Lecture 6

The Evolution of Design

Reading:

Nature and the Idea of a Man-made World, p. 123 - 152.

One thing hastens into being, another hastens out of it.  Even while a thing is in the act of coming into existence, some part of it has already ceased to be.  Flux and change are for ever renewing the fabric of the universe, just as the ceaseless sweep of time is for ever renewing the face of eternity.  In such a running river, where there is no firm foothold, what is there for a man to value among all the many things that are racing past him?
     ---Marcus Arelius

Above, left: The wondrous workings of the universe:  A mechanical astronomical clock from 1390 in the transept of Wells Cathedral.  The sun and a star revolve around the twenty-four-hour dial.  Right: A simpler timepiece in the form of a sundial / solar calendar over the entrance to a country church in Cornwall. Photos courtesy of Norman Crowe.

Hunter-gather societies probably sought ways to know about the passing of time in order to know when to move on to meet migrating herds of animals they depended on for food, or to follow after the seasonal ripening of certain edible plants. Then, with the advent of agriculture, it would have to do with knowing when it is best to plant, or move their herds to winter pastures and so on.

• To fix these observations in mind and to assert their importance, the solstices and equinoxes became sacred, their moments celebrated in ritual.
• Could this be the key to the cosmos? In an earth-centered universe, that is a likely conclusion.

Stonehenge.  The greatest of many stone circles in Britain that were determined by celestial events.
Photo courtesy of Norman Crowe.

• Once knowledge of positions of the sun and stars in relation to one another could be recorded, and this now related to fixed places on earth, then navigation at sea became possible. That in turn reinforces the notion that knowledge about the earth, sun, moon, and stars is building toward an understanding of the cosmos.

• Note how this is a far cry from string theory, the big bang, and the long anticipated advent of “a theory of everything” among today’s physicists. A tangible world view versus an abstract one.

The Evolution of Things

Observations of the evolution of artifacts provides emphatic evidence of changes in the human condition.

• “Everything made now is either a replica or a variant of something made a little time ago and so on without break to the first morning of human time.” — George Kubler
• Recognition of the evolution of artifacts long preceded knowledge of evolution in biology.  Could it have been a subconscious model?
• The evolution of artifacts and a parallel evolution of artifacts and a parallel evolution of societies becomes obviously connected phenomena. Especially today, with our complex technologies, chains of connected events (and discoveries and inventions) are considered key to subsequent discoveries and inventions.  (We fight getting stuck in an inflexible paradigm, while at the same time acknowledging a debt to the steps that led up to that paradigm in the first place.)

Understanding evolution of architecture and settlements is foremost because it concerns the habitat of man, and that in turn, is analogous to nature: the habitat of all creatures.

• Post hunter-gather societies live in the buildings and settlements (hamlets, villages, towns, and cities) while their ancestors, who comprised hunter-gather societies, lived in “raw” nature.
• Vitruvius (1st cent. BC) wrote of the evolution of Roman architecture (likely a commonly held myth of the time) that progressed from a primitive hut born of conscious experiments by “ancients” in parallel with their social/cultural developments.

Evolution of the Hut

Evolution of the hut, after William Chambers.  Images  by Norman Crowe in Nature and the Idea of a Man-Made World, courtesy of MIT Press.
Used with permission. All rights reserved.

Versions of "the first hut"

Versions of "the first hut" by a variety of Renaissance architects. Images by Norman Crowe in Nature and the Idea of a Man-Made World, courtesy of MIT Press.
Used with permission. All rights reserved.

• Vitruvius' intention in recounting the logical development of architecture was to ensure that “. . . what could not happen in the original would have no valid reason in the copy [i.e., the evolved form in the present].  For in all their works they [the ‘ancients’] proceeded on definite principles of fitness and in ways derived from the truth of Nature”   Vitruvius, 2.1.4-5.  (Morgan translation)
• Why would it have been important to keep to a precedent?  (see “Vitruvius and the Liberal Art of Architecture,” Bucknell Review 11, no. 4, 1963, p. 99-107).
• What is meant here by “the truth of Nature”?

Timelessness

Is this the obverse of change?

• The idea of rules of classical architecture was to ensure that change in architecture take place without loosing the essence of inherited (developed by trial and error over a long stretch of history)  structure, form, and order.
• This is not what most people today think the rules of classicism are about. Most regard the rules (the orders, etc.) as means to freeze architecture into fixed formal arrangements.
• Note that once the evolution of artifacts is recognized, as did Vitruvius for instance, one is compelled to seek “constants” in the ever-changing sequence.  Why is this important?
• Note that “classical architecture” is not an exclusively Western phenomenon.  (Persian and later Arabic Islamic geometries; Chinese “Building Standards” recorded in the Sung Dynasty; formalized (even ritualized) Japanese procedures for building in the sukiya style; etc.)

 
Proportional Relationships from different "canons"

Customary sets of related proportions in architecture from  Canada, Greece and Japan:

Canada
Greece
Japan	Photos courtesy of Norman Crowe

Discussion Session:

1. These are “traditional settlements” — in their pattern, form, and structure.  What characteristics do they have in common?

   

   Plan drawings (figure/ground) of traditional Cities. Drawings courtesy of Roger Sherwood. Used with permission. Al rights reserved.

    

2. How do these scenes differ from what we regard as “modern” urbanism today — say, typical suburban communities served by freeways along with regional shopping centers, industrial “parks” or “campuses”, and the distribution of kinds of housing in discrete groups

   Public Streets, traditional Cities: Takayama, Japan (above); Lisbon, Portugal (right) Photos by Norman Crowe in Nature and the Idea of a Man-Made World, courtesy of MIT Press. Used with permission. All rights reserved.

    

3. How might it be possible to apply the practice of selecting out what are essential qualities of traditional urbanism from the past to be “preserved.”?  Based on what sort of criteria would such a selection be made?