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Reflections on Order and Freedom Philip K. Howard
Institute of Classical Architecture and Classical America, May 29, 2003 When I was growing up in the South there was a saying whenever some unusual event
occurred: "The Lord works in mysterious ways." The same might be said of Arthur
Ross. My area of focus is legal reform, not classicism. But perhaps there is a
link between legal order and architectural orders, and for a few minutes I thought
I might reflect on an aspect of social structure no longer commonly understood,
which is the relationship between Order and Freedom.
There is almost nothing more powerful than an accepted frame of reference. What
people assume, the way people think about things, to a great degree guides their
daily choices. In America today, one of the pillars of conventional thought is
that no individual, not even one in high office, should have the authority to
make choices for anyone else. Historian Eric Foner has noted there was a "massive
redefinition of freedom" in the 1960s "as a rejection of all authority." Sociologist
Alan Wolfe has suggested there is an 11th Commandment: "Thou shall not judge."
What we value instead is the individual -- individual rights, individual taste.
This appeals to modern man, because it implies greater freedom. What gets lost
in the shuffle is the idea of common choices. It's every man for himself. Also
discarded is tradition. Who needs tradition? I am my own person, creating a world
anew for myself. The effect, ironically, is a dramatic loss of individual freedom.
In the resulting free-for-all, we also lose the freedom to be noble, to join with
others to advance a civilization greater than ourselves. The structures of law,
city planning, and architecture have all been affected.
In law, the idea of expanding of individual rights beyond traditional constitutional
protections was to avoid the abuses of authority uncovered in the 1960s. But the
ability of anyone to make a legal claim against anyone else has had unintended
side effects. Legal fear has literally changed our society. Seesaws have disappeared,
for example. Who wants to take the risk of a lawsuit if one child gets off too
soon and the other breaks an ankle? It's hard to find a teacher who hasn't been
threatened with a legal claim, and so it's hardly surprising teachers have trouble
maintaining discipline. Teachers can't put their arm around a crying child because
someone might claim it was an unwanted touching. Healthcare is suffering a kind
of nervous breakdown. When no one on behalf of society has the authority to make
common choices, including who can sue for what, and who can run the classroom,
everyone loses their freedom. It's as if we built a huge monument to the unknown
plaintiff, casting a dark shadow across our daily choices.
City planning since World War II suffered similarly. The idea of the 1950s and
1960s was to liberate everyone with the automobile. Build more roads and all will
be more free. The pleasures, initially, were wonderful. You could live in the
country and work in the city, in less time than it took to take the trolley. But
as more people moved out the promise turned dark. The 10 minutes became over an
hour in traffic jams. As the people disappeared from city neighborhoods, so did
the community of the city. Downtowns lost their retail draw, and the formerly
busy sidewalks of main street, with gentlemen tipping their hats, became a collection
of sterile plazas, devoid of urban energy. Downtown became our office park.
In the residential suburbs, what was once country became a maze of cul-de-sacs,
in patterns that resemble intestinal tracts rather than formal grids and plazas
where people can interact. Suburbanites found themselves crowded yet isolated.
Simple tasks -- say, getting a quart of milk -- once could be accomplished in
numerous ways -- having it delivered, sending Johnny on his bicycle down to a
corner store, or, most efficiently, borrowing it from a neighbor. No more. The
suburbs are too spread out for delivery. There are no corner stores, and neighbors
barely know each other, because all of life occurs in the automobile. Most new
neighborhoods don't have sidewalks.
What's the point? Instead of afternoons on the front porch, with neighbors coming
and going, people spend much of their lives in front of a television. The promise
of more freedom, without the order of a city plan, became a cruel joke. To get
a quart of milk today you have to crank up a 4,000 pound machine and drive 15
minutes to a lovely emporium called the 7 11.
Now let's turn to the tradition of classicism. Most Americans today probably
think of classical architecture as one style. But all of you know that the classical
tradition is an architectural language, developed over many centuries, with enormous
subtlety and applied in ways that continually evolve. Those who know the language
arrange it, as a poet does words, in fresh and beautiful ways. Just as no one
accused Shakespeare of copying Chaucer, no one accused Palladio of copying The
Pantheon. Indeed, some of his great houses, their neo-classical wings stretching
outwards, almost looked like they could take off and fly.
But modern society does not honor this language of classical design. The rejection
of classicism is hardly new, and perhaps even follows a cycle. Descartes argued
that "What the ancients have taught us is so scanty and for the most part so lacking
in credibility that I may not hope for any kind of approach toward truth except
by rejecting all the paths which they have followed." Happily, he didn't carry
the day, as attested by the many great Beaux Arts buildings that dignify New York.
Of course, classicism is not the only language of architecture. But one of the
difficulties of modern architecture is that it hasn't been able to develop its
own language. One proposed principle, for example, was that form follows function.
But there's no need for buildings to aspire to greatness or beauty to serve a
function. Religious services can take place in a warehouse as well as in a cathedral.
Without a coherent principle or language, modern architecture appears to rely
principally on newness or shock value. I happen to like many modern buildings,
but when architectural fashions change like hemlines, the ultimate effect is that
they achieve a dated quaintness, like a 1950s toaster, rather than a timeless
grandeur.
Another of the ironies of modernism is that it has little meaning except against
the backdrop of classicism. Frank Gehry excites us precisely because it's so different
from the traditional symmetry. If an entire city were full of Frank Gehry buildings,
it would be a nightmare, like living in an ancient medieval town, twisting and
turning and inducing a feeling of fear rather than honor.
The tradition of classicism, however, is not just in the orders of its beautiful
language. We could ape the classical language by placing fiberglass copies of
the Parthenon all over the American landscape, but I doubt most of us would want
that. The greater importance of classicism is what it represents. Why did classicism
come to exist in the first place?
Classical architecture was invented to provide symbols of human aspiration and
accomplishment. The great buildings of Greece and Rome honored a deity or other
transcendent power. They were the ultimate status symbol, in the best sense, a
validation of the greater worth of our civilization. The idea of creating buildings
as symbols of civilization sounds like an abstraction or a folly, but great public
buildings affect the way people feel about themselves and their society. Visit
Segesta, the lovely temple in Sicily on the edge of a deep mountain chasm, and
you feel not only part of a continuum of the ages but also in awe of the remarkable
taste and sensitivity of those who created this monument of man juxtaposed against
the great power of Nature. Walk into the gothic courtyard at Branford College
at Yale, and it's difficult not to feel protected from the worries of the world.
This is a place that liberates you to think higher thoughts. Scurry off the street
into Grand Central Terminal, and all of a sudden you're not part of the rat race,
but a citizen of a great city. You don't feel diminished by the thousands surrounding
you – you feel elevated, at one with them in the important city that we live in,
sharing this great room with massive pillars and a starry ceiling.
Buildings and monuments are in a sense the tangible symbol of order -- they rise
before us, physical proof of our greater selves, of our interdependence in a civilization
and our place in a continuum of time. The human imperative to build these symbols
is as old as civilization itself. But just as we are losing the need to make common
choices in law and in city planning, so too we are losing the understanding of
great public buildings.
It has been forty years since a great public building has been built in New York
City. Recently there was a story about someone in a dispute with a health plan,
who argued that the health plan should sell the art work in the lobby (it was
a Giacommetti) to pay for her coverage. I don't know the merits of the case, and
the world is certainly full of need. People are hungry; people need healthcare;
people need education. As a culture I believe we should strive hard to satisfy
those needs.
But if we sold or melted down all that was historic or beautiful to try to satisfy
all of today's needs, we would leave ourselves culturally and emotionally destitute,
and diminish the drive and aspiration that is needed to accomplish those worthy
goals. The challenge of the classical tradition is broader than a battle of styles.
It is a battle for public goals and public authority. Just as law must reclaim
its authority to make common choices, and city planners must build an environment
that supports human interaction, those in classical tradition must reclaim the
goal of great buildings and monuments that reflect our dignity, virtue and aspiration.
Asserting this authority will not diminish anyone's freedom, although it is likely
to lead to reevaluation of whether a public building should reflect the ego of
one architect or more timeless qualities. The main reason the goal is important,
however, is, by restoring one of the essential pillars of civilized culture, to
help liberate the social awareness and pride so important to a rich life and a
healthy society. | |
