"Ars Sine Scientia Nihil Est" Gothic Theory of Architecture at the Cathedral of Milan

Abstract

The opinion of Viollet-le-Duc, summarized in these words, typifies an approach to the interpretation of Gothic architecture which has held great appeal for the modern student. The evident harmony of this approach with the “functional” spirit of a nascent style of contemporary architecture partially explains its success. It is more significant, however, that the conflicts created in our aesthetic responses by the scientific and mechanical psyche of our age are here neatly resolved by an interpretation which is mechanistic, which explains cultural phenomena in terms of irreducible and demonstrable fact. Yet, granting that by this means Gothic architecture becomes in a sense more intelligible to the modern mind, it remains to be seen whether this intelligibility is not gained at the cost of understanding. Our problem is to determine whether a type of logic which is so distinctly tinged with the flavor of experimental science fortuitously illuminates a mediaeval creative process, or whether it forces us to see through a glass, darkly.

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