The Architecture of Humanism: A Study in the History of Taste

by Geoffrey Scott

The Architecture of Humanism discusses the classical tradition as reflected in the architecture of Renaissance and Baroque Italy and the role given the human body in that tradition.

The text in the Anchor Books edition uses the 1924 text, to which the author appends an epilogue.

Scott championed the architectural principles of the Renaissance, a period that he broadly defined as starting with Brunelleschi in the fifteenth century, and ending with the rise of the neo-Gothic movement, four hundred years later. In The Architecture of Humanism he went about his task in an unusual way, for he devoted most of his book not to a defense of classicism but rather to an examination of current architectural attitudes. He described four general points of view, which he provocatively titled the Romantic Fallacy, the Mechanical Fallacy, the Ethical Fallacy, and the Biological Fallacy.

The Romantic Fallacy referred to attempts to adapt a poetic and literary sensibility to architecture..... - Witold Rybczynski, The New York Review of Books

Genres: Architecture, History, Art, Nonfiction

197 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1914

About the author

There is more than one author with this name.

Geoffrey^Scott

Reviews

[Simone · Rating 2 out of 5]

Just didn’t do it for me. Undeniably a flawlessly argued position, and I totally buy his argument, like totally. I also think the fallacies he outlines are a great way to assess criticism and evaluation of all arts. But winding up in a place of effect/affect doesn’t do it for me. The book just couldn’t get me where i wanted to go, but i don’t regret reading it of course. The biological fallacy is a brilliant way to understand what went wrong with art history, that’s the best part.

[Hana :) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some interesting points, but mostly a bore with quite the hubristic tone. Really had to chore through this one...

[Alexander Craghead]

This book disappoints me a bit, but in other ways is useful. It seems more a polemic work of advocacy, a kind of argument for why a specific type of architecture is morally better than another, rather than an introspective analysis of a period of architecture. This bothers me as a work of scholarship, but turning it on the head, it makes the work an interesting window into contemporary thought. It would be good to know how influential the author was on thinking about buildings and space in his time.

[Freddy]

good book but hard to understand, i have read it twice but still there are some unclear parts!