Rebecca Carrai

London, February 2020

The Alphabet of the Architectural Language

Serlio and the beginning of a Do-It-Yourself Architecture

“And wonder not, gentle Reader, not let it be strange onto you, though I doe sometimes make along offcourse of

some things, for (as I sayd before) they are not only learned by many words and great paines, but

it is alle necessary that they were showed onto some men playnely by drawing them before them,

that they may the better conceave them1”

(Serlio S., translated by Dover Publications, Inc., 1611)

Abstract

1

In this essay, I will look closely at the writing and graphics of Tutte L’Opere D’Architettura by Sebastiano Serlio

and argue that this artefact can be interpreted as an 'abecedary' of the architectural language, responsible for a gradual

simplification, mechanization and popularization of the discipline. Due to its visuals and 'ready at hand' character,

I address the volume as a pioneering attempt of standardization and promoter of what I call 'Do-It-Your-Self

architecture', enabling a broader target audience and not requiring particular expertise or intellectual property.

One of the first pages of the book provides the reader with some tools: the geometric elements.

A random picture of an abecedary, instrument adopted by someone learning a language.

2

In On Architecture2, Sebastiano Serlio (1475-1554) systematically collects notions on architecture, accompanying them

with drawings and visual information. Moved by the same urge of his predecessors for trying to give a name and space to

the discipline, with this collection of books, the author offers to the reader his own interpretation of architecture. While

Leon Battista Alberti (1404-1472) publishes his treatise in Latin and directs his oeuvre to an intellectual audience, not even

questioning the possibility of his message to be misunderstood, Serlio adopts a new and original approach.

What distinguishes Serlio from Alberti, despite the gap of time, is an entirely different mindset reflected not only in the

content but also in the writing, template, format and graphic style of his volume.

The work constitutes one of the earliest books on architecture written in a vernacular language rather than Latin.

Likewise, a clear shift of imagined audience is at play . Whereas Alberti speaks to his fellows, the architect, the Man of "by

sure and wonderful reason and method", who "knows both how to devise through his own mind and energy, and to realize by

construction3", from the first lines of the volume, Serlio directs to "every man", to the "workman", to any possible “gentle

Reader" interested in "learning of Architecture4".

In Alberti, there is no pedagogical5 intent while in Serlio, the need for systematizing, instructing and enlarging the agency

of architecture becomes a leitmotiv, expressed both in the message and form of the volume. Alberti’s directions project an

idea of architecture and the city meant to be received by an elite of people who can understand the author’s flow of

thoughts and theoretical speculation. In Serlio instead, there is the necessity to ‘make architecture easy’, and create a

language through which ‘educate’ the mass.

The stylistic and methodological approach is also consistent with the author's goal. As if he was referring to someone in

the process of learning a new language, Serlio starts from the alphabet and then moves to the syntax of architecture,

guiding the reader from small to big, from little fragments to entire compositions, from foundation to direct application.

Throughout the whole volume, he provides the recipient with the ‘tools’ to apprehend, paying attention not to make the

process of learning tricky and enframing a manifold and multi-layered discipline such as architecture.

Serlio achieves this aim through several strategies. To begin with, he explicitly sets the intention of popularizing

architecture, by often repeating that he will let “every man both conceive and understand” the “Arte”, without getting into

complications. In discussing the “Art of Geometrie”, for instance, he aims to make “every artificer and workeman”

comprehend, without explaining in depth the principles of geometry and leaving a part Euclides’ speculations and

specific rules. As a consequence, the first book resembles an index of the geometric elements, which are dissected and

Corpus

3

4

Resembling the steps to follow for assemblage, the first chapter of The First Book consists of geometric elements, figures and gradually more complex applications and compositions of these.

depicted graphically and verbally, in order to make them ‘ready to use’.

The chosen vocabulary is accessible, and the structure of the text is readable because of the use of short sentences with a

simple syntax and the presence of no more than two subordinate clauses. The tone is instructive, descriptive and

explanatory, with figures of speech and a colloquial lexicon, which bring the text close to an oral conversation between

Serlio and his uneducated reader. An example of such a systematically informal mode of expression appears in the

second book On Perspective where he describes in a visual manner, step by step, what one should know before designing

stages and theatres. Similar to a manual, Serlio gives instructions on ‘how to’ plan and build, and which rules to follow in

an assembly line. In this text, the drawings become the components and the text the complementary tool to complete the

puzzle.

Also, Serlio frequently uses the verb 'touch' instead of 'study' or 'investigate’, as what he does is "touching" upon various

notions, elements, and artefacts so that the reader doesn't have to struggle with apprehending but can easily surf a

'blueprint of orders', supported by a predominance of images. Reading the book becomes like scrolling a Pinterest

webpage or Tumblr blog.

Lastly, this process of fragmentation and clarification of architecture is especially set forward by the visual language of the

volume, whose size - almost like an A4 - allows to include large size images often predominant over the writing and

carefully put into the template. An abundance of visuals, ranging from architectural elements, orders, fragments of

buildings, close-ups, and perspective views, support the arguments of the author in the attempt to facilitate and de-code

the ambiguity and difficulty of the discipline. Also graphically, a gradual and guided process of learning can be

noticed in the setup of a climax, from the geometric elements through their possible compositions to the illustration of

existing architectures. It is the beginning of a visual and mass-culture.

5

Conclusion

As an 'abecedary', the book of Serlio pictures the letters of the architectural language, listed for enabling practice

exercises. It shows the bones of the skeleton of architecture, here conceived as “manners6 ”, to deliberately compose, be

disseminated and taught to a broader public. In his mission, Serlio decomposes architecture into notions and

elements: fragments made ‘ready to use’. The creation of a system of instructions gives the possibility not only to turn

architecture into a mere application of rules but also these codes to be reproduced and disseminated. As Mario Carpo

says “the artists of the past may have been less media savvy than the artist of today,(…) but by no means indifferent to the technical

characteristics of the means of communication7”. Looking backwards, Serlio's volume was not innocent at all.

Whereas on the one hand, the author can be viewed as a precursor of standardization and commercialization of

architecture, made it possible with the arrival of new printing techniques. On the other hand, I add that, in providing a

loose and graspable system of rules, where the visual dominates over text, and no strict direction of assembling is

dictated, Serlio was also a pioneering supporter of DIY practices. By empowering the user, he initiates a process of

popularization of architecture, which today sets, even more, the ground in the spread of social media and advertisement

campaigns.

6

7

Pinterest template, a common platform for finding inspiration in various creative fields nowadays.

Once the reader has acquired the instruments and been shown the many pieces for assembling, then he is introduced to a sequence of 'mood boards'. From The Third Book.

8Example of a DIY practice from the end of the 1970s: 2-4-6-8 House by Morphosis architects.

1 Serlio S. (1611), The Five Books of Architecture, (eds) New York: Dover Publications, Inc, The Second Book, The Third Chapter, Fol.7.

2 The volume, originally entitled Tutte L’Opere D’Architettura, is a collection of books which did not originally appear in its present order: Book IV was first published in Venice in 1537; Book III in Venice in 1540; Books I and II in Paris in 1545; and Book V in Paris in 1547. The five books all together were published in 1584 in Venice for the first time under the title Tutte l’opere d’architettura et prospettiva, then quickly translated into other languages such as Dutch and English. Through this analysis, the 1611 English edition is the one I will be mainly looking at which has been reproduced unabridged at 95 percent of original size.

3 Alberti L. (1988) Here Begins the Work of Leon Battista Alberti on the Art of Building. Lege Feliciter. In: On the Art of Building in Ten Books, MIT Press, p. 3.

4 Terms extracted from the preface and present throughout the whole volume. See the introduction of The First Book of Architecture.

5 Serlio could have also been influenced by the Giulio Camillo's pedagogical theory, displayed in the work Theatro della Sapientia (1530) published before L’Idea del Theatro, where again he distinguishes different ways of apprehensions, and sets forward the so-called ‘intelletto prattico’.

6 Serlio often uses the word “manner” in the volume. It is not a chance that this understanding and communication of architecture arises around the age of Mannerism, and at a time in which reproduction of books was possible.

7 Carpo M. (2001) Architecture in the Age of Printing. MIT Press, p. 52-3.

Notes

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