Architecture in Words: Theatre, Language and the Sensuous Space of Architecture

by Pelletier; Louise

• ISBN13: 9780415394710
• ISBN10: 0415394716
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Nonspecific Binding
• Copyright: 2006-06-23
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

What if the house you are about to enter was built with the confessed purpose of seducing you, of creating various sensations destined to touch your soul and make you reflect on who you are? Could architecture have such power? Generations of architects at the beginning of modernity assumed it could. From the mid-eighteenth century onwards, architects believed that the aim of architecture was to communicate the character and social status of the client or to express the destination and purpose of a building. Architecture in Words explores the role of architecture as an expressive language through the transforming notion of character theory and looks at the theatre as a model for creating sensuous spaces in architecture. Since the beginning of the eighteenth century, the theatre was more than simply a form of entertainment; it changed how individuals related to one another in society. Acting was no longer restricted to the performing stage in theatres; it became a way to conduct oneself in society.Such transformations had obvious architectural repercussions in the design of theatres, but also in the configuration of the public and private domains. The succession of spaces, the careful crafting of lighting effects and the expressive role of architectural features were all influenced by parallel developments in the theatre. Pelletier examines the role of theatre and fiction in defining the notion of character in eighteenth century architecture. It suggests that while usually ignored by instrumental applications, character constitutes an important precedent for restoring the communicative dimension of contemporary architecture.

Author Biography

Louise Pelletier is Adjunct Professor at the School of Architecture, McGill University. She is also Faculty Lecturer at the School of Design, Universite du Quebec a Montreal.

Table of Contents

Illustration credits	ix
Acknowledgments	xi
Introduction	1	(8)
Part 1: Character and expression: staging an architectural theory	9	(48)
1 Architecture as an expressive language	11	(14)
Character theory and the language of architecture	17	(4)
Le Camus de Mezières and the metaphor of the theatre	21	(4)
2 Character theory in theatrical staging	25	(21)
Servandoni, the master of special effects	26	(4)
The modulation of light and darkness	30	(10)
Unity of place and the perfecting of an illusion	40	(6)
3 Rules of expression and the paradox of acting	46	(11)
Le Brun's theory of expression	47	(3)
The paradox of the actor	50	(7)
Part 2: Play-acting and the culture of entertainment: architecture as theatre	57	(48)
4 Theatre as the locus of public and social expression	59	(18)
The rules of civility and conventions at the theatre	62	(2)
Louis XV and the new taste for private performances	64	(3)
Society theatre and Diderot's drame bourgeois	67	(6)
The staging of a play	73	(4)
5 Theatre architecture and the role of the proscenium arch	77	(28)
Rethinking the space of the auditorium	78	(4)
The beginning of a new tradition and the relocation of the spectator	82	(13)
The theatricality of the marketplace	95	(10)
Part 3: Language and personal imagination: an architecture for the senses	105	(46)
6 Taste, talent, and genius in eighteenth-century aesthetics	107	(11)
Theatre theory and the decadence of taste	108	(2)
Genius and the complex relationship between rules and talent	110	(3)
Génie and the Encyclopédie	113	(5)
7 Newtonian empirical sciences and the order of nature	118	(13)
The expression of nature in architectural theory	120	(4)
Newtonian empirical science and the role of tradition	124	(7)
8 Empirical philosophy and the nature of sensations	131	(20)
Étienne Bonnot de Condillac and the nature of imagination	131	(7)
Edmund Burke and the materiality of light and shadow	138	(8)
Denis Diderot and the importance of language	146	(5)
Part 4: Plotting an architectural program: the space of desire	151	(41)
9 Staging an architecture in words	155	(14)
The space of seduction	155	(6)
The Genius of Architecture and the distribution of an hôtel particulier	161	(8)
10 The narrative space of desire	169	(23)
Aabba, a romance	170	(13)
Chantilly, a picturesque garden	183	(9)
Conclusion: the temporality of human experience	192	(4)
Notes	196	(28)
Selected bibliography	224	(11)
Index	235