Architecture. Mysticism and Myth

The history of architecture, as usually written, with its theory of utilitarian origins from the hut and the tumulus, and further developments in that way -the adjustment of forms to the conditions of local circumstance; the clay of Mesopotamia, the granite of Egypt, and marble of Greece-is rather the history of building: of 'Architecture' it may be, in the sense we so often use the word, but not the Architecture which is the synthesis of the fine arts, the commune of all the crafts. Behind every style of architecture there is an earlier style, in which the germ of every form is to be found; except such alterations as may be traced to new conditions, or directly innovating thought in religion, all is the slow change of growth, and it is almost impossible to point to the time of invention of any custom or feature. It will be necessary, not only to examine architecture in the monuments, but the contemporary statements which relate to them, the stories about buildings, and even the mythology of architecture, for such a mythology there is. If we trace the artistic forms of things, made by man, to their origin, we find a direct imitation of nature. The thought behind a ship is the imitation of a fish. So to the Egyptians and Greeks the “Black Ship” bore traces of this descent, and two eyes were painted at the prow. The custom still lingers on the Mediterranean and on the waters of China: the eyes are given; it is said, to enable the ship to see its way over the pathless sea. Tables and chairs, like the beasts, are quadrupeds; the lion’s leg and foot of modern furniture come to us from the Greeks, and, earlier, they were used in Assyria and Egypt. The ritual side of symbolism is entirely neglected here, but there is ample evidence that sacred ceremony, the state that surrounded a throne, and the pageant of war, all had reference to the ritual and pomp of nature; so that man might be one with her and share her invincible strength.

William Richard Lethaby was an English architect and architectural historian whose ideas were highly influential on the late Arts and Crafts and early Modern movements in architecture, and in the fields of conservation and art education. Lethaby was born in Barnstaple, Devon, the son of a fiercely Liberal craftsman and lay preacher. He found work in London in 1879 as Chief Clerk to architect Richard Norman Shaw. Shaw quickly recognized Lethaby’s talent as a designer and Lethaby was to contribute significant pieces of work to major Shaw-designed buildings such as Scotland Yard in London and Cragside in Northumberland. Lethaby became involved in the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings, which campaigned to preserve the integrity and authenticity of older buildings against the Victorian practice of “improving” them to the point of almost completely rebuilding and redesigning them. Through this he became a personal friend of Arts and Crafts Movement pioneers William Morris and Philip Webb, becoming a significant and influential member and acting as co-founder of the Art Workers Guild in 1884. From 1889 Lethaby worked only part time for Shaw and increasingly practiced independently, designing a wide range of products exploring the mystical symbolism of medieval and non-European design and architecture: themes he was to elaborate in his first and most famous book “Architecture, Mysticism, and Myth”, the first major work of architectural theory to treat architecture as a system of symbols with identifiable philosophical meanings, rather than as abstract systems of aesthetic principles. Lethaby left Shaw’s practice in 1892 after the completion of his first major independent architectural project. The next decade was Lethaby’s most productive in terms of built works as his contacts in the Birmingham area, where the ideas of the arts and crafts movement were particularly well received, led to series of commissions for buildings in the Midlands. In 1901 Lethaby was appointed the first Professor of Design at the Royal College of Art. This, coupled with his appointments as Principal of the Central School of Arts and Crafts in 1902 and as Surveyor of Westminster Abbey in 1906 meant that he was increasingly devoted to the academic study of the theory and history of architecture and design. Lethaby remains widely recognized as a figure of pivotal significance in the transition between the architecture of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.