Architecture and the Scandal of Particularity

by D. V. Marcantonio
Figure 1Figure 1: Tintoretto's Christ Before Pilate depicts specifics of salvation history.






Figure 2Figure 2: Constable's The Valley Farm depicts the natural instead of the supernatural.


Figure 3Figure 3: Wassily Kandinsky's Composition IX depicts no thing at all.


Figure 4
Figure 4: Center Triptych, Rothko Chapel, Houston.




Figure 5
Figure 5: Notre Dame du Haut, Ronchamps, France.

Figure 6
Figure 6: Notre Dame du Haut, Interior.


Figure 7
Figure 7: Notre Dame, Paris.


Figure 8
Figure 8: Tympanum above the main portal of Notre Dame, Paris.


Figure 9
Figure 9: Is it a church? a house?

The controversial movie “The Passion of the Christ” has brought people out in some most interesting ways. One of the most interesting comments to come out in advance of the movie's release came from a Protestant minister who was critical of the movie, claiming that “Christ's Passion was more abstract than that.”(i) Now this was a very curious thing to say. In what sense can he mean that the suffering and death of Jesus was more abstract than what is depicted in the film? He might have said that the movie depicted historical events inaccurately, or with the emphasis in the wrong place. Instead, he seemed to suggest that the whole depiction was too specific somehow. In response one might naturally ask: was Jesus not a specific person? Did he not suffer and die at a particular time and in a particular place?

This reviewer's comment is symptomatic, I would argue, of what has come to be known as the Scandal of Particularity. It is an antipathy to the fact that God carries out His salvific plan through particular people at particular times and in particular places, for example, that God should have reserved a Chosen People to be a vehicle for the salvation of all mankind; that He was Incarnate of a particular woman named Mary on the fringes of the Roman Empire, around two thousand years ago; that He should have communicated precepts with specific language, and set up an organization with people He selected to record and transmit those precepts.

The scandalized will tend to see God's relationship to man in more egalitarian terms: no people were specifically selected to be a vehicle for the salvation of everybody else; God manifests Himself (if at all) in ineffable ways, in many people, in a variety of places, cultures, and historical periods; the crucifixion was not the sine qua non for the opening of the gates of heaven; and finally, there is salvation outside the Church.

Rousseau, no friend of Christianity, summarized the principles that are left standing once the scandalous particularities of traditional Christianity are stripped away(ii):

1. The existence of a powerful, wise, and benevolent Divinity, who foresees and provides for the life to come;
2. The happiness of the just;
3. The punishment of the wicked;
4. The sanctity of the social contract and the laws.

This, I would argue, is a good summary of the principles that have gained currency in the West since the Enlightenment. If these principles are true, then Christ's Passion, and any artworks which depict it, are the ultimate absurdity. So if the artist wishes to produce something meaningful, the best he can hope to do is:

1. Produce object lessons in civic, or this-worldly, virtue (in order to reinforce principles two through four outlined above); and/or,
2. Depict the beauty of the visible world (in order to reinforce the first principle).

In very general terms, one can see that the art world did stake out this naturalistic course. Whereas artwork in the middle ages was almost exclusively sacred in nature, dealing directly with matters pertaining to salvation history, after the Renaissance a naturalism gained the ascendancy, as typified by Constable's “The Valley Farm” (Fig. 2).

Thus far, the particulars of revealed religion have been eschewed. But the Scandal of Particularity, one could argue, now out of the bag, was taken even further. With the advance of modernity, even the particulars of natural reality would be rejected. Modern man would come to recoil from the idea that there exists an objective reality which can be known (to some extent) and to which his mind must conform. Thus was born non-representational art. I choose the term “non-representational” as opposed to “abstract” deliberately as I would like to draw a distinction between artworks which simplify perceptible forms, and those artworks which strive to depict no thing at all (Fig. 3).

How could the Catholic religion, which is chock full of scandalous particulars, make use of such art? In his encyclical Pascendi Dominici Gregis, St. Pius X summarizes the modernist theology which reconciles the two, specifically, the principle of religious immanence. According to this principle, “...the reality of the divine as the object of faith...is not to be found...but in the heart of the believer, as an object of feeling and affirmation, and therefore confined within the sphere of phenomena.” (PDG, 14)

Thus, since the very existence of a reality outside the mind has been cast into doubt, or at least any reasonable possibility of knowing anything about it, all art can hope to do is to evoke some kind of subjective response in the viewer. In a religious context, non-representational art aims to evoke some kind of religious experience. Substantive content (e.g., this view is beautiful; that action is virtuous; this action saved mankind), is avoided as far as possible (see Fig. 4).

This progress toward content-free religion and its attendant art-without-particularity holds true in the realm of architecture as well. Modernist architecture is analogous to non-representational art in that it seeks to avoid recognizable forms (or types) as far as possible, and to avoid substantive content in favor of emotional evocation. Take for example Le Corbusier's famous chapel at Ronchamps, Notre Dame du Haut (Fig. 5). It specifically avoids the church type, that is, it avoids what we in the West are accustomed to seeing in our mind's eye when we think of a church. Le Corbusier suggested that the form shown in Figure 5 might remind one of praying hands, or a nun's wimple, or even a duck. But the form has no objective substantive content on its own. The subject, the viewer, is entirely responsible for bringing content to the form. The form's job is done if it has evoked a subjective response in the viewer.

Likewise the interior avoids substantive content in favor of subjective evocation. Notice in Figure 6 the disorderly arrangement of the windows. To have ordered the windows according to traditional geometries and patterns would be to suggest that the cosmos is a certain way, and that we can know which way it is. To place things in order is to suggest that there is such a thing as order—that there is a better way and a worse way to arrange things. Furthermore, nothing here has been placed “on center,” most conspicuously the altar, for to place a thing on center is to say that it is more important than those things which are not on center. The abstract cross (without the particularity of the corpus) is not aligned with the altar, which in turn is not aligned with the assembly's pews. Nothing has a clear objective relation to anything else. It is the role of the subject to decide for himself which things are important, and how things are related to one another. The believer is forced by the architecture to “look into his own heart” to know the reality of things. Abstractions like the thick wall, and colored shafts of light, further stimulate the believer as he turns inward to “feel” God speak to him.

I am not arguing here that the evocation of an emotional response is a bad thing. On the contrary, a building which communicates substantively and then reinforces this substance with the stimulation of an appropriate emotional response is a good building. The problem only arises when there is no content, when the viewer is prodded into an emotional state and then left on his own to provide the content of his own choosing.

The forms of Notre Dame du Haut do not answer simple questions: what happens in this building? We know from the name that it is a church, but is there any architecture, sculpture, or painting which says so, or must the viewer rely on a sign by the front door? Notre Dame in Paris (Fig. 7), by contrast, is replete with substantive communication. At the most general level, the building clearly looks like a church. So to begin, a viewer with even the slightest familiarity with Western civilization would know what he is looking at, and that divine worship happens inside. Then, the sculpture in the facade has much to say about the particular religion at whose service this building has been placed. The front portal, for example (Fig. 8), with its depiction of the Last Judgment framed by the Communion of Saints, embodies a fair portion of the Faith all by itself. The facade as a whole is almost a complete imaging of the cosmos of the New Covenant. Le Corbusier's Chapel at Ronchamps, in stark contrast, is mute. It makes a great deal of noise, but utters no recognizable sounds.

More broadly, modernist buildings like the chapel at Ronchamps resist substantive comparison with other buildings in the context. It is impossible to tell from the architecture itself if this building is more or less important than other churches, or even other buildings, and how the institution housed by this building is different from other institutions. The architecture does not tell us. Compare Notre Dame du Haut in Figure 5 to the building in Figure 9. Which of the two institutions is more important? What institution is housed in the building pictured in Figure 9? Is the building in Figure 9 located five miles away from Ronchamps, or 5,000 miles? And more pertinently to the Christian, which of these two institutions bears more directly on his hopes for salvation? As it turns out, the building in Figure 9 is the Vitra Design Museum in Weil-am-Rhein, Germany, designed by architect Frank Gehry in 1990.

One prominent feature of Christianity is the fact that the Christian is expected by God to sanctify all aspects of his life. He is expected to do more than merely go to church on Sunday. All actions of daily life, from the most exalted to the most humble are offered back to God through the Cross. Going to church and participating in corporate ritual worship surely ranks as the highest possible action, that is, the action closest to the heart of the salvific plan. But a humble activity like doing one's laundry can also be a means to sanctification. For this reason, the life of a Christian is utterly coherent. It encompasses a hierarchy of activities that are all ordered to the same end, the greater glory of God.

Likewise, one might expect the architecture which houses these various activities, that is, the architecture of the city, to appear coherent and ordered to the same end, and at the same time to depict their hierarchical ordering. Modernist architecture, though, resists such coherence, as we have seen in our simple attempt to compare the Vitra Museum with Notre Dame du Haut. These buildings provide the viewer no way to know if they share the same end, how they contribute to the attainment of that end, and how they might be compared hierarchically. Hence, Modernism militates against the construction of a coherent city.

By contrast, the traditional city is substantive. It is comprised of recognizable objects, built using particular conventions to denote hierarchy and bear meaning, and conveying a particular view of the universe.

Buildings naturally represent the importance and purpose of the institutions they house principally by relating to one another, i.e., more important buildings will tend to have more iconography and more specific iconography than lesser buildings. When I use the term “iconography” I refer to the whole body of symbols which are intelligible to a particular people: everything from the Scales of Justice which we usually find outside a courthouse, to coats of arms, to architectural moldings and ornaments.

A Christian city’s church is its most important building. Consequently we usually find that it is among the more richly ornamented buildings in the city: the architecture is more finely elaborated, and the non-architectural iconography is more lavish and more specific—a sculpture of Christ Pantocrator, the Communion of Saints, etc.

In contrast, the house of a middle-class citizen is comparatively less important. Hence, the iconography, both architectural and non-architectural, is less elaborate and less specific—often no more than a pineapple over the front entrance to symbolize domestic hospitality. The courthouse will be situated somewhere in between: the architectural iconography is fairly rich, a sculpture of Justice personified, etc.

As different as they are, the church, the courthouse and the middle-class house appear to belong to the same family, however. The forms tell us that all three institutions belong to a cohesive entity, the city, itself the image of the variety of activities which, in the daily lives of a group of Christians, are ordered to their salvation and the greater glory of God.

One could form a decent picture of the character and values of a place by lining up all the representative buildings in order from most important to least, and then taking “core samples.” Figure 10 describes the character of some imaginary generic place (it is not a specific prescription). I have repeated the door surround motif to highlight the continuity across the diagram which I call the Iconographic Transect. I have found a division into five categories to be useful: Monumental; High Classical; Low Classical; Vernacular; and Rustic.
Figure 10
Figure 10: Architectural meaning is relational.


The Iconographic Transect can be applied to all cultures and all places that have developed an intelligible iconographic corpus that is harnessed in the building of cities. Thus, to some extent, any place can be diagrammed to define roughly its character. Figure 11 shows an Iconographic Transect for South Bend, Indiana, and Figure 12 of Venice, Italy.

Figure 11
Figure 11: South Bend, Indiana, has a particular character and its own iconographic traditions.


Figure 12
Figure 12: The architecture of Venice is meaningful in its own particular way, yet still clearly a part of the West.

Figure 13
Figure 13: The Pantheon, Rome, 2nd C.

Figure 14
Figure 14: Kesik, Minare, Antalya, Turkey, 5th C.

Figure 15Figure 15: Benedictine Abbey, Vezelay, 12th C.

Figure 16Figure 16: Charotte Square, Edinburgh, 18th C.

Figure 17
Figure 17: By architect Quinlan Terry, 20th C.

Christianity was born at a particular time and in a particular place, that is, in the West around two thousand years ago. Hence, Christianity was born into a particular set of traditions, among them, an architectural tradition. Today, we would call that tradition the Greco-Roman tradition. As soon as Christians had the means to build for themselves, around the time of Constantine's Edict of Milan in 313 A.D., they made use of the traditions that they knew. God did not reveal a whole new set of conventions to go along with His New Covenant.

Since Christianity is predicated upon a handing down of the Faith from generation to generation, it stands to reason, then, that the iconographic traditions which are the vehicle for the Faith will be maintained along with the Faith. Hence, one could argue that the Greco-Roman architectural tradition has been constant along with Christianity until today. This is not to say that the Greco-Roman conventions ossified upon the arrival of Christianity. A tradition is always by nature fluid. Yet, a tradition also maintains continuity for the sake of intelligibility. Forms which appear ex nihilo are by nature unintelligible, as the Modernists understood—they took advantage of that unintelligibility.

In addition, though, the Greco-Roman architectural tradition into which Christianity was born has an additional incentive to aim for continuity, and that is that God Himself founded His Church at that time and in that place. Any Christian building at any time thereafter will have an interest in demonstrating a bond with the Faith by demonstrating a continuity with the facts of the Faith. God took flesh in the Roman Empire. St. Peter went to Rome. And the first churches of the early Church were built using Greco-Roman architectural conventions.

The first question to come to the modern mind on hearing this argument for continuity is the question of style, and it demands some explanation. Christians have built in many styles over the centuries, it is argued, from the late Roman, to the Byzantine, to the Gothic, the Renaissance, and so on, and they shall continue to express themselves in a variety of ways. Unfortunately, for a number of reasons, the word “style” as it is used today so overstates the differences that one sees as one scans over two millennia of architectural production, that the more important sense of continuity is lost.

Styles do not appear out of thin air with no relation to what existed before. The so-called Byzantine style, for example, was not the invention of a few geniuses sitting in a closed room trying to think up some utterly new approach to building. Even less did the master builders of the 10th century ask themselves as we do today, “In what style shall we build this church?” Rather, the Byzantine style was the result of people trying to do the best they could with the tools they had at their disposal. They were simply trying to build good buildings. And a good building meant an intelligible building, so continuity with the existing conventions was essential.

Now, in all times and places emphasis of one aspect or another of the received tradition varies. In 12th Century France, for example (see Fig. 15), a great deal of emphasis was placed on figural capitals. Figures 13 through 17 show, however, that that variety is legible only within the framework of a constant tradition.

Another factor that comes into play in the definition of a so-called style is simple ability. With the slow decline of the Empire, it became increasingly difficult to transmit the building tradition: economic means were reduced, the built patrimony dilapidated, schools of learning declined, and architects and craftsmen received less training. So it must also be admitted that some of the forms we now associate with a particular style are nothing more than the product of poor training and execution. By the same token, the West has experienced spectacular periods of economic and intellectual revival which were naturally accompanied by an increase in the quality of production: the 12th and15th century renaissances in Italy stand out.

Through all these vicissitudes, though, architects who have looked to build well have striven for continuity. Without a doubt they introduced variety; however, it was a variety born of a love of the tradition, a variety which showed how the tradition could breathe and be lively, a variety which remained intelligible, and most importantly, a variety which showed how the eternal truths revealed to man could be restated in an infinite number of ways. Figures 13 through 17 represent a few examples of capitals built through the centuries which clearly bear rational comparison: they are all examples of the Corinthian Order whose origins can be traced back to ancient Greece.

So, when Christians build their cities, they bear a certain responsibility. The buildings which constitute a Christian city ought to be intelligible to the people of that place. They ought to make use of iconography which speaks with an appropriate degree of specificity. And they ought to be comparable to other buildings such that a hierarchy of values is made visible—our churches ought to look more important than our shopping centers.

Because the Christian religion is an incarnational religion, Christians cannot call unclean that which God has made clean. Material things must be used to incarnate the particulars of the Faith, and to transmit the particulars of the Faith. To do so is to imitate the Incarnation itself. There can be no shame of the West's traditions. To hand down the Faith through the Greco-Roman architectural tradition is also to grant some assurance that this is the very same Faith that was handed to the Apostles by Our Lord Himself, and which they in turn handed down to succeeding generations.


i. From a focus group discussion. I have not been able to relocate the exact reference.
ii. The Social Contract, Book IV, Chapter 8.


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