Colin Rowe
Encyclopedia
Colin Rowe was a British-born, American-naturalised architectural historian, critic, theoretician, and teacher; acknowledged as a major intellectual influence on world architecture and urbanism
in the second half of the twentieth century and beyond, particularly in the fields of city planning, regeneration, and urban design.
at the Warburg Institute
, London, was a theoretical speculation that Inigo Jones
may have intended to publish a theoretical treatise on architecture, analogous to Palladio's Four Books. Although this idea was not supported by any hard evidence and could not ever be proven, encouraged by Wittkower it established Rowe's way of speculating and imagining what might have happened: an approach to the history of architecture that was largely imaginary and factually questionable, but which he gradually built into a vastly erudite, coherently argued way of thinking and seeing that exasperated conventional historians, but became the inspiration for a generation of practising architects to consider history imaginatively, as an active component in their design process.
Rowe's completely original modus operandi was based on making comparisons between cultural events that conventional history kept widely separated and categorised, but which he unearthed from his vast personal erudition (in constant development) and placed together for comparison. His completely unorthodox, simultaneous, non-linear, non-chronological view of history then made it possible for him to develop theoretical speculations such as his famous essay “The Mathematics of the Ideal Villa” (1947) in which he theorised that there were compositional “rules” in Palladio’s villas that could be demonstrated to correspond to similar “rules” in Le Corbusier’s villas at Poissy and Garches. Although like his MA thesis, this proposal was impossible to support with any evidence, as a speculation it enabled Rowe to elaborate an astonishingly fresh and provocative trans-historical critique of both Palladio and Le Corbusier, in which the architecture of both was assessed not in chronological time, but side by side in the present moment.
This was a revolution that suddenly re-situated modern architecture within history and acknowledged history as an active influence. Many years later when Rowe's influence had spread worldwide, this approach had become a key element in the process of architectural and urban design: if "the presence of the past" was evident in the work of many architects in the late 20th. century, from James Stirling
to Aldo Rossi
, Robert Venturi
, Oswald Matthias Ungers, Peter Eisenman
, and others, this was largely due to the influence of Rowe.
, only six years his junior. In Rowe’s view, by that time modernism in architecture was already finished; what was intended to be a revolution had failed, but in Stirling he had found the means to create a new type of “modernist neo-classicist” architect; the two became lifelong friends, and all of Stirling's work in architectural practice was deeply indebted to Rowe's more or less continuous critical input. It has often been said that Stirling was "Rowe's draughtsman".
Between the 1950s and his death, Rowe published a number of widely influential papers that influenced architecture by further developing the theory that there is a conceptual relationship between modernity and tradition, specifically Classicism
in its various manifestations, and Modern Movement "white architecture" of the 1920s - a viewpoint first put forward by Emil Kaufmann
in his classic book "Von Ledoux bis Le Courbusier" (1933). Although he remained an admirer of the achievements of the 1920s modernists, chiefly in the work of Le Corbusier
, Rowe also subjected the modern movement, which he considered a failure, to subversive modes of criticism and interpretation.
Rowe was among the first to openly denounce the failures of modernist urban planning and its destructive effects on the historic city; many of his most important books and essays are in fact more concerned with urban form than with architectural language. This early work, led to the contextualism
school of thought which was likewise critical of modern urban design
and architectural theory
of design
wherein modern building types are harmonized with urban forms usual to a traditional city.
In the course of a brilliant and very influential academic career, notably at Cornell University
in the 1970s, he focussed on developing an alternative method of urban design derived in part from the earlier work of Camillo Sitte
but largely original, and based on the making of cities through a process of collaged, superimposed pieces; the ideal model for this pragmatic, anti-doctrinaire approach was the ruined villa of the Roman Emperor Hadrian at Tivoli, outside Rome.
1n 1981 he started the Cornell Journal of Architecture
and contributed to issue 1 with "The Present Urban Predicament" and to issue 2 with "Program vs. Paradigm."
His chief significance was as a teacher and writer on these subjects, which greatly influenced architectural thinking. His book Collage City (with Fred Koetter) is his theoretical treatise that sets out various analyses of urban form in a number of existing cities known to be aesthetically successful, examining their actually existing urban structure as found, revealing it to be the end product of a ceaseless process of fragmentation, the collision/superimposition/contamination of many diverse ideas imposed on it by successive generations, each with its own idea. In architecture his thinking paralleled his ideas about the city: he was nostalgic for nineteenth-century eclecticism, advocating that architecture in the modern age should abandon its purist abstraction and allow itself to be influenced by influxes of historical references.
Philosophically, Rowe's conviction that pragmatic, discrete, and episodic ideas are more meaningful and useful than totalising, overarching, all-inclusive concepts led him towards the political right, and to such philosophers as Isaiah Berlin
and Karl Popper
; but paradoxically this also situated his thinking in the same general zone as left-leaning philosophers like Richard Rorty
and Gianni Vattimo
.
As he continued to publish ground-breaking, intellectually rich, unconventional essays on the history and theory of architecture, and became a permanent resident of the United States (becoming a US citizen towards the end of his life) he went on to influence many other architects, students, and architectural educators during the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s (in 1966 he served as a fellow at the Graham Foundation in Chicago) at a time when there was a move towards Postmodern architecture
with which he may be partly associated - though only to a very limited extent, and only in a philosophical sense, since his intellectual range, and his all-inclusive interest in every movement and style of architecture, placed him far outside any particular stylistic category.
Rowe died November 5, 1999 in Arlington County, Virginia
.
Urbanism
Broadly, urbanism is a focus on cities and urban areas, their geography, economies, politics, social characteristics, as well as the effects on, and caused by, the built environment.-Philosophy:...
in the second half of the twentieth century and beyond, particularly in the fields of city planning, regeneration, and urban design.
Theoretical approach
His 1945 MA thesis for Rudolf WittkowerRudolf Wittkower
Rudolf Wittkower was a German art historian.-Biography:He was born in Berlin and moved to London in 1934. He taught at the Warburg Institute, University of London from 1934 to 1956 and then at Columbia University from 1956 to 1969 where he was chairman of the Department of Art History and...
at the Warburg Institute
Warburg Institute
The Warburg Institute is a research institution associated with the University of London in central London, England. A member of the School of Advanced Study, its focus is the study of the influence of classical antiquity on all aspects of European civilisation.-History:The Institute was founded by...
, London, was a theoretical speculation that Inigo Jones
Inigo Jones
Inigo Jones is the first significant British architect of the modern period, and the first to bring Italianate Renaissance architecture to England...
may have intended to publish a theoretical treatise on architecture, analogous to Palladio's Four Books. Although this idea was not supported by any hard evidence and could not ever be proven, encouraged by Wittkower it established Rowe's way of speculating and imagining what might have happened: an approach to the history of architecture that was largely imaginary and factually questionable, but which he gradually built into a vastly erudite, coherently argued way of thinking and seeing that exasperated conventional historians, but became the inspiration for a generation of practising architects to consider history imaginatively, as an active component in their design process.
Rowe's completely original modus operandi was based on making comparisons between cultural events that conventional history kept widely separated and categorised, but which he unearthed from his vast personal erudition (in constant development) and placed together for comparison. His completely unorthodox, simultaneous, non-linear, non-chronological view of history then made it possible for him to develop theoretical speculations such as his famous essay “The Mathematics of the Ideal Villa” (1947) in which he theorised that there were compositional “rules” in Palladio’s villas that could be demonstrated to correspond to similar “rules” in Le Corbusier’s villas at Poissy and Garches. Although like his MA thesis, this proposal was impossible to support with any evidence, as a speculation it enabled Rowe to elaborate an astonishingly fresh and provocative trans-historical critique of both Palladio and Le Corbusier, in which the architecture of both was assessed not in chronological time, but side by side in the present moment.
This was a revolution that suddenly re-situated modern architecture within history and acknowledged history as an active influence. Many years later when Rowe's influence had spread worldwide, this approach had become a key element in the process of architectural and urban design: if "the presence of the past" was evident in the work of many architects in the late 20th. century, from James Stirling
James Stirling (architect)
Sir James Frazer Stirling FRIBA was a British architect. He is considered to be among the most important and influential British architects of the second half of the 20th century...
to Aldo Rossi
Aldo Rossi
Aldo Rossi was an Italian architect and designer who accomplished the unusual feat of achieving international recognition in four distinct areas: theory, drawing, architecture and product design.-Early life:...
, Robert Venturi
Robert Venturi
Robert Charles Venturi, Jr. is an American architect, founding principal of the firm Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates, and one of the major figures in the architecture of the twentieth century...
, Oswald Matthias Ungers, Peter Eisenman
Peter Eisenman
Peter Eisenman is an American architect. Eisenman's professional work is often referred to as formalist, deconstructive, late avant-garde, late or high modernist, etc...
, and others, this was largely due to the influence of Rowe.
Teaching and writings
Between 1950-52, as a tutor at the Liverpool School of Architecture, he inculcated these revolutionary views into the malleable 24-year-old student James StirlingJames Stirling (architect)
Sir James Frazer Stirling FRIBA was a British architect. He is considered to be among the most important and influential British architects of the second half of the 20th century...
, only six years his junior. In Rowe’s view, by that time modernism in architecture was already finished; what was intended to be a revolution had failed, but in Stirling he had found the means to create a new type of “modernist neo-classicist” architect; the two became lifelong friends, and all of Stirling's work in architectural practice was deeply indebted to Rowe's more or less continuous critical input. It has often been said that Stirling was "Rowe's draughtsman".
Between the 1950s and his death, Rowe published a number of widely influential papers that influenced architecture by further developing the theory that there is a conceptual relationship between modernity and tradition, specifically Classicism
Classicism
Classicism, in the arts, refers generally to a high regard for classical antiquity, as setting standards for taste which the classicists seek to emulate. The art of classicism typically seeks to be formal and restrained: of the Discobolus Sir Kenneth Clark observed, "if we object to his restraint...
in its various manifestations, and Modern Movement "white architecture" of the 1920s - a viewpoint first put forward by Emil Kaufmann
Emil Kaufmann
Emil Kaufmann was an Austrian art and architecture historian. He was the son of Max Kaufmann , a businessman, and Friederike Baumwald . Kaufmann is best known for his studies of neo-classicism.-Career:From 1913 he studied at both the University of Innsbruck and the University of Vienna...
in his classic book "Von Ledoux bis Le Courbusier" (1933). Although he remained an admirer of the achievements of the 1920s modernists, chiefly in the work of Le Corbusier
Le Corbusier
Charles-Édouard Jeanneret, better known as Le Corbusier , was a Swiss-born French architect, designer, urbanist, writer and painter, famous for being one of the pioneers of what now is called modern architecture. He was born in Switzerland and became a French citizen in 1930...
, Rowe also subjected the modern movement, which he considered a failure, to subversive modes of criticism and interpretation.
Rowe was among the first to openly denounce the failures of modernist urban planning and its destructive effects on the historic city; many of his most important books and essays are in fact more concerned with urban form than with architectural language. This early work, led to the contextualism
Contextualism
Contextualism describes a collection of views in philosophy which emphasize the context in which an action, utterance, or expression occurs, and argues that, in some important respect, the action, utterance, or expression can only be understood relative to that context...
school of thought which was likewise critical of modern urban design
Urban design
Urban design concerns the arrangement, appearance and functionality of towns and cities, and in particular the shaping and uses of urban public space. It has traditionally been regarded as a disciplinary subset of urban planning, landscape architecture, or architecture and in more recent times has...
and architectural theory
Architectural theory
Architectural theory is the act of thinking, discussing, or most importantly writing about architecture. Architectural theory is taught in most architecture schools and is practiced by the world's leading architects. Some forms that architecture theory takes are the lecture or dialogue, the...
of design
Design
Design as a noun informally refers to a plan or convention for the construction of an object or a system while “to design” refers to making this plan...
wherein modern building types are harmonized with urban forms usual to a traditional city.
In the course of a brilliant and very influential academic career, notably at Cornell University
Cornell University
Cornell University is an Ivy League university located in Ithaca, New York, United States. It is a private land-grant university, receiving annual funding from the State of New York for certain educational missions...
in the 1970s, he focussed on developing an alternative method of urban design derived in part from the earlier work of Camillo Sitte
Camillo Sitte
Camillo Sitte was a noted Austrian architect, painter and city planning theoretician with great influence and authority of the development of urban construction planning and regulation in Europe.- Life :...
but largely original, and based on the making of cities through a process of collaged, superimposed pieces; the ideal model for this pragmatic, anti-doctrinaire approach was the ruined villa of the Roman Emperor Hadrian at Tivoli, outside Rome.
1n 1981 he started the Cornell Journal of Architecture
Cornell Journal of Architecture
The Cornell Journal of Architecture is a critical academic journal of architecture and urbanism produced by the Department of Architecture at the Cornell University College of Architecture, Art, and Planning. The journal was established in 1981 and is edited by architecture students with guidance...
and contributed to issue 1 with "The Present Urban Predicament" and to issue 2 with "Program vs. Paradigm."
His chief significance was as a teacher and writer on these subjects, which greatly influenced architectural thinking. His book Collage City (with Fred Koetter) is his theoretical treatise that sets out various analyses of urban form in a number of existing cities known to be aesthetically successful, examining their actually existing urban structure as found, revealing it to be the end product of a ceaseless process of fragmentation, the collision/superimposition/contamination of many diverse ideas imposed on it by successive generations, each with its own idea. In architecture his thinking paralleled his ideas about the city: he was nostalgic for nineteenth-century eclecticism, advocating that architecture in the modern age should abandon its purist abstraction and allow itself to be influenced by influxes of historical references.
Philosophically, Rowe's conviction that pragmatic, discrete, and episodic ideas are more meaningful and useful than totalising, overarching, all-inclusive concepts led him towards the political right, and to such philosophers as Isaiah Berlin
Isaiah Berlin
Sir Isaiah Berlin OM, FBA was a British social and political theorist, philosopher and historian of ideas of Russian-Jewish origin, regarded as one of the leading thinkers of the twentieth century and a dominant liberal scholar of his generation...
and Karl Popper
Karl Popper
Sir Karl Raimund Popper, CH FRS FBA was an Austro-British philosopher and a professor at the London School of Economics...
; but paradoxically this also situated his thinking in the same general zone as left-leaning philosophers like Richard Rorty
Richard Rorty
Richard McKay Rorty was an American philosopher. He had a long and diverse academic career, including positions as Stuart Professor of Philosophy at Princeton, Kenan Professor of Humanities at the University of Virginia, and Professor of Comparative Literature at Stanford University...
and Gianni Vattimo
Gianni Vattimo
Gianteresio Vattimo, also known as Gianni Vattimo is an internationally recognized Italian author, philosopher, and politician. Many of his works have been translated into English.-Biography:...
.
As he continued to publish ground-breaking, intellectually rich, unconventional essays on the history and theory of architecture, and became a permanent resident of the United States (becoming a US citizen towards the end of his life) he went on to influence many other architects, students, and architectural educators during the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s (in 1966 he served as a fellow at the Graham Foundation in Chicago) at a time when there was a move towards Postmodern architecture
Postmodern architecture
Postmodern architecture began as an international style the first examples of which are generally cited as being from the 1950s, but did not become a movement until the late 1970s and continues to influence present-day architecture...
with which he may be partly associated - though only to a very limited extent, and only in a philosophical sense, since his intellectual range, and his all-inclusive interest in every movement and style of architecture, placed him far outside any particular stylistic category.
Rowe died November 5, 1999 in Arlington County, Virginia
Arlington County, Virginia
Arlington County is a county in the Commonwealth of Virginia. The land that became Arlington was originally donated by Virginia to the United States government to form part of the new federal capital district. On February 27, 1801, the United States Congress organized the area as a subdivision of...
.
Selected works
- The Architecture of Good Intentions (1994)
- As I Was Saying: Recollections and Miscellaneous Essays (1996) (3 volumes)
- The Present Urban Predicament in The Cornell Journal of Architecture, no.1, 1981
- Roma Interrotta in Architectural Design Profile, Vol. 49, No. 3-4 (1979)
- Collage City (1978) - with Fred Koetter
- The Mathematics of the Ideal Villa and Other Essays (1976)
- Transparency: Literal and Phenomenal Part II, Perspecta 13/14, 1971