the theory and practice of impermanence

IN 1988, ten years after its opening,the entire cladding of Norman Foster’sSainsbury Center for the Visual Artswas replaced, its aluminum panels hav-ing deteriorated beyond repair. In1988, thirteen years after its comple-tion, Peter Eisenman’s House VI inCornwall, Connecticut, was essentiallyrebuilt, primarily as a result of numer-ous leaks and the resulting structuraldamage. House VI has experienced noproblems since its rebuilding, butEisenman’s 1971 House III in neigh-boring Lakeville was, as of 1995, a ply-wood ruin. Richard Rogers and RenzoPiano’s Pompidou Center, finished in1972, is currently the subject of a $120million renovation, including the re-placement of all the acrylic glazing ofthe escalators.

These examples would be taken bymany as evidence, if any were neces-sary, of the decline of the art and craftof building in the late 20th century.There are other signs of a larger trend;in the December 1995 Progressive Ar-chitecture, Stephen Ruggiero wrote of“the legacy of poorly designed and de-tailed curtain walls” of the buildingboom of the 1980s, which he called

“cladding’s ticking time bombs.” Isthere something inherently flawed inModern architecture’s conception ofgood building? Is there something in-herently flawed in the practices ofmodern construction (it should be not-ed at the start that these are very dif-ferent questions)? Or is thisphenomenon illusory?1

Each of these building failures illus-trates a slightly different problem andraises a slightly different question.Eisenman’s office left a number of de-cisions to the contractor, and HouseVI was improperly flashed, under-structured, uninsulated, and, certainlyin its stucco work, poorly executed.(Some would say that this is the archi-tect’s responsibility on this type of job,others the contractor’s, others both.)Foster’s office is known for intense in-volvement in the selection, develop-ment, and installation of buildingcomponents, yet the Sainsbury panelsfailed because of a “destructive reac-tion between the phenolic foam panelsand the superplastic alloy that formsthe outer shell,” and not, as might beexpected, because of a failure of itshigh-tech gasketed panel joints.

H A R VA R D D E S I G N M A G A Z I N E 1

This article appeared in Harvard Design Magazine, Fall 1997, Number 3. To order this issue or a subscription,visit the HDM homepage at <http://mitpress.mit.edu/HDM>.

© 2001 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and The MIT Press. Not to be reproduced withoutthe permission of the publisher

The Theory and Practiceof ImpermanenceThe Illusion of Durability, by Edward Ford

Should we be scandalized that such anexpensive retrofit of the Pompidou isnecessary after so short a time, or isthis the inevitable maintenance thatsuch a sophisticated piece of equip-ment requires after twenty years? Pi-ano argues that the building has been

improperly maintained; the museumcites the necessity of accommodatingfour times the number of visitors an-ticipated.2

Even if these failures contained acommon denominator, none of themis directly related to the problems de-scribed in Progressive Architecture.Eisenman’s building is a custom-builtsingle family house; Foster’s andRogers’s are institutional buildings; allwere built by owner/client/users. Thebuildings described by Progressive Ar-chitecture were built on speculation bydevelopers who are probably neithertheir ultimate users nor owners. As aresult, this building type is often builtfollowing different procedures in doc-umentation, material specifications,and construction supervision. It is thusdifficult to ascribe recent building fail-ures to a single phenomenon, and,even if that were the case, one wouldhave to ask if these phenomena areunique to the present day.

Despite the apparently contempo-rary nature of these problems, it canbe argued that there is nothing newgoing on here –– that there are no realdifferences in Modernism, at least inregard to durability, and that its fail-ures are simply more conspicuous orperhaps more widely publicized by itscritics for ideological reasons. Thevast majority of buildings erected inhistory are gone, and there is ampleevidence that traditional architectureand traditional construction have suf-fered their share of similar problems.

DURABILITY IN TRADITIONAL BUILDING

Before attempting to answer this ques-tion –– is Modern architecture lessdurable than traditional, and if so, isthis a result of ideology, practice, orboth? –– a more basic question has tobe asked, or, put another way, a basic

assumption has to be questioned.Many of the criticisms implicit in theabove examples assume that a buildingupon completion should be just that,complete, and that with routine main-tenance –– painting, cleaning, etc. ––should last many years; a further as-sumption is that if it is a work of “architecture,” and not merely “build-ing,” it will last considerably longer.We may or may not have a deep-seat-ed need to believe in the transience ofcontemporary buildings, but there isample evidence that we do have adeep-seated need to believe in the per-manence of traditional buildings, andwe have developed a tendency to over-look those instances when these worksfail to meet our expectations.

While a great deal of Modern ar-chitecture has deteriorated more rap-idly than might be expected, a greatdeal of traditional architecture hasdone no better. Much of RenaissanceVenice is a 19th-century reconstruc-tion; the Venice Campanile dates from1910. The Vienna Opera and Milan’sLa Scala date from the late 1940s. Allthe members of the Eiffel Tower havebeen replaced at least once. The Lin-coln Bedroom, much in the news oflate, dates from the Truman adminis-tration. This phenomenon is not lim-ited to the 19th and 20th centuries.The Blue Guide to London tells us thatInigo Jones’s Banqueting House wascompleted in 1622, but it does not in-form us that what we are seeing isJohn Soane’s refacing of 1829. Soane’swork exhibits similar problems; hisDulwich Picture Gallery is a 1950s re-

construction of the original, destroyedin the war.

The most conspicuous example ofthe reconstructed monument is onethat recognizes, in fact celebrates, itstemporality –– the Ise shrine in Japan,which, according to one’s point ofview, is either twenty or 1300 yearsold, since it has been systematically re-constructed in an elaborate ritualroughly every twenty years since the7th century. The Ise shrine has be-come for Modern architects a kind ofanti-definition of the traditional West-ern building. For Bruno Taut, WalterGropius, or Kenzo Tange, Ise, alongwith the Parthenon, symbolized thepolar extremities of Eastern and West-ern thought. In form, in material, inits attitude toward nature, Ise was theopposite of buildings in the Classicaltradition. Noboru Kawazoe wrote:

The faithful adherence throughout theages to the custom of rebuilding the Iseshrine every twenty years is a sign thatthe Japanese were not interested in pre-serving old buildings as such. It was thestyle, not the actual structures embodyingit, that they sought to preserve for pos-terity. Everything that had physical, con-crete form, they believed, was doomed todecay; only style was indestructible. Firecan destroy a wooden building in a mat-ter of minutes: the philosophy of the im-permanence of all things was a solace to apeople that built only in wood. A West-erner would probably insist that style isinseparable from physical, concrete form,but, to go one step further, what theJapanese wanted to preserve was not eventhe style as such in all its details butsomething else, some intangible essencewithin its style.3

One cannot dispute the ephemeralityof Japanese or any other wood-basedarchitecture, but it is worth askinghow we can conceive of the Parthenonas original and Ise as a reconstruction.The Parthenon, if not exactly eternal,has lasted a long time. Despite disas-semblies and reassemblies, despitefires, explosions, and earthquakes (re-quiring substantial repairs), despite

Durability and Ephemerality The Theory and Practice of Impermanence

2 H A R VA R D D E S I G N M A G A Z I N E FA L L 1 9 9 7

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Should we be scandalized that such an expensive retrofit ofthe Pompidou is necessary after so short a time, or is thisthe inevitable maintenance that such a sophisticated pieceof equipment requires after twenty years?

conversion to a church, mosque, andwarehouse (all of which required addi-tions and demolitions), despite the lossall of its wood structure, all of its poly-chromy, most of its decoration and atleast half of its stone skeleton (part ofwhich dates from Roman times in anycase), it is still the Parthenon. But ar-guably it is the carefully preserved18th-century image of the Parthenon,not the Parthenon itself. It is distin-guished from Ise in that it is recon-structed of its original stones, whichare treated like so many religiousrelics. The reconstruction of Ise hasbeen elevated to ritual; the numerousreconstructions of the Parthenon havebeen universally suppressed by com-mon consent, subject to a kind of col-lective amnesia in which the modernreplacement is treated as the original.

DURABILITY IN TRADITIONAL THEORY

The idea that important buildingsshould be not only durable but alsopermanent is so integral with theWestern idea of architecture as to es-cape notice, except by those critical ofWestern civilization as a whole. In thisconventional wisdom, true architec-ture, as opposed to building, is theconstruction of monuments elevated toart, and must be as permanent as theideas it represents. In 1865 James Fer-gusson wrote in his History of Architec-ture:

The length of time during which archi-tectural objects are calculated to endureconfers on them an impress of durabilitywhich can hardly be attained by any ofthe sister arts. Sculpture may endure aslong, and some of the Egyptian examplesof that art found near the Pyramids are asold as anything in that country, but it isnot their age that impresses us as the sto-ry they have to tell…. From that time on-ward the architects have covered theworld with monuments that still remainon the spot where they were erected, andtell all, who are sufficiently instructed toread their riddles aright, what nationsonce occupied these spots, what degree ofcivilisation they had reached, and how, inerecting these monuments on which we

now gaze, they had attained that quasi-immortality after which they hankered.

Sculpture and painting, when alignedwith architecture, may endure as long,but their aim is not to convey to themind the impression of durability whichis so strongly felt in the presence of themore massive works of architectural art.Even when ruined and in decay thebuildings are almost equally impressive,while ruined sculptures or paintings arefar from being pleasing objects….4

For Fergusson there was no doubt asto how permanence was to be achieved–– through mass and solidity. He com-piled a table purporting to demon-strate that the greater the percentageof a building’s area occupied by struc-ture, the more beautiful it would be. Itis an interesting table in that it requiresone to believe, as did Fergusson, thatSalisbury Cathedral is more beautifulthan Chartres. In a statement reassur-ing to the technologically indifferent,he declared that: “it tends to prove thatthe satisfactory architectural effect of abuilding is nearly in the inverse ratio tothe mechanical cleverness displayed inits construction.”

Topping Fergusson’s table was thetemple of Karnak, with a structurethree-tenths of its floor area, but closebehind at almost the same ratio wasthe Parthenon. Fergusson wrote:“Much of the beauty of the Parthenonarises from this cause…. [T]he pillarsat Athens are twice as massive as thoseof the Roman temple, yet the latterhave sufficed not only for the mechan-ical, but for many points of artistic sta-bility; but the strength and solidity ofthe porticos of the Parthenon, withouttaking into consideration its otherpoints of superiority, must always ren-der it more beautiful….”5

Allowing for Fergusson’s devotionto the more massive examples of tradi-tional building, his opinion on durabil-ity might be taken as the norm, butthere were dissenting opinions, even inthe 19th century –– Viollet-le-Duc, forexample, or William Lethaby. Bothmaintained that style and beauty, asrepresented by the Gothic cathedral,

were the result of economy of material.Lethaby wrote: “From another pointof view a Gothic cathedral may becompared to a great cargo-ship whichhas to attain to a balance betweenspeed and safety. The church and theship were both designed in the sameway by a slow perfecting of parts; allwas effort acting on custom, beautywas mastery, fitness, size with economyof material.”6

Fergusson was perhaps thinking ofthe Gothic revivalists when he wrote“…the great art of the architect con-sists in obtaining the greatest possibleamount of unencumbered space inter-nally, consistent in the first place withthe requisite amount of permanent mechanical stability, and next withsuch an appearance of superfluity ofstrength as shall satisfy the mind thatthe building is perfectly secure andcalculated to last for ages.”7

There is no small difference be-tween obtaining the maximum spacewith the minimum material and ob-taining the maximum space with theminimum material plus whatever ex-cess is required to convey permanence;and the difference between these twoparadigms –– represented by theGothic cathedral and by theParthenon, respectively –– was togrow considerably when these con-cepts were applied to vastly more effi-cient modern structural materials.

DURABILITY IN MODERN THEORY

If there was no consensus in the 19thcentury as to what constituted goodconstruction or the role of durabilityin architecture, there has been no lessa lack of unanimity in the 20th, andthe same three sometimes contradicto-ry ideas are found in our own centuryas well:

■ That good construction equals minimal material.

■ That architectural form is temporal.

■ That architecture is the expressionof permanence through solidity andmass, regardless of the quantity ofmaterial required.



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What might be called the minimal-ist school includes a diverse group ofModernist adherents. Frank LloydWright, Le Corbusier, and Jean Prou-vé have all at one time or another ad-vocated or practiced this idea, but itsmost vigorous spokesman was Buck-minster Fuller. Fuller saw the world asevolving toward a state of “ephemeral-ization,” both naturally and technolog-ically, which meant moving towardminimal weight, if not weightlessness.He was critical even of the mass-pro-duced buildings of the time: “The bestof them weighs twenty times as muchper useful interior cubic foot as doesthe useful cabin space of PAA’s ‘ChinaClipper’ relative to the weight of theenclosing hull, despite the luxuriouscomfort of the Clipper’s cabin, and thefact that it has climatic and sound-proofing and stress requirements far inexcess of the house. They start with anarbitrarily predetermined aesthetic ofdesign, rather than counting upon theinevitable design beauty that developswith pure economy in a plane, boat, orflower, in which not an ounce of excesswarpage for predetermined ‘looks’ oc-curs.”8

While the minimalist ideal has giv-en Modernism some of its most im-pressive images –– e.g., the BrooklynBridge or the Dymaxion house –– itcan also be blamed for many of its fail-ures, as is well illustrated by the sadhistory of Fuller’s glazed geodesicdomes. Many of the early small domeswere experimental or temporary, butsome of the larger ones intended to bepermanent might just as well havebeen temporary. To ensure minimalweight, all were built with a singlethickness of fiberglass or acrylic glaz-ing in lieu of heavier (and nonflamma-ble) conventional glass, supported byminimal aluminum or wood members.The polycarbonate-glazed 1953 FordDome leaked badly and burned to theground in 1960. The 1967 MontrealDome, glazed with a single sheet ofacrylic plastic, leaked from its incep-tion and burned in 1976, leaving onlythe aluminum frame. Ironically, bothfires started accidentally while workers

were attempting to repair the leakingroofs. The Woods Hole Dome wasreglazed with opaque panels, havingproved laborious to maintain, environ-mentally uncomfortable, and acousti-cally unacceptable. One of the fewremaining glazed domes of the earlyyears, Murphy and Mackey’s 1960 Cli-matron in St. Louis, was originallycovered with a single thickness ofacrylic glazing supported by an exter-nal aluminum frame. The thin plastic

sheet leaked, discolored, and faded,and after twenty-eight years was re-placed by laminated glass. The existingstructure was unequal to the resultingincrease in load and the new glazing issupported by a network of convention-al aluminum skylight mullions insidethe building envelope. The old struc-ture remains in place, but plays no partin supporting the glass –– a kind ofhigh-tech ruin enclosing its more effi-cient but less evocative replacement.9

Fuller’s not entirely satisfactory re-sponse to concerns of this type wasthat if you build a building like a ma-chine, you must maintain it like a ma-chine, not like a building. When askedabout the problem of sealing the com-plex joints between panels in geodesicdomes, he replied: “You wouldn’t builda boat full of holes and expect it not toleak, would you?”10

Fuller’s arguments for economy ofmaterial are more convincing whenapplied to less extreme examples of theminimalist school, but the problemssuch arguments created do not endwith Fuller. Take the case of the earlyModern steel curtain walls. The histo-ries of the glazed membranes of LeCorbusier’s Swiss Pavilion and Salva-tion Army Building or Gropius’sBauhaus building are appalling; nonelasted more than twenty years. Yetpoor detailing is an insufficient culpritwhen one considers that the curtain

walls that were their inspiration, i.e.,Gropius’s own Faguswerk and the cur-tain walls of Albert Kahn’s Midwesternfactories, remain in place today (inpart) and maintain their original func-tions. The others failed in large partbecause the architectural ideas that in-formed them were not shared by theirultimate users, Nazism, poor solar de-sign, poor maintenance, and obsoles-cence notwithstanding. In any case,one cannot expect that metal curtain

walls will endure the abuses of timelike blocks of granite. Since 1945 theperformance of steel curtain walls hasbeen greatly improved, but they havealso been largely replaced by alu-minum.

The acceptance of the temporalityof the physical manifestation of archi-tecture, as represented by Ise, may bemore Eastern than Western, but it hasa curious correspondence in WesternModernism: the idea that neither con-cepts nor forms are permanent, andthat both are perhaps disposable. It wasfirst articulated by the Italian Futurists,a group who found the totality of history to be disposable. Antonio Sant’Elia wrote in 1914: “…[T]he fun-damental characteristics of Futurist ar-chitecture will be its impermanenceand transience. Things will endure lessthan us [sic]. Every generation must buildits own city. This constant renewal ofthe architectonic environment willcontribute to the victory of Futur-ism….”11

Despite his deliberately provocativeFuturist tone, Sant’Elia was doing nomore than applying concepts of indus-trial products to architecture. The ideaof treating buildings as industriallyproduced equipment rather than as in-destructible icons has been more re-cently taken up by the High Techarchitects, particularly in regard tomechanical systems. In 1979, Norman



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Much of Renaissance Venice is a 19th-century reconstruction; the Venice Campanile dates from 1910. The Vienna Opera andMilan’s La Scala date from the late 1940s. All the membersof the Eiffel Tower have been replaced at least once.

Foster wrote:

In an age of unprecedented change, mostbuildings, and particularly those withspecialized equipment subject to change,have hardly begun to recognize this reali-ty. The process is perhaps best illustratedby parallels in aviation. The Jet Rangerhelicopter, for example, was introducedin 1965 and, although the technology ofmany of the units such as the engine andelectronics have changed, and in somecases quite dramatically, it is still in fullproduction. Even though its appearanceis that of a fixed object, its design conceptis based on modular units of limited lifeon a long-life airframe and it still re-sponds, like most contemporary flyingmachines, to this process of continuouschange…. The parallels in architectureare self-evident.12

Foster and his sometime partnerRichard Rogers have argued that whilethe life of a building may be fifty years,the life of that building’s mechanicalsystem is more likely to average thirtyyears. This idea has had a demonstra-ble effect on a number of recent build-ings, which in many cases seem to beturned inside out with their mechani-cal organs and entrails hanging outsidetheir skins. There is ample evidence tosupport this theory of early obsoles-cence of mechanical systems, but thedistinction is not so simple, as thereare a number of components of the“building” that are unlikely to last fiftyyears.

Take, for example, Richard Rogers’sPA Technology Center in Hightstown,New Jersey. Its mechanical systems arealmost totally external and, allowingfor some gymnastics in the placementof the crane, easily replaced. It seemsdoubtful, however, that some parts ofthe remainder of the building will lastthe fifty years specified without help.The steel frame, if properly main-tained, should make it, but the fiber-glass exterior wall panels and theacrylic skylights of the type used inthis building have guarantees that of-ten do not exceed ten years. This isthe same question raised by the twen-

ty-year-old acrylic glazing of Rogersand Piano’s Pompidou Center, whichis currently being replaced. This is notto say that these products were inap-propriately specified, but it does pointout the inadequacy of the conventionalprocedures of construction biddingand maintenance, and the insufficiencyof the conventional roles of the archi-tect and contractor if a building is toretain its character over time.

If we are unwilling to adopt the im-age of the machine and technology ofthe machine to contemporary build-ing, we might nevertheless do well toadopt its attitude toward durabilityand maintenance. There are a numberof building components that will last,if not for eternity, perhaps for the lifeof its occupants, but there are manythat cannot reasonably be expected todo so, and if we take Rogers’s estimateof the life of a building as fifty years,then we must recognize that a numberof the components have considerablyshorter life spans. The life of sometypes of caulking does not exceed tento twelve years; the life of acrylic glaz-ing is about twenty years dependingon location; and single-ply roofing cantypically be expected to last fifteen totwenty-five years.13

No one would buy a car, a plane, ayacht, or a refrigerator on the assump-tion that it would last for eternity. Thethoughtful buyer would inquire aboutthe probable life span of both the to-tality and its individual components,and about the need for systematicmaintenance. Does the construction ofbuildings differ so markedly from theconstruction of machines? Needless tosay, it is a limitation of construction financing, or rather the lack of al-lowances for maintenance in construc-tion financing, and not constructiontechnology, that is largely responsiblefor this disparity of practice betweenarchitectural and industrial products,but there is more than economics atwork. If an architectural work is tosymbolize permanence and stability, itis difficult to regard it with the sameattitude with which we would ap-proach a washing machine. We are

scandalized at the need to recaulkbuildings on a ten- to twenty-year cy-cle. The doors of the F-117, thestealth fighter, must be recaulked be-fore every flight. We bring differentideological baggage to buildings andare often uncomfortable with the ideaof transience and impermanence inthinking of the institution and themonument.

This has no better illustration thanthe fate of those machines that havebeen elevated to the status of monu-ments, at which point attitudes towardtheir “preservation” become remark-ably similar to those toward buildings.The USS Constitution, “Old Iron-sides,” launched in 1798, still officiallyexists, but after the rebuildings of1840, 1905, 1931, 1976 and 1996 ––the last of which replaced all of its rig-ging and sails, 90% of its masts andspars, 75% of the upper deck, and40% of its internal knee bracing ––how much of the original can be saidto remain? The Wright brothers 1903flyer today hangs in the Smithsonian,but history records that it was demol-ished by a gust of wind within hours ofthe first flights and was not reassem-bled until 1916, at which time it washeavily restored.14

We equate architecture with per-manence and stability; we equate per-manence and stability with mass andsolidity; and we have not, as Le Cor-busier predicted, come to regard ahouse with the same attitude withwhich we regard an automobile orcomputer. If the idea of obsolescenceand routine maintenance is more read-ily acceptable in the case of the latter,it is perhaps because it plays a smallerrole in our sense of well-being.

DURABILITY IN MODERN

CONSTRUCTION PRACTICE

Perhaps because of its technologicalorigins, Modernism has been slow torecognize that the practices of modernconstruction and Modernist theoriesof building not only rarely coincidebut are often diametrically opposed.Modernist theoreticians and Mod-ernist practitioners, regardless of sty-



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listic affiliation, tend to embrace the“solid, honest” character of traditionalbuilding, disdaining the typical proce-dures of the modern construction in-dustry, which tend toward layered andthus veneered assemblies. This ten-dency is more the product of realitythan ideology, although layered con-struction has always had its advocates,such as Ruskin or Loos, and its practi-tioners, such as Wagner or Scarpa. Yeta number of factors –– specializationof building components, the need for

fireproofing, and the decline of theload-bearing wall in favor of the cur-tain wall –– have made layered con-struction commonplace and in manyinstances mandatory. The most criticalfactor in recent years has been in-creased environmental requirements.Highly sophisticated environmentalcontrols, particularly those that createconditions of air pressure, tempera-ture, and humidity that differ greatlyfrom the surrounding natural environ-ment, also make far greater demandson the building envelope than has tra-ditionally been the case. All these fac-tors have pushed modern constructiontechniques away from the solid andmonolithic wall toward the layeredand veneered.

Fergusson’s present-day compatri-ots who advocate solidity in buildingwill be quick to trace a number of re-cent building failures to this tendencyto overveneer and thus apparentlyweaken the traditional wall. A favoriteexample is the system of brick veneeron steel studs, an assembly recentlydeveloped and rapidly –– perhaps toorapidly –– put into widespread use be-cause of anticipated reductions in con-struction cost, and which experienceda number of initial failures. Severaltile-faced buildings have suffered simi-lar problems of delamination, but themost conspicuous failures in “high” ar-chitecture have been failures of stone

cladding.Chicago’s 1974 Amoco building was

originally clad with 1-1/4-inch-thickCarrara marble panels. In 1992 allwere replaced with 2-inch-thick gran-ite at a cost of $80 million due to bow-ing and deterioration of the marble.Similar problems have plagued AlvarAalto’s Finlandia hall, also clad in Car-rara and also subject to bowing of thepanels. Yet there are countless exam-ples of stone veneers (most thickerthan 1-1/4 inches) built before and

since that have experienced no difficul-ties. These two specific cases involveserious errors by the architect, subcon-tractor, or both –– the thinness of thestone panels relative to their surfaceareas seems a likely culprit in both cas-es, but other factors are involved ––but there is nothing inherently incor-rect about the generic stone-veneeredassembly. While failures of these ve-neered systems are not uncommon,there is likewise no shortage of suc-cessfully installed and maintained ex-amples of these same assemblies. Theyare quite obviously dependent onproper detailing and installation inways other assemblies are not. Thecase is strengthened by a number of re-cent failures of far simpler buildingsystems, brick cavity walls for example–– hardly a new procedure, but onestill highly dependent on the skill ofthe craftsman.15

To ascribe recent building failuresto the modern construction industry’stendency toward veneered construc-tion implies that the alternative –– themonolithic concrete and masonrystructures beloved of Modern archi-tects –– would have fared better. Yethistory belies this.

W.M. Dudok’s Hilversum TownHall, completed in 1931, is as solid aconstruction as one could wish: mono-lithic brick walls, concrete frame, andconcrete floors with a minimum of

cladding and veneering. While it hassurvived for over sixty years, it has notdone so without difficulty; during itsrecent restoration, 75% of its exteriorbrick walls, 80% of its steel windows,and 100% of its utilities had to be re-placed, leaving only a fraction of theoriginal building, rust, poor qualitybricks, frost damage, frozen rain lead-ers, and insufficiently covered andrusted rebars having taken their toll.16

Louis Kahn’s library at PhillipsAcademy in Exeter is, at least in out-ward appearance, equally solid. Builtof concrete floors, columns, andbeams, with brick bearing walls eight-een inches thick (in reality they con-tain a three inch cavity withwaterproofing and insulation, coveredby a four-inch brick interior facing), itappears no less solid than a Romanruin; yet this construction system wasno guarantee of permanence. In 1990,eighteen years after its completion, aprogram was begun to retrofit and re-place parts of the roof terrace, many ofthe teak and oak windows, and a sub-stantial portion of the brick exteriorwall. As in many cases of prematuredeterioration, it is unclear whether theproblem was faulty detailing, faultyconstruction, or both.17

The monolithic brick walls ofbuildings like Trajan’s Market orHadrian’s Villa, and the apparentlysolid exposed concrete walls of LeCorbusier’s Indian buildings, are poorparadigms for the modern buildingenvelope. The first two are simply theremaining skeletons of far more com-plex assemblies and the third, despiteits modern material, plays a traditionalrole both environmentally and struc-turally. The functional role of all threewalls is primarily structural, a role notabsent but altered and minimized inmodern building.

Although contemporary architectshave been both slow and reluctant torecognize the fact, the adoption of theveneered wall has been largely benefi-cial to building construction and per-formance. The development of therain screen principle and the greatly increased thermal and vapor modify-



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If the architectural profession cannot accomplish so simple a task as the correct building of a wall, a window, a roof, or adoor, it can hardly expect society to entrust it with the city.

ing capacities of the insulated cavitywall make it significantly superior toits traditional counterpart; in fact, theveneered wall is inferior (and not al-ways) in only one aspect, the structur-al, a role in which its performancerequirements have in any case beengreatly diminished. In layman’s terms,it is a system that does not seek a per-fect wall, but that assumes leaks, con-densation, and other problems willoccur and plans accordingly.

The obvious solution to the alterednature of modern construction is toalter the nature of constructionmethodology: to recognize the needfor sophisticated long-term mainte-nance and for the replacement ofparts, to acknowledge that, whateverits imagery, a Modern building is acomplex piece of equipment and mustbe treated accordingly, and to placearchitect, contractor, and user in along-term relationship.

THE ARCHITECT’S ROLE

Anyone familiar with the present stateof the construction industry and thearchitectural profession will realizethat the idea of long-term systematicmaintenance and architect/ contractorresponsibility falls between the utopi-an and the naive. Many architects wor-ry that their scope of services is beingincreasingly limited, not expanded.Who would undertake this long-termmaintenance if it were financially fea-sible? The American automobile andaircraft industries, in which such war-rantees are commonplace, haveevolved into four and two companiesrespectively, but building contractorsand subcontractors appear and disap-pear with regularity. While some cen-tralization has taken place in theconstruction industry, the idea oflong-term warrantees beyond materialguarantees is still a limited and special-ized area. As with many architecturaldilemmas, the problem is ultimately fi-nancial and one over which architectshave little control.

Even were these ideas to be accept-ed and implemented tomorrow, archi-tects would have little cause to rest

easy, since poor detailing continues tobe the cause of many building failures.If I have underplayed the importanceof this aspect of the problem, it is be-cause both problem and solution areremarkably simple. To be sure, thereare a number of contributing factors ––the confusion of roles between archi-tect and contractor; the varying levelsof acceptable detailing between thesmall custom building, the speculativebuilding, and the institutional one; thelack of long-term testing on experi-mental building assemblies; and the in-evitable over-emphasis on processrather than on long-term performanceduring the construction phase of anybuilding. But what is the architect’srole if it is not to act in the interest ofthe user (not necessarily the client)?

The traditional role of the architectas advocate of the concerns of perma-nence against the concerns of expedi-ency is one from which he or she isoften excluded by modern construc-tion practices. Many have been glad toforsake this role. There is a tendency,perhaps growing, for architects to mi-grate into related, nontraditionalfields, leaving behind what they con-sider the minutiae of the profession ––those issues dealing with construction–– to specialists, to consultants, to en-gineers, to contractors. It is a practicethat is probably in many cases neces-sary, but if the architectural professioncannot accomplish so simple a task asthe correct building of a wall, a win-dow, a roof, or a door, it can hardly ex-pect society to entrust it with the city.

Notes1. Stephen Ruggiero, “Cladding’s Ticking TimeBombs,” Progressive Architecture (December1995), 90.2. Suzanne Frank, Peter Eisenman's House VI:The Client's Response (New York: Whitney,1994). Claire Downey, “Pompidou Center Ren-ovation on Fast Track,” Architectural Record 185(January 1997). Norman Foster: Building and Pro-jects, vol. 2, 1971-78 (Hong Kong: Watermark,1989), 113.3. Kenzo Tange and Noboru Kawazoe, Ise: Pro-totype of Japanese Architecture (Cambridge: MITPress, 1965), 202.

4. James Fergusson, A History of Architecture inAll Countries (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1907),18.5. Ibid., 17.6. William Lethaby, Architecture: An Introductionto the History and Theory of the Art of Building(New York: Oxford, 1955), 158.7. Fergusson, op. cit., 25.8. R. Buckminster Fuller, Nine Chains to theMoon (Carbondale: Southern Illinois UniversityPress, 1963), 329.9. Jay Baldwin, BuckyWorks (New York: Wiley,1996), 122-27. Allen Freeman, “Reglazing aCelebrated Dome Greenhouse,” Architecture 78(March 1989), 88-89.10. Jay Baldwin, BuckyWorks (New York: Wiley, 1996), 123.11. Antonio Sant'Elia, “Manifesto of FuturistArchitecture,” 1913, reprinted in Futurist Mani-festos, Umbro Apollonio, ed. (New York: Viking,1970), 172.12. Norman Foster, “Extract from a Project Di-ary,” in Denys Lasdun, Architecture in an Age ofSkepticism (New York: Oxford, 1984), 125.13. J. P. Cook, Construction Sealants and Adhe-sives (New York: Wiley, 1970), 52.; AtoHaasNorth America Inc.; The Single Ply RoofingInstitute.14. Roger Archibald, “Constitution Refit: FourYears and $12 Million,” Sail 28 (June 1997), 50.15. “Amoco’s Carrara Skin to be Replaced withGranite,” Architecture 78 (October 1989), 26;“The Greying of Aalto,” Architectural Review190 (June 1992), 9.16. H. van Bergeijk and P. Meurs, HilversumTown Hall (Naarden: V+K, 1995), 43.17. Phillips Academy, Exeter, New Hampshire.

Edward Ford is a practicing architect inCharlottesville, Virginia, and an associate professor of architecture at the University ofVirginia School of Architecture; he is author ofVolumes 1 and 2 of The Details of ModernArchitecture, published by MIT Press.



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