ABSTRACT
George Steiner argues that the world today needs literacy in four fields: numeracy, music, architecture and bio-genetics.1 The reasons for including architecture are in his view largely to do with architecture’s ability to manifest geometric and harmonic truths. Keeping abreast of developments in the other literacies makes architecture a necessarily innovating practice. We have seen other arguments adduced to support the importance of good architecture to the well-being of us all – particularly overt in the case of Columbus, Indiana. Perhaps Steiner is right to cite his son, an academic in the USA, when he avers that ‘Europe preserves form, America has content’.2 Often such views are based on the self-destruction of Europe during its long civil war, 1914–45, as many scholars now see it.3 Certainly America led the way into civil war with death counts proportionally rivalling those of France in World War I.4 On the other hand, the distinguished urbanist Dr Grahame Shane (educated in London, and then completing doctoral studies at Cornell under Colin Rowe – an Englishman) has found that – at least in architecture and urbanism – the valency has been (even though he is silent on Barcelona) the other way.5 Certainly, following the highs and lows of civil culture, Europe is a good context in which to consider why innovation in architecture matters, and it is unsurprising to find Europe in the lead in procuring innovative architecture that builds local cultures – the continent is covered in examples of enlightened patronage, princely and churchly, spread over millennia. The contemporary situation is, however, somewhat conflicted.
