Quatremere De Quincy and the Invention of a Modern Language of Architecture

In this important revisionist work, Sylvia Lavin uncovers the origins of
one of the fundamental concepts of modern architectural theory, the idea that
architecture is a form of language. She demonstrates how, in some little-studied
texts, the late Enlightenment theorist Quatremere de Quincy transformed a simple
metaphor into a framework for reconceptualizing the structure of architecture.
Lavin's effort to interpret Quatremere in the context of intellectual history
permits a deeper understanding of this controversial figure. More importantly, by
focusing on the conceptual structure rather than the material illustrations of an
architectural idea, she suggests a valuable new approach to the study of theories of
architecture.

Lavin suggests that by using language to provide
architecture with a conventional rather than natural model, Quatremere equated
architecture's capacity for progressive development with its sociality. Challenging
the usual appraisal of Quatremere as a conservative academic, Lavin argues that his
underlying emphasis on the social contract of architecture, rather than the
neoclassical style he explicitly promulgated, is the key to the persistent interest
in his writings. She shows how Quatremere's effort to establish a universally valid
theory of architecture led him beyond the boundaries of academic classicism and into
contemporary developments in language theory, ethnography, and
Egyptology.

Lavin then demonstrates how the relativism of these
emerging spheres of knowledge, which sought to discover fundamental relationships
between distinct cultural traditions, affected Quatremere's understanding of
architecture. She posits Quatremere as the first thinker to develop a theory of
architecture able to accommodate a wide range of formal expressions and generate
dissimilar discourses. In the process, she reveals a consonance between the
interdisciplinary nature of his thought and the extraordinary breadth of his
influence.