MAURIZIO SABINI

Kent State University

Wittgenstein’s LadderThe Non-Operational Valueof History in Architecture

Based on a re-assessment of Vittorio Gregotti’s notion of history as the terrain for design, inrelationship with Manfredo Tafuri’s position, the debate on theory, and the legacy of Ernesto NathanRogers, I propose a new paradigm for an architecture of culture. Drawing also from relevantcontemporary practices, where one can see the narrative for architectural projects at work, theargument aims to help the profession and academia foster an approach that pursues architecture as acultural production.

IntroductionArchitectural history’s role in architectural practiceand education has waxed and waned in recentdecades. Few other components of the architect’sknowledge base have been so lengthily debated,critiqued, celebrated, rethought, derided or simplybanned tout court from the disciplinary discourse.The twentieth century’s many schools of thoughtdebated how to frame architectural history’s role,from straight opposition to total embrace. With evermore rapid changes in modes of communication,information accessibility, technological advances,social interactions, cultural values, and estheticsensibilities, we now see a renewed interest in thevalue of architectural historical research.1 Hence,the recurring question: should we, and how can we,integrate history into architectural practice and theprofessional architectural curriculum?

After Manfredo Tafuri, we cannot return to anotion of ‘‘operative criticism’’ a la Bruno Zevi,Sigfried Giedion or Nikolaus Pevsner, wherebyarchitectural histories are construed with a culturaland political agenda in mind.2 For example, a new,mature and enlightened relationship betweenhistory and design cannot be activated just byhaving the historian teach the design studio, or bysuggesting that the architect or designer engage inhistorical research to justify design choices throughprecedents. The notion of ‘‘precedent’’ as a previoussolution to a given design problem, usually similar interms of program, but often situated in a differentcontext, has been appropriately challenged with thisissue of the JAE. Just because a similar design

solution has been tried before, we cannot infer thatit is valid or even particularly inspirational. Nor canthe similarity of program justify, in itself, the valueof a previous design as a reference for a new one.Furthermore, given its legal purpose—to validate acase where the law is mute or unclear—theprecedent is an intellectual short cut to legitimizethe design being created, a quick fix to varnish adesign with some sort of cultural patina.

On the other hand, after Aldo Rossi, a return toModernism’s tabula rasa, or its reconfiguration inthe Deconstructivist-formalist multiplication ofsigns, or the more seductive, but equally empty,fluidity of Parametricism would also be pointless.3

In our communication and information age, limitingarchitecture to mere signs and forms, an approachfor which history carries no value, simply denotesintellectual avarice, or a desire for safe harbors fromcriticism. A more complex line of research isnecessary—one that can maintain the maturity ofTafuri’s critical stance, but that can also helparchitecture increase its specific weight as adiscourse.

Vittorio Gregotti and History as theTerrain for DesignIn Il territorio dell’architettura (The Territory ofArchitecture, 1966), Vittorio Gregotti questionedhistory’s role in architecture, anticipating critical andtheoretical elaborations that would be produced inthe following decades by Tafuri and others.4 In theintroduction to the book’s 2008 edition, Gregottirecognized that the chapter on ‘‘Architecture and

History’’ was one of the few that, after so manyyears, he could still subscribe to.5 The reasons forthis unusual resilience probably lie in the highlyconceptual basis and philosophical nature of thearguments, and in the fact that Gregotti, althoughhighly knowledgeable in architectural history, wasand still is a practicing architect.6 His is simply atheoretical reasoning on the role of history by anarchitect or, rather, by a ‘‘technical intellectual,’’ ashe likes to call himself (as opposed to professionalor artist).7 He can, therefore, frame the questionfrom the point of view of a theory of architecture(the relationship between history and theory will bediscussed later). Without entering the evolvinghistoriographical debate on how architectural historyshould be written, he argues how architecturalhistory can help the design process with atheoretical proposition that does not seem tobecome dated.

In both editions of Il territorio dell’architettura(1966 and 2008), Gregotti tried to map the territoryof architecture as a ‘‘cultured profession,’’ andviewed history as the ‘‘terrain of design,’’ theunavoidable and undeniable perspective of thematerial conditions in which architecture isconceived, designed and realized.8 Such perspectivedoes not only include the gallery of architecturalworks through the centuries (the precedents) butalso the constitution of other disciplinary nutrientsof architecture like urban geography, ecology andsociology, which, for architects, ‘‘are operationaltools and today also facts of the history ofarchitecture.’’9

Journal of Architectural Education, Wittgenstein’s Ladder 46pp. 46–58 ª 2011 ACSA

Gregotti’s approach to history’s role in thepractice of architecture is imbued with the culture ofthe engaged intellectual that characterized post-warItalian cultural debate.That culture charged theintellectual, regardless of the discipline, field ofknowledge or artistic practice, with the ethicalresponsibility of engagement with political andcultural movements as a protagonist of the processesof the transformation of society and, for the architect,of the built environment. Gregotti connected thisintellectual responsibility with the architect’s effortsto respond to contemporary conditions:

The real possibility to use the lessons ofhistory lies in the realization of the essence inwhich we operate, and, through it, primarily ofwhat we consider to be the directions ofpossible transformation for architecturaldesign; it thus consists in the capacity tocritique our intentions, to participate byadhering to that particular historical conditionwhich is our present.10

History is not expected to uncover absolutetruths, but to direct the design process with a culturalproject for the specific design project at hand. In thisway, history helps shape the perspective of ourpresent condition and its future transformation.Theurge to identify a direction, a line of research forreflective practice, is very important to Gregotti,linking his line of thought with Tafuri’s notion of‘‘movement,’’ which elaborates on the merits of ‘‘anarchitecture without a capital ‘A’,’’ in studies such asthe one on ‘‘Red Vienna’’ (Figure 1).11 PrecedingTafuri’s elaborations by about twenty years, butwithin a different methodological andepistemological context, Gregotti describes history asa project, while trying to ground the process ofdesign in the possible directions offered by the workof historical discovery.12 For Gregotti:

… this task [of developing meaningfuldirections for the transformation of reality]

could be defined as the search for the essenceof architecture. A search though that doesn’tever culminate in the discovery of the being ofthe object, but in the realization of its

condition (for us) of change towards adirection. In some way, that essence can bediscovered by conceiving history itself as aproject.13

1. Karl Ehn, Karl Marx Hof, Vienna, 1926–1930. � Wiener Stadt- und Landesarchiv, Vienna.

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However, if history and design can share acommon horizon or a common cultural direction, asthey did, for example, in the work of SigfriedGiedion and Le Corbusier, or Tafuri and Gregotti,the historian’s method and the architect’s arefundamentally different and not translatable. Here,we accept Tafuri’s argument about the fundamentaldifference between the languages of history andarchitecture. If, as Tafuri reminds us, MartinHeidegger elaborated on the untranslatability of(disciplinary) languages in the mid-twentiethcentury, this philosophical reflection had alreadystarted in Vienna at the turn of the nineteenthcentury.14 Critics and artists like Karl Kraus, AloisRiegl, Hugo von Hofmannstahl, Gustav Klimt, OttoWagner, Adolf Loos, and Gustav Mahler, in addition,of course, to Sigmund Freud, came to realize thecrisis of the old paradigms of their respectivedisciplines and the need for their redefinitionaccording to the disciplines’ inner logic and the newcultural sensibility that was emerging at that time inEurope.

Ludwig Wittgenstein was one of the mostinfluential figures of that cultural moment ofVienna’s ‘‘great crisis.’’15 In fact, Wittgensteinoffered Gregotti a brilliant metaphor to illustrate thenon-operational, yet functional, nature of therelationship between history and architecture. Asquoted by Gregotti, Wittgenstein wrapped up hisphilosophical disquisitions in the TractatusLogico-Philosophicus (1921) with the followingremarks:

My propositions serve as elucidations in thefollowing way: anyone who understands meeventually recognizes them as nonsensical,when he has used them—as steps—to climbup beyond them. (He must, so to speak, throwaway the ladder after he has climbed up it.) Hemust transcend these propositions, and thenhe will see the world aright.16

Gregotti elaborates:

From this point of view, history presents itselfas a realization, a terrain that we traverse inorder to arrive at the structure of things, to getto touch them, but one that is necessary toleave behind when the moment comes totransform those very things. (…) history lookslike a unique tool, the knowledge of whichseems necessary, but the direct utilization ofwhich, once such knowledge is acquired,remains impossible; … [history is] like a sort ofhallway which we need to go through to accessother spaces, but that does not teach usanything about the art of walking.17

Drawing from Wittgenstein, Gregotti thusproposed a view of history as a knowledge that thearchitect must acquire, but one that cannot bedirectly and literally utilized in the design process.

History and TheoryGregotti also argues for the necessity of theory forarchitecture. The relationship between history andtheory is an important one, especially with regard toAmerican architectural culture. Thanks especially toPeter Eisenman and the research coming out ofthe Institute for Architecture and Urban Studies,the journals Oppositions, ANY and Assemblage, thenotion of a ‘‘Theory’’ was developed from the1970s through the 1990s. It was supportedespecially by the work of Tafuri and of Frenchphilosophers, including Jacques Derrida, GillesDeleuze, and Michel Foucault, who elaborated onthe structure of language and political power. Theconsolidation of those reflections into a singlemonolithic body of ‘‘theory,’’ combined withEisenman’s intellectual authority, was such that anew generation of critics, including Michael Speaks,Sylvia Lavin, Robert Somol and Sarah Whiting, waswilling to disenfranchise the most currentarchitectural research (especially that concerningthe possibilities of rapid prototyping and parametricdesign) from the perceived limitations of theoreticalreflections.18 These critics reacted by championing

an approach of ‘‘projective practice’’ as a liberatingcondition of ‘‘after Theory.’’19 However, bymistakenly seeing theory originating from Tafuri,they tossed out history along with theory, thusdoubling the mistake.

The first mistake was to consider ‘‘a’’theory—that of Eisenman and his colleagues andfollowers—‘‘the’’ theory. There is no singular theoryof architecture to compare with those of pre-Modern periods when architecture was a monolithicdiscipline. Rather, Tafuri taught us that there are‘‘theories’’ of architecture.20 More recently, TeresaStoppani aptly noted that Tafuri, after the 1968argument in favor of ‘‘theories’’ of architecture,launched a historical project that acknowledgedeven a ‘‘plurality of ‘histories’.’’21 Architecture isultimately a poetic endeavor; therefore, there are asmany theories as there are poetics. Some poeticsmay be combined, because of their similarities, intoa theoretical family, but the field of theory inarchitecture is plural. As Eisenman became lessinvolved with research and more occupied withprofessional practice, a new, more pluralistgeneration of critics and theoreticians came of ageand influenced American architectural discoursewith a more articulated conversation.

The second mistake made by the critics of the‘‘post-Theory’’ was to equate history with theory.Even in academia, the pair is frequently referred toas a single area of scholarship or pedagogy. Gregottishows us that this equation should not be made,elaborating his own theory of architecture, wherehistory plays a role, but occupies its own domain.Tafuri supported this view, arguing that historydemands its own epistemological andmethodological paradigm, and reminding us (withHeidegger) that disciplinary languages are nottranslatable. History requires its own theoreticaldiscourse –’’theories’’ of writing history.22 Amongcontemporary practicing architects, BernardTschumi, Daniel Libeskind, Rem Koolhaas andHerzog & de Meuron, among others, have shown,at least in most of their work, that the practice of

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meaningful architecture can be nurtured bytheoretical elaboration. These architectsdemonstrate that history can also help architecturemaintain and revive its critical nature.23

Criticality, which can be sustained only throughtheoretical reflection, is also an essential componentof the project of Modernity as discussed by JürgenHabermas.24 Concurring with Habermas’selaboration on Modernity’s incomplete project, morerecently, Gregotti explained how history can helparchitecture precisely, and paradoxically, revive itsrole within the project of Modernity:

…. in the definition of a critical distance withregard to reality; a way that leads toward theproject conceived as dialogue with what isexisting, but also as a realization of a distancebetween it and the new, a distance that thesolution to the specific problem has the task tofill by means of its own quality.25

In this context, the metaphor of Wittgenstein’sladder allows the architect to maintain an ongoingcultivation of historical knowledge, while recallingthe responsibility to develop a theoreticalframework for design, and to interpret andrecognize those directions that history may indicateto us. Again, Gregotti: ‘‘…the awareness of thehistory that we have acquired should not bedismissed as a weight that prevents growth, butrather it should be considered as the terrain onwhich it is grounded.’’26 In dealing with the broaderpicture of architectural production, history dealswith (among other things) theories (not Theory), aswell as with theories’ relationships with the worksthey helped generate and the conditions in whichthey were developed. A theory of architectureexamines the specific questions of ‘‘how toapproach’’ the transformation of the physicalenvironment. History broadens the scope ofinvestigation and sheds light (where intended,according to its own project) on the manyrelationships between architecture and the world.

A Precursor: Ernesto Nathan RogersTo appreciate more fully Gregotti’s contribution interms of its origin and its specific measure, and totest the value of understanding history throughWittgenstein’s ladder, it is worth considering thework of his mentor, Ernesto Nathan Rogers (1909–1969). After his formative years as a professionaland intellectual in the 1930s, Rogers came to thefore of the architectural scene in Italy when heassumed the editorship of domus magazine in 1946.Rogers immediately transformed Gio Ponti’smagazine of design style into a robust internationalplatform for deepening Modernism’s meaning andrecapturing its original social commitment. Forexample, in his second editorial for domus (thehouse), Rogers addressed the question of thehomeless, within the broader context of post-warreconstruction.27 In a few issues, he opened themagazine’s cultural horizon to a wide variety ofinternational designs and critical contributions fromaround the world.28

However, it was through his long editorship ofCasabella (1953–1965) that Rogers affirmedhimself as an intellectual authority in the post-wardebate on architecture and urbanism. Rogers’s first,but critical, act was to add the term continuità(continuity) to the magazine’s name, setting thetone of his entire tenure. Rogers’s concern and,ultimately, his intellectual legacy rested in thequestion of how to establish continuity with theModern movement and, at the same time, with theheritage (or history) of the European city. In aneffort to articulate further and refine the criticalfoundation of Modernism, Rogers stimulated a freshreassessment of the Modern movement’s legacythrough his editorials and a series of monographicissues edited by his young collaborators, Gregottiamong them. These reflections were paralleled bybroader explorations of issues like ‘‘tradition,’’‘‘monument,’’ ‘‘pre-existing environments’’ (or thehistoric fabric of the city), as well as by aremarkable record of reflective practice done withhis firm, BBPR, whose most famous work, the Torre

Velasca (1958), demonstrated Rogers’s theory atwork (Figure 2). Rogers’s comments summed it up:in the project of the Torre Velasca, we find ananticipation of Gregotti’s notion of the ladder. Thehistory of Milan was profoundly appreciated,studied and assimilated, and yet, any direct, literalutilization of history, such as the replication ofhistorical stylistic characters, figures andarchitectural details, was carefully and intentionallyavoided.

The intentional value of this architecture is tosummarize culturally the atmosphere of thecity of Milan, without retracing the languageof any of its buildings; its ineffable, and yetperceivable, characteristic. […] It wants to bethe testimony of a current language, insertedas an image in continuity with the tradition:that is, entirely created.29

A few terms from Rogers’ remarks should benoted with regard to the idea of history as a ladder,that is to say history as a non-operational, butindispensable, knowledge for architecture as culturalproduction. ‘‘Intentional’’ refers to theresponsibility, the ethical choice, of the architect-intellectual as a cultural actor. ‘‘Culturally’’ has todo with elevating architectural design into a broaderscope of professional activity. ‘‘Atmosphere,’’‘‘perceivable,’’ and ‘‘ineffable’’ all imply theappreciation of the subjective experience of theurban dweller. Finally, ‘‘tradition’’ interprets aparticular declination of history as a culturalphenomenon.

Rogers and his young collaborators were nothistorians by profession or background. If one cannow discount those historical studies as relativelynaïve historiographically, the Casabella-continuitàgroup showed nonetheless the importance andvalue for practicing architects of maintaining a vividcuriosity about the architecture of the past. Theresearch on the works of Loos, Peter Behrens andAuguste Perret, Giovanni Muzio, Heinrich Tessenow,

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and Le Corbusier helped Aldo Rossi, VittorioGregotti, Guido Canella, Giorgio Grassi, LucianoSemerani and Carlo Aymonino develop their ownpoetics in very different ways. As Rogers remarked:‘‘Research gives intention to the image, while theopposite, being mere formalism, is not interestingto us.’’30

At the same time, the Casabella-continuitàgroup appreciated history’s validity both in practiceand in education. Far from being a retreat from theModern movement, Rogers attempted an impossiblemission: introducing the value of history into theparadigm of Modernism.31 In one of his mostfamous editorials, ‘‘Gropius and the Sense ofHistory,’’ Rogers suggests a new sense of history asthe necessary dialectical opposite for Modernism’stheses, as a necessary ‘‘other’’ to support the

validity of the Modern paradigm. According toRogers, Modernism needed history to affirm itself.By means of some theoretical virtuosity, Rogersattempted to reframe the legacy of his LieberMeister, Walter Gropius, arguing that ‘‘noopposition, dialectically conceived, can be isolatedas an absolute negation, just as no continuity canbe considered outside a dialectical action which isprimarily a contribution to evolution.’’32 In assigningto history the value of a dialectical negation thatopposed the principles of Modernism, but strivingfor the synthesis of a new paradigm, Rogers was infact already trying to define history as a non-operational, but essential knowledge within thedesign process.

Rogers’s reflections on tradition also played acritical role in this effort. Rogers was very well

acquainted with the influential Italian philosopherEnzo Paci, a professor in Milan and a scholar ofphenomenologist Edmund Husserl.33 Paci exposedRogers to Heidegger’s etymological method forexploring the meaning of words and concepts, andled Rogers to elaborate on the root of the wordtradition, which comes from the Latin tradere: ‘‘todeliver, to pass on, to transmit.’’ Thus Rogers spokeof ‘‘tradition’’ as a dynamic, positive, paradoxicallyforward-oriented concept.34

Beyond the more commonly understoodmeaning of tradition as a common stock of culturalvalues, Rogers investigated an interesting twist onthe meaning of tradition: a groove or direction, thatis to say, a metaphor that could be applied toModernism with the intention of renewing thehistoric past, not ignoring it.35 This rhetorical image

2. BBPR, Torre Velasca, Milan, 1958. From: http://www.arch.ethz.ch/darch/entwurf/caruso-stjohn/fs08.php (accessed October 1, 2010).

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of the groove also explains Gregotti’s insistence onthe architect-intellectual’s obligation to givemeaning to their own work by choosing thedirections of cultural evolution that come fromhistory, based on a profound understanding of thepast. While Rogers was still advocating theincorporation of the character (the ‘‘image’’) of thepre-existing environments into architecture,Gregotti went a step further, stating that oneshould go beyond history, which may (or better,should) be abandoned once one fully delves intothe pursuit of the new. Yet, history remains anecessary, although not sufficient, condition of thedesign process. Continuing the conversation startedin Il territorio dell’architettura, Gregotti observes:

History has the goal of making us askourselves about our present condition in orderto investigate how we became what we are;history make us aware of the terrain on whichwe walk and of its various layers, even thoughit tells us little about the art of walking or onthe direction to choose. History is not asufficient, but a necessary condition [foraction ⁄ design].36

History’s non-operational value for architectureis clear. History can serve as a ladder with whichone may reach a higher awareness of thecomplexities of reality on which architecture has tointervene. It should not be used, however, toformulate specific design decisions preciselybecause the project has to span the distancebetween the past and the new.

Quid Tum? Towards an Architecture ofCultureSo, what now?37 Assuming the validity of the viewof history’s role in architecture proposed by Gregottithrough the metaphor of Wittgenstein’s ladder, howcan we apply it in practice and in architecturaleducation? The question is particularly meaningfulin the crucial learning environment of the design

studio, where, typically, history is simply evoked inthe superficial form of the precedent. Who hasattempted to answer the question that Gregottilucidly posed back in 1966, but still resonatesstrikingly today?

Many examples, similar in approach yet quitedifferent in formal outcomes, could support theargument, both in practice and in education.Regarding practice, to the Torre Velasca we can addAldo Rossi’s works, such as the housing block in theGallaratese neighborhood of Milan (1969–1970),where a profound knowledge and appreciation ofthe typological characters of the historical housingof Lombardy were distilled into a powerful synthesisof formal abstraction (Figure 3). Rossi’s typologicalresearch, imbued with history, allowed him toconceive an architecture of meaning.38 The use of aspecific type—the ‘‘corridor linear building’’ ofMilan’s low-income residentialneighborhoods—links Rossi’s architecture to itscontext, and places it within the groove of a specificarchitectural and cultural tradition. However, thehistory of the urban context was climbed like aladder, and then abandoned once the process offormal abstraction took over the manipulation ofarchitectural form and program.

A similar approach was also followed byGregotti in his gatehouses in Lützowstrasse in Berlin(1984–1986), where a poetic quest for a renewedRationalist language is sustained by a profoundknowledge of the history of the architecture of thecity, its characterizing building types, and its uniquecultural traditions (Figure 4). Tafuri observed notonly that Gregotti was informed by the works ofPeter Behrens, Max Taut and Erwin Gutkind but alsothat he made formal gestures that addressed HansScharoun explicitly. He recognized Gregotti’sapproach as an interpretation of Berlin’s histories:

… Berlin as reconsidered by Gregotti is theBerlin of exceptions, or rather of the tensionsbetween aspiration to the norm and theprimacy of the breakaway, the distortion, the

deviation. Gregotti’s ‘‘Berliner dodecaphonie’’is the commentary of a Großstadt that hadbeen capable of staging the pantomime ofangst in expressionist cabarets.39

Here, too, the architect pursued the new aftera nurturing assimilation of the character of the city’shistory—a ‘‘ladder’’ that was necessary to climb,but that could not be directly utilized in the designprocess. Similarly, in his housing project atCannaregio in Venice (1981–2001), Gregotti climbsthe ladder in a city where it is virtually impossible toavoid a dialogue with history (Figure 5). Themorphology of the urban fabric is carefully studied,assimilated and interpreted. Yet, he avoids thetemptation to indulge in historicism by simplyreplicating stylistic characters and architecturaldetails. In addition, cues to a Modernist vocabulary,such as the window panes flush with the stuccofaçade, are carefully included in the composition.Thus, the design can resonate in the atmosphere ofthe city, while, at the same time, articulating acontemporary language.

The approach can be found, too, in the worksof Alvaro Siza, who is as close to Gregottiintellectually as he is distant in his formal language.Siza’s unquestionable commitment to a renewedModernist vocabulary is mitigated by a profoundand sensitive reinterpretation of the aesthetic valuesof specific cultures and places, especially ofMediterranean Europe (Figure 6). While indebted toLe Corbusier, Alvar Aalto, and Luis Barragan for hiscompositional vocabulary, Siza always weaves anintense dialogue with the layering of historicaltraces that any given site offers as a palimpsest forthe architectural intervention. At the Church ofSanta Maria in Marco de Canavezes (1990–97), Sizaarranged a sequence of terraces and patios thatechoes, on the one hand, the artificial constructionof the Portuguese landscape, and, on the other, theinterlocking of small public spaces typical ofPortuguese small towns. In the building itself, Sizawalks a fine line between abstraction and

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representation: between pure Modernist volumesand gestures (such as the low and long horizontalwindow), and the geometry and the tectonics oftraditional religious architecture. Siza’s poeticcompositions are impregnated by the history of thespecific sites they transform.40

The more recent example of Herzog & deMeuron’s project for Porta Volta in Milan (2010) isindebted to Rossi (their mentor, who, in turn, hadbeen mentored by Rogers), attempting to establisha complex reference to Milanese architecture andRossi’s interpretation of it (Figure 7). As Herzog &de Meuron commented: ‘‘The historical analysis ofthe site drove the evolution of the designproposal.’’41 At an even more abstract level thanRossi, Herzog & de Meuron establish a dialoguewith the idea and image of the ‘‘linear nature’’ of somuch Milanese and Lombard architecture,

3. Aldo Rossi, Housing Block, Gallaratese neighborhood, Milan, 1969–1970. From Aldo Rossi: Architettura 1959–87 (Milan: Electa, 1989), p. 50.

Photo � Roberto Schezen ⁄ Esto.

4. Vittorio Gregotti, Housing Blocks on Lützowstraße, Berlin, 1984–1986. � Gregotti Associati International.

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abstracting Rossi’s pitched roofed designs and theGothic character of most of Milan’s historic fabric.42

The reference to the predominantly lineartypological character of Milan’s fabric is expressedthrough the use of two linear buildings: to the west,the future seat of the Feltrinelli Foundation, justover one-hundred feet long, and to the east theEdificio Comune, a mixed-use development,consistently maintaining the street front with itslinear form for more than six hundred feet.43 Rossi’sfrequent use of pitched roofs, as a way to representforms derived from the collective memory, is clearlyrecalled in the two buildings, which, together, offera flanking background to the historic monument ofPorta Volta in the overall image of the piazza. Inaddition, the emphasis on vertical structuralmembers echoes, without replicating historicaldetails, the character of Milan’s Gothic architecture,

with an approach similar to the one used by BBPRat the Torre Velasca. Yet, the layering of a horizontalaccent (by jutting out the floor slabs to function asgiant and cantilevered string-courses), togetherwith ample glass surfaces, offers a Modern tone tothe overall composition. The result is anuncompromising statement for the architecture ofthe city of Milan whose power stems from a maturesense of history that lends a cultural meaning to thearchitectural design.

Another contemporary example can be found inDaniel Libeskind’s construction of narratives foreach of his projects, despite a certain formalrepetitiveness of his designs, sometimes justified,sometimes rather unwarranted, when the forms donot seem to align with the concept. In most casesLibeskind can push the complex relationship withhistory even further than at a typological or

morphological level (as for Rossi or Gregotti,respectively), onto a more symbolically conceptual,literary, philosophical plane, but still through anintense, rich, deep dialogue with the past. Yet, thepast seems abandoned once the concept isformalized, and the design process proceeds in fullswing. In his project for Ground Zero (2003)Libeskind’s design trajectory is rooted in history, butaims at the future (Figure 8). The ground of thetragedy, marked with the physical scars left by thecollapse of the towers (the slurry wall and thefoundations), and recreated by the linesrepresenting the sun paths at the very moments ofthe attacks, is respected and appropriately left as avoid, to be interpreted later through a memorial.The rest of the development rises from thehallowed ground up to the apex of the FreedomTower, which is in clear formal dialogue with the

5. Vittorio Gregotti, Housing at Cannaregio, Venice, 1981–2001. � Gregotti Associati International.

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Statue of Liberty. At the heart of the wholedevelopment, in close proximity to Ground Zero,but respectfully stepping back, is a cultural center,to state again the hope of culture as the best

antidote against any form of barbarity. History helpsto construct the narrative around the concepts thatarchitecture then interprets through a contemporaryformal vocabulary.

Teaching an Architecture of CultureSome of the most interesting contemporary lines ofreflective practice indicate the growing value of(and potential for) the narrative. Indeed, this iswhere Wittgenstein’s ladder can be applied inarchitectural education to great effect. Encouragingstudents to construct narratives, with the help ofhistory, will lead them to devise more meaningfulrationales through which to sustain their studioprojects. With such an approach, the design processwould go beyond the superficial notion of theprecedent, but also beyond the sterile arscombinatoria of Parametricism, which, in spite of itsdigital sophistication, remains another example ofempty formalism.44 What is needed is anarchitecture of culture.

With Gregotti (and Rogers’s inspiration), weshould see (and help our students to see) the workof architecture as a cultural act. Gregotti observed:

This means letting the specific culture of ourcraft grow but also being able to place itwithin the context of the historical,economical, social and cultural relationshipsthat make up the present; choosing, takingstance among them through our craft asarchitects… Culture is reflecting on therelationships between the experiences of theworld and our experiences, and, through them,making sense.45

An architecture of cultural reason does notanswer the question ‘‘Why not’’? but rather answersthe question ‘‘Why yes’’?46 By maintaining or,where necessary, strengthening the critical role ofhistory within the architecture curriculum, we canhelp our students appreciate that there is noarchitecture without culture, nor culture withouthistory.

History in architecture schools should still betaught by historians, as a discourse with its ownidentity, but intellectual and scholarly dialoguesbetween historians and design faculty must be

6. Alvaro Siza, Church in Marco de Canavezes, Portugal, 1990–1997. From: ‘‘Alvaro Siza 1995–1999,’’ El Croquis 95 (1999): 55.

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nurtured.47 With Tafuri (and K. Michael Hays),I concur that only historians are properlyequipped to represent and critique the broaderpicture of architectural production. As AndrewLeach observed: ‘‘Tafuri thought thatarchitectural historians should write architecturalhistory and architects should know what to dowith it.’’48

When should the teaching of history occurthen? Certainly not late in a student’s education, asWalter Gropius recommended.49 Rather, studentsshould be exposed to architectural history acrosstime and space, globally, as early as possible. Ifanything, the first experience of the design studioshould be postponed. History should form students

before they can start to form objects, helping themdevelop a robust identity as young intellectuals, onwhich the seeds of design creativity can flourish andgerminate new ideas and constructs. To use a moredynamic metaphor than Wittgenstein’s ladder,history can become a springboard from which toleap into future explorations and creations. AsGregotti teaches us, we cannot envision the new ifwe don’t know the past.50

Design studio faculty should consistentlyencourage students to search, unwind, andreconnect the many threads of historical constructsin order to produce narratives for their projectswith help from history faculty, who shouldparticipate in design reviews, studio seminars and

studio conversations aimed at ‘‘thickening’’ thedesign discourse.51 Studio projects should includepreparatory investigations and analyses of thehistory of the design theme and the site. Theseshould be conducted with an appreciation for thehistory’s complexity, acquired through previousindependent historical studies and courses, beyondthe superficial quoting of the precedent. Suchstudies would better prepare students to buildnarratives for their designs, while avoiding thedirect utilization of history for specific designsolutions. These narratives would serve asWittgenstein’s ladder, to reach a necessary level ofintellectual awareness of the complex culturaland material conditions in which an architectural

7. Herzog & de Meuron, Feltrinelli Foundation at Porta Volta, Milan, 2008–2013. � Herzog & de Meuron.

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project is produced and by which it may beinspired.

Gregotti, for example, asked students toengage in these kinds of studies when, between theend of the 1970s and the early 1980s, as designprofessor at the Istituto Universitario di Architetturadi Venezia, he ran a series of design studios on theislands of the Venice lagoon. Students were askedto dig deeply into the process of morphologicaltransformation or, as Gregotti preferred to say,‘‘modification’’ of those complex natural andartificial environments. Students ‘‘studied’’convents, housing and warehouse complexes of thelagoon islands as morphological patterns in theirhistorical growth. The ways in which the various

architectural interventions of the past historicallyconstructed those sites were studied and assimilatedas a cultural lesson by the students. This wasfacilitated also with the help of historians, such asVincenzo Fontana, one of Tafuri’s collaborators,whose lectures were part of the studio learningexperience. The extant architectures were not to beused as precedents and the replication of historicalforms was never encouraged. That knowledgeinspired and gave direction to the design process; italso imposed limitations within the vast range ofpossible design choices. An appreciation for theenvironmental culture of the Venetian lagoon,woven into thick conceptual and textual narratives,palpably and clearly emanated from those projects,

which developed from an unmistakably Modernvocabulary. In this process, the narrative is anecessary, appropriate, and transmittablesuperstructure that enables architecture, with thehelp of history, to become a collective discourse.52

Others have already elaborated on the narrativedimension of architecture.53 The narrative I amreferring to, though, is not exactly a result, or acultural consequence of the architecturalintervention. Rather it is a specific tool forstimulating the design process, a complex textcomposed of ideas, concepts, images, memories,stories, and, especially, sustained by historicalknowledge that frames and influences design andelevates it to the level of a cultural project.

8. Daniel Libeskind, Freedom Tower at Ground Zero, New York, 2003. � Studio Daniel Libeskind.

Wittgenstein’s Ladder 56

Recognizing a difference between ‘‘design’’ (theactual physical operations orderly arranged) and‘‘project’’ (the bigger idea culturally determined), Isuggest that the cultural narrative is not part of thedesign, but it is the differential between the designand the project, an integral part of the project ofarchitecture. The narrative can thus helparchitecture students thicken their projects. Forsuch a thickening, the precedent will not suffice.Rather, a more profound, articulated, patientresearch must be undertaken to understand thehistory of social, cultural, political andanthropological networks, allowing an architectureof meaning and substance to emerge. As Hays hasobserved à propos of the writing of history, thisprocess of thickening will slow thinking down,creating a healthy counterbalance, though not anopposing one, to the many rapid accelerations ofthe digital age.

After climbing the ladder of history, andwalking through the complex and fascinatingrelationships of its facts and interpretations,architecture students and architects alike will beable ‘‘to see the world aright’’ (like for the reader ofWittgenstein’s Tractatus at proposition 6.54, the lastbut one). At that point, they will be much betterequipped to take on the multiple challenges ofdesign and find the direction to follow from a muchmore solid platform, in order to propose anarchitecture of greater cultural richness.

AcknowledgmentsI would like to thank Susan Scott for proofreadingthe initial drafts of the manuscript, as well as Marc J.Neveu and Saundra Weddle for their most valuableeditorial advice towards the final development ofthis article. I wish to thank also Prof. Thomas Gates,University Libraries, Kent State University, andMarsha O. Cole, Senior Library Associate, of theJoseph F. Morbito Architecture Library at Kent StateUniversity, for their highly professional, dedicatedand unwavering assistance during the researchconducted in preparation for this article.

Notes

Unless otherwise noted, all translations are my own.

1. See Andrew Leach, What is Architectural History? (Cambridge: Polity

Press, 2010).

2. See Manfredo Tafuri’s landmark book, Teorie e storia dell’architettura

(Bari: Laterza, 1968), translated by Giorgio Verrecchia from the 4th

Italian edition (1976) as Theories and History of Architecture (New York:

Harper & Row, 1980); for exemplary works of ‘‘operative criticism,’’

among Tafuri’s critical targets: Nikolaus Pevsner, Pioneers of the Modern

Movement, from William Morris to Walter Gropius (Harmondsworth, UK:

Penguin Books, 1936); Sigfried Giedion, Space, Time & Architecture:

The Growth of a New Tradition (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University

Press, 1941); Bruno Zevi & Paolo Portoghesi, eds. Michelangelo

architetto (Turin: Einaudi, 1964).

3. See Aldo Rossi, The Architecture of the City, Diane Ghirardo and Joan

Ockman, trans., Peter Eisenman intr. (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press

1982). Originally published as L’architettura della città (Padua: Marsilio,

1966). On De-Constructivism, see Mark Wigley and Philip Johnson,

Deconstructivist Architecture (New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1988);

on Parametricism, see Patrik Schumacher, ‘‘Let the Style Wars Begin,’’

The Architects’ Journal, http://www.architectsjournal.co.uk (accessed

May 6, 2010).

4. Vittorio Gregotti, Il territorio dell’architettura (Milan: Feltrinelli,

1966). See also, in particular, Manfredo Tafuri, Teorie e storia

dell’architettura and ‘‘Il progetto storico,’’ Casabella 429 (1977): 11–18.

See also the writings by Anthony Vidler, Francesco Dal Co and Kurt

Forster, highly influenced by Tafuri’s methodological approach to

architectural history.

5. Vittorio Gregotti, Il territorio dell’architettura (Milan: Feltrinelli 2008).

6. Kenneth Frampton has already noted Gregotti’s ‘‘exceptional clarity

as an editor, scholar and teacher,’’ in Kenneth Frampton, foreword to

Inside Architecture, by Vittorio Gregotti, trans. Peter Wong and

Francesca Zaccheo (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1996), p. vii.

Originally published as Dentro l’architettura (Turin: Bollati Boringhieri,

1991).

7. Gregotti, introduction to Il territorio dell’architettura, p. i.

8. I owe to Andrew Leach the expression of the ‘‘architect as a cultured

professional.’’ See Leach, What is Architectural History?, p. 102.

9. Gregotti, Il territorio dell’architettura, p. 136.

10. Ibid., p. 138.

11. ‘‘Tafuri spoke of ‘architecture without a capital A’ as the most

interesting, because it does not wallow in its crises and problems;

instead of talking, it acts. Acting, or movement, he insisted, mattered

more than results, and the movement that ‘tends towards something’

constitutes the rectitude of all political activity.’’ Diane Ghirardo,

‘‘Manfredo Tafuri and Architectural Theory in the US, 1970–2000,’’

Perspecta 33 (2002): 41. See also Manfredo Tafuri, Vienna rossa. La

politica residenziale nella Vienna socialista (Milan: Electa 1980). The

intertwining of Vittorio Gregotti’s and Manfredo Tafuri’s thoughts is

extensive, so much so that Gregotti was one of the few contemporary

practicing architects for whom Tafuri authored a monograph with an

introductory critical essay: Manfredo Tafuri, ‘‘The Adventures of the

Object: The Architecture of Vittorio Gregotti,’’ in Vittorio Gregotti.

Buildings and Projects, Richard Sadlier, trans. (New York: Rizzoli

International, 1982), pp. 7–30. Tafuri also published monographic

studies only on Ludovivo Quaroni (1964) and Giuseppe Samonà (1975,

co-authored), in addition to brief monographic essays on the ‘‘New

York Five’’ (1977), Aldo Rossi (1980), Peter Eisenman (1987), and an

eulogy to James Stirling (1992, co-authored with Carlo Aymonino).

12. See Manfredo Tafuri, ‘‘Il progetto storico,’’ and ‘‘History as Project:

An Interview with Manfredo Tafuri,’’ interview by Luisa Passerini (1992),

Denise L. Bratton, transl., ANY 25 ⁄ 26 (1999): 10–70.

13. Gregotti, Il territorio dell’architettura, p. 137.

14. ‘‘Too many hopes were raised among architects, during this last

decade [1970s], by the appearance in Lotus of the translation of a

text by [Martin] Heidegger, whose metaphorical language is not

‘translatable’ into that of architectural culture.’’ Manfredo Tafuri,

History of Italian Architecture, 1944–1985, Jessica Levine, trans.

(Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1989), p. 200; originally published as

Storia dell’architettura italiana, 1944–1985 (Turin: Einaudi, 1982). See

Martin Heidegger, ‘‘Building Dwelling Thinking,’’ in Poetry Language

Thought (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1971), pp. 141–61; originally

published as Bauen Wohnen Denken, 1951. See also Manfredo Tafuri,

‘‘L’architecture dans le Boudoir: The Language of Criticism and the

Criticism of Language,’’ Oppositions 3 (1974): 37–67, later published

in Architecture Theory Since 1968, K. Michael Hays, ed. (Cambridge,

MA: The MIT Press, 1998), pp. 148–73. See also Andrew Leach,

Manfredo Tafuri. Choosing History (Ghent, Belgium: A&S Books,

2007).

15. See Massimo Cacciari, Krisis, Saggio sulla crisi del pensiero negativo

da Nietzsche a Wittgenstein (Milan: Feltrinelli, 1976).

16. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, D.F. Pears and

B.F. McGuinness, trans., proposition 6.54 (London: Routledge & Kegan,

1961), p. 151 (quoted in Italian in Gregotti, Il territorio dell’architettura,

p. 132). Originally published in Annalen der Naturphilosophie, 1921;

first English edition, 1922.

17. Gregotti, Il territorio dell’architettura, pp. 132–33.

18. See George Baird, ‘‘Criticality and Its Discontents,’’ Harvard Design

Magazine (Fall 2004 – Winter 2005): 16–21, and the special issue on

criticism in architecture of the Journal of Architectural Education, 62

(2009): 3.

19. ‘‘… theory is not just irrelevant, but was and continues to be an

impediment to the development of a culture of innovation in

architecture.’’ Michael Speaks, ‘‘After Theory,’’ Architectural Record

(June 2005): 74.

20. Tafuri, Teorie e storia dell’architettura.

21. Teresa Stoppani, ‘‘Unfinished Business. The Historical Project after

Manfredo Tafuri,’’ in Jane Rendell et al., eds., Critical Architecture

(London and New York: Routledge, 2007), p. 22.

22. On Tafuri’s historiographical legacy, particularly brilliant are, in my

view, the studies by Teresa Stoppani and Andrew Leach.

23. For a first definition of the problem, see K. Michael Hays,

‘‘Critical Architecture. Between Culture and Form,’’ Perspecta 21

(1984): 14–39; see also Michael Speaks and Jane Rendell et al. See

also my ‘‘Re-Setting the Critical Project. Re-Assessing Tafuri and the

Value of Discourse in Architecture’’ in Re-Building, proceedings of

the 2010 ACSA Annual Meeting (Washington, DC: ACSA),

pp. 385–92.

57 SABINI

24. Jürgen Habermas, ‘‘Modernity – An Incomplete Project,’’ in Hal

Foster, ed., The Anti-Aesthetic. Essays in Post-Modern Culture (Port

Townsend, WA: Bay Press, 1983), pp. 3–15.

25. Vittorio Gregotti, Sulle orme di Palladio (Rome-Bari: Laterza, 2000),

p. 59.

26. Ibid., p. 80.

27. Ernesto N. Rogers, ‘‘Uomini senza casa,’’ domus 206, February

(1946), later republished in Charlotte and Peter Fiell, eds., domus 1940–

49 (Cologne: Taschen Verlag, 2006), p. 256.

28. Among Ernesto N. Rogers’s remarkable scoops as editor were an

essay by Sigfried Giedion, ‘‘The Age of Total Mechanization,’’ domus

216, December (1946)—a world premiere excerpt of his landmark

Mechanization Takes Command (Oxford: Oxford University Press,

1948)—and a rare and beautiful writing by Alvar Aalto, ‘‘Architettura e

arte concreta [Architecture and Concrete Art],’’ domus 223–225,

October–December (1947). Both articles have been republished in

Charlotte and Peter Fiell, eds., domus 1940–49, 326–330 and 386–395,

respectively.

29. Ernesto N. Rogers, Esperienza dell’architettura, Luca Molinari, ed.

(Milan and Geneva: Skira, 1997), p. 289. Originally published (Turin:

Einaudi, 1958).

30. Ernesto N. Rogers, ‘‘Discontinuità o continuità’’’? Casabella-

continuità 294–295 (December 1964 – January 1965): i.

31. For a famous critique to that season of Italian architecture see

Reyner Banham, ‘‘Neoliberty: The Italian Retreat from Modern

Architecture,’’ The Architectural Review 125, April (1959): 230–35.

Because of publishing in Casabella-continuità some Neoliberty projects,

Rogers was incorrectly associated with the movement. The criticism hurt

Rogers to the point of needing to make a specific rebuttal of the

criticism in his last editorial, where he assessed eleven years at the helm

of the magazine: ‘‘Discontinuità o continuità’’?: i-ii.

32. Ernesto N. Rogers, ‘‘Gropius e il senso della storia,’’ Casabella-

continuità 271, January (1963): 2: ‘‘Gropius’ fundamental swerve as an

educator and an artist is clear and it is understandable how he feels that

he acted ‘against’ Henry van de Velde [and his School of Arts & Crafts,

which the Bauhaus replaced]. But is Giotto against Cimabue or against

Cavallini? Every artist acts with profound originality, even though he is

constrained to place himself in history; when he is not a slavish imitator

he gives it new life, and when he has a clear mind, he will profoundly

renew history itself.’’

33. See Enzo Paci, Esistenza e immagine (Milan: Tarantola, 1947);

Esistenzialismo e storicismo (Milan: Mondadori, 1950); Tempo e

relazione (Turin: Taylor, 1954); Diario fenomenologico (Milan: Il

Saggiatore, 1961); Tempo e verità nella fenomenologia di Husserl, with

an unpublished text by Edmund Husserl (Bari: Laterza, 1961).

34. ‘‘… any historical investigation should be conducted as a

problem of the current consciousness and its vector is therefore never

directed towards the past, but rather towards the future.’’ Ernesto N.

Rogers, ‘‘Behrens, architetto tedesco,’’ Casabella-continuità, 240 (June

1960): 3.

35. ‘‘Tradition is for us the common stock of opinions, feelings and

facts from which a specific social group derives, and to which every

individual directs its own thought and action.’’ Rogers, Esperienza

dell’architettura, p. 252.

36. Gregotti, Sulle orme di Palladio, p. 83.

37. See the eulogy for Manfredo Tafuri by his dear friend and colleague

at the Istituto Universitario di Architettura di Venezia, philosopher-

mayor Massimo Cacciari, ‘‘Quid Tum?,’’ domus 762 (1994): 35–38.

38. ‘‘I believe that this choice of typology, during the design process, is

decisively important; many architectural works are ugly today because

they cannot be related to a clear choice: they are, above all, without

meaning.’’ Aldo Rossi, Aldo Rossi. Architetture 1959–87 (Milan: Electa,

1987), p. 46.

39. Tafuri, ‘‘The Adventures of the Object,’’ p. 29.

40. As Siza himself put it: ‘‘… architects do not invent anything; they

transform reality.’’ Quoted by Frampton, foreword to Inside Architecture,

by Gregotti, xv (see n. 4).

41. Herzog & de Meuron, project description, ‘‘N. 327 – Porta Volta,

Fondazione Feltrinelli, Milan, 2008–2013,’’ 1. In the same document it is

further noted: ‘‘The redefinition of Porta Volta will intrinsically be a

Milanese project, taking up themes of Milanese urbanism and

architecture, which through the course of history have led to a series of

emblematic buildings for which the city of Milan is renowned.’’ Ibid., p. 2.

42. ‘‘… the long-limbed form, linear building refers, first, to the Gothic

tradition that is expressed in important buildings in the city of Milan,

and secondly, to farms that dot the landscape of Lombardy. Our old

master Aldo Rossi considered these linear structures the characteristic

feature of his work, and in our project for Porta Volta ⁄ Fondazione

Feltrinelli sometimes you can find also a tribute to this important

Milanese architect of the second half of the twentieth century.’’ Jacques

Herzog quoted in: http://www.designboom.com/weblog/cat/9/view/

9466/herzog-de-meuron-porta-volta-milan.html (accessed August 10,

2010).

43. ‘‘The allocation of Edificio Feltrinelli and the Fondazione along viale

Pasubio and the allocation of Edificio Comune along viale Montello

opposite the axis via Alessandro Volta underline this historical gate,

taking up the Milanese tradition of twin buildings as in piazza Duomo,

Piemonte or Duca D’Aosta.’’ Herzog & de Meuron, project description, 1.

44. Schumacher, ‘‘Let the Style Wars Begin.’’

45. Gregotti, Sulle orme di Palladio, p. 23.

46. Ibid., p. 142.

47. ‘‘Different languages need to maintain open but clear identities in

order to communicate…,’’ Gregotti, Inside Architecture, p. 3.

48. ‘‘The role of the historian is not principally to describe buildings or

architects, to produce biographies, explications, and specialized

commentaries – though we do that too. The role of the historian is

rather to be concerned with the larger conditions on which architectural

knowledge and action is made possible: with the multiple agencies of

culture in their ideological and historical worldly forms.’’ K. Michael

Hays, ‘‘Notes on Narrative Method in Historical Interpretation,’’

Footprint, Autumn (2007): 23, accessed August 10, 2010. As Leach

further commented: ‘‘Rather than providing the architect with easy

answers drawn from the past, Tafuri thought, architectural historians

ought to recall the messiness surrounding the way buildings are made,

and to remind present day readers of cases, architects and problems

that fell out of view for being at odds with architecture’s neater

histories. As Tafuri would have it in rebuttal of Zevi’s position [operative

criticism], the architectural historian studies the past in order to present

historical knowledge with ‘no aesthetic conclusion’.’’ Leach, What is

Architectural History?, pp. 110–11.

49. Gropius argued that history should be introduced ‘‘in the third year

instead of the first, to keep students from imitating and from being

intimidated.’’ As quoted by Rogers, ‘‘Gropius e il senso della storia,’’ 2,

from Walter Gropius, Scope of Total Architecture (New York: Harper &

Row, 1955).

50. Gregotti observed: ‘‘The new is the constitution of a distance from

what we know.’’ Gregotti, Sulle orme di Palladio, p. 27.

51. This is similar to what Hays sees the narrative doing to the

writing of history: ‘‘… the practice of writing I am proposing would

be a force that thickens the situation, slows thinking down, that

keeps something of the human mystery that stands opposed to a text

that is too packaged and easy.’’ K. Michael Hays, ‘‘Notes on Narrative

Method,’’ p. 29. See also, with regard to the notion of ‘‘thick

description’’ in anthropology and cultural theory, Clifford Geertz,

‘‘Thick Description: Toward an Interpretive Theory of Culture’’ in The

Interpretation of Cultures (New York: Basic Books, 1973), pp. 3–30.

52. The project, according to Gregotti, is not narrative in nature, but it

is ‘‘a chain of developments’’ that has more in common with an

unfolding narrative than ‘‘the gesture of a painter, even though this

latter owes much to the materiality of its definition.’’ Gregotti, Sulle

orme di Palladio, p. 101.

53. In particular, see Sophia Psarra, Architecture and Narrative. The

Formation of Space and Cultural Meaning (London: Routledge, 2009).

Wittgenstein’s Ladder 58