Getting Your Face in Order

The principle of ‘order’ in architecture originates with Classical Greek architecture. While these styles varied over periods and regions, they all exhibit a principle that as a structure rises, different sections serving different functions, each receives individual and distinct stylistic definition.

Understanding whether the base, column or capital identifies as Doric, Ionic or Corinthian remains significant to the fields of history and archeology. Incorporating that history and philosophy in design is a choice today’s architects should revisit.

The idea of vertical order in architecture continued to develop over time until its peak in the late 19th Century. Beaux-arts buildings like this one in New York followed a collegially accepted set of standards for column, field and window treatments at every level of the façade.

Further developments during the Twentieth Century challenged Beaux-Arts sensibilities, ascribing to new philosophies and responding to advances in technology and society. A brief return to the Greek Revivalist recipe book took place during the PostModern movement in the 1980s, which many architects would like to forget. (I hope to touch on some of these developments in future blogs).

My contemplation of Order today was inspired by this nondescript building that I passed. Originally a two-story structure, the property was developed in recent years, adding six new stories. Overall it appears the architect did a fine job. Attention is given to separating the old from the new; to refurbishing the old; and fitting smoothly into the surrounding context.

Still, I can’t help from asking, “Did all the additional stories have to be exact replicas of each other?” To what extent are we architects the victims of the copy/paste function in our drafting programs? To what degree do city regulatory practices scare us away from unique window treatments or embellishments? Does the need to maximize square footage prevent us from exploring three-dimensional facades with various sections either jutting out or receding into the shadows? And what aspect of the architecture business economy forces us to keep things simple, save time, and limit the number of designers who touch a plan, contributing varying ideas and values?

I have spent hours sketching buildings in New York and Rome and elsewhere in Europe. I am clearly attracted to facades that tell a story as they move from base to center-mass to cross-beam to capital to pinnacle. Have I taken the time in the buildings I’ve worked on to tell a story? I’d like to think I have. In future blogs, I plan to look at some individual elements from around downtown Jerusalem, my home base, in an effort to read their stories.