Excerpted from “Architectural Ghosts,” The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism (Vol. 72, no. 4) Fall 2014, pp. 435–441.
I propose the term “architectural ghosts” for human-made structures that no longer exist and can now be known only through traces that they have left—in memory, in landscape, and in photographs, drawings, and paintings.
What do we appreciate when we appreciate architecture? At its simplest and most uncontroversial, the appreciation of architecture is the appreciation of built structures and the built environment, including single buildings (domestic, public, official, commercial, industrial, ecclesiastical, and so on), groups of buildings, bridges, public works such as aqueducts and water towers, streetscapes, and perhaps also monuments and other largescale sculptural works. It seems equally uncontroversial to treat as candidates for appreciation those things ancillary to built structures, such as architects’ drawings and models, blueprints, and computer renditions. Limiting the aesthetic appreciation of architecture to structures that actually exist or once existed seems unduly restrictive, and so the aesthetics of architecture should also have a place for the appreciation of built structures that exist in imagination only. Imaginary structures include the buildings described in works of literature, such as Northanger Abbey and Mansfield Park in the eponymous novels by Jane Austen, the campus of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry (attended by Harry Potter), and the 1960s-era modern police station that is a setting in Ruth Rendell’s Inspector Wexford novels. Imaginary buildings also include “paper architecture,” that is, speculative drawing, film, collage, text, computer imagery, and model. Paper architecture comprises both fanciful works not intended to be built and designs produced with the intention of being built but were not. These designs may have been overlooked in competition, or they may not have been technically feasible, or economic and political factors may have prevented their construction. A design that is unfeasible at its conception may be realized later when technical advances make it possible. It is not always clear whether an architect’s design is intended to be a fanciful work or is simply unrealized. In the early part of her career, Zaha Hadid was accused of being a “paper architect” who designed buildings solely for the appreciation of other architects. But I have seen no indication that she regarded her own work in this way.
There is room in the aesthetics of architecture for another type of appreciation that is neither the appreciation of existing structures nor the appreciation of the unrealized or fanciful structures of paper architecture. This is the appreciation of architectural ghosts: built structures that existed at one time but exist no longer. The reasons why built structures no longer exist are as varied and diverse as the structures themselves. Some were deliberately destroyed or removed by human decisions, whether those decisions were collective or individual, democratic or tyrannical. Some were destroyed by accidents, some in the course of war, and some by natural disaster. Others simply fell into disuse and were taken down so that their materials could be recycled. Still others were demolished because their ruins were of no interest or presented a danger to the public or an obstacle to rebuilding and land reuse. I argue that architectural ghosts deserve our aesthetic consideration and that a robust and complete conception of architectural appreciation has a place for the appreciation of architectural ghosts. Their appreciation shares elements with both the appreciation of existing structures and the appreciation of paper architecture; yet it is reducible to neither.
There is a continuum between architectural ghosts and ruins. Generally, if enough of a structure remains to provide the opportunity for aesthetic appreciation of that structure, then we are dealing with a ruin rather than a ghost. Ghosts, appropriately enough, are less corporeal. They can be appreciated only after an act of imaginative reconstruction. If all that remains of a structure are piles of rubble or indentations in the ground, perhaps marked by a memorial plaque, then the structure is a ghost rather than a ruin. A structure may survive as a ruin for a long time before becoming a ghost, or it may disappear altogether in very short order.
The ghosts of the ancient world compete for our attention with ancient ruins. With the ascendancy of Christianity, countless pagan temples and monuments were destroyed. Of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, only the Great Pyramid of Giza still remains as ruins. The Lighthouse of Alexandria was damaged by earthquakes in the fourteenth century; some of its remains were used to build a fort on the same site. Similarly, the Colossus of Rhodes and the Statue of Zeus at Olympia were irreparably damaged by earthquakes. The Temple of Artemis in Ephesus, Turkey, and the Library of Alexandria are among the ancient structures thought to have been destroyed by fire, whether accidentally or deliberately set. The Tower of Babel, if it existed and in whatever form it existed, exists no more.
Perhaps particularly haunting are the architectural ghosts that survived into the era of photography. Photographs tantalize us with the possibility that things might have been otherwise and the structures they represent might have remained standing, if only circumstances had been different. Photographs show us the Crystal Palace, the iron and glass exhibition hall built in 1851 in London as a jewel of the industrial revolution. (It was partially burned down in 1936; the two water towers that remained standing were demolished as a precautionary measure during the Second World War.) In Russia today one can purchase postcards depicting some of the hundreds of churches, cathedrals, and bell towers that were demolished by government forces in the years following the 1917 revolution. With the reunification of Germany and the decline of communist governments in Eastern Europe, Communist-era sculptures and other works of public art were removed from view; some were smashed by demonstrators. Their images can still be found in over thirty years of photographs. The Tacoma Narrows Bridge collapsed under the force of strong winds in 1940, months after it opened; its demise was caught on film and is now available for viewing on the Internet. Throughout the 1950s and 1960s whole neighborhoods in many North American cities were demolished to make way for new highways and other public works. With the ascendancy of the car and the decline of rail traffic, countless train stations have been closed. Some have been repurposed or left as ruins, but others have been demolished. Richard Serra’s sculpture Tilted Arc was dismantled and removed from public display in 1989. Currently the best-known architectural ghosts may be the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, destroyed by terrorists in 2001. The photographs of these different structures might be compared to the photographic portraits that sometimes accompany newspaper obituaries.
Our appreciation of architectural ghosts is necessarily at second hand, and there may be more or less information to shape, limit, and guide our imaginings. We might consult blueprints or photographs (if they are available), drawings and paintings (whether contemporaneous, from memory after the structure has been destroyed, or fanciful), written records, and verbal reports. In such cases, does one properly appreciate the structure or the traces it has left and the representations that remain? Although a great degree of imaginative reconstruction may be required, I argue that one can indeed appreciate the structure itself as well as its traces. This imaginative reconstruction can be compared with the imaginative work of reading. Examining a book in a language one does not understand, one can appreciate its typeface and the patterns made by the arrangement of text on the page. To appreciate the book as a work of literature, we have to do the mental work of decoding (reading) it and imaginatively constructing the world that it represents. Similarly, photographs and other representations can be appreciated for their own aesthetic qualities, whatever the object represented. We can also use representations to imagine a structure as it once existed, as we might use a portrait to imagine what the individual represented looked like. Through photographs and other media, we can imagine what the structure looked like from a distance and what it looked like at close hand. Depending on the kind of structure we might imagine being inside it. We can also imagine the experiences of the people who lived with the structure, who lived or worked in proximity to it, or who traveled great distances to visit it. …
The appreciation of architectural ghosts is related to time and memory in a number of ways. To think about architectural ghosts is to think about the past or the traces and felt absences of the past within the present. This conception of architectural appreciation is opposed to two very different competing notions of architectural appreciation: one atemporal and mental and the other bodily and grounded firmly in the present.
The first, which pre-dates but is allied with the post-Kantian turn to cognitivism or expressivism in architecture, is architectural idealism. Accordingly, the object of architectural appreciation is immaterial design, rather than tangible construction. This conception of architectural appreciation was aptly characterized by the eighteenth-century theorist Étienne-Louis Boullée, when he wrote that “it is this product of the mind, this process of creation, that constitutes architecture.” If abstract designs are the true objects of appreciation, then actual buildings are superfluous or at best deserve our consideration only because they provide one form of access to their designs.
A different conception of architectural appreciation has recently been defended by Jenefer Robinson (see Part III, Chapter 32 of this volume). She argues against accounts of architecture and architectural appreciation that would privilege “the eye and the intellect.” Instead, she stresses the importance of emotion and of bodily movements. Just as the emotional experience of music helps us to understand and appreciate it, so too the emotional feelings aroused by a work of architecture are crucial to retrieving its meaning. As we live within and move through works of architecture, our physical movements induce bodily feelings, and these emotional feelings are crucial for appreciation. As Robinson writes, “If a building makes us feel empowered and confident, that tells me something about the building itself. And likewise if it makes me feel small, powerless, disoriented, and alienated” (p. 173).
It would seem that both of these approaches—architectural idealism and Robinson’s emotional phenomenological account—would reject my plea for the importance of ghosts in our appreciation of architecture. For the idealist, the object of appreciation is an abstract design, and it makes little difference whether any concrete object never existed (and perhaps could not exist), exists currently, or existed once but no longer. For Robinson (and others who would stress the firsthand experience of works), architectural ghosts are presumably beyond the scope of our appreciation. A work that once existed but no longer does is no different than an unrealized (or unrealizable) design. …
Architectural appreciation should encompass regard both for the concrete presence and physicality of enduring works and for a work’s vulnerability and potential ephemerality. It should take as its object works from the past as well as contemporary works. A place for the appreciation of architectural ghosts helps fulfill these desiderata and also allows consideration of the human past and the relevant moral issues that have shaped and continue to shape the built environment.
First, vulnerability and ephemerality: It seems natural to contrast the aesthetic appreciation of ephemeral phenomena with that of more enduring structures or artifacts. The appreciation of ephemeral phenomena, whether they are art world happenings, musical and theatrical improvisations, the cherry blossoms of spring, interesting cloud formations, or tastes and smells, seems very different from the appreciation of seemingly durable artifacts like paintings, sculpture, bridges, and buildings. But “stable” and “ephemeral” are relative terms and their contrast may not be as tenable as we assume. …
Certain architectural ghosts have transcended their ephemerality because they have retained a strong hold on collective memories. Others are less haunting. What might account for this difference? Descriptions and depictions of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World have endured into the twenty-first century, probably due to their reputed beauty and the engineering achievements that they represented. The destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem in 70 ad is still mourned today, and many look ahead to a time when it can be rebuilt. This is probably due to the historical and religious significance of the Temple for Jews, rather than for aesthetic reasons. Other architectural ghosts continue to exist in memory because they have become cautionary examples. The Tacoma Narrows Bridge provides one kind of cautionary example; Abu Ghraib prison, if it is demolished one day, will provide another kind. In both cases, remembering the structure in question is a way of memorializing something else.
The hold that architectural ghosts can have over us can be seen in the occasional refusal to let them remain ghosts. Moscow’s Cathedral of Christ the Savior was razed on Stalin’s orders in 1931 and then rebuilt in the 1990s after being the site of a swimming pool in the interregnum. In the years following World War II, several national and municipal governments in Europe invested much money and resources to rebuild old sections of towns that had been destroyed in the war. Winston Churchill famously insisted that the British Parliament buildings be faithfully rebuilt after they were damaged in bombing raids on London. Despite the opportunity, in each case, to build something new, a decision was taken to resurrect instead. Is this nostalgia or something deeper? In each case, rebuilding can be seen as an act of defiance: Our buildings are smashed and with them something of our collective past and traditions. But we can rebuild these structures and with them maintain our traditions and the links with our past. …
The questions of whether and, if so, how a building conveys meaning have been a theme both in analytic and in continental philosophy of architecture. Following Nelson Goodman, we should refrain from identifying a building’s meaning with the thoughts it inspires or the feelings it arouses. Yet it is clear that the appreciation of architecture can inspire a variety of emotional responses. Our emotional responses to a work of architecture are part of our experience of it and, arguably, these can help us in determining its meaning.
Architectural ghosts, too, can arouse a variety of emotions. Buildings organize space and thereby patterns of movement and forms of life. For most of us the human environment is the built environment, and the built environment is the stage of our lives. We live, play, and work in, around, and with different buildings. An architectural ghost represents, then, not merely an emptiness or a nonappearance but an absence or a loss.
Architectural ghosts can arouse sadness. It is natural to feel regret, nostalgia, and a sense of loss for what one can appreciate now only through imaginative reconstruction. This is likely to be especially so when the lost structure had some personal significance or was reputed to be of great beauty. But it is possible to over-romanticize the traces of the past and regard them with a misplaced sentimentality. After all, that some structures become ghosts is natural and inevitable. Sometimes the reasons are straightforward and practical; new ways of living call for new built environments. Buildings that endangered their occupants with environmental hazards may need to be demolished. Architects could not design and build new structures if all of the old ones were preserved indefinitely.
To be confronted with the traces of the past in the present can arouse awe. We might wonder at what has passed and also wonder at the contrast between present and past surroundings. Like ruins, architectural ghosts remind us that the built environment, no matter how seemingly durable, is destined for ruin, removal, and change. In this way, architectural ghosts share with ruins the possibility of serving as memento mori.
Architectural ghosts can also arouse self-serving emotions such as a sense of superiority over the past and a smug disdain for those who came before us. It is all too easy to interpret the past through the aesthetic and social norms of the present. We might think, self-satisfactorily, that the people who removed a structure failed to appreciate it properly and that if we were in their situation, we would have had better judgment or taken greater care. A little further reflection, however, should remind us that future generations are likely to have these same thoughts about our own aesthetic decisions.
It is important to note that the fact that a structure no longer stands can inspire relief as much as regret. In some cases, the reasons to resist mourning architectural ghosts are complicated and have little to do with practicalities. Pace John Ruskin, who argued in The Seven Lamps of Architecture that we have “no right whatever” to touch the buildings of past times, in some cases we do indeed have the right, and sometimes the compulsion, to destroy the past. This compulsion can come from an uncomplicated desire to declare our disapproval of events that took place within a given structure, as though obliterating memories was as simple as destroying a building where the memories were formed.
For example, there have been calls for the demolition of the Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad, the site of torture and murder during the rule of Saddam Hussein and of subsequent abuses. Even if Abu Ghraib were an architectural jewel, one would probably understand the position of those who wanted to pull it down, however much one might disagree with them. The need to remember the victims and their suffering has to be weighed against the desirability of maintaining a structure where great evil has been perpetrated. It is debatable whether we fulfill our duties to the victims more properly when we remember their suffering by maintaining the place where it occurred or when we destroy the structure, thereby ensuring that it cannot be the site of additional suffering. Presumably such considerations were weighed in the deliberations about what to do with Nazi concentration camps after World War II. Some have been kept as museums and memorial sites while most have been destroyed.
This article has been a plea to broaden our conception of the range of objects that can be potential candidates for aesthetic appreciation in architecture. Human memory is notoriously fickle. Some architectural structures, such as the Berlin Wall, will be remembered because of their connection with events, even if the architecture itself is undistinguished. Other structures will be forgotten because of their connections with events, regardless of the quality of the architecture. Remembering and appreciating architectural ghosts might be thought of as an exercise in the appreciation of memorial art. If this is plausible, then all architectural structures are monuments, because every structure is destined for ghosthood. Just for what or whom they are monuments will be up to us.