Focal Points of Architecture in Four Architectural Histories

Architectural histories do differ and to some extent, this difference roots in the historian’s “viewpoint”. The architectural historian does not look at architecture from nowhere and always has a certain perspective. Although historian’s questions, the field of his quest, types of testimonies and way of interpretation are affected most, viewpoint avoids the past architecture to be seen flatten, makes some aspects prominent and spontaneously, taking the other aspects out of attention. In this article these focal points of architecture will be discussed in four famous histories of western architecture which are totally distinct in their perspective. In each case, based on a descriptive and interpretive method and after a quick bibliographical introduction, the historian’s point of view will be discussed. Specifically, more argumentation will be on Gothic cathedral, and one of its significant examples, Chartres Cathedral. The mentioned architectural histories and their focal points are these: 1) History of Architecture on the Comparative Method (1905), looking at architecture as an evolutional solution of building problems and then, Gothic cathedral as a solution mostly based on roman arch-based architecture; 2) The Story of Western Architecture (1979), with a Marxist theory of history, seeking for the effect of social class change on labor division and the products of architectural designer; 3) A History of Architecture: Settings and Rituals (1995), seeing Gothic cathedral as a luminous place suited for holding up the rituals of new interpretation of Christianity in thirteenth century; 4) Architecture, from Prehistory to Postmodernity (2002), taking architecture as a spatio-visual art, dealing with Gothic cathedral as the physical embodiment of a transcendent vision which employed structural and formal elements of architecture for reaching to an otherworldly appearance.