Celebrating the centenaries of Sir John Summerson and Henry-Russell Hitchcock: finding a historiography for the architect-historian

Just as the 'great makers' of twentieth century architecture were said to be four in number, so it has been said that the historian 'makers' were also four: Reyner Banham, Henry-Russell Hitchcock, Sir Nikolaus Pevsner, and Sir John Summerson.1 The greatness of Hitchcock (1903-1987) and Summerson (1904-1992) was the premise for a June 2004 symposium entitled Sir John Summerson and Henry-Russell Hitchcock: A Centenary Conference on Aspects of Architectural Historiography in the Twentieth Century. According to the symposium organisers, they were 'two of the greatest architectural historians writing in English in the century in which the discipline itself emerged and became established'. The symposium's distinguished double sponsorship by The Paul Mellon Center for Studies in British Art and the Society of Architectural Historians (USA), and its inclusion in a series of planned collaborations between the American organisation and its sister foreign institutions, made the case ipso facto that their stature as great historians remains largely intact across the hyphen that joins Anglo-American history of architecture. In the light of the abundance of revisionist challenges to those reputations, the premise was indeed a bold one.2  

As we shall see, despite much new research, many new findings, and engaged (and, given the circumstances), courageously honest and collaborative discussion, on balance, the two central figures eluded comprehension. Diametrically opposing views were left standing, with neither one side nor the other carrying the analytical day. This 'critical stalemate, to use a Summersonian term,3 can arguably be used to develop an historiography of the architect-historian that is of general methodological pertinence and of special relevance for today's architect-intellectual.     

建筑传播和英国新古典主义实践：以约翰·索恩爵士生平为例

英国新古典主义建筑继承了其跨海峡旅游和调研的巴洛克传统,并将其延伸至测绘废墟、收集古物、形成组织和建立学院的活动中。文章以约翰·索恩爵士及其壮游、建筑师俱乐部和英国皇家艺术学院建筑教授的经历,从单个建筑师及其个人、社会和教育方面与建筑学的关系,去探讨英国新古典主义建筑的传播和发展。     

Post-optimal analysis of a degenerate optimal solution to the Hitchcock formulation

Post-optimal analysis is an essential activity of any optimization study. This paper presents two complementary procedures for post-optimal analysis of a degenerate optimal solution to the Hitchcock formulation. The first one identifies the cheapest activation path for an inactive allocation; the second one determines the r best solutions. The procedures are illustrated by two numerical examples.

L'analyse post-optimale est une activite essentielle de toute etude d'optimisation. Cet article scientifique presente deux procedures complementaires pour realtser l'analyse post-optimale d'une solution optimale degeneree a la formulation de Hitchcock. La premiere identifie le chemin d'acttvation le moins couteux pour une allocation inactive; la seconde determine les r meilleures solutions. Les deux procedures sont illustrees par deux exemples numeriques.     

Charles Jencks and the historiography of Post-Modernism

The history of Post-Modern Architecture was to a large extent tied to the name of Charles Jencks, who played an operative role in promoting the movement, much like his predecessor Sigfried Giedion had done for Modern Architecture in the 1930s. Like Giedion, Jencks was a prolific writer and a protagonist of a radical change in the direction of architecture. In the thirty-five year period from the appearance of his first book in 1971, Jencks published more than twenty four works, not counting the ones he edited or co-edited. And like Giedion, Jencks also attempted to reach a synthesis of opposites, by including disparate examples within his original ‘canon’, extending it in its last revision to include works by Eisenman and Tschumi, as Giedion had done by the inclusion of Aalto and Utzon in his later editions of Space, Time and Architecture. This paper will discuss Jencks's historiography of Post-Modernism by looking at the seminal texts that he wrote from 1970 until 2007, beginning with Architecture 2000 and ending with Critical Modernism. The main focus of this article is critically to examine his major work, the Language of Post Modernism, and to trace its evolution as a means of evaluating his contribution to the development of this movement, as well as to architectural historiography.     

The historiography of mud: Vincent Scully,Ralph Knowles and the image of ecology

In this article, I argue that the representational practices of ecology played a critical role in the field of architectural history in the late 1960s and 1970s as scholars sought to re-evaluate prevailing historical narratives in the context of environmental crisis. Taking Vincent Scully's and Ralph Knowles' writings about Pueblo architecture in New Mexico as a point of focus, the paper explores ways in which architects and historians developed image-making techniques—from panoramic photography to energy performance diagrams—in shifting the focus of architectural history from static monuments to the feedback between architecture and environmental phenomena.     

Making sense of a governance framework for megaprojects: The challenge of finding equilibrium

The aim of this paper is to investigate the main objectives and effects of a governance framework for megaprojects from the perspective of project actors. A sensemaking perspective is mobilized to empirically study how project actors perceive the effects on government efficiency, legitimacy and accountability of Quebec's (Canada) governance framework. Results highlight the specificities and tensions between these three objectives, exploring the positive accounts, potential improvements and dynamic aspects associated with each. Using a multilevel perspective, results show that each level is related to a central objective: the institutional level with legitimacy, the organizational level with accountability and the project level with efficiency. Tensions are found within each level but more importantly between them, as some objectives oppose the others, making it challenging to attain an overall equilibrium. This exploratory research, based on 44 interviews and abductive theory building, broadens understanding of the governance of public megaprojects, notably by applying a sensemaking lens to an institutional policy that seeks to improve project performance.     

John Nolen: The Background of a Pioneer Planner

The early development of modern physical planning as a separate profession in the United States coincides with the reform period in our political history known as the “progressive era.” Both phenomena were new attempts at dealing with a changed condition-the emergence of America as a culture whose traditional lifeways had become increasingly depersonal, thoroughly industrialized, and predominantly urban. Of the planners, few seem to have been better prepared to deal with the demands of a rapidly changing order than John Nolen, whose background prior to his first major works in 1909 exemplifies that mixture of ongoing attitudes and innovations necessary to meet changing cultural conditions.     

解放后到文革结束时期（1949—1976年）的古典园林研究史

通过收集和整理1949年至1976年期间的古典园林研究文献，按研究内容对其进行量化分析，总结出此阶段古典园林研究的研究主体、研究内容以及研究热点，明确这一时期园林研究状态。     

Assessing quality of rural areas in the Netherlands: finding the most important indicators for recreation

Quality is a major topic in most Western societies, not only for products, but also for land. This is especially true in the Netherlands, a country with 15.6 million people living on 33 900 km² of land, with a huge demand for land for agriculture, urban development, nature, infrastructure, recreation, etc. The Dutch Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Fishery has asked the Winand Staring Centre to find out if it is possible to measure the quality of rural areas for recreational purposes.In a survey about quality, it is important to interview the recreationists themselves. So, in-home interviews were made with cyclists, walkers, swimmers, sailors and fishermen. The survey tried to assess the relative importance of some quality indicators of rural areas for recreational purposes. Dutch researchers usually divide quality into utilisation quality and perception quality. Utilisation quality is defined as fitness for use, while perception quality is that quality of the environment which people notice or experience (such as the beauty of the landscape or tranquillity) when they engage in recreational activities. Tranquillity, accessibility, water quality and nuisance value were the most important quality indicators. On the basis of the importance of some quality indicators, maps were prepared showing the attractiveness of various areas in the Netherlands for swimming and cycling, as an example what can be done with the results. It was found that 75% of the swimming locations were quite attractive or even extremely attractive. About 12% of the rural areas were good for cycling, and 56% were reasonable.     

中国城市在为其公民维持体面的生活质量方面面临巨大挑战——对话彼得·霍尔爵士

彼得·霍尔爵士(Sir Peter Hall):当代最有成就的城市规划大师之一,现任伦敦大学学院(University College London)教授,英国人文和社会科学院(British Academy)院士,欧洲学院(Academia Europea)成员。1998年因其对英国城乡规划协会的     

Between the barrier and the sieve: finding the border in the Modern Movement

This is the text of the opening paper presented to the Fourth International Conference of DoCoMoMo International (Documentation and Conservation of Modern Movement Architecture) in Bratislava, Slovakia in September 1996. An earlier version was published in H. Lethen, Verhaltenslehren der Kalte: Ledensversuche zwischen den Kreigen (Frankfurt am Main, Suhrkamp, 1994).     

Between the barrier and the sieve: finding the border in the Modern Movement

This is the text of the opening paper presented to the Fourth International Conference of DoCoMoMo International (Documentation and Conservation of Modern Movement Architecture) in Bratislava, Slovakia in September 1996. An earlier version was published in H. Lethen, Verhaltenslehren der Kalte: Ledensversuche zwischen den Kreigen (Frankfurt am Main, Suhrkamp, 1994).     

Condensation: Regionalism and the Room in John Yeon's Watzek House

Mary Anne Beecher's discussion of Aubrey Watzek's house extends traditional notions of regionalism to the domain of the interior. She outlines numerous ways that the local landscape and history figure as condensed renditions within rooms, surfaces and details. It is here that we find evidence of interior atmosphere developed as identity within a specific cultural and geographical context. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Sir Patrick Geddes and Barra Bazaar: competing visions,ambivalence and contradiction

During the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries successive British governments in Calcutta (Kolkata) became increasingly concerned with the links between the health of its inhabitants and the cleanliness of the city, particularly in the indigenous parts of town. European urban solutions, typically involving slum clearance and road building schemes, were imposed to address such problems. These colonial attitudes contrast with more ‘hybrid’ visions of health and hygiene that Sir Patrick Geddes adopted for proposals for a market area in Calcutta called Barra Bazaar, in 1919. Geddes’ ideas combined an approach that commended ‘traditional’ Indian courtyard houses, street patterns and external space, with more ‘modern’ ideas for business accommodation. In conclusion, I argue that Geddes’ often ambivalent and contradictory outlook on such competing visions of city space echoes notions of ‘hybridity,’ recently developed by Homi K. Bhabha.