THE ARCHITECTURAL IMAGE

In the seven years that I have been working on Transparent Drawing, I have done everything in my power to include other transparent thinkers.  The third chapter of my book does just that.  

As I continue my research, I find new pathways to pursue.  And one like minded effort is the book titled Principals of Architectural History by Paul Frankl.  Written in 1914, this book makes an incredibly heroic effort to codify the elemental principals of architecture.  Frankl’s system employs terms like Spatial Addition, Spatial Division, Indeterminate Space, Center of Force, Channel of Force, etc.  He applies these categories as he traces the essence of Western architecture from the 14th C into the 19th C.  What I find heartening is that there was this heroic attempt to cut thru all of the cultural dross and really try to get at the structural basics of architecture. 

Of primary interest is Frankl’s concept of what he calls The Architectural Image.  Starting on page 142, we find terms such as:

-coordinated viewpoints

-unity of image

-indestructible, fixed unity

-one single constant image

-all viewpoints are complete

“To see architecture means to draw together into a single mental image the series of three-dimensionally interpreted images that are presented to us as we walk thru interior spaces and round their exterior shell.  When I speak of the architectural images, I mean this one mental image.”  p 142.

And he uses the word transparent on a few occasions.  In my research so far, the only other author who so directly made an assault on transparency was Hildebrand, who was writing in 1907.  Previous comments on Hildebrand’s book can be found here.  

Whenever I find examples of transparent thinking, I am at once both amazed and heartened.  Amazed that, for example, Frankl did not evolve his concept of the Architectural Image: in the book it is almost included as a tangential thought.  And heartened as the work herein, as I have made absolutely plain, is tied directly into our philosophical history.

1.  Frankl, Paul.  Principals of Architectural History. Trans. James F O’Gorman.  The MIT Press.  1968.