Pastiche Ban a Stealth Ban on Classicism

Over at Greater Greater Washington a debate has been raging about an editorial penned by the English architect Robert Adam about the use of the term "pastiche." Adam makes the argument that the term pastiche, at least in the British dominions, has become a sort of buzzword used by contemporary critics to lambaste the New Classical architecture as some sort of schlock. Adam is justifiably incensed. Even the most elementary student of rhetoric would know the use of the "P word" is the worst sort of straw man argument.

Pastiche, which Adam defines as “a composition made up of bits of other works or imitations of another’s style,” is indeed a ignominious thing. Certainly the term is properly applied to a lot of bad architecture, as a commenter on GGW noted:

"Essentially, the clearest embodiment of pastiche is the McMansion. Where builders use "traditional" materials and forms, picking a little bit of this and a little bit of that, layer them all on top of each other without rhyme or reason, put them all together and in their marketing materials call it the King George Plantation model 5-bedroom, 3-car garage "traditional architecture." That is pastiche."

McMansion showing typical lack of harmonious composition.

Clearly, there is a lot of this sort of architecture out there, especially in the US. Such a thing rightfully should be avoided, but when this sort of bad non-architecture is connected with all New Classical architecture, the straw man pops his head out of the cornfield. This crow however is not fooled such scarecrows.

The distinction missed in the connection is the "rhyme or reason" of a properly educated architect. The trained eye of a Classical architect knows the difference between good and bad architecture and knows how to compose a beautiful building. The untrained eye sees no difference between the "McMansion" and a historic Alexandria Georgian manor house.

Kingfishers House by Robert Adam Architects (1998)

So too the critic blurs the distinction between the untrained cacophony of most suburban tracts and a harmonious composition made by one trained in the principles of architecture. However, unlike the merely ignorant, the critic blurs this distinction mendaciously.

This is what raises the hackles of the New Classicist Adam, that the critic knows better, but lumps the good in with the bad, so the critic's own ideology remains triumphant. But this triumph rests on shaky rhetorical grounds, and one wonders what other assumptions of the current architectural status-quo have equally shaky foundations? It remains to reform education about art and architecture, as well as understanding of rhetoric to counter such mendacity, that however is another discussion.