Architecture: A Very Short Introduction

It does not always happen that the symbolism designed into a building is the symbolism that is understood by the observer who sees the building in the modern age, and the more distant the culture the more likely it is. For example, the pyramids have been seen as a symbol of ancient mystery, not because that was any part of the intention of their designers, but because they were so remote from modern rationalism, and so little understood. Voltaire poured scorn on the ancient Egyptians’ reverence for cats and onions. The air of mystery was deliberately exploited when pyramids were evoked in Western culture, and the ‘Egyptian’ rites in freemasonry were devised in the 18th century. One major advance in our appreciation of ancient Egypt was made in the 19th century when hieroglyphics, ancient Egyptian writing, were deciphered for the first time. The archaeological study of Egypt has advanced enormously, and some aspects of the society are now understood quite clearly. In a society that lasted for hundreds of years at a stretch without noticeable cultural change, the habits of the culture (however bizarre they might seem to us) would surely have been experienced as the most obvious sort of common sense by the people who lived then. Of course priests dress up in costumes to look like the gods: that’s what priests do. Obviously some sacred ceremonies are performed at dead of night — that’s the proper time for them. But in our own day the popular imagination continues to develop the old idea of supernatural powers, curses, and occult knowledge, often linking it with futuristic technical wizardry. The basic ‘argument’ is that, since the achievements of the ancient Egyptians were so impressive, they must have had help from advanced technologies, like laser beams, or visiting spacecraft, and from there it is a small step to think that they might have discovered how to bring the dead back to life. This imaginative tradition is sold as fact in some of the literature (which outsells academic studies by a factor of tens or hundreds of thousands) and in an overtly fictional way is to be found in such films as Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Mummy, Stargate, and The Fifth Element. The imagery is evidently effective in its appeal to modern audiences, and the fact that the ancient Egyptians would not recognize themselves or any of their ideas in the stories is not an issue. At least, it isn’t an issue unless we have misinformed ourselves to the point that we think that we’re watching these films in order to find out about ancient Egypt. And that would be a straightforward but terrible error. The films tell us about the daydreams of the present day, not about the ancient past. The buildings of the pharaohs were certainly intended to have meaning. It is evident from the care and precision with which they were worked. They are not the products of neglect and chance. But equally we can be sure that the original meaning is lost to us today, and attempts to reconstruct it can only be conjecture and will never have the force of immediate intuition. The original architects might have felt that they were building things that had definite meaning embodied in them, but with the passage of time and the perishing of civilizations, it becomes clear that the meaning is volatile, and dependent not just on the stones, but also on the culture in which the interpretation is made.

Classical and Gothic