[This originally appeared in Full Context December 1995. The only change I've made was to remove two infelicitous words from the first sentence.]
Despite writing a novel about an architect and including architecture among the fine arts, Ayn Rand had little to say on the subject. This gap in Objectivist esthetics has surprisingly been left unfilled. The goal here is not to fill it, but instead to survey its size and scope so that others much better equipped for the task may do so.
The Fountainhead, Rand's first bestseller, uses an architects life to illustrate integrity and individualism. Though Rand does devote much space to describing the protagonist's, Howard Roark, buildings and the styles of others architects, there is a surprising vagueness in the story. Rand was no architect and the goal of the novel was not to serve as a text of architectural styles. Despite this, she refers readers of her nonfiction book, The Romantic Manifesto to read this novel for her ideas on architecture. (p50)
The novel itself does not describe any principles of architecture beyond platitudes. Her views are so abstract as to be applicable to any art form. Integrity, for instance, is a virtue not limited to architects. This is not to say the novel is a failure. Even so, for her to cite it as if it would provide such knowledge is puzzling. I leave it to others to solve this problem.
Architecture itself is a peculiar art for two reasons. The first is that it does serve a practical purpose. Buildings serve the function of a shelter from the elements, for privacy from prying eyes, etc. Painting and the other arts hardly have this kind of utilitarian purpose. This is not to say they can't serve one. Ancient Greek poetry is often used to teach scholars Ancient Greek. Dance is sometimes used as a form of exercise. Yet this is secondary in these arts. Architecture cannot escape its utility.
The second reason it is peculiar is its abstractness. It seems to have little or no representational content – at least in most styles. And when it does appear representational, often the representations are imposed. For example, the columns of the Parthenon can be seen as highly stylized trees. However, it is doubtful the original architects saw them that way. Instead, they appear as "highly stylized" supports. (I'm indebted to Chris Sciabarra's Ayn Rand: The Russian Radical for calling my attention to Andrei Biely's "The Forms of Art" for this point.) Yet, it is not a matter of whether the architects see them that way, since subconscious processes are involved in the creation and experience of art.
Some might beg to differ on this point. Music seems just as abstract. However, there is a representation content to music that is not imposed from the outside. This is that music relies on the fact that humans respond to certain tones in certain ways because of their use of sound as a form of communication. Thus, music can be taken to be using voice tones as its raw material. It then "selectively re-creates" them to give us concertos, symphonies, and so forth.
Could this be similar to architecture? Does architecture "selectively re-create" some other feature of the human environment? It would seem that this is the case. Architecture is very abstract, but it necessarily must abstract from the world of experience – the only world there is. Pyramids, whether Egyptian or Mayan, resemble mountains – in size and shape. Columns, though they serve as supports, look like tree trunks, which supports canopies. The similarities may appear to be made up, but to earlier ages they must have been striking.
What makes architecture so abstract is again two-fold: the utilitarian purpose and the "distance" between the imitation and the thing imitated. The utility of architecture sets specific constraints on design. Other arts too have constraints, but for other reasons. Sculptures usually don't have to hold up roofs. Paintings don't have to act as barriers to weather. Music doesn't ventilate the air, nor does poetry create spaces to live and work in. Architecture has to do these things, from the humblest shack to the tallest skyscraper.
The distance between the imitation and the thing imitated is even further in architecture than in music. How so? The mountains imitated by pyramids or the trees imitated by columns are now so far in the historical past as to be for all but forgotten. That is the distance which is being examined here. (Adam Smith comes up with a similar point in relation to what he calls the imitative arts – painting, sculpture, poetry, music and dance. Smith does not treat architecture at all. See "Of the Nature of That Imitation which takes place in what are called The Imitative Arts" in Essays on Philosophical Subjects.)
Taking this into account, now it is time to attempt a definition of architecture, a delimiting of the subject. Rand defines art as "the selective re-creation of reality according to an artist's metaphysical value-judgments." (The Romantic Manifesto, p19) She states "Architecture is in a class by itself, because it combines art with a utilitarian purpose and does not re-recreate reality, but creates a structure for man's habitation or use, expressing man's values." (p46) She goes on to write that "[a]rchitecture, qua art, is close to sculpture: its field is three-dimensional, i.e., sight and touch, but transposed to a grand spatial scale." (p46)
This is confusing because Rand is contradicting her own definition. Either architecture is not an art, since it is not "a selective re-creation of reality," or her definition of architecture or of art in general is flawed. (Louis Torres and Michelle Kamhi recommend changing Rand's definition to "a selective re-creation of reality according to an artist's fundamental values." However, their change doesn't affect the issue here, since they have not touched the "selective re-creation" portion of it. See their "Ayn Rand's Philosophy of Art: A Critical Introduction" Aristos 5(2-5).)
From the above, it has been shown that architecture does selectively "re-create" reality. This being so, is any part of Rand's definition of architecture salvageable? A good definition would admit that architecture "is in a class by itself, because it combines art with a utilitarian purpose" and that it also re-creates reality. As written above, the "specific constraints on design" set by the use sets the bounds within which architecture must operate. The ""distance" between the imitation and the thing imitated" explains why Rand mistakenly believed architecture to be non-imitative.
Some might object, believing that the re-creation in architecture of reality is more akin to decoration. In a sense much of architecture is decorative, yet the pleasures of it are often experienced not as mere sensual ones, but as intellectual ones. A paisley shirt surely can evoke some feelings, but a gothic style church reflects a view of the universe that no shirt I've seen can come close to. From this, it seems obvious that architecture has a power that goes beyond decoration. This is, of course, due to the fact that architecture contains many elements of imitation. (This is not to denigrate decoration. Perhaps, decoration should also be explored further. However, I believe the degree of difference here is tantamount to a difference in kind.)
It is hoped that the above shows how Objectivism should approach architecture. This is only the beginning. The next step is to further catalog the forms of architecture, identify its history and schools, and apply the knowledge gained to further the art and our appreciation of it.