Review4_Ideas, Talent, Poetics: A Problem of Manifesto_ Colin Rowe
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According to Rowe, one should be skeptical of those “revolutionary” manifestoes which not so much concerned with the fate of cultural and society but the self-dramatization of their authors. Ideas in this kind of manifestoes, without mediation of “talent”, will finally result in “poetics”. Considering “there might remain something to be said on behalf of tradition”, Colin Rowe tries to promote a possible reciprocity between tradition and revolution, talent and ideas.
To contrast the attributes of talent and the attributes of ideation, an observation method, parlor game, is brought up. That is because the ultimate discrimination between talent and ideas is not easy, as it is suggested in Sir Isaiah Berlin’s The Hedgehog and the Fox.
In this “game”, we can see, Rowe has made a lot of observations on architecture and music, such as the dome of Basilica Superga and San Lorenzo, the Opera and Sainte-Genevieve, St. Martin-in-the-Fields and Christ Church and the compositions of music by Berlioz and Beethoven. And at end of the game, Rowe declares that neither the presence of talent nor the presence of ideas is a necessary guarantee of quality. But if the “ideas” are little more than the fantasies of cultural primitives, then “talent” is a vivacious employment of knowledge and education. This makes me feel talent to be of great importance once ideas are of little sense.
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| dome of San Lorenzo |
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| dome of Superga |
After looking at several manifesto pieces Rowe discussed in this essay, I feel like some have very strong-willing and over-simple idea or concept in it, but lack applicability. “The manifesto piece avoids local contingencies and it only enters the city as the adversary of context”. Douglas House is like “a ship without any relationship with docks”. The house in Friedrichstadt has strong axis with the street and seems to be an opportunism.
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| Douglas House |
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| Douglas House |
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| elevations and plans of Douglas House |
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| Fallingwater |
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| Google's NYC operations |
At the Cite de Refuge, the stimulating conflict between abstract message of a manifesto culture and specific location is also revealed. These all make me think of the rationalism in composing and the location concerned character in design. The falling water is a good case in my opinion. You can see kind of floating flexibility there and a good continuity with the topography. Moreover, in historic districts, it is not the topography but the historic atmosphere that challenges the revolution. But there are always the strategies for ideas and talent. Look at the home for Google's NYC operations in Chelsea Historic District. The new black box is sitting upon the old building, creating a contrast in material but continuity in form. As far as I am concerned, it's good to bring the abstract message down to earth, which means stick on one big idea and then enrich it with rational talents under the confines of specifics.
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