The Role of Columns and Walls in the Mythical Function of Architecture ABSTRACT According to Elisabeth Baeten the function

of myth is to establish boundaries between different ontological regions, like matter and spirit, the real and the symbolic, the sacred and the profane, etc. This boundary is not between two neutral regions; rather .one territory belongs to human being and the other is considered other Architecture is the embodiment of myth in space; it encloses spatial regions and divides the inner sphere from the outside; the former belongs to the human and the .later is designated as foreign The basic elements of architecture are columns and walls. These have different roles in the fulfillment of the mythical function of architecture. Although at first it seemed that the column has only a rational practical function of supporting a roof that protects man from rain and sun, in the end one can see that it has a social and symbolic .mythical function as well

KEY WORDS Architecture, Boundary, Cassirer, Column/wall, Human, Myth, Subject/Object, Symbolic,

1. Introduction According to Elisabeth Baeten the function of myth is to establish boundaries between different ontological regions, like matter and spirit, the real and the symbolic, the sacred and the profane, etc. This boundary is not between two neutral regions; rather one territory belongs to human being and the other is considered other[1]. Thus, myth draws a circle around the truly human, or in other words, it encloses the human

sphere. The designation human means anything that belongs to our group as against anything foreign and different[2]. The myth thus divides the world into an inner sphere and an outer one. Everything that belongs to the inner circle belongs to us, while anything outside it is excluded as foreign. It turns out that the function of myth is one of establishing identity. Baeten bases her theory on an analysis of a few theories of myth, one of which is that of Ernst Cassirer. Cassirer claims that myth creates the initial distinction between subject and object, between the 'I' and the 'world'. He believes that the distinction between subject and object is not something given, but develops gradually by means of the symbolic forms (myth, language, art, science etc.)[3] The first of these symbolic forms is myth and it is the first to establish this distinction.[4] Architecture is the embodiment of myth in space; it encloses spatial regions and divides the inner sphere from the outside; the former belongs to the human and the later is designated as foreign. The concepts inner and outer, which were used metaphorically above, are literally embodied in architecture. In fact, the expression to enclose the human sphere, which we attributed to myth, is a spatial metaphor, whose literal meaning is taken from architecture. Therefore what we are doing here can be considered nothing but bringing the metaphor home that is using the literal meaning of the metaphor. I hope to show here that the route from literal to metaphoric and than back to literal is meaningful because borrowing this expression for discourse about myth has enriched the symbolic meaning of this expression beyond the physical act of architecture as enclosing regions in space.

2. The Double Function of Architecture

One of the functions of architecture is protecting man against the elements. In this role architecture is considered a functional physical device. Architecture creates two regions with distinct physical qualities: different temperature, different light, etc. But, as in myth, the boundaries architecture creates are not between two neutral territories; rather one territory belongs to the 'human sphere' and the other to the foreign, threatening 'Nature', where man can become wet, catch a cold, be a victim of vicious animals and so on. Therefore, this enclosure has not only physical but symbolic meaning as well. The term symbolic here is used in the sense that Cassirer uses it, to designate anything by which the sensual is filled with meaning. The symbol, according to Cassirer, is what belongs to the human per se and anything human acquires symbolic meaning. Thus the possession of the inner space of architecture by human beings is not merely a physical phenomena but also converts the physical into the symbolic. Moreover, architecture is used not only for protection from the elements and it is doubtful whether this is even its first function. By looking at one of the most famous myths of origin of architecture, the one told by the Roman engineer Vitruvius we can see that the basic function of architecture is not to define the relation of man to nature, but his relation to other people, i.e. society. The Men of old were born like wild beasts, in woods, caves and groves, and lived on savage fare. As time went on, the thickly crowded trees in a certain place, tossed by storms and winds, and rubbing their branches against one another, caught fire, and so the inhabitants of the place were put to flight, being terrified by the furious flame. After it subsided, they drew near, and observing that they were very comfortable standing before the warm fire, they put on logs and, while

thus keeping it alive, brought up other people to it, showing them by signs how much comfort they got from it. In that gathering of men, at a time when utterance of sound was purely individual, from daily habits they fixed upon articulate words just as these had happened to come; then, from indicating by name things in common use, the result was that in this chance way they began to talk, and thus originated conversation with one another. Therefore it was discovery of fire that originally gave rise to the coming together of men, to the deliberative assembly, and to social intercourse. And so, as they kept coming together in greater number into one place, finding themselves naturally gifted beyond the other animals in not being obliged to walk with faces to the ground, but upright and gazing upon the splendour of the starry firmament, and also in being able to do with ease what-ever they chose with their hands and fingers, they began in that first assembly to construct shelters.[5] According to this story, as long as man lived alone like wild beasts, there was no need for building. Only when man found himself among other people and already had language, did he feel the need for shelter. One can infer that what made it possible to build namely the gathering of men also created the need for building because only then did man need a hiding place from other people. Thus, the shelter man needs is not from the elements nor from wild beasts or enemies, but from his own community his neighbors. Man's neighbors do not threaten him physically; on the contrary, he identifies with them and talks to them and probably hosts them in his house. Therefore, the essence of the protection man seeks in his shelter is not from physical offense, but a symbolic protection of privacy.

Hospitality is one of the things that distinguish man's abode from structures created by animals. The later can be considered a direct extension of the animal's body its extended phenotype.[6] Man's abode, on the other hand, where he hosts guests, should allow other people to enter it without this being felt as an invasion into one's body or soul. Therefore man's abode should contain a distance from its resident that enables others to enter it. This distance cannot be solely physical but should be supported by symbolic means, because the house belongs not only to the physical but also to the symbolic world.

2. The Column and the Wall The Physical and the Symbolic During the Enlightenment one of the things people tried to exclude from the human sphere was the irrational. Myth is the paradigm of the irrational and therefore there was a tendency to get rid of any mythical thought. To achieve this it was necessary to invent myths that would draw a circle around the human as rational. The myth of origin invented by the eighteenth-century abbot Marc Antoine Laugier is a product of this atmosphere of the Enlightenment. This myth may be the most typical example of the wish to reduce architecture to a rational device for protection from the elements. The major architectural components in this story are the roof and the columns bearing it. Let us look at man in his primitive state without any aid or guidance other then his natural instincts. He is in need of a place to rest. On the banks of a quietly flowing brook he notices a stretch of grass; its tender down invites him; he is drawn there and, stretched out at leisure on this sparkling carpet, he thinks of nothing else but enjoying the gift of nature; he lacks nothing, he does not wish for anything. But soon the scorching heat of the sun forces him to look for

shelter. A nearby forest draws him to its cooling shade; he runs to find a refuge in its depth, and there he is content. But suddenly mists are rising, swirling round and growing denser, until thick clouds cover the skies; soon, torrential rain pours down on this delightful forest. The savage, in his leafy shelter, does not know how to protect himself from the uncomfortable damp that penetrates everywhere; he creeps into a nearby cave and, finding it dry, he praises himself for his discovery. But soon the darkness and foul air surrounding him make his stay unbearable again. He leaves and is resolved to make good by his ingenuity the careless neglect of nature. He wants to make himself a dwelling that protects but does not bury him. Some fallen branches in the forest are the right material for his purpose; He chooses four of the strongest, raises them upright and arranges them in square; across their top he lays four other branches; on these he hoists from two sides yet another row or branches which, inclining toward each other, meet at their highest point. He then covers this kind of roof with leaves so closely packed that neither sun nor rain can penetrate. Thus man is housed. Admittedly, the cold and heat will make him feel uncomfortable in this house which is open on all sides but soon he will fill the space between two posts and feel secure.[7] The prominent feature in this story is that the building is described by Laugier as a direct extension of nature something created out of man's instinct (reason and common sense) - and does not have anything to do with culture. The hut, according to this account, is no different from a bird's nest and therefore is like man's phenotype, emerging naturally with no need for any symbolic system of instructions.[8] This impression is strengthened by the fact that man in this story is alone, with no society that can dictate any symbolic system to him.

Laugier's aim in this story is to establish healthy principles for building according to which the architect should work. He wants to bring the architecture contemporary to him, which he sees as corrupt, back to a healthy and natural state by concentrating on its essential function. In order to become healthy, architecture should concentrate on rational solutions to people's physical needs. Laugier would like to get rid of any irrational thinking, which might be called mythical. The man he describes in his story relies only on his nature and therefore is exonerated of any mistake or whim that is created by history and cultural, which can distort man's common sense. But another look at Laugier's hut reveals that it is neither the most logical structure for its function nor the most natural one that can be imagined; it is more like an abstraction of a Greek temple. If we consider this building purely as a solution for protection from the elements, it certainly is not the most successful solution. Such a skeletal building cannot function as protection from the elements but can only be a symbol of such protection. In other worlds, in spite of Laugier's efforts to get rid of any symbolic aspect, his hut remains nothing but a cultural symbol or a symbol of protection from the elements but without any real protection. This failure of Laugier's might imply that even when architecture is treated only as protection from the elements it is difficult, perhaps impossible, to strip it of its symbolic dimension. One of Laugier's critics in this regard is Goethe, who argues that Laugier's hut is not the most natural or simple: Two poles crossed at the top in front, two in the back and a fifth as a ridgepole, as we can see every day from huts in fields and vineyards, that is clearly a far earlier invention, from which you could not even derive a principle for your pigsties[9], says Goethe. Another argument Goethe presents, which is more important for this discussion, is that this hut has nothing to do with ordinary residential buildings that it is supposed to have engendered. Such buildings,

unlike this hut are constructed not of columns but of walls: The column is by no means a natural component of our dwellings, on the contrary, it contradicts the character of all our buildings. Our houses did not develop from four columns in four corners, but from four walls on four sides.[10] My claim is that Laugier could not let his primitive man construct a house of walls. It seems to me that the reason for his giving walls only a secondary role is not only his implicit wish to provide a basis for classical architecture, whose paradigm is the Greek temple based on columns, but also that the wall by its very nature is something symbolic and not only physical, as we shall soon see[11]. According to this argument, it is hard to restrict the wall solely to a physical role, because walls, as opposed to columns, immediately tend to create a symbolic system involving the mythical symbolic form, which is contrary to rationality. This is what Laugier is trying to eliminate from architecture, and so he cannot use walls. One can say that Laugier's subjection of the wall to the columns shows his wish to subject the mythical to the rational. We can see that the disagreement between Laugier and Goethe is more profound than a historical argument about the origin of residential buildings. Moreover, Laugier's choice of promoting non-mural building is more meaningful than his choice of the Greek temple as model; it is far beyond a historical interest in a specific style. The argument about whether buildings should be constructed of columns or walls implies a much more profound disagreement about whether architecture is a rational (constructional, functional) sphere or has inherent symbolic and social aspects; whether it is first and foremost a device constructed to exclude rain or whether its primary meaning is to symbolically create a private place. A myth of origin which has an opposite conception of architecture is one told by the nineteenth-century architect Gotfried Semper. According to Semper the origin

of architecture is a sort of wall whose essence is social and symbolic. Semper explicitly claims that the first act of architecture is neither protection from the elements nor from enemies but creating an enclosure around the family. In order to create such an enclosure the wall need not be made out of bricks or stone, but it can be made solely from a thin layer of wickerwork. for it remains certain that the use of the crude weaving that started with the pen as means to make the home, the inner life separated from the outer life, and as the formal creation of the idea of space undoubtedly preceded the wall, even the most primitive one constructed out of stone or any other material.[12] The use of wickerwork for setting apart ones property, the use of mats and carpets for floor coverings and protection against heat and cold and for subdividing the spaces within a dwelling in most cases preceded by far the masonry wall, and particularly in areas favored by climate.[13] Thus Semper argues that the massive brick wall comes later than this woven pen and was made for secondary functions, which are not essential to architecture, such as protection from enemies.[14] The nature of the division made by this wickerwork between the enclosed space and the outside space is not a difference in the level of physical protection, but only visual. A visual division is also physical, to be sure, but of all physical divisions it seems closest to a symbolic one, because it involves concealment and therefore representation. (Concealment and representation are bound together because representation means substituting something present [visible] for something nonpresent [concealed]). It turns out that the wickerwork which creates a minimal

physical division, being only visual, gets its strength from its being a maximal symbolic division, i.e. a division between two regions having absolutely different meanings. The difference between the physical conditions of the two places is less important that the difference between their meanings: one is private, the other public; one is indoor, the other outdoor; one is human, the other natural. Thus, while columns have mainly a physical function holding up a roof which shelters the residents from the elements, - the original function of the wall is also mythical as it establishes a boundary between different regions and annexes one of them to the human domain.

3. The Wall as Myth The Paradoxical Location of the Boundary The function of columns must be simple, because a columnar structure is transparent, both in the sense that it has no inner concealed space and in the sense that it reveals the way it was constructed. Therefore, a columnar structure is considered rational and distinct. A mural structure, in contrast, conceals both the space it encloses and the structural support system, and in that respect can also represent them, thus being symbolic. This means that in contrast to columns, which seem to have only a physical function, the wall possesses a double function. In addition to concealing what is in the other side of it, a wall also conceals its own other side. The wall has two sides and therefore each of them can have a different function. In architecture's primary role protection from the elements the wall encloses man inside and protects him from everything in Nature outside; that is, the wall separates what is human from what is non-human. When one looks at the outer surface of the wall it should be understood as a material structure which protects man from the elements with the same means that Nature uses physical resistance is needed to counter the physical power of the wind. But, when one looks at the wall

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from the inside, it encloses a human sphere and differentiates it from Nature, that is from the inside it is part of human culture and therefore not only physical but also and especially symbolic. However, being situated on the boundary between inside and outside, the wall belongs at one and the same time to both and to none. Therefore, it is not obvious that the wall as it is from the outside belongs to physical Nature and as it is from the inside to the symbolic human domain, rather these functions can also be reversed. It is thus possible that the outside is what meant to be seen by strangers, and in that respect it is connected to symbolic human culture, while the inside evolves out of basic natural needs.[15] That is, the function of the inside is to shelter man physically while the function of the outside is to represent him socially. The reversibility of the meanings of the inside and the outside is associated with the fact that the wall functions as myth. Baeten claims that since myth stands as a dividing line between antithetical regions its place is a paradoxical one. It does not belong to either side, but rather to both and neither at once.[16] A myth is interpreted in one way when one is inside the circle drawn by the myth and differently when one is outside it. From the inside the myth should not be felt as myth but should look natural and necessary and therefore like plain truth; otherwise it will not work. Form the outside, on the other hand, a myth looks paradoxical and false.[17] In order for myth to be sensed as necessary truth the circle around the human domain must look natural. Roland Barth assigns myth the role of turning what is historical and contingent, that is, what is human, into something natural.[18] Laugier's myth as cited above is a good example of this. Laugier invented a myth to justify classical architecture by creating a semblance of naturalness connected to this style.

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The main issue here, however, is not myths of architecture's origin (these are brought only as examples), but the claim that architecture in itself is a myth. Our task is therefore to show that the wall itself is situated in a paradoxical place and can draw a circle around the human and at the same time naturalize it. The paradoxical situation of the wall arises out of its social role of symbolic protection from the other one's neighbor. Since protection from an other person cannot be solely physical but must be symbolic as well, the division between inside and outside should not be only physical, which also means relative, but an absolute division between two worlds (ontological spheres) the real and the symbolic. These worlds do not necessarily overlap with the physical interior and exterior. The wall should take us not only from one physical place to another, but also from a real world to a virtual one, even though the boundaries between these worlds are not clear. As mentioned above, the wall can be seen as physical on its outer side and symbolic on its inner, but it can also be seen the other way around. Actually neither view is entirely accurate. To fulfill its function, the wall must exist in both a physical world and a virtual symbolic one at the same side. Thus, the wall must at the same time take us from the physical outdoors to the interior and from a physical world to a virtual one, where both exist inside and outside at the same time. Indeed these are not different places but parallel ontological regions, and the wall exists in both of them. The wall can be in two distinct regions because it is like a myth and its origin is mythical consciousness.

4. Embedding the Symbolic Aspect of the Wall by means of Ornament According to Cassirer, in mythical consciousness things can fluctuate between ontological regions because there is no clear-cut boundary between different

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ontological realms. One of the distinctions myth lacks is that between the real and the imaginative. From the perspective of mythical consciousness, images and symbols are not considered a representation of something else but are understood as part of the real world. Words, pictures and dreams, for instance, have real influence upon real events. There is no difference between them and deeds. The Cherokees, for example, believe that a man who dreamt that he was bitten by a snake should be treated as though he had really been bitten.[19] Cassirer distinguishes myth from art according to their different attitude toward images. In art the image is understood as an image and its truth is a truth of the image, while in myth image and reality are indistinguishable.[20] In architecture, in contrast to other arts, there is no clear-cut image, so if architecture has a virtual world in addition to real space, it has it in a way that is similar to myth, that is, the imaginative and the real worlds are not distinct. Nevertheless, architecture is not identical to myth. In mythical consciousness an object can belong to the physical and the symbolic at one and the same time without any felt physical distinctions. For example, an object or a place can be considered sacred without being different from a profane object in any physical respect. However, since it has no specific physical properties the sacred object in mythical consciousness can lose its aura of sacredness when it is seen from outside mythical consciousness that created it, that is, from discursive consciousness.[21] Losing this aura means losing its distinctness and confounding it with the rest of reality. Metaphorically one can say that in this case the sacred object loses its unity and disintegrates into its physical components. Architecture, on the other hand, must function not only in mythical but also in discursive consciousness; this requires that its aura should be embedded somehow in the physical. This is done by means of art.

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In art, as opposed to myth, the virtual world is embedded in the real world by physical means. This enables the image to be perceived as image. In order to perceive an image as an image it must be perceptibly distinguishable from the real. This distinction is sometimes made by a physical frame (or framing devices such as a stage). However, often this distinction is made by beauty, which has a framing quality to it, as claimed by the art historian Karsten Harries.[22] The beautiful object seems to say Look at me, but do not touch me. Beauty frames things by creating an aesthetic distance; in other words, it creates an aura around the artistic object. Unlike the aura of the sacred object in mythical consciousness, this aura has a hold in reality because it is manifested in the physical properties of the object. The frame that beauty supplies to the artistic object differentiates it from reality and lets us perceive it as distinct from reality as an image. In architecture, as mentioned above, there is no distinct image, but nevertheless its virtual world is embedded in the real world by physical means. Although architecture does not have a real frame, it has artistic means that function as frames: proportions, orders, ornament and the like.[23] These can supply architecture with an objective property beauty[24] which surrounds it with an aura without turning the image into an actual image. Beauty is sometimes defined as organic unity. The Renaissance thinker Leon Battista Alberti, for example, describes beauty as "that reasoned harmony of all the parts within a body, so that nothing may be added, taken away, or altered, but for the worse."[25] The role of the organic unity is to frame the object by enclosing it upon itself and separating it from its context. Thus, embedding the aura of architecture in the real world through beauty involves the preservation of its organic unity.

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The way the virtual world is embedded in wall is discussed by Semper. Semper describes the woven screen as ornamented with colorful patterns. The purpose of these patterns is to create an imaginative symbolic alternative to reality.[26] Semper also claims that all walls are dressed up with such a symbolic layer. When later the wall is already solid this symbolic layer is preserved by its external coating (stucco, paint); which ,according to Semper, is meant to symbolize the ancient screen made of colorful woven carpets.[27] Thus one purpose of the stucco is to preserve the physical unity of the wall and protect it from erosion, but it has also a symbolic purpose protecting the wall's symbolic unity and meaning. It protects the wall not only from physical deterioration but also from symbolical disintegration into a heap of bricks. Put differently, the purpose of the stucco is to unite the wall into an organic whole instead of being merely a collection of bricks. The stucco (or any other external coating) that symbolizes the ancient wickerwork, which divided the inner space from the outer by lending it a different symbolic meaning, also differentiate the outer layer, which is meant to be seen, from the inner material of the wall itself separating its symbolic face from its physical existence. Framing of the wall creating an aesthetic distance from it is essential to prevent the feeling that guests are invading one's privacy (an example of this sort of invasion of privacy can be felt in ethnic museums: when the exhibit is a plain personal belonging such as a shoe it can create an uncomfortable feeling of entering someone's private territory, while if the object is well-decorated this feeling is not so strong). Thus beauty can function as symbolic protection from others. Alberti, for example, indicated his belief in the protective value of beauty in architecture when he stated that beauty can protect the building form destruction by an enemy, by restraining his anger and so preventing the work from being violated.[28] This might

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sound a bit nave if we think of the psychology of an armed soldier during war, but it seems much more reasonable if we consider this claim a principled one about the kind of symbolic protection architectural beauty can create. Architecture's symbolic protection requires not only the mythical wall which surrounds man, but also the symbolic layer the stucco which protect this wall from disintegrating into a heap of bricks. This symbolic layer is supplies by art, which is added to architecture as a framing device that makes her beautiful. This beauty aids in fixing its virtual world (image) because beauty involves real physical properties. In this way beauty enters architecture as an aspect that do not takes her totally out of reality into the world of images, but never the less, it allows an objective existence of a virtual world. We can conclude that architecture is a symbolic form which is between myth and art: the image is not perceived as image, but its symbolic form is fixed by beauty.

5. The Function of Walls and Columns is Reversible As mentioned above, putting an emphasis on the column as the basic architectural element indicates an understanding of architecture as basically a protective device against the elements, while emphasizing the wall points to a conception of architecture as basically social. The column is usually understood as physically essential for supporting the roof, while the wall is understood as creating a symbolic enclosure. Accordingly, traditional theoreticians of architecture can be divided into theoreticians of the column (like Laugier) and theoreticians of walls (like Alberti). The former see the column as the essential architectural element, which functions as a means of supporting the roof protecting man from rain, that is, they see architecture first and foremost as a physical device. The latter see the wall as the essential element,

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whose purpose is to define mans private territory, that is, they see architecture as mainly a social device. In the latter theories the columns are nothing but ornament, meant to strengthen the symbolic aspect of architecture.[29] In these theories columns are supposed to decorate walls and thus reinforce their unity, integrity and firmness visually. The architecture theoretician Robin Evans says that walls by themselves do not look firm and only the addition of ornament (such as columns) can supply it with a look of firmness.[30] This means that the wall might not have enough symbolic integrity, which can be given to it by attaching columns. One can see that the wall and the column exchange their role here: the column becomes a symbolic means, while the wall is considered physical device. The architectural historian Elias Cornell claims that architecture has a double origin: the exterior of buildings originated from a tectonic idea (columnar) and the interior from a stereotomic idea (mural). They are different because they are supposed to express different feelings. The exterior is meant to express expectancy, while the interior is meant to express fulfillment and stillness.[31] This can imply that the exterior is meant for welcoming strangers and is therefore representational, while the interior is meant to house the dwellers and should therefore be more practical than symbolic. Cornell adds that later the exterior lends its characteristics to the interior. According to the interpretation presented in the present paper this means that the house also becomes representational in its interior, which is reasonable if guests are invited in. Therefore, interiors become tectonic as well. The tectonic, says Cornell, encloses the inside against the outside. While the stereotomic can only imply an absolute physical boundary, the tectonic can imply invitation and distancing at the same time.[32] Enclosing by means of the tectonic is more like framing than absolute

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limitation of space.[33] The tectonic frames the interior and makes it feel like the exterior and so guests do not feel they are invading the resident's privacy. Thus, although at first it seemed that the column has only a practical function of supporting a roof that protects man from rain and sun, in the end one can see that it has a social and symbolic function as well. It is what preserves the aura of the virtual world of the wall by functioning as ornament, which embeds the symbolic meaning into the wall. In this regard columns have a function similar to that of stucco. However, at first columns are conceived not as symbolic but, on the contrary, as the natural elements of architecture. It thus turns out that one of the symbolic functions of columns is to conceal architecture's symbolic nature, that is to create a semblance of naturalness. Thus, columns also take part in the mythical characteristics of architecture they are naturalizers. We can see that the artistic means, which are meant to embed the virtual word of architecture into the real world, can also function as mythical devices which are meant to naturalize it. [1] Elizabeth M. Baeten, The Magic Mirror (New York: State University of New York Press, 1996), pp. 38, 179-182. [2] Mircea Eliade, The Sacred and the Profane (New York: A Harvest book, 1969), p. 30. [3] Ernst Cassirer, The Philosophy of Symbolic Form, Vol. 2: Mythical Thought, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1965) pp. 155-156. [4] Ibid., pp. 176-179. [5] Vitruvius, The Ten Books of Architecture (New York: Dover Publications, 1960), p. 38. [6] For the idea that animals living places are their extended phenotype, see Richard Dawkins, The Extended Phenotype (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982). Hersey

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attempts to apply this idea to human dwellings as well. I argue here that this is an improper application. See George Hersey, The Monumental Impulse, (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1999) p. XIX. [7] Marc-Antoine Laugier, An Essay on Architecture (Los Angeles: Hennessey & Ingalls, 1977), pp. 11-12. [8] The anthropologist Clifford Geertz characterizes man as the animal who is not fully directed in his actions by genetic codes, but needs symbolic systems to aid him to survive. See Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures (New York: Basic Books, 1973). [9] Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, On German Architecture (1772), in Essays on Art and Literature, (New York: Suhrkamp, 1986), pp. 4-5. [10] Ibid., p. 5 [11] The idea that Laugier aims to justify classical architecture can be found in Karsten Harries, The Ethical Function of Architecture (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1998), p. 115. [12] Gottfreid Semper, The Four Elements of Architecture and Other Writings (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), p. 245 [13] Ibid., p. 103. [14] Ibid., p. 255. [15] Elias Cornell, Humanistic Inquiries into Architecture (Goeteborg: Elanders Boktryckeri Aktiebolag, 1959), pp. 44-45. [16] Baeten, pp. 167-8. [17] Ibid., p. 37. [18] Roland Barth, Mythologies (London: Cape, 1972), pp. 142-143.

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[19] This example is taken from Levi Bruhl, How Natives Think, (Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press, 1985), p. 57. [20] Cassirer, pp. 24-26, 260-261. [21] By discursive we mean the kind of thought based on logical reasoning and sensitive to contradictions. [22] Harries, The Ethical Function of Architecture, 125. see also Harries, The Broken Frame, (Washington, D. C: The Catholic University of America Press, 1989), pp. 1218. [23] Harries, The Ethical Function of Architecture, p. 125. [24] I do not want to enter into the debate about whether beauty is objective; what I mean to say here is that it connected to physical properties of the object, in contrast to a subjective meaning connected to object without any physical cause. [25] Leon Battista Alberti, On the Art of Building in Ten Books (Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1994), p. 156. [26] Semper, p. 104. [27] Ibid. [28] Alberti, p. 156. [29] Ibid., pp. 164, 183. [30] Robin Evans, The Projective Cast (Cambridge, MA.: MIT Press, 1995), p. 238. [31] Cornell, pp. 43-45. [32] Ibid., p. 45. [33] Ibid.

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