Title: New Ways of Looking: John Ruskin's visual and textual strategies for writing a history of architecture
Abstract: The paper focuses on the conceptual notion of the audience as an idealized
way of seeing or the privileging of certain visual modes to delineate that, which
is meaningful in and as architecture. This is examined through an interrogation
of John Ruskin's writings on architecture. While Ruskin's writings have had
far-reaching effects as well as impacts on Victorian architectural practice, to the
professionally trained audience they have always seemed to lack import and
potency. This disconnect points to shifts in visual conventions in architectural
thought. In order to identify these shifts, the paper puts forwards a series of
original arguments. Ruskin's history of architecture was written exclusively on
and about· fragments and surfaces. However, underneath this seemingly ad
hoc and capricious method was the pursuit of planar architecture, textile
analogy, and architectural hybridity. The paper interrogates these -orientations
to reveal multiple visual modes of spiritualism, travel, and photography that
co-exist and cooperate to inform Ruskin's development of a nineteenth century
architectural ideal.
Publication Year: 2011
Publication Date: 2011-01-01
Language: en
Type: article
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