lunch room and a study hall. Its stained glass windows featured images that traced the history of Catholic education in the U.S. We had prayer services in the small chapel on the top floor, the simplicity of which contrasted sharply with the majesty of the Great Hall. In the chapel, low arches gave us a feeling of being nestled and embraced; our voices needn’t be projected to be heard.
The building had a seriousness about it that could not be ignored. Even while daydreaming, we were attentive to the place in which those daydreams were spun.
It was,and is still, a place of beauty and I am blessed to have spent those years within it.
August 28th, 2010 | 5:41 pm
Ok Matt, but one reason–maybe–there’s no Cram today (besides the fact that is just no money for those big projects or even maintaining the old ones) is that there’s no Bertram Goodhue to save his skin–wow, Goodhue, THAT is an architect (think of St. Thomas without the Goodhue reredos and you get an idea of the debt Cram owed him). And even so, look at Cram’s Gothic and then look at the real thing—Amien, Rheims, Wells–you know the list and it just looks kinda lame (the exception might be the nave of St John the Whale but look at plans for the west front and yep, you’re back to lame–but to be fair it makes Frohman’s pathetic National Cathedral look like a masterpiece). But there is at least one great church being built today–in Barcelona.
And Ian, isn’t that Heine comment is just silly. Great poet, lousy social critic. There were millions of people in the 19th century who had convictions and Cologne and Ulm were about to be finished by folks with convictions—although perhaps not very irenic convictions–and other folks with convictions were about to start a civil war on this side of the Atlantic. But I’m with you generally. Imitations, although useful, are just imitations, our second best.
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