Commodity, Firmness, and Delight, or Toward A New Architectural Attitude - New England Chapter1 PDF

7/11/2015
Commodity, Firmness, and Delight, or Toward a New Architectural Attitude | New England Chapter
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Commodity, Firmness, and Delight, or Toward a New

ArchitecturalAttitude
December 13, 2010 by David Brussat
(https://classicistne.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/daum800px-vitruvius.jpg)
Vitruvius presents design of the Basilica at Fano to the Emperor Augustus; Claude Perraultss
interpretation of Vitruvius design. Sebestian Le Clerc (1684)
***
https://classicistne.wordpress.com/2010/12/13/commodity-firmness-and-delight-or-toward-a-new-architectural-attitude/
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ByEric Inman Daum AIA

Presented at the Traditional Building Conference, March 10, 2009
***
(https://classicistne.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/daumjudy-haywood.jpg)When Judy
Haywood first called me to say she understood that I intended to talk on Commodity, Firmness
and Delight at the Traditional Building conference, I replied, trying not to sound alarmed,
I did?
Commodity, firmness and delight are words that come to us from a 17th Century translation of
the Roman architect Vitruvius work, de Architectura. Known popularly today as TheTen Books of
Architecture, it is the only treatise on Classical architecture surviving in its entirety from antiquity.
These Ten Books,
(https://classicistne.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/daumfonda-failsafe.jpg)which are the core

source of Classical design and construction, describe these essential criteria which must be
observed in order to create a good building. In my own practice and through my involvement
with the Institute of Classical Architecture and Classical America, I profess a Classical sensibility.
Therefore, these principles should underscore my own philosophy of practice. So, in the
moments following Judys question, as my professional life flashed before my eyes, I realized that
these same criteria are as relevant today as they were long ago during the early days of the Roman
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Empire. These are relevant words to guide us, not just for the design of individual buildings, but
also for the design of communities, cities and regions. And in this moment, I also realized that
perhaps I myself had not paid these ideals as much heed as I should, and that they deserved my
re-examination.
So as the silence hung between us on the phone, I came in my horror to realize all of this and I
replied in a manner that I hope sounded nonchalant:
Why, Judy, Id be delighted.
***
Architecture among all the arts is unique. As the art of building, it straddles the line between the
theoretical and the practical. Vitruvius himself states in the first chapter of Book I:The arts are
each composed of two things, the manual work and the reasoning behind it. Unlike the fine arts
of painting, sculpture, dance, theater and music, architecture is a commercial art. It has a
responsibility to its audience to do more than just provoke it. It must satisfy basic needs of
shelter. It must work in concert with its surroundings. It must adapt to the changing needs of its
users. When an audience does not like a performance, they are free to leave the play or concert. If
they do not like a painting or sculpture, they are free to move on to the next gallery.
A building in a cityscape or a development in a landscape represents enormous resources that
have been invested in the commonweal. Unlike other commercial arts such as illustration or
cinema, it is not ephemeral but serves a longstanding audience. When the audience for
architecture occupies a work that does not satisfy its needs, it has two choices. Either be a captive
audience or destroy the work and waste the resources invested in its creation.
Surely, then, the sensible thing to do is to build well.
Geoffrey Scott commences his book The Architecture of Humanism with a discussion of commodity,
firmness and delight. He describes architecture as a focus where [these] three separate purposes
have converged. They are blended in a single method; they are fulfilled in a single result; yet in
their own nature, they are distinguished from each other by a deep and permanent disparity.
He goes on to describe the architects work as synthetic, He must take into simultaneous
account our three conditions of well-building. The first of these, Firmness, he states, is related
to science. An architect considers structural forces and material properties. Forms are governed
by the material choices made.
For the second condition, Commodity, he states: Architecture is subservient to the general uses of
Mankind and that buildings may be judged by the success with which they supply the
practical ends they were designed to meet.
For the third condition, Delight, Scott describes an aesthetic impulse by which architecture
becomes art. He illustrates conditions by which it may be guided by the other two conditions,
firmness and commodity. Ultimately, it has its own standard and claims its own authority.
Beauty is its own reward.
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***
(https://classicistne.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/daumsirhenrywotton.jpg)The phrase
commodity, firmness and delight actually comes to us not from Vitruvius but rather from Sir
Henry Wotton (left), whose The Elements of Architecture. published in 1624, is a loose translation of
Vitruvius de Architectura.
Wottons version of Vitruvius frequently quoted line is: The end is to build well. Well building
hath three conditions: firmness, commodity, and delight. Scholars debate whether Wottens
Elements is a paraphrase or a true translation, but the quote is popularly attributed to Vitruvius.
Joseph Gwilt, in his 1826 edition of Vitruvius writings, published in London, uses the words
strength, utility, and beauty. The venerable translation of Vitruvius The Ten Books on
Architecture by Morris Hickey Morgan, originally published in 1914 and still available through
Dover Publications, states: All these must be built with due reference to durability, convenience,
and beauty.
In 2003, Thomas Gordon Smith published an emendation of Morgans work and framed the
phrase in more contemporary language: All of these [architectural works] must be built so that
account is taken of Strength, Function and Beauty. This is very close to Gwilts strength, utility
and beauty, but the substitution of function for utility is a clear reference to Louis Sullivans form
follows function.
Sullivans Modernist dictum has come to represent the Modern emphasis upon firmness and
commodity as criteria to judge the merits of an architectural work without consideration of
beauty.
Marcus Vitruvius Pollio, who was born between 8070 B.C. and died sometime after 15 B.C.,
himself used the words firmitatis utilitatis venustatis.
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Whether we say, Firmitatis utilitatis venustatis strength, utility and beauty durability,
convenience and beauty strength, function and beauty or commodity, firmness and delight,
we are describing the fundamental standards we should aim to meet when we build. Let us look
at each of these concepts in turn.
***
Firmness: We must build buildings with strength to survive the elements and the forces of nature.
A building needs to stand up, to protect its occupants keep them dry and warm in the winter
and cool in the summer. It also needs to be built to protect itself. It must shed water away from its
structure to prevent rot in organic materials, decay in masonry, and corrosion in metals. It is
wasteful to replace building materials frequently.
Commodity: A building must be well designed, laid out efficiently so that spaces for related
activities are adjacent. The building must be composed not just in plan but in section, with regard
to the hierarchy of its spaces. A building should be laid out so that the most important activities
take place in the most important spaces. We must consider how to use building materials
efficiently, and know the most suitable materials for that building in that particular location in
terms of availability and durability.
Delight: This represents the most difficult of the Vitruvian ideals to define. With our liberal
sensibilities and a prevailing politically correct attitude of relativism, we espouse the idea that
Im okay; you must be even better. We are trained to believe that beauty is subjective, that it
rests in the eye of the beholder. Vitruvius held a very different idea. He believed that
architectural beauty was quantifiable, stating that account will have been taken of Beauty
so the relative measurements of the members will give the work a pleasing and elegant purpose.
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(https://classicistne.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/daumarchitecture_painting_sculpture_athena.jpg)
Architecture, Painting and Sculpture Protected by Athena from the Ravages of Time (1921) by John
Singer Sargent
***
In the first book of De Architectura, he describes techniques to be used by architects in order to
achieve Beauty,declaring that architecture depends on ordinatio, dispositio, eurythmia,
symmetria, decor and distributio. In the recent edition of De Architectura by Thomas Gordan Smith,
the authors commentary describes each of these in depth. I will touch upon them briefly, but I
would like to direct you to his commentary for further elaboration.
Ordinatio: Morris Hickey Morgan uses the word order. This is simply the process of creating
incremental units of measure within an object. We determine a consistent unit of measure based
upon a part and construct the entire work using that part as the underlying guide for the whole.
This creates a sense of visual harmony.
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Smith chooses to avoid use of the word order. In contemporary English usage, it describes the
types of column, their entablatures and pedestals. In fact, there is a proportional relation among
these larger parts, but Smith argues that this expands the meaning of Vitruvius use of the term
and prefers the words type or kind to describe the genus of columns.
Dispositio: Morgan uses the word arrangement. What this really means is to design not just in
the graphic sense but in the conceptual intellectual sense as well. Vitruvius describes the practice
of drawing floor plans and elevations, and also perspective drawings as tools to understand the
conceptual form of a building. However, these graphic techniques are informed by reflection
and invention. Essentially, reflection is the careful consideration of all aspects of the design,
analysis of site, program and the clients tastes among them. Invention is the ability to adapt the
rules of design to issues unique to each architectural problem.
Eurythmia:Eurythmia is the graceful arrangement of the elements of a building, so that the height
of the parts is suitable to their width, and their width to their breadth. In other words, each part is
in harmony with itself. Looking at a classical building, the proportions of the columns in relation
to the weight they must bear, the entablature, we see that they comfortably support the weight of
the load above. In fact, this is not an engineering exercise, but a simple intuitive understanding
that the proportion of the bearing and the borne works.
Symmetria:This is the methodology of determining ratios of proportion between different
elements in a design. In a sense, the Classical types of columns suggest this, both at large and
smaller scales. On the large scale, when we lay out a column, we understand that its height is a
proportion of its diameter. The heights of columns are multiples of their widths. The measuring
modules are either the diameter or the radius of the base of a column. Getting architects through
history to agree on what those proportions are has been difficult, but they all have begun with a
module based on the column width. The basic elements of the entablature, the architrave, the
cornice and the frieze are proportioned as ratios of that same column-based module. Even the
proportions of the individual elements within the column base and capital, and within the
entablature, are all fractions of the base module.
Decor:Smith describes this almost as a form of architectural etiquette. Vitruvius discusses the use
of the appropriate elements for the design of temples for each deity. For instance, in his text
Vitruvius describes the Doric as embodying masculine and rational characteristics, the Ionic as
being more feminine, and the Corinthian as the most delicate. Temples for virile deities Mars,
Hercules and Athena should be Doric. Temples for Juno and Diana should be Ionic. Noting
that these goddesses are mature feminine beings, the restrained and elegant Ionic is the
appropriate choice. The Corinthian is appropriate for delicate divinities, such as Venus and the
Nymphs.
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(https://classicistne.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/daumathena_protecting.jpg)
Rotunda of Bostons Museum of Fine Arts, featuring Sargents protective Athena (detail above)
But the idea of decor extends beyond the choice of the appropriate classical order. Ornament can
be chosen for its symbolism. The Ionic, with its fecund articulation, the egg and dart is an
appropriate choice to celebrate motherhood. Bucrania in the metope of the Doric are a perfect
complement to a dining room.
In contemporary terms, decor suggests that we need to consider the forms we choose. We need to
understand their meanings and to make choices appropriate to the site, the client and the needs of
the building. One common theme we see in contemporary practice is the use of the Tuscan order
as a catch-all decorative column in many projects, added to lend a traditional flavor. Because it is
the most austere of the orders and free of what seems, to Modern sensibilities, fussy ornament, it
is the easiest to draw, the least expensive to build and the most palatable to those architects who
believe that ornament is a crime. However, it is suggestive of utilitarian purposes and usually
not appropriate to the entrance of a house or within the interior of any significant room. Decor
also relates to the appropriate disposition of rooms according to their exposure; bedrooms and
libraries face east and picture galleries north for even diffuse light.
Distributio:Vitruvius principle of distributio describes the organizational skills an architect needs
to get a building built. The proper management of materials and site as well as the thrifty
balancing of expense. This will be observed if the Architect does not demand things that cannot
be found or made ready without great expense. Of course, he says nothing about our clients
wish lists. But his sense is clear: we need to build what is appropriate by considering climate, site,
and occupants. A building built in the desert is different from a building built for a wet, tropical
climate.
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Describing these Vitruvian ideals of strength, utility and beauty issomewhat like stating a
tautology: Of course we want to build well, of course we want to serve our clients by laying out a
building well, of course we want to make beautiful things. Its obvious, isnt it? In fact, were we
choose to reduce these terms to a simple phrase, we might say that the source of good building is
simply common sense. And yet, if we survey the current state of the built environment and of
the architectural profession, it is obvious that our culture has not embraced these ideals.
***
Below are Louis Sullivans Carson Pirie Scott & Co. Building (1899), in Chicago; the cover of Adolf Loos
Ornament and Crime (1908); and Le Corbusiers Villa Savoye (1929)
(https://classicistne.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/daumartnou_sullivan_carson_bw_lg.jpg)
(https://classicistne.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/daumcorbvillasavoye.jpg)
(https://classicistne.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/daumloos.jpg)The great catch phrases of
Modernism, which we all learned by rote at the knees of our teachers, do not tell us to consider
beauty in our designs. We learned the First Commandment of Modernism, Form follows
function, from Louis Sullivan, the late 19th Century American architect, whose buildings
embraced a florid ornamentalism; then the same people who quote Sullivan turn around and,
missing the irony, quote Adolf Loos and his Second Commandment of Modernism: Ornament is
a crime. Le Corbusiers simple Third Commandment of Modernism stated: A house is a
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machine for living in. Filippo Tommaso Marinettis Futurist

Manifesto is the Fourth Commandment of Modernism: Beauty
exists only in struggle. There is no masterpiece that has not an
aggressive character.
(https://classicistne.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/daumcorbvillasavoye.jpg)
The Modernist commandments speak of disposing of the past and building in the Spirit of the
New Age. Marinetti, writing in his Futurist Manifesto of 1909, told us to leave good sense
behind like a hideous husk and let us hurl ourselves, like fruit spiced with pride, into the
immense mouth and breast of the world! Let us feed the unknown, not from despair, but simply
to enrich the unfathomable reservoirs of the Absurd.
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(https://classicistne.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/daumfuturism.jpg)
Carica di Lancieri (1915), byUmberto Boccioni
The enduring poison of this nihilistic point of view is the constant quest for the New.
Innovation is heralded as the most important aspect of the design profession. Most of us are here
at the Traditional Building Conference because we believe in tradition and because we respect the
accumulated knowledge of millennia of builders before us. We know that architecture is much
more than mere fashion.
But to the Cult of the New, who believe that what is trendy today will be obsolete tomorrow, I
would suggest that innovation is highly overrated.
The ongoing tradition of building is part of the endless human quest for immortality. We hope to
leave behind something of ourselves that will mold and shape the lives of future generations.
Because we seek to leave something of ourselves behind, we aim to build well; not just with
firmness to guarantee its survival for future generations, but with commodity anddelight to make it
worth preserving.
Simply put, Vitruvius tells us that when we build, we should not to lose sight of common sense.
If we are going to make the investment of time and resources in order to build, then it is in our
best interests to listen to the Vitruvian ideal. Resources have always been scarce. It has always
been expensive to build. This should make us question why so much of the contemporary built
environment is disposable.
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(https://classicistne.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/daummicheel-res-rudolph.jpg)
Demolition in 2007 of Paul Rudolphs Micheel Residence, built 1972
We realize that the legacy of sprawl and its Big Box stores and cul-de-sac developments is
wasteful of resources. We understand intuitively that good building is nothing more than the
exercise of common sense. Yet in our consumerist greed, we have ignored the obvious truth. It is
wasteful to cleave into yet more open land, spreading a motoring culture further across the
landscape.
It is a self-fulfilling prophecy in futility as we extend a vacuous, soulless wasteland across this
nation.
We ignore Firmitatis when we build the boxes described by James Howard Kunstler as
chipboard and vinyl Mcbuildings. We ignore Venustatis when we plunk a Mediterranean-style
Dryvit McMansion into New England, or a shingle-style house on the Gulf Coast, and we deny
Beauty when we persist in building places no one wishes to inhabit.
As a culture, we have been blessed with technological advancements and growing wealth that has
allowed us to undertake the impossible. Our hubris is our realization that anything is possible and
therefore anything is justified. We have lost sight of the basic fact that architecture is about more
than changing fashion. It is the art of building, and part of a long tradition. When we endeavor to
build, we must take it seriously. We must be cognizant of its costs and its impact on both the
natural and the built environment. We should consider the practice of good building applicable
not only to the creation of a single building, but also, a neighborhood, a city, a region, and even
the nation.
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(https://classicistne.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/daumtopics_foreclosures_395.jpg)
Residences foreclosed upon before completion, in Las Vegas (2009)
Recall a portion of the Marinetti quote I repeated moments ago:Let us leave good sense behind
and enrich the unfathomable reservoirs of the Absurd. Certainly for America in the early
years of the 21st Century, exactly 100 years after Marinetti wrote those words in 1909, that legacy
of the absurd is continuing.
***
Ultimately, the act of building is about so much more than assets and property value. It is an
investment not just of materials but of time and of human lives. How we choose to build is as
important as what we choose to build. We leave a mark in time and space on this planet which
speaks to future generations. It tells of who we were and what we valued. James Kunstler
comments that we persist in making places that no one actually wants to inhabit. Strip malls and
Big Box stores, highway interchanges and expansive parking lots, cul-de-sacs and McMansions
are not places whose passing anyone will mourn. They are the legacy of a culture that does not
value the civic realm. With the ongoing economic downturn, these nowheresvilles are being
abandoned, and we wont even have the prospect of their beautiful ruins to contemplate.
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(https://classicistne.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/daumgandy-bank-of-england-1830.jpg)
Imagined ruins of John Soanes Bank of England, by Joseph Michael Gandy (1830)
During the Romantic period of the early 19th Century, architects would prepare renderings of
their proposed buildings not just as they would appear fully realized, but also ruined as a
projection of a distant future. It was a nostalgia for that which was yet to be. They hoped that
future architects would learn from the ruins of their buildings just as they themselves were
learning from the ruins of antiquity. The excavations of Herculaneum, and Pompeii, and of Stuart
and Revetts documentations of Athenian antiquities not only provided a tangible laboratory to
measure Vitruvian ideas, but also to shape the forms of Romantic Neo-Classicism.
In one hand these 19th Century architects held the ancient text, Vitruvius ten books that told how
to build correctly, and in the other a sketchbook, the tool to document the surviving fragments of
Greece and Rome. By preparing drawings of ruins of their own work, they sought to reach for the
eternal and to connect to a distant future. They hoped to mold that future just as their present
was molded by the Master Builders of Greece and Rome.
One wonders if on some distant day, long after we all gone, a future architect will uncover a
Walmart design manual and bother to attempt match it to some overgrown ruin of Dryvit and
light-gauge steel trusses. If this is the legacy we are leaving to future scholars, then we deserve to
be forgotten.
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(https://classicistne.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/daumapollo_and_the_muses_2.jpg)
Apollo and the Muses (1921), by John Singer Sargent
Roman architect Vitruvius, as interpreted by Wotten, described the essential characteristics of
good building as commodity, firmness and delight. Too often, contemporary architects lose sight
of these basic principles. The signatures of their individual styles have become more important
than the work of architecture itself. There are explicit and implicit criteria against which all
buildings can to be judged. Architecture, as the art of building, needs to be grounded in its
traditions in order to accomplish these Vitruvian ideals. We must build for the ages within the
contemporary constraints of declining resources and we must build with an eye toward Beauty.
Delight, which has come to be viewed as irrelevant or unimportant by the Modern movement,
can and should become again an essential criterion of good building today.
Posted in Uncategorized | 4 Comments
4 Responses
simontdurrant
on December 22, 2010 at 7:52 pm | Reply
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This is very inspirational and I would like to quote for my dissertation!

Eric Daum
Please do!
on January 3, 2011 at 9:19 pm | Reply
James Welwood
on January 27, 2011 at 9:20 pm | Reply
You have articulated what many stuggle to say. Eloquent, persuasive, cogent and
timely. Thankyou.
Cormac Phalen
on June 27, 2011 at 2:05 pm | Reply
Great Article and to me it isnt about the stylistic result but the quality and
permanence of the building. Again, great readthanks.
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New England Chapter

Commodity, Firmness, and Delight, or Toward a New

ByEric Inman Daum AIA

(https://classicistne.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/daumfonda-failsafe.jpg)which are the core

machine for living in. Filippo Tommaso Marinettis Futurist

Posted in Uncategorized | 4 Comments

on December 22, 2010 at 7:52 pm | Reply

This is very inspirational and I would like to quote for my dissertation!

on January 3, 2011 at 9:19 pm | Reply

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