Honesty by Michael S. Ellars Copyright March 25, 1997 All Rights Reserved Architecture is the least temporal aspect of any culture. Literature, paintings, and customs change - and often disappear - over the course of a single generation, but buildings last for hundreds of years. It is not surprising, therefore, that architecture should be viewed as a vehicle of cultural expression. Two of history's greatest authors, Leon Battista Alberti and Victor Hugo, realized this intimate relationship and used the medium of the written word to champion the cause of an earlier architectural style as the appropriate model for their own era. Each author, however, expresses his proposal with a unique attitude. The differences in expression are the product of the different cultures and personal backgrounds of each man, but both defend their choice based on the honesty of design. Leon Battista Alberti chose the Classical architecture of ancient Rome and Greece at the model for ideal architecture. This was based partly on his formal education and great love for mathematics, and partly on his immersion in the architectural policies of the papacy. Alberti was a "precocious" child and was schooled in the best educational institution. By the age of seventeen he was studying in Bologna in his first step towards a high clerical career. It was as a student that Alberti developed his love for mathematics. (Rykwert 1988, xi) In 1428, the Alberti ban in Florence was lifted. This allowed Battista Alberti to visit his ancestral home for the first time. Furthermore, it also exposed him to the great Florentine paintings, sculptures, and architecture. Over the next four years, Alberti traveled throughout Europe as a part of a cardinal's entourage, adding new building materials and techniques to his ever-increasing architectural vocabulary. (Rykwert 1988, xii-xiii) For nearly two decades, Alberti worked as a papal employee on a variety of important architectural projects, including a survey of the monuments of Rome, precautionary work on Old St. Peter's, and the rebuilding of the bridge of Hadrian (Rykwert 1988, xi ii, xvii). In 1450, Alberti submitted architectural treatise, De re aedificatoria, to Pope Nichols. This summation of almost forty years of educational and professional architectural experience probably secured Alberti's position as the prime architectural consultant to the Pope (Rykwert 1988, xvii). Alberti died in 1472. Fourteen years later saw the first printing of De re aedificatoria, but it had already been accepted by Alberti's contemporaries as "a model of learned Latin writing" as well as a handbook for the future of architectural design and construction (Rykwert 1988, xviii). Alberti bases the concept of De re aedificatoria on the "Ten Books of Architecture" written by the great Roman architect Vitruvius. But unlike Vitruvius, who focuses on the achievements of the past, Alberti chooses to focus on what could be achieved in the future. Alberti simply is not so concerned with what had been accomplished as he is with what should be accomplished. This is not to say, however, that Alberti wishes to turn his back on the past. Indeed, he encourages architects to study Classical designs for inspiration - but not to blindly copy them: "...there is no reason why we should follow their design in our work, as though legally obliged; but rather, inspired by their example, we should strive to produce our own inventions, to rival, or, if possible, to surpass the glory of theirs" (Alberti 1988, 24). Alberti wants architects to synthesize ancient architecture and refine its best elements into a new, better architecture. In addition to the synthesis of the past, Alberti also advocates an ordered, rational approach to architectural design. This is a manifestation of his great love of mathematics and the inherent geometric honesty of the ancient structures. It is also a cultural confession of the departure from the fluid, chaotic forms of Gothic architecture and the return during the Renaissance to the geometric designs of the Ancients in the quest for something new. Alberti's work came at a critical point in architectural history: his theories as well as his designs set standards for future generations of architects. His own Sant' Andrea (Mantua, begun 1470), for example, is a paragon of his advocacy for strongly ordered geometry: the facade is broken down into smaller areas based on a geometric formula, the proportion of spaces follows the recommendations in De re aedificatoria, the floor plan is based on geometry which is complex (but not complicated), and so f orth. At the same time, it takes a traditional "temple" format - the Romanesque basilica - and creates something new and improved by converting the side aisles to closed chapels alternating with spaces open to the barrel-vaulted coffered ceiling. Sant' Andrea also combines traditional forms such as the Triumphal Arch in a dynamic new way which, despite its revolutionary appearance, maintains the honesty and efficiency of the basilica on which it is based. Alberti presented his arguments for a new architectural style in the studied, erudite manner which was expected of a learned man of the late fifteenth century. Victor Hugo's presentation of architectural ideals, however, is as different from Alberti's a s the culture in which it was presented. Hugo was born in 1802 and therefore was part of the "enfants du siecle," or "children of the century," who came of age just as Napoleon (the idol of the French Revolution) died in exile. The royal Bourbon family , which had been exiled by Napoleon but now regained control of France, was a tremendous "letdown," even to their supporters. The citizens of France sought a continuation of the excited hope of the previous thirty years - and turned to the fantasy worlds of literature to find it. (Maurois 1965, 501) Following in the footsteps of the great historical writer Sir Walter Scott, Victor Hugo signed a contract in 1828 to write a historical novel of his own, entitled Notre-Dame de Paris. A variety of circumstances - including a new play, an epic poem, exte nsive months of historical research, and the Revolution of 1830 - led to the delay of the manuscript for over two years. Yet finally, in early 1831, Hugo delivered Notre-Dame de Paris (later renamed The Hunchback of Notre-Dame when translated to English) . It was an instant success and sold out all 2750 copies in the original printing run. (Maurois 1965, 506-8) Rather than the scholarly, "textbook-style" presentation employed by Alberti, and which probably would have been disdained by the intelligentsia of nineteenth century France, Hugo used an elaborate, allegorical, pseudo-satirical format to put forth his v iews on architecture and society. To the casual reader, The Hunchback of Notre-Dame may appear as nothing more than the moving tale of a deformed man, a gypsy girl, a corrupted priest, and the Gothic cathedral which ties them all together. As a formal s atire, this interpretation of the novel is quite sound. And yet, at the same time there is a deeper level of dialog between Hugo and the reader. Were it not for the discussion on architecture in Book III (pp 106-38), The Hunchback of Notre-Dame would be a flawless satire; however, the intense analysis and description of the architecture of Gothic Paris reveals Hugo's social message. Hugo advocates a return to the Gothic architecture of the middle ages and the chaotic honesty. His description of 1482 Paris extols the older Gothic features and damn the newer Renaissance buildings: "Not content with erecting, it [the Renaissance] tho ught proper to pull down... So the Gothic Paris was complete but for a moment. Scarcely was the tower of Saint-Jacques-de-la-Boucherie completed before the demolition of the old Louvre was begun" (Hugo 1965, 133). Hugo also laments over the "deformity" of his contemporary Paris which is merely "a collection of parts from several different ages, and the finest of all have disappeared" (Hugo 1965, 134). Hugo's black mood towards the "newer" architecture was influenced by the black mood of intellectual France during the nineteenth century combined with dark events in his personal life. "If one adds to the somber situation in the author's private life [h is best friend was seducing his wife], the suffering of his country, the uprisings, the pillaging, the loss of the archiepiscopal library ... one can understand why he wrote such a black novel" (Maurois 1965, 510). The message Hugo sends is clearly stated many times: don't judge a book by its cover. As Paris (and human society in general) drifted further and further away from the structural beauty of the Gothic era and moved closer to designs copying the Ancient Greeks and Romans, Hugo realized, it also became more and more engrossed with superficial beauty over beauty of design. In The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, Hugo creates an extended metaphor of Quasimodo as the human embodiment of Gothic architecture and Esme ralda as popular opinion to convey this point. Esmeralda refuses to see past the hideous appearance of Quasimodo to the beautiful person inside, and instead focuses all of her love and attention on the futile courting of Phoebus who, despite being outwar dly beautiful, is an ugly coward inside (Hugo 1965, 374). Seeing Esmeralda's blindness toward the terrifying reality, Quasimodo is led to his own cathartic realization of the truth of humanity: "Damnation! So that's how a man should be! He need only b e handsome on the outside!" (Hugo 1965, 370). Hugo views the "modern" architecture around him as being of little use beyond decoration: "The Palace of the Legion of Honor is ... a very distinguished piece of pastry. The dome of the Halle-au-Ble is an English jockey-cap on a magnificent scale. The towers of Saint-Sulpice are two great clarinets..." (Hugo 1965, 135). In fact, one of the greatest French architectural monuments - Soufflot's Sainte-Genevieve, also known as the Pantheon - is described by Hugo as "the finest Savoy cake that was ever ma de of stone" (1965, 135). That Hugo should single out Soufflot's single achievement is something of great import, as is the fact that the French culture almost immediately adopted the Neo-Classical design as its architectural icon; it reveals even more t he contempt Hugo has for the chronic superficiality of the people around him. "Not," as Hugo earnestly reports, "that we do not pay [the Pantheon] all proper admiration" (1965, 135), just that people should admire it for what it is - or more correctly, f or what Hugo believes it to be: an architectural and cultural fraud. Hugo wants cultural honesty. Just as people in the nineteenth century were busy masking their real motives, so too were architects masking their buildings' true natures behind the fallacy of form over function. And it was Sainte-Genevieve which "repres ented a watershed in the history of French Neoclassicism" and justified the new "preoccupation with form rather than structure" (Trachtenberg and Hyman 1986, 409). Hugo is sick of the false pretense that everything, from architecture to people, is expect ed to display. He encourages society to return to the honesty of Gothic architecture because people who build honestly must be, by definition of architecture as an expression if its culture, honest people. Honesty can come in many forms. Both Hugo and Alberti believed in a kind of cultural honesty through the medium of architecture: a desire to study the past to learn for the future, in response to an architectural stagnation. In De re aedificatoria, Al berti believes that architectural honesty lies not in the blind copying of the past, but the improvement there upon. In The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, Hugo argues for the architectural honesty of the Gothic era in hopes of restoring cultural honesty to nin eteenth century France. Their presentations may differ - Alberti follows erudite rhetoric, whereas Hugo wanders through a pseudo-satirical, allegorical tale of fiction - but the message is the same: the secrets of the future lie in the honesty of the pa st. REFERENCE LIST Alberti, Leon Battista. 1988. On the Art of Building in Ten Books. Translated by Joseph Rykwert, Neil Leach, and Robert Tavernor. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press. Hugo, Victor. 1965. The Hunchback of Notre-Dame. Translated by Walter J. Cobb. New York: Penguin Books USA Inc. Original edition , Paris: Gosselin, 1831. Maurois, Andre. 1965. Afterword to The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, by Victor Hugo. Translated by Phyllis La Farge. New York: Penguin Books USA Inc. Rykwert, Joseph. 1988. Foreword to On the Art of Building in Ten Books, by Leon Battista Alberti. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press. Trachtenberg, Marvin, and Isabelle Hyman. 1986. Architecture: From Prehistory to Post-Modernism. The Netherlands: Harry N. Adams, B.V.