Customer Reviews

The Old Way of Seeing: How Architecture Lost Its Magic - And How to Get It Back

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The "old way of seeing" is a phrase that architect/author Hale coins that describes an aesthetic sense that cannot be easily categorized in terms like Historic, Modernism, or Post modernism. He builds a thorough argument calling for a combination of design that incorporates universal human fondness for pattern with a designer sense of intuition and play. He argues that such "old way of seeing" has been lost in much by both the designer and the wider public and that today's contemporary architecture and built environment is the result. It's not that Hale is a traditionalist or even a Neo-traditonalist... it's just that he argues that most contemporary architecture (and all design for that matter) deals too much with style and superficial symbols than with basic elements of design such as proportion, balance, and structure. At first this may sound like he is supporting a Modernist view of design, but this is not the case, He has some of his severest criticism of the sterility, blandness and generally lack of delight that results from this"form follows function" paradigm.

While Hale appreciates Post Modern's return to architecture as delight, he is equally critical of this movement as well, claiming that it focuses almost entirely on effect and status and symbol. He extends this criticism to todays' "Neo-traditonal" planners including Andres Duany and claims they are superficial and obsessed with codes and regulations which tend to deaden the designs.

The author covers a lot of ground in this subject of architecture, art and design, but it is always interesting reading, with good photos and illustrations, Hale's easy writing style brings to life the issues he talks about, though at times he seems to stretch to make a point. He uses a photo of Audrey Hepburn's face superimposed with lines and diagonals to illustrate the "Golden Section" proportion to the accuracy of 1/1000 of a decimal. I'm tempted to say that some of the points he makes are not particularly objective and are the result of a "You'll see it when you believe it" tendency (like when the believing Catholic sees a miracle of the face of the Virgin Mary in the stains on the side of a building.)

Overall, though this is a ground-breaking book on architecture and design, perhaps the most significant since Venturi's "Learning from Las Vegas" in the 1970's. It's well worth the time and energy to read. Ideas will spin from it long after one finishes the book. Just don't take every word as gospel.

I have six shelves filled with books on architecture, design, urban planning, and proportion, including several books by Christopher Alexander, Andres Duany, Jim Kunstler, Philip Langdon, Peter Katz, and Jane Holz Kay. This one's my favorite. It's the most accessible and useful. What differentiates it is that it provides abundant photos, with lines overlaying them, that very clearly illustrate the author's point. His writing style is easy and generous. It's been a while since I read it, but I'm pretty sure Hale does not advocate brutal Le Corbusier-inspired design. He might have used one picture to illustrate that these ancient principles can also be used in modern architecture.

Hale focuses on illustrating things like the proportion of individual windows and how their proportion and placement do or do not harmonize with the side of the house they're on. I believe the principles Hale explains perfectly complement those that Andres Duany writes about. The biggest difference is that Duany focuses on design issues at the larger scale of street widths, building heights, and walking distances. I think if Duany added design harmony at the building level, one very coherent, unified theory would be the result.

One take-away of this book for me is this: You're looking at a house or building and something about it pleases you, but you can't put your finger on exactly what. He clearly illustrates what those things are for you, which satisfies your logical left brain. On the other hand, he strongly encourages designers to use their intuitive right brain, which instinctively knows what proportions and details are pleasing in a building. In the end, you design with the right brain by letting it loose to play with form, and then you can fine tune using the regulating lines the left brain loves so much.

Far from advocating the "architect as auteur," Hale reminds us that almost no old houses were built using architects. Ordinary people, like farmers, built things of great beauty just by using the wise right brain to "eyeball" things like proportion, balance, harmony, and placement.

This book resides in a place of honor upon my bookshelf. If you've ever wondered why new buildings, even though they seem to try very hard, still pale in comparison to old buildings, this book will answer your questions beautifully.

Hale does a magnificent job describing that missing "something." He promotes rediscovering our aesthetic eye-- that part of us that knows unconsciously the pattern and geometry of nature, the balance of shape and form that brings us joy.

Hale gives the reader the best of both sides of the equation. He demonstrates for the reader how building elements line up along diagonals, circles, golden sections, etc. But more importantly, he describes how the architect, if she is to create a building imbued with the old beauty, must play and surrender to something wiser and larger and older than herself.

This book is a masterpiece. If you have even a passing interest in architecture, design, or urban planning, you will love it.

Jonathan Hale's book so truly reveals the source of the hidden 'feel' in older buildings as also described by Christopher Alexander in 'A Timeless Way of Building', and which also draws parallels to other aspects of life.

Hale cites the turning point in society away from the honoring our human 'intuition' to the honoring of 'rational' or 'calculating' thinking which so drastically altered the 'feel' and look of architecture, and he puts this date around 1830. Alexis de Tocqueville also described the 'calculating' way of thinking in America which he encountered after that time..and who is also cited by Hale.

Truly worth the read, and it will probably change not only the way you look at buildings from now on, but also the way 'calculating' thinking dominates so many aspects of life now. I personally find when I get back into situations where the people and their decisions operate more from the basis of intuition, I feel a lot more human and natural, and no longer feel obliged to say the 'accepted' things which so many of us find ourselves saying, but not really believing. Hale's book has helped me understand why this is, and made me feel more comfortable with being natural and intuitive.

This book is for people who know that buildings built after World War II are ugly, but they don't know why. Hale explains the ancient rhythms and formulas used by the architects of old to produce beautiful and harmonious structures. He traces the decline in American architecture to one building and makes a valid argument that all is not lost in American building design.

The first several pages of this book were good, and showed
comparisons of old and new buildings, and reinforced his premise
that missing regulating lines and the lack of attention to the
arrangement of elements are responsible for much of the
decline in architectural quality.

However, much of the rest of the book devolves into a disjointed
grabbag of architectural topics, along with comparisons of how
the human face or maple trees match the golden section with very
little concrete in the way of design guidance or examples.

I'm sure Hale is a good architect, and I would hire him in an instant,
(especially after my architect put windows randomly all over our house
and didn't understand why I didn't want 4 styles of windows),
but this book is poorly organized, doesn't make his point properly,
and wanders far off topic.

I purchased this book on the recommendation of a woodworking magazine writer I have come to respect. Though the book is on architecture I can see how many of the principles apply to furniture making as well. I understand what this author is saying, but sometimes thought that his geometric "hidden" relationships were somewhat stretched. I think I could probably do the same thing with any building if I looked at it long enough. It sometimes felt like a real tough read for me (it certainly helped me go to sleep many nights). Given this book appears out of print and he hefty price I paid for it, I would certainly look elsewhere if you are coming from the same direction I came from on the purchase. An understanding of the golden ratio, shadow lines and looking at some classic pieces (shaker, federal, etc.) will probably yield equal or better benefit to your own furniture design making. Though out of my league, I would stretch to say the same exact thing to an architect.

This book is a well-meant medicine that won't cure anything. Jonathan Hale is correct in seeing that the modern built environment is an insult to the eye and spirit. Unfortunately, Hale's solution to the problem repeats the worst sins of the Modernists who caused the problem -- he seems to buy into Le Corbusier's theory that the most barbarous façade can be justified by the correct proportions. Much of the damage to our current built environment has come not from misunderstanding some sort of "natural geometry," but from the Modernist vision of the architect as auteur, a vision that Hale apparently applauds, and certainly perpetuates.

The author's mystifying and unfounded criticisms of Andres Duany's Kentlands is typical, and instructive: the development apparently doesn't work because it's built from standards that anyone can theoretically use, and not on inspiration or on a true grasp of nature's geometry. But unless we establish a vernacular usable by any builder, not just by the enlightened ones in tune with higher cosmic forms, the architectural landscape will always consist of the occasional gem among rubbish (and only the self-elected cognoscenti will think much of the "gems"). Hale's book is a recipe for the sort of obscurantism and inner-directedness that has robbed architecture of its fitness to create a public realm.

I couldn't beleive the same author who knows so much about Radiohead is into architectural crtiticism as well. There is no end to this man's brilliance.