CALL FOR PAPERS

San Rocco 13:

Pure Beauty

San Rocco is interested in gathering together the widest

possible variety of contributions. San Rocco believes that
architecture is a collective knowledge, and that collective
knowledge is the product of a multitude. External contributions to San Rocco might take different forms. Essays,
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there are no limits either minimum or maximum imposed on the length of contributions. Minor contributions
(a few lines of text, a small drawing, a photo, a postcard)
are by no means uninteresting to San Rocco. For each
issue, San Rocco will put out a call for papers comprised
of an editorial note and of a list of cases, each followed
by a short comment. As such, the call for papers is a
preview of the magazine. The call for papers defines the
field of interest of a given issue and produces a context in
which to situate contributions.

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES
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by external contributors, following the approach defined in
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Proposals for contributions to San Rocco 13 must be submitted electronically to mail@sanrocco.info by 12 April 2016.

We have . . . judgments of, or pleasure in, the beautiful:

this pleasure accompanies the ordinary apprehension
[Auffassung; not perception] of an object by the imagination . . . by means of a procedure of the judgment which
it must also exercise on behalf of the commonest experience. . . . This judgment is based on that common and
sound intellect [gemeiner und gesunder Verstand] which
we have to presuppose in everyone. How does this
common sense distinguish itself from the other senses, which we also have in common but which nevertheless do not guarantee agreement of sensations? . . . The
term common sense meant a sense like our other senses the same for everyone in his very privacy. By using
the Latin term, Kant indicates that here he means something different: an extra sense like an extra mental capability (German: Menschenverstand) that fits us into
a community. The common understanding of men . . .
tis the very least to be expected from anyone claiming
the name of man. It is the capability by which men are
distinguished from animals and from gods. It is the very
humanity of man that is manifest in this sense . . . The
only general symptom of insanity is the loss of the sensus communis and the logical stubbornness in insisting
on ones own sense (sensus privatus), which [in an insane
person] is substituted for it . . . Under the sensus communis we must include the idea of a sense common to
all, i.e., of a faculty of judgment which, in its reflection,
takes account (a priori) of the mode of representation
of all other men in thought, in order, as it were, to compare its judgment with the collective reason of humanity . . . This is done by comparing our judgment with the
possible rather that the actual judgment of others, and
by putting ourselves in the place of any other man, by
abstracting from the limitations which contingently attach to our own judgment . . .
Hannah Arendt, Lectures on Kants Political Philosophy
(Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1982), pp.
7071

flavours are more grateful to the ear or the palate, than

any single tones or flavours can be. They are therefore
more properly beautiful, according to the strictest
meaning of the word beauty, when applied to that which
is pleasing to the sense only; and not, as it usually is, to
that, which is alike pleasing to the senses, the intellect
and the imagination; according to which comprehensive signification of the word, many objects, that we call
picturesque, certainly are not beautiful; since they may
be void of symmetry, neatness, cleanness, &c.; all which
are necessary to constitute that kind of beauty, which
addresses itself to the understanding and the fancy.
Richard Payne Knight, An Analytical Inquiry into the
Principles of Taste (London: T. Payne-Mews Gate and J.
White-Fleet-Street, 1805), p. 148

Tints happily broken and blended, and irregular masses of light and shadow harmoniously melted into each
other, are, in themselves, as before observed, more
grateful to the eye, than any single tints, upon the same
principle that harmonious combinations of tones or

It seems difficult to talk about architecture without

mentioning beauty. The modern idea of doing without
beauty does not really seem to have worked out very
well. Just randomly scan dezeen.com: Why make a circular bridge on a Uruguayan lagoon? Why make a huge

Nobody talks about beauty. Nobody dares. (Or, at least,

not in architecture; if you are in the soap business, then
its another story.)
If you mention beauty meaning a universally evident
beauty people stare at you like some sort of dinosaur
that forgot to acknowledge its own extinction. Actually,
they also fear that just before you acknowledge it, you
could still eat them.
If you do dare to mention beauty, then some well-intentioned idiot says beauty is subjective, as if this indisputable truth (given that beauty is, of course, subjective) would implicitly mean that nothing subjective and shared (or universal, or common, or whatever
youd like to call it) could possibly exist; as if subjects
could never agree, or could never admit their shared
nature and recognize themselves in what, in the end,
is nothing more than this: the sudden appearance
of something that we all like, something to which we
would all like to surrender ourselves (i.e., the sudden
appearance of beauty).
So, yes: beauty is subjective. But this is no reason to
stop worrying about beauty.

horseshoe-shaped market hall? And why make a prerusted steel staircase based on the form of a singlesurface Mbius strip? What are all these buildings trying to achieve? Are they trying really hard to look efficient? Environmentally friendly? Progressive? Why all
this effort? Is this just a nonsensical race towards the
bizarre? Or is it, in fact, just a misunderstood search
for beauty? And why dont we want to call this thing by
its name? (And wouldnt this quest be at least slightly
more successful if it had been explicit about its goal
from the beginning?)
Modern architecture murdered beauty, erasing it from
the very core of the architectural discourse. In a few
cases, the purge of beauty was an attempt to substitute the indirect politicalness of beauty with direct political action (although this remark probably only applies to Hannes Meyers work and that of a few others).
In the vast majority of cases, however, the expunging of
beauty was just the consequence of a computational/
liberal paradigm according to which anything that cannot be immediately calculated should simply be made
to disappear. So beauty was suddenly dead, dead as a
dead dog.
Efficiency became the new paradigm, and its logic relentlessly mined the possibility of thinking of beauty as
the ultimate goal of architectural production. The minutiae of the difficult dialectic of beauty were soon lost
in a rude new common sense. Given the obsession with
measuring the effectiveness of any given buildings performance, the pre-modern ineffability of the investigation of beauty became obscene, as did its embarrassing permalink with the sphere of the sacer. And in the
space left vacant by the absence of a proper discourse
on beauty, a lesser one soon developed. This space was
soon occupied by the picturesque, a minor beauty entirely dedicated to the reveries of the individual. In fact,
while beauty was abstract, logical and impersonal, the
picturesque was sensual, psychological and personal.
While beauty imposed itself on the subject (in the name
of a Common that preceded all of the individuals belonging to it), the picturesque merely reawakened previous sensations experienced by the subject, without
any interest in something shared or universal. (In the

end, if you did not eat the cookies as a child, then you
can never rediscover their taste later in life.)
Beauty was political. Beauty was violent and optimistic. Beauty wanted to change the world. As such, beauty had a theory. The picturesque, on the contrary, was
nostalgic and consolatory. The picturesque wanted
the world to stay as it was. Thus, the picturesque had
a hermeneutics.
If the production of beauty is an explicit goal of architecture, then arent we in need of a proper theory of
beauty?
Good old Immanuel Kant might help a bit here, specifically his analysis of the beautiful in his Critique of Judgment. Employing an apparent oxymoron, Kant refers to
the beautiful as the result of a subjective universal
judgement. The judgement is subjective; it is not tied
to any absolute or determinate concept. However, the
judgement is made in the belief that other people ought
to agree with it, even though it is known that many will
not. The force of this ought comes from a reference to
a sensus communis a common sense, a common form
of life.
And using this principle as a starting point, wouldnt it
be possible to imagine a few, schematic first elements
of a theory of beauty for contemporary architecture?
For instance:
a.) Beauty is both an explicit problem (in theory) and an
explicit goal (in design).
b.) There is no chance of producing beauty unless it is
explicitly desired; or, beauty does not happen: beauty
is a project; or, even better, beauty only happens if it is
a project (given that, of course, the project of beauty is
not sufficient to make beauty happen).
c.) Beauty indeed happens; it is an event.
d.) Beauty is the rediscovery of a pre-logical, pre-linguistic commonality that is achieved through logical,
critical, political work.
e.) Beauty must be pure beauty; it cannot do without the
crazy pretension of being evident to everybody (offered
to everybody).
f.) Pure beauty is based on the refusal of an idea of a
lesser beauty, of a minor, harmless beauty, a quasibeauty that is to pure beauty as a lapdog is to a lover.

 Beauty and the Classic

There seems to be a privileged relationship between
beauty and the classic. Is what is classic simply what is
explicitly searching for beauty? What would be a definition of classic that would imply this explicit search for
beauty without making any reference to a privileged
tradition? How might we imagine a non-Eurocentric
classicism?
VIII. The Bell
(Andrei Tarkovsky, Andrei Rublev, 1966)
The bellmaker dies, survived only by his young son. The
son tells the Grand Prince that he is the only one who
knows his fathers secret way of casting the bell, so the
boy is put in charge of the project. The production involves more than a hundred men, who often dispute
the boys decisions. As the furnaces are stoked and the
molten metal is poured into the mould, the boy asks
God for help. If the bell fails to ring, the Grand Prince
will have all of the workers beheaded. At the critical
moment, the bell rings perfectly. The father had never
shared his secret for casting a bell with his son.
Bramantinos Frog
There is no reason for the frog no excuse, no explanation, no secret. Just a frog, and a big one.
The Case for Valerio Olgiati
Olgiatis oeuvre has been a consistent plea for returning beauty to the core of the architectural discourse.
Olgiati is not ashamed of his search for beauty and
he is also reasonably successful in producing beauty in his buildings. But maybe Olgiati should tell us
where all of this ought to lead. (There are certain
points at which one needs a theory.) Lists of favourite
cheeses, favourite wines and favourite cars are probably not enough.
Dust
In the 20th century a specific kind of beauty emerged
from the dust. Anticlassical but not at all picturesque,
this beauty can be traced as far back as Man Rays
levage de Poussire. Schwitters, Kiefer, Roth and Baltz,
among many others, are the adepts of this dusty beauty,

somehow primordial, somehow post-apocalyptic. Although Isozaki may have tried to pursue something similar, thus far architecture has hardly exploited this field.
Before Marketing Took the Reins
(Our Little Nostalgic Moment)
Car design may have reached an all-time low. A Russiandolls approach to brand identity that tried to provide
every car manufacturer with an unmistakable line-up
of models transferred decision-making power from the
designers to the market experts. At the same time, the
shift in importance from the older markets of Europe,
the U.S. and Japan to the quickly developing new ones
with their allegedly different tastes helped turn car
design into a caricature of the profession it once was.
We look back with astonished respect at the avantgarde car design of the 1970s and its consistent search
for beauty through abstraction. It was a time when concept cars were more than just testing grounds used to
judge the publics reaction. Bertone, Giugiaro, Pininfarina, Towns where are you now?
High-tech
Thirty years after the peak of High-tech Architecture, it
might now be the time to investigate its sleek, chromeaddicted, mystical beauty the Lloyds building, for
instance.
Beauty in Space
The very idea that beauty can appear in space is a postulate of Italian Renaissance painting, not of Italian Renaissance architecture. Italian Renaissance architecture is just a consequence of this idea that is, the idea
of a painter: Giotto di Bondone.
Abstract Landscape
Landscape architecture is a creation of the picturesque.
And so far landscape architecture has been loyal to its
roots. To this point there has been no attempt to imagine a contemporary landscape architecture (or a contemporary landscape urbanism, for that matter) outside of the tradition of the picturesque. Would this be
possible?
Kill the father!

 The Neo-picturesque
The politically correct urbanism of the neo-liberal era
came from a place where the Smithsons without moralism merged with Rossi without ideology. This aggressively inoffensive idea of the city proceeded to conquer
Europe with an endless provision of sensiblerie. Here
a little tear for a rabbit that has broken its paw, there
a little song for those abandoned slippers next to the
broom. Always very polite. No claim, no statement. Everything in tones of beige or mustard. Always contextual, no matter what the context actually was.
Early Lewerentz Is So Much Better than Late
Lewerentz
Forget all those sombre bricks: the good Lewerentz is
the one who made the Resurrection Chapel.
Rembrandts, Tractors
It is said that in the early years of the USSR, the new
government wanted to sell off large parts of the tsarist
art collections in order to buy more useful things: We
do not need Rembrandts; we need tractors! Instead
of eliminating aesthetic values, this type of economy
makes room for a new hyper-aestheticization of the political. A new beauty appears, one that is fanatical and
immoral, apocalyptic and punk.
In architecture, the most obvious case of this is the
work of Hannes Meyer, possibly the most talented architect of his generation and one who radically set aside
his own skills in order to submit entirely to ideology. Yet
somehow, through this ideology, his talent resurfaces,
but purified in a fanatical sacrifice: the Basel cemetery,
the Society of Nations, the Peterschule, the Palace of
the Soviets . . .

Maria dei Miracoli is that of something which, in the

end, is in fact a building and clearly produces a piece
of the city. But how exactly is Santa Maria dei Miracoli
architecture?
The Al-Shaheed Monument
The Al-Shaheed Monument, also known as the Martyrs Memorial, is a monument in Baghdad dedicated
to the Iraqi soldiers who died in the war between Iran
and Iraq. Inaugurated in 1983, the monument was designed by Saman Kamal and Ismail Fatah Al Turk. Saddam Hussein somehow paid for this thing, which may
be the gentlest, least machismo-charged war memorial
ever made slightly postmodern Niemeyer, oversized
Noguchi, over-oversized early Kapoor, the same idea as
Francesco di Giorgios in drawing UA 335v (mirroring/
not entirely mirroring the apses), pure as water lilies in
a shower gel commercial.
Atmosphere
No atmosphere in Giotto. Only protest and altercation in Masaccio. Zero atmosphere in Mantegna. No
fog in the dark blue of Giottos skies and no fog in the
light blue of Pieros skies. No fog in Mantegna (and he
lived in Mantua). Never, no atmosphere. No psychology;
only public duties, only logic, only politics. All neat and
sharp and clean like a car at a car dealership. All sour
and bright like oranges received from a lady who does
not love you. No consolation. No atmosphere.

This Is Not a Building

Santa Maria dei Miracoli (148189) is a tiny church
in Venice. The building is so small that it is not clear
whether it is a church, a model, a tabernacle. Maybe it
is just a box (a box for votive offerings, long since removed). The church is entirely covered in marble, both
inside and outside, thus making it incredibly precious.
It is hard to understand the church as architecture,
and yet at the same time the specific beauty of Santa

Ehrenvoll ist es fr mich, oh Csar, dass du mein Werk

zum ffentlichen Gut erhebst, allein, ich darf behaupten, dass ich es nicht nur fr den Leser, sondern zuerst fr mich geschrieben habe, dass dies seine innerste Notwendigkeit war, und dass es mein Werk ist, ber
das ich nach meiner Notwendigkeit, wie sie mir von den
Gttern bestimmt wird, verfgen muss und verfgen
darf.
Darf ich meinerseits gypten freigeben? darf ich
Germanien von Truppen entblssen? darf ich den Parthern wieder die Grenze ausliefern? darf ich Roms Frieden wieder preisgeben? darf ich dies? nein, ich darf es
nicht, und selbst wenn ich den Befehl der Gtter hiezu
erhielte, ich drfte ihn nicht befolgen, obwohl es mein
Friede ist und ich ihn erfochten habe, und es mein Werk
ist . . .
Der Vergleich hinkte, denn die Siege waren das
gemeinsame Werk des Csars und des gesamten rmischen Volkes und Heeres, wahrend ein Gedicht die
Tat eines Einsamen ist. Doch wie immer dem auch sei,
ob der Vergleich widerspruchsvoll war oder nicht, das
blosse Dasein des Csars hob allen Widerspruch auf.
Dein Werk wird an seiner Staatstauglichkeit gemessen, das meine an der knstlerischen
Vollkommenheit.
Die knstlerische Vollkommenheit, das holde
Muss des Schaffens, das keine Wahl lsst und ber alles
Menschliche und Irdische hinausreicht!
Ich sehe keinen Unterschied; auch das Kunstwerk
hat dem Nutzen der Allgemeinheit und damit dem Staate zu dienen, und der Staat selber ist Kunstwerk in der
Hand desjenigen, der ihn zu bauen hat.
Eine gewisse belstigte Mdigkeit war dem Csar
anzumerken; die Erwagungen ber das Kunstwerk waren ihm nicht wichtig, und es war etwas unklug darauf
zu beharren: Mag der Staat auch als Kunstwerk gelten,
so ist es eines, das in Bewegung bleibt und immer weitere Vervollkommnung gestattet, wahrend die Dichtung, ist sie einmal abgeschlossen, etwas in sich Ruhendes ist, so dass also der Schaffende seine Hand nicht
von der Arbeit lassen darf, ehe sie nicht Vollkommenheit erreicht hat; er muss abndern, er muss das Unzulngliche ausmerzen, so ist es ihm befohlen, und er
muss es tun, selbst auf die Gefahr hin, dass das ganze

Werk darob zugrunde geht. Es gibt nur einen einzigen

Massstab, und der ist das Ziel des Werkes; nur am Ziel
des Werkes kann ermessen werden, was bleiben darf
und was vernichtungswrdig ist, wahrlich, auf dieses
Ziel allein kommt es an, nicht auf das getane Werk, und
der Knstler . . .
Ungeduldig schnitt der Augustus die Rede ab:
Niemand wird dem Knstler abstreiten, dass er Unzulngliches verbessern oder dem gesamtes Werk unzulnglich ist . . .
Es ist unzulnglich.
[...]
Die Gtter wollten nicht, dass er die Verse fertigstelle, sie wollten nicht, dass er der Verse Unstimmigkeit behebe, denn alles Menschenwerk muss aus Dmmerung und aus Blindheit entstehen , also in Unstimmigkeit verbleiben; dies ist der Gtter Ratschluss. Und
trotzdem, nun wusste er es: nicht nur Fluch, sondern
auch Gnade ist in dieser Unstimmigkeit gegeben, nicht
nur des Menschen Unzulnglichkeit, sondern auch seine Gottesnhe, nicht nur die Unfertigkeit der menschlichen Seele, sondern auch ihre Grsse, nicht nur die
Blindheit des aus Blindheit geborenen Menschenwerkes, sondern auch seine Ahnungskraft, ohne deren
blinde Schau es ja berhaupt nicht geschaffen worden
wre, da es und in jedem Werk steckt der Keim hiezu ber sich selbst und den, der es geschaffen hat,
weit hinausreichend, den Schaffende zum Schpfer
macht: denn all die All-Unstimmigkeit des Geschehens
setzt erst ein, wenn der Mensch im All wirksam wird
weder im Geschehen des Gottes noch in dem des Tieres gibt es Unstimmigkeit , erst in der Unstimmigkeit
enthllt sich die fruchtbare Herrlichkeit des menschlichen Loses, das ein Hinausgreifen ber sich selber ist:
zwischen der Stummheit des Tieres und der des Gottes
steht das menschliche Wort, harrend, dass es selber
in Verzckung erschweige, berstrahlt vom Auge, dessen Blindheit verzckt sehend geworden ist: verzckte
Blindheit, die Nicht-Vergeblichkeit.
Hermann Broch, Der Tod des Vergils (Frankfurt:
Suhrkamp, 1976), pp. 29293 and 4078

Next page:
Young Frankenstein,
directed by Mel Brooks,
1974