Edith, My Dear. David Wild. (Courtesy of the artist.)

Journal of Architectural Education,

pp. 2021 2009 ACSAThe Craft of Criticism 20

DAVID LEATHERBARROW

University of Pennsylvania

The Craft of Criticism

In the preface to an anthology of Russian

literature, Vladimir Nabokov stated that he had

not found a single page of Dostoevsky worthy

of inclusion. This ought to mean that

Dostoevsky should not be judged by each page

but rather by the total of all the pages that

comprise the book.

Jorge Luis Borges1

crisis, critic, critical, criticism, criticize, critique:

1. crisis is the L. trans. of Gr. Krisis, a sifting,

from krinein, to sift . . .

2. Gr. Krisis has adj. kritikos, able to

discernjudgediscuss, whence a critic . . .

E. Partridge2

Of the many approaches to the problem of con-

temporary architectural criticism one could take in

a study as short as thisstating its purpose, dis-

tinguishing it from other forms of writing or

speaking, or describing its history, current state,

and prospectthe line I will follow is practical. I see

criticism as a craft, practiced with its own instru-

ments and operations. Written criticism will be my

principle focus, but I also have in mind what

a teacher or designer says when faced with a project

that needs a sifting of good and bad decisions

and alternatives. I believe professionals and pro-

fessors, no less than writers, practice this craft and

must. Without it, projects do not progress, students

fail to learn, and scholarship loses its bite. I am

hardly original in arguing for its necessity nor the

first to aver its advantage in professional practice.

The English poet Alexander Pope described criti-

cism as the handmaid of the muse.

Despite this precedent, my coupling of criti-

cism and creativity is likely to be rejected in some

quarters, particularly among those who claim or

advertise originality. According to a conception of

artistic work that emerged in the romantic period

but is still promoted today, inventive works result

from experimental or exploratory exercises not in

the scientific but the open-ended sense of the

word. Unlike controlled experiments, creative

explorations are uncertain of both their direction

and outcome because they are essentially spon-

taneous or said to be. Exercises that are unplanned

and unforced are also unaided by reflective

judgmentespecially judgments offered by

someone other than the designer. Rulings of all

sorts are not thereby excluded; since the Man-

nerist period, creative artists have been allowed

judgments of the eye. Intuition may well be the

base line of artistic criticism, if, indeed, it warrants

that name.The argument in favor of untaught and

unreflective invention parallels the idea that indi-

viduals trained in design go into teaching (into the

studio to give crits) because they lack the talent

for creative practice. Accordingly, criticism is a

symptom, if not a cause, of creative impotence.3

I hope to show this premise is false, and that there

is an imaginative, productive, or creative core to

criticism, that it, too, is a way of making, even

of world making. I also maintain that architecture

is enriched by the critics craftwhich means,

incidentally, the field is impoverished by its

absence.

Special pleading might seem to be required

for architectural criticism for still another reason:

the nature of the architectural work itself, the

buildings relative permanence, easy accessibility,

and plain visibility. Consider the topic compara-

tively. Scheduled forms of artI mean perform-

ances that begin and end (music and dance)

together with those that function largely aes-

thetically (poetry and painting)seem to invite

and benefit from criticism more than architecture.

Criticism rewinds the clock of the first pair, as the

buildings stones simply stay put, and assessment

and interpretation familiarize the second two, with

the buildings easy accessibility as their model. But

temporal and aesthetic are only two of the kinds of

distance that criticism in the other arts overcomes.

Paul Celan, the great twentieth-century German

poet, once described his verse as a message in

a bottle. Hans-Georg Gadamer, explaining how

such a communication must be read in order to be

understood, conceded that the reader (who wants

to learn, not merely confirm) must ponder, guess,

and restore the poem, until finally one has

deciphered it and can properly read and hear it,

perhaps even correctly.4 Gadamer did not

exactly say, but time with Celan suggests that

poetic messages are always incomplete and that

finding the bottle and pulling the cork are part of

the interpretation. Knowledge of German lan-

guage is necessary for reading Celan, likewise

French for Rene Char, and English for Seamus

Heaney, just as it is for reading newspapers, but

understanding their poetry requires slightly more

penetration. Patience allows a fuller grasp, and

slow reading helps. Imagination is even more

important. By imagination, I mean the manner of

wondering that repeatedly departs from and then

returns to the text in order to discover the wide

spectrum or full amplitude of its implications.

Patient imagination cannot be avoided because

the sense of a poem is rarely grasped all at once;

its meanings emerge successively and accrue only

after a number of hearings or readings. For Hea-

ney, particular poems are preoccupations.5 His

term suggests long-standing, nearly unending

interest; maybe also the need for deciphering, as

Gadamer proposed, deciphering that criticism can

surely assist. The same could be said for paintings,

for they, too, appear before us as messages in

a bottle (found in a museum and opened with

fascination), that encourage repeated interpreta-

tive viewings. The best ones supply new meanings

continually. Greatness in paintings and poems is

measured by their unlimited generosity and their

unstinting donation of sense. All they require is

that one keep looking or listeningcritically.

Other kinds of artistic work also seem more

dependent on criticism than architecture. By com-

parison with the relative permanence of buildings,

plays, dances, and concerts begin, develop, and

come to an end according to a timetable that is

more or less well known in advance.The end of bad

Continued on page 96

21 LEATHERBARROW

The Craft of Criticism

DAVID LEATHERBARROW

Continued from page 21

ones, for example, cannot come soon enough. But

good or bad, the ends of so-called temporal works

are generally followed by retellings, assessments,

comparisons, and interpretations, in other words

criticism, which intends praise or its opposite, also

appropriation, and better understanding. Inhabita-

tion, the basic modality of architectural sense, is, by

contrast, unscheduled. Admittedly, programs (which

unfold in time) are furnished and accommodated by

built works, but their unfolding intends repetition

without end. What is more, prolonged experience

induces familiarity, which in turn seems to obviate

assessment or render it gratuitous. At least, that is what

a preliminary reflection on criticism in architecture, as

opposed to the other arts, would seem to suggest.

Yet, despite the different ways the various arts

present themselves to experience, buildings share

with poems, paintings, and performances the fact

that the good ones are always more interesting than

they first seemed, as if the offerings that initially

seemed so obvious secretly sheltered others that

were not. This is partly a function of size. All the

settings contained within a building cannot be

apparent in an instant. The same is true of the

buildings more localized qualities. My first point is

that the buildings very spatiality, its spread, or

combination of settings naturally gives rise to criti-

cism. Prosaic inhabitation neglects conditions

beyond its immediate frame of reference. While pre-

occupied with the menu before the meal, I have little

interest in the kitchen, still less in the storage room,

and none at all in the yard behind. The use of one

room, not the others nearby, assumes a hierarchy of

interests, whereby the first matters a great deal and

others hardly at all. Criticism overcomes this neglect

by constructing a more compete image. Construction

or compensation such as this can be called the

recording function of criticism, by means of which an

intelligible wholeness is set out, and the full range of

the ensembles significant aspects are registered for

study and understanding. Recording gives the work

a different kind of durability than its materials allow.

Although stone and steel are hardly ephemeral, crit-

icism, particularly written criticism, endows the work

with an even greater permanence. Such was Victor

Hugos famous observation on architecture after

Gutenberg: the book of stone, so solid and so

op arch continued 96

enduring, was to give way to the book of paper, more

solid and enduring still . . . who does not admit that in

this form thought is infinitely more indelible.?6

Recording also involves a process of conversion

through which the works spatial and material qual-

ities are translated into another medium: written or

spoken language.

But the execution of this first task leads to

a second. Recording merely prepares the site for

creating a critical account. A reconstruction must

follow the initial report. During this step, the labor of

noting a projects particular aspects gives way to

imagining their coherenceand not only their

physical coherence. Critical reconstruction results in

a new view of the project, one that is more complete

than the grasp that inhabitation provides but not one

that is as excessive as the results of thorough

recording. In point of fact, some anticipation of

a possible reconstruction is required for the selection

of conditions that should be recorded. More impor-

tantly, this second step is productive, for it results in

an image that cannot be directly observed in the

work itself, even though its adequacy is always

measured against the work.

The third operation that is essential to criticism

is one that I will call repositioning. Obviously, every

built work has its own location in the town or land-

scape once it is built. Most projects are designed for

single sites too. The positioning accomplished by

criticism is less territorial than cultural; its function is

to locate the work among others of its kind, those

that are similarly great or poor. The chief difficulty of

this step is that there is no absolute standard or

canon against which determinations of standing or

rank can be made. Criticism, as far as I understand it,

is a way of developing or discovering the very con-

ditions on which its own assessments are made. I

realize this is paradoxicalfounding a judgment on

premises that are being discoveredmaybe even

illogical. Nevertheless, it is by means of the work

itself (not some theory of it) that the critic under-

stands a little more clearly some basic questions

about architecture and its place in the world.

Having briefly introduced these three operations

recording, reconstruction, and repositioninglet me

now explain them more fully.

To be helpful and persuasive, criticism in archi-

tecture must be adequate to the projects unique

aspects. Criticism does not offer general theories,

impressions, or common opinion, or not these alone,

if they have a place at all.The adequacy of an account

is measured by its accuracy with respect to the par-

ticular work being reviewed and the sufficiency of the

information that account records. For example, we

expect criticism to provide us with correct and rea-

sonably complete information about the several

agents responsible for the design and construction of

an interior, a facxade, or a courtyard. Information ofthis kind is explanatory and should possess a high

degree of transparency. Similarly, we expect criticism

to provide us with a clear record of the spaces,

materials, and uses that are particular to the project.

Received wisdom is inadequate because it is often

deficient of detail and oversupplied with assumption

and inference. The task the critic takes up is to set

the record straight and present as complete a pic-

ture as possible.This takes work.Visits must be made,

interviews conducted, and documents reviewed so

that the story one provides is reliable. Close obser-

vation is also required; likewise, openness to

unforeseen evidence. But given the potential abun-

dance of information, discernment is necessary too.

The critic must determine which facts are significant,

which is to say, which are necessary for the con-

struction of an intelligible picture. Under my next

heading, reconstruction, I will explain how decisions

about relevance set limits on the objectivity of critical

writing. But before that, the matter of conversion

requires elaboration.

Critics verbalize architecture. This process may

be seen as analogous to other types of recording,

a photographic or audio transcription, for example,

by means of which a composition of sights or sounds

is converted into a form that is more permanent and

widely accessible. An obvious case is the recording of

a concert performance. Such a recording changes

something enjoyed (or suffered) by a few for a while

into something widely accessible and permanent.The

conversion that occurs in architectural criticism is

from visual to verbal kinds of sense: the street that

surrounds us is transcribed onto the page, and the

facxade before us is reformatted for discussion.Obviously, an abbreviation of qualities is required for

a translation of this kind, even some violence to the

original, but compensating for whatever is lost is

a gain in accessibility, for a verbal record can be

shared more widely than the street or facxade itself.Here, the word original must be put in quotation

marks because few designs, if any, are developed in

the absence of criticism, which means there is no pre-

or nonverbal project, untainted by reflection, despite

claims for creativity free from reflective judgment. As

a form of recording, criticism is the discursive path by

which particular projects enter into a community of

discourse, one that is much wider and more inclusive

than the circle of individuals who have visited

a building. Writing for others, the critic acknowledges

and extends architectures public dimension, a dimen-

sion I think essential. That transcription involves

abbreviation cannot be denied. Nor can the risk of

partiality be avoided, for verbalization depends

entirely on a reduction of the incidents and aspects

encountered in prosaic experience. Adequate

recordings are those that reduce the likelihood of

misunderstandings that result from the selection of

details and their re-presentation together.

Even though careful recording is necessary for

the development of criticism, it is insufficient. Nor is

the most intelligible text the one that supplies the

greatest amount of information about a building.

Perhaps it will be a little confusing to describe the

process by which a useful account is formed as

reconstruction because the work that serves as the

target of criticism has been constructed already, at

least designed to some level, otherwise there would be

nothing to criticize. But insofar as some and not all the

aspects of a work are selected for consideration, one

can say that criticism remakes the project, offering

debate and interpretation a new form. I had this step

97 op arch continued

in mind when I stated that imagination is required in

criticism. It also reaffirms the works presence in the

public domain. The skills that accomplish reconstruc-

tion are different from those of recording. Observation

is not chiefly important; instead, selection. Next,

connections must be formed or continuity must be

established between selected elements or aspects,

creating a configuration.The critics objectivity reaches

its limit at precisely this point, but it is a limit that is

internal to the process, for selection was already

involved in the decisions about which facts should be

recorded and whether or not the project itself even

merits criticism; after all, not all projects are equally

interesting, let alone significant.

If not all of the facts that can be observed are

equally important in the development of a critical

account, which details, views, situations, and events

in the built work should be raised to the level of

significance? There is no simple answer to this

question nor one that can be generalized for a wide

range of projects. A double contingency governs

decisions about suitability: the particularity of the

work and story it tells (as recounted by the critic).

Certain aspects are retained in the record because

they are the ones that belong together in the makeup

of a readable picture. An important aspect of read-

ability is continuity among the parts of the project

that have been highlighted (even if the basic premise

of the project is spatial discontinuity or fragmenta-

tion). Commenting on the facxade of the AmericanFolk Art Museum in New York, Billie Tsien said she

wanted the buildings front to say: Look at me, Im

not what you think I am. What can criticism offer in

response to this hint about the designers intention?

For something intelligible to be proposed, the right

documents must be assembled and interpreted: the

buildings longitudinal section needs to be studied,

also some of its construction details, likewise the

schedule of finishes for its materials, and a plan of

the buildings several entrances, together with views

through them, a map and views of the street and

plaza at the front, and so on . . . all the documents

that hang together in an intelligible account of the

facade. Other details, photos, or drawings, despite

their factuality, may well be distracting; not wrong,

just unhelpful. The architect herself would have

selected a set of documents that supported her

reading, and in so doing would have been authoring

criticism, thus remaking the building as an image to

be discussed in what I called the community of dis-

course. The subjectivity of such a selection and

reconstruction cannot be denied, but it is one that is

constrained by the evidence on record. Alsoand

importantlythe stories criticism presents are for

others to hear and read, others who may or may not

know the building being described, but do know

something about architecture and the world in which it

is built. Reconstruction is thus also relocation, whereby

the single work is repositioned among others of its

kind; not just those that are similarly good or bad, but

more largely those one can call other works of archi-

tecture. At this point, criticism invokes basic premises,

which are fundamentally philosophical.

If conventional norms of a buildings durability,

use, and appearance are thought to form the horizon

of assessment, no special training or faculty of

apprehension is required for architectural criticism.

We all do it when faced with the buildings we live in,

visit, or simply observe. There is no problem here.

Widely shared knowledge of typical situations allows

each of us to say the materials of this building are

flimsy, the rooms of that one awkwardly arranged,

and the imagery of a third out of place. Yet, criticism

that deserves the namebecause it enriches the

disciplineis something different. Everyday or pre-

professional judgments are not wrong, just lacking in

penetration, for the norms they presuppose are

themselves subject to criticism. Certainly, conven-

tional norms are subject to change. As long ago as

the eighteenth century, David Hume argued in his

short treatise on taste that standards vary over time,

even though they appear to be both obvious and

natural at their historical moment. The paradox of

criticism is this: the grounds for assessing single

works are both assumed and redefined in the process

of developing criticism.

Although singular, every work under critical

review is repositioned among others; not only those

that are nearby physically but works of its kind. What

Aldo Rossi said of typological comparisonit takes

for granted its own principles of associationcan

also be said of criticism: comparison presupposes an

insight into likeness. The significant difference

between the professional and the nonprofessional

critic is that the former operates within a wide

horizon when judging the qualities of the particular

project while the latter, by contrast, makes assess-

ments within a more local framework. Wider scope is

natural to the critic because both the craft and the

vocation arise out of a deep interest in the field as

such, which is to say, architecture itself. The critics

concern is with the work as a work, how it contributes

to the discipline as a whole, and how our under-

standing of architecture is enriched or deepened by

the project under consideration. Moreover, the crit-

ics interest in the field extends a more basic interest

in the world to which the work contributes, the world

or culture we have inherited and would like to improve.

When it is done well, criticisms readership is not lim-

ited to professors and professionals. What is more,

when they read it, architects themselves are led to

consider the building in its wider context, to consider it

historically, environmentally, and politically. That task

gives criticism its world-building function.

Although criticism is neither philosophy nor

theory, it implies both. If less profound than those

two, its interpretations have more immediacy and

effect, for conclusions made about specific projects

not only allow designers to redefine the premises on

which they work but also indicate the bearing those

projects have on the world in which the project has

been realized. When critics compare single buildings

to others, the nature of an architectural work is seen

anew. Conventional knowledge is not annulled but

altered, for new possibilities come into view, and old

assumptions (old premises, norms, standards) are

discovered to have limits. Again, repositioning of this

kind is not theoretical; nor, must it be said, is it

empirical or objective. Although the craft of criticism

op arch continued 98

at its highest level reaches the frontiers of both sci-

ence and philosophy, it takes its bearings from points

of reference that have been established in the actu-

ality of the project, at the pace and in the prose of

everyday life.

Notes

1. Jorge Luis Borges, Fyodor Dostoevsky.

2. E. Partridge, Origins.

3. This indictment is introduced and rejected by T.S. Eliot in The Use of

Poetry and The Use of Criticism (London: Faber and Faber, 1933), p. 20.

4. Hans-Georg Gadamer, Gadamer on Celan (Albany: State University of

New York Press, 1997), p. 63.

5. Seamus Heaney, Preoccupations: Selected Prose 19681978 (New

York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1980), p. 11. He confessed to liking poems

that caused him to reflect on preoccupying questions. Another one of

his titles, Finders Keepers, expresses the same fascination.

6. Victor Hugo, This Will Destroy That, in Notre Dame de Paris (1832)

(London: Heron Books, nd.), pp. 175, 182.

99 op arch continued