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ARCHITECTURE, ART AND ARTIFACT: A Changing Historical PerspectiveFranco Frescura ABSTRACTHistorically, Western European society has always laid particular emphasis upon material artifact as a measure of cultural achievement. This view has not always been shared by other peoples whose value systems stand in direct contradiction to such beliefs. This has been nowhere more evident than in Africa but can also be held to be true in the case of indigenous cultures in North and South America as well as parts of Asia. Since the turn of the twentieth century the work of anthropologists and archaeologists has done much to soften Western attitudes towards African arts, most particularly sculpture. More recently indigenous architecture and transient wall decoration have begun to be scrutinised more closely but local academics still persist in drawing their conclusions in the context of their own western education and experiences. This paper seeks to briefly analyse the nature of local rural society and show how its art, and architecture and artifact are part of a larger pattern of rural life and cosmology. A HISTORICAL REVIEWArchitecture, in its broadest sense, is the provision of shelter to house the activities of man. Its processes involve considerations of a social, economic, material and aesthetic nature, a mixture which has given rise in the past to seemingly ambiguous and often conflicting interpretations as to its "true" nature. Some principles, based upon aesthetic elements, have been difficult to define and, being derived from variable human factors and perceptions, have tended to differ from culture to culture and from one era to the next. Others however, being the product of technological expertise, have been more easily quantifiable and their performance has thus been more readily assessable. Despite the obvious difficulties encountered in reconciling Art and Science within the same discipline, over the years there has been no shortage of architects seeking to codify the aesthetics of man's built culture. Most, it seemed, were responding to the same impulse which led Marc-Antoine Laugier in 1753 to exclaim, that "it is to be hoped that some great architect will undertake to save architecture from eccentric opinions by disclosing its fixed and unchangeable laws." (Laugier, 1979) Perhaps the earliest of these was Vitruvius, a Roman theorist whose treatise on architecture was published in about 30CE. Although his work is thought to have had little impact in his own time, its obscure text and sweeping pronouncements had a strong appeal upon the Renaissance intellect. Alberti, Di Giorgio and Palladio were but a few of his emulators whose writings, from the fifteenth century onward, found a wide following, both in Italy and abroad. Almost without exception, they sought to reduce architecture to a series of mathematical relationships, geometrical proportions and decorative orders. It becomes understandable therefore how subsequent generations of historians and commentators could have come to fall into the facile trap of considering Architecture as a finite science, differing between themselves only as to the nature of the formulas to be applied. For many years thereafter, architectural writings were to be bedeviled by an inflexible formalist approach, a condition which has persisted to the present day through the work of such authors as Bannister Fletcher and Summerson. Regrettably this preoccupation with form and aesthetics was also subsequently to give rise to predeterministic theories in other disciplines such as geography, engineering and anthropology as, each in its turn, sought to interpret the habitat of man in terms which fulfilled the needs of their own narrow concerns. This imbalanced outlook was only partially redressed during the latter part of the nineteenth century by the writings of the Rationalist Viollet-le-Duc and Romantics such as Ruskin. Significantly both advocated the notion of freezing architectural aesthetics into some kind of cultural stasis, locked in time somewhere between eleventh century Italy and fifteenth century England. Obviously reacting to the values and growing urban squalor of their era, both perceived Romanesque and Gothic architecture to represent a period of Christian faith, when craftsmen were meaningfully employed in the processes of production and derived personal satisfaction and identity from their work. Despite this outlook however, neither was prepared to take their own arguments to a final conclusion and view architecture as part of a larger process of social interaction whereby the built form and aesthetic are generated by the activities and cultural patterns of man. Although the shortcomings of a formalist approach were already becoming evident to architectural scholars as Martienssen as early as the 1930's, its theoretical validity only began to be seriously challenged during the 1960's. This was a time when the first major studies of vernacular and folk architectures outside Europe and North America began to be published in the architectural press. Bringing together such varied disciplines as anthropology and archaeology, geography and economics, they began to place increasing emphasis upon the relationship of the rural artist/architect/craftsman to the larger process of production. They also sought to define the role of the designer within his own society. Ultimately the message they carried was that a comprehensive understanding of man's habitat could only be achieved through a wider and multi-disciplinary set of references. Perhaps the most influential of these theorists was architect/anthropologist Amos Rapoport whose work, relying heavily upon both Levi-Strauss and Hall, has since done much to discredit a predeterminist approach to architecture. One of the predictable outcomes of formalist thinking which few architectural historians have attempted to rectify, was the emergence, in the public mind, of stylistic stereotypes based upon the outward aesthetics of the built form. Whilst it is true that the concept of an architectural, or even artistic, "style" may be found to entertain a limited validity within certain contexts, architectural historians have allowed the word to gain global and encapsulatory meaning. As a result it became permissible to take the architecture of an era out of its historical continuum and, freed of its socio-economic and material context, study it as a prototypical manifestation of the aesthetics of a particular time and culture. In the context of an academic community, the damage wrought upon architectural history by a "stylistic" and stereotypical approach has not been of an irreversible nature. Indeed, in more recent times, scholars of the material culture of rural and pre-industrial societies have increasingly sought to interpret those people's habitats, decorations and artifacts in terms of function and social content. Regrettably, this approach has, to date, been slow in percolating through to the study of "high design tradition" architecture. As Rapoport pointed out in 1969, architectural theory and history remains "concerned with the study of monuments ... the work of men of genius, the unusual, the rare." (Rapoport, 1969) The problem can be perceived to lie in two major areas of concern. The first may be ascribed to the limited range of analytical tools available to the architectural historian whose training seldom extends beyond the narrow bounds of his discipline and almost never includes such subjects as anthropology, sociology, philosophy or even history. The second is one of cultural attitude and is based upon the Eurocentric focus of architectural education as a whole. It is true that neither of these shortcomings need be major stumbling blocks in the study of certain European-based architectures. However difficulties of translation arise when scholars attempt to carry the same value structures and analytical patterns as they use in an European context over to the study of the artifacts of other material cultures. Holub's comical interpretation of African masks in 1881, when he stated that: "During this day the king gave a Mabunda dance in my honour - a performance of so objectionable a character that the negroes themselves are quite conscious of its impropriety, and refuse to dance it except in masks." (Holub, 1881) is by no means unique to his time and the attitudes he represents recur through to the present day. An answer to these difficulties may be found through an analysis of the social processes fundamental to the creation of a built environment. In this the role of the designer, artist or craftsman in the production of a building as well as his relationship to his client are of paramount importance. It may be, as is often the case in many pre-industrial societies, that the roles of building producer and building consumer are embodied in the same person or group of people. In such a case we should be concerned with the social interactions that occur in the building process and how these manifest themselves in its aesthetics. On the other hand, where the specialised artist or craftsman has emerged as a distinct occupation, then his perceived status within the community becomes a major factor. It may be hypothesised that ultimately an architectural study should be concerned first and foremost with the value systems which underlie material culture and how these are applied by the people themselves in respect to their own building and artifacts. During the 1960's, Rapoport, Oliver and Papanek all sought answers to the fundamental questions of architecture in the context of rural societies whose material values were orientated towards pragmatic function as against aesthetic appreciation. Such a society may be perceived to exist in southern Africa and it is proposed to test this hypothesis in its general context. THE ROLE OF THE DESIGNERThe idea of architecture, art and artifact as something created by a class of specialist designers is not an easy one to defend in the context of traditional, or even modern, southern African rural culture. The agrarian and pastoral nature of the local rural economy has encouraged a pragmatic and highly functional approach towards folk art and building which is integrated into the value-systems and lifestyles of the people themselves. The roles of designer, producer and consumer are often embodied in the same person or found within the same social group, each acting independent of others and yet working within a larger regional ethos or tradition. This stands in sharp contrast to modern industrialized society which, since the inception of mass-production, has tended to separate its artistic and creative functions from everyday life and objects, like some kind of "optional extra" in a consumer economy. This was perceived and worked against by the Bauhaus during the 1920s (Tafuri and Dalco, 1979) which adopted and extended many of the ideas of the Arts and Crafts movement of the previous century. Despite the obvious influence which these two have had upon the philosophy of twentieth century industrial design and indeed, the theory of design as a whole, today's western society still attaches a financial bonus to those consumer goods which are seen (or claimed to have) a "design" component. Examples may be commonly found in the mass media in advertisements for such products as "designer" clothes, "architect-designed" homes and "foreign- styled" motor vehicles. Although it is true that a certain degree of mystique has always been associated with individual designers as well as with the design process, there is no doubt that, in more recent times, this has become harnessed by both the advertising industry and the mass media. They have attempted to exploit foreign and unusual aspects of consumer products in order to create images which are both chic and esoteric. In the process however they have also tended to promulgate false social and national stereotypes and unrealistic economic expectations which have only magnified the alienative elements of modern industrial society. Most important however is the fact that the understanding and appreciation of aesthetics has been removed from the public arena by critics and dilettanti who have surrounded it with what the layman has come to consider as unintelligible and often capricious comment. Gems of artistic or architectural critique such as Charles Jencks' "The gallery spaces are contextualism to him, whereas the outside is a quixotic conceptualism to things around it - so you have two different contextualisms." (Private Eye, 1987b) or the London Sunday Times' David Sylvester's "I was standing looking at that picture for 15 minutes before I realised it was an electric chair. When we are gripped like that by a painting without recognising what it represents, we know we have been looking at a real painting." (Private Eye, 1987a) are littered freely through the popular press, alienating professional and lay public alike. The arts, it would appear, were elevated a long time ago to join an elite pantheon accessible only to the very rich and famous, and have not come down to earth since. This, of course, has not always been the case. In earlier times, the dividing line between craftsman and artist was relatively thin. Goldscheider tells us that: "In the early days of the Renaissance a Florentine would walk into an artist's workshop ... and would there give his orders - for anything, from a decorated button to a painted altarpiece or a marble tomb, could be ordered in the same workshop." (Vasari, 1971) Often it was merely a degree of excellence which separated the two. Both Ghiberti and Cellini were goldsmiths before being elevated by the quality of their work to the status of sculptors, and the apprenticeship conditions for becoming a painter before the Renaissance were much the same for becoming a cooper, a carpenter or any other craftsman. Indeed, up to the beginning of the fifteenth century the visual artist, whether he be painter or architect, played a humble role in medieval European society. Neither painting, sculpture nor architecture ranked among the seven liberal arts and their practitioners were counted as "manual" workers or craftsmen. Architects were a little better off than the others in that they could join the Guild of Masons and Joiners but painters were enrolled in a sub-section of the Guild of Apothecaries and Doctors and Brunelleschi was originally sworn into the Guild of Silk Merchants in 1398. (Cronin, 1967) It is true that, then as now, the artist has always had to look to a patron for his living. Somehow, however, the connection between the artist/craftsman and his community as a whole was much more intimate before the Renaissance than it has been at any time since then. During medieval times the artist might have to deal with the conservative conventions of Guild committees and ecclesiastical juries who acted as patrons, but their members were also laymen and their own tastes were guided by public opinion. Vasari tells us that after Cimabue had completed a picture of Our Lady for the Church of Santa Maria Novella, the panel was considered to be so magnificent as to be "carried to the sound of trumpets and amid scenes of great rejoicing in solemn procession" from his house (Vasari, 1971). On another occasion, when King Charles of Anjou passed through Florence, he was taken to Cimabue's house to see his painting and "all the men and women of Florence flocked there as well, jostling each other and rejoicing." (Vasari, 1971) Although the average Florentine citizen of that time did not necessarily feel himself qualified to compete at an artistic level with either Cimabue or any other artist, he understood artistic and architectural conventions and could interpret its codes. He was able to articulate his opinions, often vociferously, and was therefore an active participant in the process of artistic production. However as the role of patron, after the Renaissance, moved increasingly out of the public realm, so then did artistic critique become the concern of a diminishing and increasingly incestuous circle of cognoscenti. It is not intended to imply by these statements that today's indigenous crafter-artist-architect enjoys the same status in his society as that of his predecessors in pre-Renaissance Europe. For one thing, his skills have achieved a limited marketability and then only in comparatively recent times. For another, the values of the two societies are so dissimilar as to make direct comparison difficult. What is common to both is the relative absence of alienation between the roles of artist and layman. Southern African rural groups do not generally distinguish between the two; the skills of building, painting, basket-weaving, wood-carving, dancing and music making are all seen as being an integral part of everyday life and ritual. While it is true that some may be more versed in these activities than others and are subject to peer-group recognition for their talents, that does not prevent their fellows from also practising these same skills to the best of their ability. In western, as in other societies, most children draw, unselfconsciously and with little inhibition, probably as part of an attempt to rationalise and come to terms with the social and physical environment about them (Piaget, 1962). However there comes a time in the life of the western child when he becomes aware of the shortcomings of his own picture making and the words "I cannot draw" are introduced into his vocabulary. Southern African rural society does not allow this to occur, partly because such specialisation is not recognised and hence is not economically viable and partly because the activities which surround the processes of building and decoration are integrated into the life cycle of rural existence. Every family has to build their own dwellings. Most choose to give it a decorative texture, perhaps for practical reasons, or to fulfill a ritual function or to make a statement of identity, or perhaps even just for the inner joy of having an aesthetically pleasing residence. DEFINING THE INDIGENOUS VALUE SYSTEMAlthough this discussion was initially formulated in the context of an architectural discipline, it was soon discovered that the concept of a southern African "architecture" could not be read in isolation from indigenous life and culture. Not only were its processes so integrated with the functions of society that it was impossible to analyse them without first knowing something of their nature, but it was also subject to a value system which was based on some decidedly non-architectural principles. Many of these were related to social structures and environmental considerations which it became possible to quantify during the course of current field work. The economic survival of the basic rural social unit, the homestead, relies largely upon the ability of the group to synchronise its agrarian activities with the cycles of nature and to harness the forces of the environment about it. Although this statement is applicable to all agrarian societies, it underlines the dependence that non-industrial man has upon nature, and the fact that, because of this, rural society is forced into a cycle of existence of its own. Unlike industrial and urbanised man who generally has been able to develop a lifestyle independent of many natural cycles, rural man is dependent upon these being completed for his very existence. Thus spring must follow winter, rain must follow drought, renewal must follow decay, life must follow death. Rural society also recognises that within the greater rhythms of nature there exist innumerable other cycles, each running at its own pace yet synchronised to the others. Thus the sun, the moon, the seasons, the fauna and the flora as well as man himself are all perceived as being part of a larger scheme of things. Times of change and transition are also recognised by rural man who spends a considerable amount of effort in their celebration, partly as a means of reinforcing his social structures and partly to give meaning to the concept of time in a pre-literate society. It would not be too incorrect therefore to state that many of rural society's economic and social activities may be explained in terms of their interrelationship with the environment as a whole. It is only natural that at least some of rural man's preoccupations with nature should be reflected in his built environment. What is of interest at this point is not only how these have manifested themselves, but how such concerns have coloured his perceptions of his own architecture. When expressed in material terms and applied to artifact, the cycle of life may be seen as a process of creation, function and decay. Thus the dwelling is drawn and moulded from nature, it lives out its own given life-span and once the function has gone, it decays back into its natural components. The process of function of the dwelling is in itself subject to its own internal cycle of life, with man and his activities holding that balance in check. The same considerations also apply to the other artifacts of rural man - his clay pots, grass baskets, wooden implements and his musical instruments - once the function has gone or decay has set in prematurely, the objects are discarded and replaced. Similarly rural man distinguishes between those structures which are temporary and those from which he expects a longer service. Many temporary structures are constructed purely for the purpose of celebrating a stage of transition in the life an individual, a family or a whole group. Some of these, like the temporary huts built in the planting fields as shelters for the harvesters are merely abandoned and rebuilt every year; others like the Zulu courting hut are merely revalidated and incorporated into the settlement to serve out more mundane functions until decay finally sets in; and others still, such as initiation lodges, are, with the exception of the Venda, ritually destroyed by fire. The human cycle of birth, life and death will also find reflection in the rural built environment. Although birth is not usually recognised by the construction of a special hut, some groups do erect a small screen about the confinement area thus, in a way, creating a hut within a hut. Like a placenta this too is discarded after the birth of the child. The erection of courtyard walls among the South Ndebele usually only occurs once a family has produced its first born, and as this finally gives the father full political rights within his community, the creation of a territorial imperative about his family abode may be seen as a formal claim to those political rights. The fact that it is his wife who builds and maintains the walls may be interpreted as symbolising the cooperation of the woman in the obtaining of those rights not only for her husband, but for the family as a whole. It is also a symbol of her fertility. It was noted among some groups, the most notable being the Tsonga and the South Ndebele, that certain rituals of transition were observed or celebrated by the renewal of courtyard wall decorations. This appeared to take place either in such cases where a son of the family was undergoing initiation or a daughter was about to be married. However, as some families were also observed to be renewing their decorations as part of general maintenance, it is difficult to assign a definite and categorical ritual function to this activity. Similarly it was noted that most building and maintenance work in the rural areas appears to take place during the autumn and winter months. A symbolic "renewal" in preparation for the larger "rebirth" of spring could always be attributed to such activity, but it is also true that these are the months when the thatching grass is at its longest and when agrarian activity is at its lowest ebb, thus freeing the family from other more pressing work. The concept of "material culture" in rural life should also be considered in terms of its material origins and the social processes which give rise to it. Not only is the production of artifact, building and decoration integrated into the daily rhythms of life, much like the cooking of a meal or the harvesting of a crop, but these all owe their origins, textures and forms to the materials available to man in his natural habitat. Thus we find that grass, clay, timber and stone are gathered, moulded or crafted and, having fulfilled their function, discarded and allowed to decay. Being part of the same processes therefore, it is inevitable that architecture, art and artifact should be subject to the same value systems of rural life. The perception the rural dweller has of his own built environment therefore becomes easier to comprehend. It is obvious, from many examples, that the cyclical nature of his society permeates his attitudes towards his material culture. Some buildings which could be restored and revalidated most often are not; the work of many a rural artist is often simply wiped out and repainted and often little attempt is made at its preservation in its original form; the Venda and South Ndebele create beautiful clay sculptures and incorporate them into their courtyard walls or ceremonial axis only to demolish them at a later stage; artifacts such as the carved doors of the Venda recorded by Stayt (1931) and again by Walton (1956) have been rediscovered more recently, this time in an advanced state of decay and disregard. Yet informants showed little concern in these matters. A new hut can be built next year if needed, a new decoration painted once the rain has washed the old one off, a new sculpture made when the wife has the time to devote to the task and a new door carved when the old one breaks off its pivot. Many could not understand the western concern with keeping old things in museums or with preserving old buildings. Somehow the impression was gained that such places were considered to be dark and unhealthy. This is a point which was also made by Duerden (1975) who, writing in the context of West African art and literature (and hence, by implication, architecture), puts forward the hypothesis that old artifacts remind us of those who have gone and while an individual may be remembered for a time, after a while he joins the larger and anonymous group of ancestors. His artifacts had validity in his own lifetime but may not necessarily have any significance for his sons and grandsons. By extension therefore each generation has its own problems to sort out and no generation has the right to impose its values and its problems upon subsequent eras. Thus old artifacts which may or may not have served some religious or domestic functions are used until they begin to decay whereupon they are discarded and new ones fashioned to take their place. Western preoccupation with books is similarly seen as being unhealthy. Duerden points out that we: "... devote considerable time and attention to the collection of antiques but very little time and attention to the preservation of marriages, to clubs for adolescents or to the care of the old and infirm. Spouses, children, parents and grandparents can be discarded, but old objects, books and information are lovingly preserved." (Duerden, 1975) This is reinforced by the Ugandan poet Okot p'Bitek who wrote: "My husband's house It is not easy to take this comparison, made from an artistic/literary standpoint and set in a West African context, and give it validity in terms of southern African rural architecture. On the other hand there are some elements which strike a strong emotive chord. During the course of current research it was found that many informants could not understand what interest their buildings and wall decorations could have evinced in a white man; others replied with queries of their own, questioning western values in regards to marriage, child-bearing, marital fidelity, ease of divorce, attachment to material goods, definitions of wealth and so forth. A difference of attitude was also shown in regards to death. This was, in many cases, not seen as the sad closing of a cycle but the continuation of an existing one. Sadness was only expressed where a man died without heirs for then there was no one to remember him as an ancestor and some groups had the social mechanics to deal with even that contingency. (Monnig, 1967) CONCLUSIONSIt becomes clear therefore that the conventions and values used in the past by historians in their analysis of art and architecture have proved themselves inadequate when applied to areas outside the mainstream of European and North American culture. Indeed, their overriding preoccupation with the aesthetics of style and form leads us to question the validity of their theories, even when these are read in their own formulated context. The general picture has been redressed in more recent times by the multi-disciplinary approach taken by some researchers whose perception of material culture as the product of interacting socio-historical forces has been gained largely in the context of rural and pre-industrial societies. In the discipline of architecture this has been taken further by the more recent work of Rapoport (1982) who has shown that the nature of man's built environment is largely generated by his use of space and, by implication, non-space. This has been confirmed by current studies conducted in the context of traditional southern African societies (Kuper, 1982; Frescura, 1985), where it was found that the distribution of space in a rural homestead was a more reliable guideline to the interpretation of architectural form and culture than building technology or decorative motif, either of which could be manipulated at will by its makers. POSTSCRIPTThis article was published under the title of Architecture, Art and Artifact: A Changing Historical Perspective, (SA JOURNAL OF ART AND CULTURAL HISTORY, Vol 2, No 1, 56-61: 1988). BIBLIOGRAPHYCRONIN, Vincent. 1967. The Florentine Renaissance. Great Britain: Collins.
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