/v\p,R C 0 FR,ASCAR I

THE TELL-THE-TALE DETAIL

The architectural community has traditionally ascribed the maxim "God lies in thedetail" ro Mies van der Rohe. I The German version of the adage, Der Liebe Gott steckt inDetail perhaps the original source of tvfies's ma..xim, was used by Aby Warburg to indi-cate the foundation of the iconographical method for researching in art history. TheFrench version has been attributed to Gustave Flaubert, and in this case the maxim indi-cates a manner or literary produCtion. '2 The common denominator in these differentforms and uses indicates that the detail expresses the process of signification; that is, theattaching of meanings to man-produced objects. The details are then the locii whereknowledge is of an order in which the mind finds its own working, that is, logos.3

The aim of this paper is to indicate the role of details as generators, a role tradi-tionally ascribed r:o the plan, and to show that technology, with its double-faced presenceas "techne oflogos" and "logos oftechne'4 is the basis for the understanding of the role ofdetails. That is to sav the "construction" and the "construing" of architecture are both in

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the detail. Elusive in a traditional dimensional definition, the architectural detail can bedefined as the union of construction, the resuit of the logos oftechne, with construing,the result of the techne oflogos.

Details are much more than subordinate elements: they can be regarded as the min-imal units of signification in the architectural production of meanings. These units havebeen singled out in spatial cells or in elements of composition, in modules or in mea-sures, in the alternating of void and solid, or in the relationship bet\veen inside and our-side.5 The suggestion that the detail is the minimal unit of production is more fruitfulbecause of the double-faced role of technology, which unifies the tangible and the intan-gible of architecture. As Jean Labatut, a French Beaux-.Arrs-trained Princeton professor

From lt7.r1 7: The Building ofArchireetm"e (1984): :'3-37. Courtesy of the author and pubiisher.

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t of archi~ecture notes: "\XThatever the air spaces, areas and dimensions involved, it is theprecise study and good execution of details which confirm architectural greatness. 'Thedetail tells the tale.",6

In the details are the possibilities of innovation and invention, and it is throughthese that architects can give harmony to the most uncommon and difficult or disorder-ly environment generated by a culture? The notion that architecture is a result of the res-olution, substitution, and design of details has always been a latent concept in architects'minds. That is to say, there is truth in the classical commonplace of architectural criti-cism: "That might have been great architecture if only son1ebody had worked out thedetails .... " Careful detailing is the most important means for avoiding building failure, onboth dimensions of the architectural profession-the ethical and the aesthetic. The art ofdetailing is really the joining of materials, elements, components, and building parts in afunctional and aesthetic manner. The complexity of this art of joining is such that a detailperforming satisfactorily in one building may fail in another for very subtle reasons.s

The discussion of the role of detail in the architectural process of signification willbe developed in nvo parts. These inquiries analyze the understanding of the role of thedetail within two different but interlocking realms, the theoretical and the empirical.

The first pan: is a search for an understanding of the concept of details in differentlevels of architectural production. The result of this inquiry is the conceptual identifica-tion of the detail with the making of the joint and the recognition that details themselvescan impose order on the whole through their own order. Consequently, the understand-ing and execution of details constitute the basic process by \vhich the architectural prac-tice and theories should be developed.

The second part is an analysis of the architecture of Carlo Scarpa (1906-1979). aVeneto architect. In Scarpa's architecture, as Louis Kahn pointed out, "detail is the adora-tion of nature." The architectural production of this architect, in which the adoration ofthe making of joints is almost obsessive, allows an empirical interpretation of the role ofdetail in the process of signification, seen within culturally derinable modes of construc-tion and construing. In Scarpa's works the relationships between the whole and the partsand the relationships bet\veen craftsmanship and draftsmanship allow a direct substanti-ating in corpore viii of the identity of the pro6esses of perception and production, that is.the union of the construction with the construing in the making and use of details.

Dictionaries define "detail" as a small Dan: in relation to a larger \~hole. In architec-L v

ture this definition is contradictory, if not meaningless. A column is a detail as well as itis a larger whole, and a whole classical round temple is sometimes a detail, when it is alantern on the tOP of a dome. In architecruralliterature, columns and capitals are classi-fied as details, but so are piani nobili, porches, and pergolas. The problem of scale anddimension in those classifications and the relationship between aediculas and edificesmakes the dictionary definition useless in architecture. However, it is possible to obse;vethat any architectural element defined as detail is alv,Tays a joint. Details can be "materi-al joints," as in the case of a capitaL which is the connection benveen a column shaft andan architrave. or they can be "formal joints." as in the case of a porch, which is the con-nection be~veen an interior and an exterior space. Details are then a direct result of themultifold re".Jity of functions in architecture. They are the mediate or immediate e;:pres-sions of the structure and the use of buildings.9

The etymological origin of the word "det3.ir does not help ~lt all in underst3.nding[he architec:ural use of the term. 1O In architec:urJ.! literature the tern ap?eared in theFrench theoretical \vorks of the eighteenth cenrury md from France spread alloverEurope. This spread was caused by the coupiing of the term with the concept of "styie"and by the active influence of French literary criticism and theory on the French neo-classical architects. In 1670 Despreall.'C Nicolas Boileau, in the first part of his LArtPotitique, \varning against the use of superfluous de:ails in poems, set an analogy betweenan overdetailed palace and an :werderailed poem. II By rhe eighteenth century this anal-ogy was commonplace and, ascribing it to !vIontesquieu, Giovanni Battista Piranesiattacked it as trivial in his defense of his architectural theory of overderailed buildings. I:'.

The French theoreticians of the architecture par/ante were the ones \vho formallyconsolidated the role of detail in architectural production. In the analogy of the "speak-ing architecture," the architectural details are seen as words composing a sentence. And,as the selection of words and style gives character to the sentence. in a similar way theselection of derails and style gives character to a building. This powerful role of the detailas generator of the character of a building was also pointed out by John Soane in one ofhis lectures on architecture: "Too much attention can nor be given to produce a disrinctCharacter in every building, not only in great features. but in minor detail likewise; eveaa moulding, how'ever diminutive. contributes to increase or lessen the Character of theassemblage of which it forills a part."I)

In the Beall."C-Arts tradition the understanding or rhe role of de::ail as d generator ofthe character of buildings determined a very peculiar graphic means for [he study of ~t,the a;1a~ytique. In this graphic representation of a designed or surveyed building medetails play the predominar.t role. They are composed in different scales in the arremptto single out the dialogue among the pans in the making of the tex[ of the building.Sometimes the building as a whole is present in lhe dra\ving, ;lnd gene-ally it is repre-sented on a minusc~le scale, and so it seems a detail among details. The origin of theanal)'tique and its role in the consuuing of architecture can be traced back to [he tech-nique of graphic representation and composition developed by Piranesi in his etchingssurveying the }v!agnijicenza of Roman architecure. These are a graphic interpretation,with a stronger Vichian bias. of Carlo Lodoli's understanding of the built environment

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as a sum of inadequate details to be substituted ~with more appro!Jriate ones. q Anotherform of the .l?lI.1~:,tique, illustrating the archireCIure of Italy, can be found on the back ofItalian lire notes today.

It is important (Q norice that the tZ72a~ytique as graphic analysis of details had itsdevelopme~t in a period in which architects did not have to pre?are working drawingsshowing the construction of the deraiis. The dravvings carried fe'N if any details anddimensions. The ciesigne:- could be almost enrirely depende:-tt on his crartsme!'!. Buildershad no :1eed for drawings :0 s110w derails whose e~ecl~ion was a martel' of common

~'1o\vledge.Construction of de::ails ',vas parceled out among ~he various ::radesme!'!, who1 d h 1 l' [' 1 , T' r 1 ~ ., dsupp Ie [e necessary ~T'lOW edge ror malung ::nem. 11e same crarrsmen wno rurmsne

the information ror the [De:-tis] Diderot anci [Jeln Ie Rond] D'.:\lamberr Encyclopediewere able to construe:: :::he dra\ving 'Nith [he c~~act eye of :he artist, and ~he tl72aL~vtiquewassimply the source for the undel'standing of the ordering roie of:l singie derail in the over-all comDosition. l )

The production of details, as it ,vas established before the developmen of the indus-trial society and motivated by different cultural needs. began to become problematic in apredominantly economically motivated society. No longer considered as long-lasting cul-tural and social repositories, buildings came to be viewed as economic investments \v1than intentionally planned shon existence. Two polar reactions had developed from thechange that occurred in the scope of edifices. One of the reactions was that the variousbuilding trades no longer inferred the construction of the detail from design drawings.The details were studied and resolved on the drawing boards. Draftsmanship was substi-tuted for worlananship, and the development of "real details" was replaced by "virtual"procedures. From this point of view the detail was no longer part of the building. Thedetail was no longer seen as a joint; instead, it was seen as a production drawing. In anAmerican Glossary ofBuilding the term "detail" is defined as "the delineation to full sizeor a large scale of any portion of an architectural design. "16 A French glossary was evenmore precise in this understanding of detail: "Detail: Specification or description of thework to be perforn1ed in the execution of a building. ,,17 In this interpretation "details" areverbal and graphic means for controlling the \"'lork ofvariable crews of vocationless work-ers who are unprepared for their own jobs and possibly even finan~ially dishonest.

The second reaction to the change that occurred in the role of detail is the one thatcan be exemplified by the architecture produced by the AIts and Crafts lvfovement. Thedetail, in this movement, was seen as the means for the redemption of workers. The skilland knowledge of the making of details were given back to the workers. Worlananshipwas seen as the sole parameter for the details, which in themselves were seen as refine-ment ofbuilding tradition. The lmowledge of details and of the related skills was the nec-essary means for the architect to practice his profession, since it \~las his task to select theappropriate \vorkers for the appropriate details.

This dualiLy in the physical production of detail is also found in the mental pr:o-duction. Using a conceptual analogy, it is possible to define architecture as a system inwhich there is a "tOtal architecture," the plot, and a detailed architecture, the tale. Thedetailed architecture is based on "the constant process of drav,!ing extrasystematic ele-ments into the realm of the system and of expelling systematic elements into the area ofnot sysrem....The stone that the builders of q. formed and stabilized system reject forbeing, from their point of view. superfluous and unnecessary, turns out to be the cor-nerstone of subsequent system. ,,18 From this point of vie\v architecture becomes the anof appropriate selection of details in the devising of the tale. A plot with the appropriatedetails becomes a fully developed and successful "tale."

.AIchitecture as art of the appropriate is the theme of Leon Battista Alberti'sarchitectural theory. Alberti sees architecrure as the art of the selection of appropriatedetails whose result is beauty, which is a meaningful goal. He defines beauty as "the'concinnint' of all the details in the unirv to which they belong" ~ in other words, beaurv

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is the skillful joining of parts by a normative by which nOthing can be added, subtract-ed, or altered for the worse. Generally this principle has been interpreted as statingthat a building should be a complete and finished whole, a total architecture. i\lbe:ti,however. does not apply this concept to the aCtual edifice, but, rather, to the mentalone. 19 The joint. that is, the deIail, is the place of the meeting of the mental construingand of the actual construction. A perfect instance of this union of mental function and

physicJ.l re;:>resentJ.tion is in the tac;~de of P:lhzzo Rucellai. designed by .Aiber: inFlorence. Alt~ough the faC;J.de is incomplete J.nci its incompleteness is dearly shown, thedetJ.iled architecture is complete, and nothing c~n be added or subtracted for the worse.The grooves of the joints of the stone slabs composing the thick veneer of the Florentineschil1cciato (representing the POSt and beam structure of the three superimposed classicalOrders, related vv,ith arched windows and infilling \-valls) J.re the solution of the mJ.the-matical problem set by the relationships existing among the PJ.ftS of the fac;ade. In manycases the joints are not real ones, and the shapes of the stones are not as regular as theyappear: fake grooves were carved in the stone to make the detailed architecture completeand co offer at the same time its O\~rn proof

"AJberri's search for "Beauty" is the serting of a precise relationship between the detailand the attached meaning. Beauty is the result of the process of signification, and concin-nity is the process for achieving it. Concinnity is the correspondence of three basicrequirements: r) l'Iumber, 2) Finishing, 3) Collocation.~o

J.Vumber is a system of calculation. "The tec~nique of calculation is pan of thetechnique of house building. ,,21 Numbers in this way are tOols for giving meaning. In3.rchitec:ure there are elements, and, in order to build. it is l1ecessary to draw numericalcorrelation among them. In a uiforium, three arches are correlated to four columns tomake a serJiana. The proof is in the details, and it is e~~pressed in terms of mouldings,Gl.pitals, bases, and keystone. "Numerology," then, is for .AJber::i a technique for theselec:ion of figures, thereby signalling that the details are related to memorable shapessuch as the human body or cosmologic31 flgures. ~2

Fhzi:;hing is a mathematical procedure for the definition of [he dime:1sions.oi' the ..directions in which the space of architectural objects is articulated. The edges of the tri-dimensional bodies of architecture are defined by a system of proportions. Propor~ion or";L'1alogy" is the use of relations in a measurement. 2} .-\n analogical system is a set ofnorms for the creation and combination of details. A bas~c measure, or module, is thenorm from \-vhicn all the lengths, widths, and heights are derived, and any single detailis measured after it. Then all the parts of the building will stand to each other in a directand intelligible relationship. This relationship stands even when its form cioes not yethave a verbalized expression. '

ColLouuion is the composing by place, that is, the functional placement of thedetails. The funCtion in this case not only is limited W the practical and struc::uraldimensions but it embodies, as well, historical and aesthetic dime:1sions. 24 The placingof de~ails, [hen. is deeply related to the other rwo requirements: numbers mQ analogies.T~e detail in this manner is not defined by scaie, bur. rathe:-. :ne scale is ::Se cool forcontrolling it.

Tne zeometrical and mathematic31 COnSUUG10n of :he arcnitecIu:-al detail is in nosense a technical question. The matte: should be :-eg3.rciei as ~alling .within ~he philo-sophical problem of the foundation of archite~::ure or ge0me::r:', anci ultimately witninthe [heories of perception.

The ?rocesses of designing, ordering mate:-ials, and building a house are techniquesin ~he same way geometry is a lecl1nique by which the designe-, ~he builder, and the userof a house transform the appropriate sign ;,vith a view to predic:ing -~e occurrence of c~rtain events. This technique (geometry) provides us \vith a srruc::t:re ror desc:-ibing the

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built world, a conceptual framework into which the designer. the builder. and the usercan fit their empirical experience. Geometry shows hovv to derive a shape from anothershape by transformation.

In this guise geometry does not state facts, but gives us the forms in which to statefacts. It provides us with a linguistic or conceptual structure for the construction and theconstruing of a building. The geometrical structures embodied in the architecturaldetails do not state facts but rather provide a structure for stating facts within a "scale."They give us a way of malcing comparisons that meaningfully relate visually perceivedarchitectural details. The notion of the individually perceived details can be illustratedwith the phenomenon of "indirect vision" as explained by Hermann von Helmholtz:

The eye represents an optical instrument of a very large field of vision, bur only a smallvery narrmvly confined part of that field ofvision produces clear images. The whole fieldcorresponds [Q a drawing in which the most important part of the whole is carefully ren-dered but the surrounding is merely sketched, and sketched the more roughly the fur-ther it is removed from the main object. Thanks [Q the mobility of the eye, however, itis possible [Q examine carefully every point of the visual field in succession.:!os

Helmholtz's research on visual perception persuaded him that sensory stimuli onlysupply signs of the presence of architecture, but do not give us an adequate understand-ing of it. Such signs, that is, the details, acquire a meaning by virtue of which theybecome a vehicle of knowledge through a long process of association and comparisonand through a set of geometric relationships.::6

The geometrical relationships embodied in the details in a built environment as wellas in a natural environment set the understanding of the large field of vision. The geo-metrical relationship or proposition at the base of the compound pier of the High Gothicarchitecture expresses in itself every feature of the imposed superstructure. Such rela-tionships are the results of the transformation in stone of the second requirement ofScholastic ",,\-Titing, of an "arrangement according to a system of homologous parts andparts of parts.":'-7 The details in rhis way, while forming an indivisible whole, are indi-vidually perceived and understood.

The problem of perception of details w-ithin the sphere of architectural appropria-tion is stated by Walter Benjamin:

Buildings are appropriated in a twofold manner: by use and by perception or rather bytouch 3.nd sighr.. ..Tactile appropriation is accomplished not so much by attention as byhabit. As regards architecture, habit determines to a large extent even optical reception.::8

This is an empirical theory that regards all perception of space as depending uponconventions and takes not only qualities, but even derails as nothing more than signs,the me~nings of which are learned only by experience. These conventions are the basisfor architec:ure understood ~s existence, form, and location of e~ternal objects. TheseHelmholtz calls perceptions.::9 Perceptions are the ideas or signs of objects resulting froman interpretation of sensations that is carried out by processes of unconscious geometri-cal inference. The placing of details has a key role in these processes of inference. The

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visual sensai:ions guided by the tactile sensations are the. generawr of the geometricalpropositions. In architecture, feeling a handrail, walking up steps or bervveen walls,turning a corner, and noting the sitting of a beam in a wall, are coordinated elements of

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visual and tactile sensations. The location of those details gives birth to the conventionsthat tie a meaning to a perception. The conception of the architectural space achieved inthis way is the result of the association of the visual images of details. gained through thephenomenon of indirect vision, with the geometrical proposition embodied in forms,dimensions, and location, developed by touching and by walking through buildings.

The art of derail is in irs most sophisticated and learned form in the work of CarloScarpa. An analysis of the concept of detail in Scarpa's architecture can best be begunwith the words of Louis Kahn:

In the work of Carlo ScarpaBeautythe fIrsr senseAn:the Erst \'lordthen wonderthen the inner realization or Formthe sense of wholeness of inseparable dements.Design consults N:ltureto give presence to the dements.A \-'lork of ;In m:lkes m:lnirest

~he wholeness of Form of thesymphony of the selec~ed shapesor- the elemen~s. In the demen rsthe joint inspires orn:unem, itscelebr:ltion.The det:lil is che adorat:on or" Nature.50

The "adoration of the joint," i~ Scarpa's architecture, is a perfect realizarion of Alberti'sconcinnity. Eac!"1 detail tells us the srory of its making, of itS placing, and of its dimen-sioning. The selection of the appropriate details is the result of singling out its ~unC"ional roles. The derails of Scarpa's architecture solve not only praCtical functions, but alsohistorical, social, and individual funcionsY

Scarpa's architecture can be generically classified as ~ne merging of the principies ofthe organic architecture as expressed by Frank Lloyd 'w"right with a le3.rned distilling ofVeneto craftsmanship with a blend modern and anc~enr [echnolog~es.Howeve:-, the def-inition is inadequ3.te: vvhereas Scarpa's understanding of \Xi'"right's architecture vIas pas-sive, based on an aporec:ation of ::>horograohs and drawings, his unde-st3.nding of

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Veneto craftsmanship was ac:ive, based on his daily working 3.na dealing with the stone-cutters, masons, c3.rpenters, glassmake:-s, 3.nd smiths of Venice. The result is a mooenarchitec::ure that is more than rational srruc::ures 3.na functional spaces. The ;:e3.ching oftunc::ionalism is present in SC3.rpa's work, but the functionality is medi3.ted by the se3.fchfor represent3.tion and expression rhrough the making. Scarpa's architec::ure stands

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Tao-ainsr the bare structure of logic: it stana.s for the union of res and verba, that is, for the

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union of representation and function. This concept rules Scarpa's architecture fromstructure to expression. In his architectural objects the techne ofthe logos, the construing,becomes the manner of production of signs that are the details. The logos ofthe techne,the constructing, which results from the expression of Veneto craftsmanship, becomesthe dialectical counterpart in the generation of the details as signs. Scarpa's buildingsshow indeed a constant search set between the actual form (the built one), and the vir-tual form (the perceived one). The constant manipulation of the discrepancies benveenvirtual and actual forms is the method used for achieving expression. "In architecture,"Scarpa once said, "there is no such thing as a good idea. There is only expression."F

The analysis of Scarpa's detail can be satisfactorily managed visually only by a con-tinuous comparison between dra\vings and built objects, on the one hand, and the his-torical, practical, and formal reference that generated any single detaiL on the other. It isalso necessary to see Scarpa's details from tWO different sides. On one side, his detailingis the result of interfacing of design and craftsmanship on the site and of the constant"sensorial verification" of details during the assembly of the building. Scarpa made apractice of visiting the building site during the night for verification with a flashlight,thereby controlling the execution and the expression of the details. In the normal day-light it would indeed be impossible to focus on details in such a selective manner. It isalso a procedure by which the phenomenon of the indirect vision becomes an elementin the process of decision in the design. The flashlight is a tool by which is achieved ananalog of both the process of vision and the eye's movement in itS perception field (v'lithonly one spot in focus and the eye darting around). Another Veneto architect, Piranesi,used the same technique in visiting the sites of the buildings he was going to survey andrepresent in his etchings of the Antichira Ronume. To single out the "expression of thefragments," thn is, the details, he used the light of a candle.33

On the other side, Scarpa's details are the result of an intellectual game performedon the "working drav't'ings" that are the result of the interfacing of design and drafts-manship. That game is the matching of the construction of a representation with aconstruction of an edifice. The relationship between architectural drawings and build-ings is generally thought of as a Cartesian representation based on visual matchingof lines. However, Scarpa's drawings show the real nature of architectural drawings,that is, the fact that they are reoresentations that are the results of constructions.

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They are a construing of perceptual judgments interfaced with the real process ofphysical construction of an architectural object. The lines, the marks on the paper, area transformation from one system of representation to another. They are a transforma-tion of appropriate signs with a vie\v to the predicting of certain architectural events,that is, on the one hand the phenomena of construction and the transformation bythe builders, and on the other hand, the phenomena of construing and the transforma-tion by the possible users. Consequently, on the same drawing there are present severallayers of thought.

A design is developed by the same technique in which the drawing is made. The con-tinuous inference process on \vhich the design process is based is transformed in a sequenceof marks on paper that are an analog for the processes of construction and construing. Thepiece of drawing paper selected for supporting the slow process of the construction of a

design presents concurrently '/enical and horizontal sections, ;lS well as elevations of thedesigned piece. These drawings are surrounded by unframed vignettes ~hat analyze tri-dimensionally any joint of the objec::, as in a prediction of [he role of each detail in gen-erating the whole text and in the perception of [hem in the "indirect vision." Scarpa'sdravvings do not define future architectural pieces as a simple sum of lines. surfaces, andvolumes. Rather they present the process of transformation of the details from one sys-tem of representation to another. from drawing to building.

In Scarpa's drawings it is also possible to have the "!?roof' of the system ofappropriation that rules the perception of architecture. These represenutions of three-dimensional structures on a riVo-dimensional surf:lce result from the interaction existingbetween visual and tactile perceptions. The central part of the drawings generallypresents graphic constructions that might be labeled a technic~ dravving. But theyare not what are traditionally identified as plans, sections, and elevations. Scarpa'sdrawings are not merely devices of Cartesian desGiptive geometry~ rather. they aredescriptioI:'s of the future peception in relationshi~ to [he making of the architecturalobject. The visual components of perception are analyzed for a derail and not forthe whole, \vnereas the taCtile perce~)(ions are verified for the whole. These drawingspresent components that are not visible but that are the result and the projection ofconstruction and construing. Alberti's mental edifice. They are the result of thememory effects of ~he organs of touch and sight in the making and using of architecture.These drawings are never fully rendered. Only fragments and parts of them are.Tnis praCtice shows by analogy that, while it is \vhole, Scarpa's architecture cannotbe characterized as complete..An architectural "vhole is seen as a phenomenon composedby details unitled by a "device," a structuring principle. This principle, in Scarpa'sarchitecture. is the order generated by the use and t~e understanding of classicalarchitectural ideas such as fac;:ade design. 34

Scarpa is a lvJagisi~r Ludi, :lnd his buildings ;lre texts wherein ~he de::ails are ~he min-imal unit of signification. Tne joints be~veen different materials and shapes and spacesare pretexts for generating texts. The interfacing of commentaries \vith preceding textsin the architecture of Scarpa is ahvays a problem of joints, and in the joint he achievesthe change or- conventions. Th~t possibility is a consequence of the fae: that many of hisarchitectural texts are learned commentary to preceding texts and in many cases. as in amedieval :;cholium, the commentar? in itS interfacing with the original text is generatinga new text. In the design of the addition to Gipsoteca Canoviana in Possagno. Scarpa wasable to change the convention that asks for the background walls of a collecrion of gyp-sum casts to be tinted. Scarpa's solution '.,vas to put the 'A--hite Clsrs against a white back-ground wall (hat was washed with light, without directly lignting the casts. The problemand [he solution are in the use of light. Scarpa solves it in a detail in the joint: of threewalls in a carner made of glass. In a lee-ure given at the University of Ve~ice (1976) hedesGibed lhe architecrural making of tr..is corner. The achievement of the ::::recc of lightOC::1[$ by a formal manipulation. The solution of the formal cause solves the Enal cause.he described it as "clipping off the blue of [he sky. " a formal cause, but the :-esult was

~l1e lighting of the "vall, the tlnal cause. Eis own words are the best description of themaking of ;ln ;lrc~itecrural de:ail:

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I love a lot of...narurallight: I wanted to clip off the blue of the sky. Then what I want-ed was an upper glass recess....The glass corner becomes a blue block pushed up andinside [the building]' the light illuminates all the four walls. Iv1y bias for formalsolutions made me prefer an absolute transparency. Consequently I did not want thecorner of glass to rie in a frame. It had been a tour de firce because it was not possibleto obtain this idea of pure transparency. When I overlap the glasses I see the corner any-way especially if rhe glass is thick. One may as well put in the frame. Then, besides rhis.if it is a clear day one may see the reflection. Look, when I saw rhe reflecrion I hatedmyself. I did nor think of it. These are mistakes which one makes in thinking, acting,and making, and therefore [it] is necessary to have a double mind, a triple mind, rhemind like thar of a robber, a man who speculates, who would like to rob a bank. and itis necessary to have thar ".rhich I call \vir, an attentive tension toward understanding allthat is happening.35

The development of architecture in the \-vorks designed by Scarpa proceeds by stepsand stages. These are in the details. Each detail represents an interim result that cannotbe considered a final result. Scarpa would invent details the precise architectural func-tions of which would become dear only after they had been used in several differentdesigns. The range of those architectural functions goes from the immediate fo the medi-ate understanding of the meaning of the detail. This creative use of details in design isfully in accordance with [Ludwig] Wingenstein's understanding of a creative use of lan-guage. The "exact" meaning, that is. the function of words, would only become knownby a later use. A function of detail in a design becomes dear by re-presentation, that is.by re-use. The de~ail often appe:lfs incomplete and vague in its structuring principle.But. unif)ring in itself function and representation, the re-use of a detail becomes a cre-ative catalyst. h becomes a fertile detail. The re-use of details is analogous to RichardWagner's re-use of leitmotifi.36 The leitmotifs are structural devices used by Wagner toassemble and reconstruct the architecture of opera from within and are the smallestunits of signification in the musical text. Scarpa's details are structural devices used toassemble architectural text from within.

A case offtrtile details in Scarpa's architecture is the use of the "ziggurat" motif. Thearchitectural function of these fertile details emerge in the Brion Cemetery at S. Vitod'Altivole and in the fa

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Carlo Scarpa, l\;fuseo di Castelvecchio, Verona. Joint, \virh Cangrande statue.

TII

the struCLure which supports it are set in a spatial location that allows a vie\\' from thebalconv, ::he bridge, and the coun belm.v. This location allow's one to view the statue from

"' ....

close-up as well as from belo\v, as it \vas seen in its original location on Cangrande shrine.This joint originates the full text of the spatial organization of the Castelvecchiorviuseum. It thus becomes the cause for the formal solution of the museum and the textin the context.

An early design of the platform holding the statue of Cangrande shows it as the pre-text for a celebration of the virtual joint determined by its collocation. This drawingshows the idea of the ziggurat as a gene:-aror of the wall. The layers of the wall becomeindependent units and each one of them is expressed in a vertical ziggurat. The spaceopened up by the cutting of the fa

(Furthermore, it is useful [0 complete our underst:Inding of this ;;~se:1[ial role of the joint:IS u~e place of the process of significuion to recall d-:3.t the meJ.r:ing of theorigin:Il Indo-EuropeJ.n root of the word art is "joint.") :\s K..mn nas saic.

The joinr is the beginning of ornamenrAnd that must be distinguished fromdecoration \vhich is simply applied.Ornamenr is the ador3.t~on of the joinr.37

Philip Johnson. ".A..rchite::tur3.1 Details," Archirec;:tral Record (19 64): 137-147.::!. \X/.S. Heckscher, "Perites Percez)[ions." Journal ojAfedievaf tllzd Renaissance Studies 4 (1974):

101ff The idea of the process of signification in the detaiis C3.n be ~raced through Leibniz. toRamon Lui!.Injoning dmvn those data concerning the ad3.ge, I had a lapsus c.dami, and instead ofspelling God with one 0, I spelled it with two os. Later on the same page of my notebook Iscribbled down a note taken from a passage from Vitruvius's Geatise on architecture, DeArchirertura, S. Ferri, ed. and comm. (Rome: 1960), 10. A few days later, \vhile reviewingthose notes, I was amazed by the presence of the quasi-PlatOnic transcription of a quasi-A..ristOtelian mx~im-i.e., "Good lies in the detail"-next co a note stating that Callimacus,the mythical designer of rhe Corinthian capiTal, whose name in Greek means "He whofights strongly for beamy," had been nicknamed fGutltcxitechnos by the Arhenians. By thislong and -.:omplicated alias the Athenians recogr.ized Callimacus's \vork as the result of anactivit:;.' that proceeded with ;-ationa! method toward a spec:f1c productive aim and is aknowing in the doing. Techm! is reHection in ac::ion embodied in the details (1\tL lsardiParente, Techm! [Florence: 1966]). This curious misspelling :.lccident and association of\-vords brought me to consider the role of :echne in the production of ;lichitecmre and inthe process of architectural signification.

-+ In the architec::ural detail, the practical norms (tecl1nology) and t.~e :.lesthetic nor:ns(semiotics) come togethc in a dialectical relationship. T~e detail is [he unit of architecturalproduc:ion. See for the origin of this theory in ~he eightee:1th cemury: wIarco Frascari,"Sortes Arch;"tecrii in the Eighteenth-Century Ve:1em," Ph.D. diss., University ofPennsylvania, 1981.For a ~urvey J.nd a discussio~ of the different elements and i:heories developed inarchitec:ural semiOtics see: lvIartin Kiampen, jvleaning ;";1 ;he Urban Ei1uiromnent (London:1979), 6-91.

6 ]. Labatut, "An Approach to Architec:ural Composition," jHoduius 9 (1964): 55-63."7 See for a different approach. but reaching the same conclusion: Roger Scuton. Aesthetics of

Archi:ccture (Princeton: 1979), 77fT.S A case is the collapse of :he lYb..rciana Library in Venice. in his tlrst Ve:1e:ian building J.

Sansovino, indeed 3. skillful "proto," used Roman detailing (numiem Rommuil, whichindeed did not 'Nork in \lenice. See T. Temanz:J., VIte tie;' piu ceiebri .zrchiretti e scuitori

Vene~iani (Venice: 1778).9 Functions in architecture depend on both [he buiiding itself :.lnd on who '.lses :t or

organizes its use. Custom and repeated usag~5 a,e :he base ;)f :-unCl::ons. ~-\rc~itec:ure notonly per:-orms but :.llso signifies its funetions ;lna can be organized :n ~our functionalhorizons: the prac::ical, ilie historical. the social. J.na ::he ~ndividu:l1. For J discussion or [hefour :uncional ~orizonsmd J. rypology of func:ions c.;e~ J. \IuiGirovsl:y, "The Pb.c~ or ilieAesthetic Funcion Among ::he Othe~" Func~ions in :\rc~itec:ure in Srr:Lc:ure, Sign .1ndF:mc:iol1 (~rew Haven: 1978), ~o-:.-+).

rIO The French commercial origin of the word, \-vhich differentiates between the selling of slices

of pizzas and the sale of whole ones, besides clarifying that details are parts, does not helpin the understanding of the detail as joint and its nonsubordinate relationship with wholes.A bener and meaningful term is the Italian, particolari architettonici, which is alsoconnected with the literary theories of the eighteenth century, for instance, Antonio Conti'sidea on particoIa1eggiamenro.

II Despreau."{ Nicolas Boileau, LAn Poetique I (1670; repr. Paris, 1966), 158.12 G. B. Piranesi. "Parere," (1765) in J. Wilton-Ely, ed., The Polemical Works (Farnborough: 1972).13 ]. Soane, Lectures on Architecture (London: 19 29), 177.14 For a discussion of the origin of the analytique in Lodoli's garden at S. Francesco della

Vigna see Frascari, "Sones Architectii," op. cit.15 For this role of the anaLytique and the process of detailing see the discussion of AntOnio

Conti's theory ofparticolareggiamento in Frascari, ,( Sortes Architect;i," op. cit., 141-150.16 G.O. Garney, The American Glossary ofArchitettural Terms (Chicago: 1887).17 D. Ramee, Dictionnaire general des tennes d'architecrure (Paris: 1868).IS ]. Lotman. "The Dynamic lYIodel of a Semiotic System." Semiotica 21, no. 3/4 (1977): 194-19 Leon Battista Alberti, De Re Aedificatoria (Bologna: 1782). The principle of the nihil addi is

presented in the first book, but it is theoretically developed in the sixth and seventh books.For this new interpret:ltion of the concept see the discussion of the role of "decoration: inthe small temples: ett' pare che, 6- vi si possa, & vi si debba tlK.rz:iunere. m

20 This tripartite discussion of beam)! is developed by.Alberti in his seventh book (L"X. 5),229-230 .

21 Ludv..ig \V"ingenstein, Remarks on the Foundation of/vfathematics (A, II. 1+ j; cf II. 47and \~ 46) (Oxford: 1956).

22 On the use of the human body as basic design reference and generator of measures seeJ\tIarco Frascari. "The Search ror !vleasure in Architecture," to be published in Res.

23 For the concept of analogy in architecture see Vi[fuvius (Ferri, ed.), 50ff.24 !vlukarovsk;r. "The Place of the Aesthetic Function," op. cit., 240-43.25 H. Von Helmholtz, Ober Gt:ometrie (Darmstadt: 1968), 218 ..:6 R. Torrerri, Philosophy ofGeometry (Dordrecht: 1978), 162.-171.27 Envin Panofsh."}r, Gothic and Scholi1.sticism eNe,v York: 1946).28 Walter Benjamin, Illuminations (New York: 1968), 2.42.29 Torretti, Philosophy ofGeometry', op. cit., 168.30 Accademia Olimpica, Carlo Scarpa (Vicenza: 1974), 1.31 l'vIukarovsh.-y, "The Place of the Aesthetic Function," op. cit., 240-243.)2 Carlo Scarpa, "Frammenti, 1926-78," Rassegna 7 (1981): 82.33 H. Focillon, Piranesi (Bologna: 196::), 166. .34 Scarpa, "Frammenti," op. cit.: 83-84-35 Ibid.: 83-84.36 For a discussion of the use of "fertile details" see the anaiysis of the "fertile motif' in :\DtOn

Ehrenzweig, The Hidden Order ofA1t (London: 196::).37 Louis Kahn, Light is the Theme (Fort Worth: 1975), 43.

BIBLIOGK/~\PHYAccademia Olimpica. CarLo Scarpa. Vlcenza: 1974-Alberti. Leon Battista. De Re Aedifica:01ia. 1485; repro :vElan: 1966.Benjamin, \X/alter. ILLuminations. New York: 1968.Blomfield, Reginald. The lHisn'ess An. London: 1908.Boileau. Despreaux ~icolas. Art poerique 1. 1670; repro Paris: 1966.Brusatin, Ivlanlio. "Carlo Scarpa," Conn"ospazio 3/4 (1972): ::-8)."Details," Consrruetio12 Details (January 1914): 1.Ehrenzweig, Anton. The Hidden Order ofArt. London: 1962.