JOSEPH RYKWERT The Necessity of ArtificeContents Foreword Meaning and Building The Modern Movement in Italian Architecture The Sitting Position — A Question of Method ‘The Corinthian Order The Dark Side of the Bauhaus Two Houses by Eileen Gray The Necessity of Artifice The Nefarious Influence on Modem Architecture of the Neo-Ciassical Architects Boullée and Durand Adolf Loos: the New Vision The 15th Triennale Artas Things Seen (One Way of Thinking about a House ‘Two-Dimensional Art for Two-Dimensional Man: on Klein and Manzoni ‘Orament is no Crime Leaming from the Street Lodoli on Function and Representation ‘Semper and the Conception of Style ‘The Purpose of Ceremonies Notes Acknowledgements Index 7 23 33 51 58 60 67 74 73 85 88 92 103 15 123 131 134. 141 142The Sitting Position - A Question of Method For an issue of the Italian magazine Ediza Moderna 66 ‘specifically concerned with the relation between the study of history and the teaching of design, | decided to present ‘again the material about sitting first collected for my Ulm lectures of 1958, and summarised in one section of ‘Mean- ing and Building’ (no. 1 in this collection) a decade earlier. it seemed to me that a comparison of the material from different periods and cultures would allow me to focus accurately on the relative importance of human comfort, methods of production and of cultural association as pare- ‘meters ~ both conscious and unconscious - of the design process, The last factor seemed to me consistently, even insistently repressed by many teachers and theorists; | was therefore concerned 10 show how its repression in some ways strenghened its controling power. Everybody's first action is to get up. When the child stretches its lags inside the womb it enters on the shocking ‘experience of birth; in the womb we all spend the beginning ‘of our existence ina siting or crouching position. Every time, ‘we get up, therefore, we repeat ~ more or ess consciously, more or less significantly ~ that original shocking experi- ‘ence; and every time we sit down wo retreat into it. All over the world nowadays people perform the action of sitting down and getting up with the aid of such common- place objects as chairs, sofas, stools and so on. A great deal of attention is devoted to their exact shape since - notionally, at any rate — the user demands comfort of such objects and the aim of all designers engaged in producing them is ‘comfort, But comfort is a complex notion, which varies from ‘person to person, and from social group to social group: varies for the individual throughout his life and more, important goes through very violent changes independent of ‘our physical constitution but directly connected to the inconstant pattern of convention, The dependence of com- fort on social convention is one of the factors which trips up varitars on ergonomics when they attempt to define comfort {and prescribe the conditions under which it can be obtained, ‘Two writers recently attempted to refine the static results provided by anthropometry into a more accurate description of ‘sitting in comfort by suggesting that comfort is the product of the greatest possible relaxation of the largest ‘umber of muscles.” It is quite clear, however, from the briefest study of the positions described as comfortable that the situation is relatively independent of the measurements and materials which they use to attain comfort. So for instence in Yoga the primary aim of the different meditation positions is to achieve the greatest relaxation of the Yogi's ‘muscles so that he becomes unaware of his body. This is usually achieved without any mechanical aids or support, ‘but through internal bodily balance and the control of breath Clearly the achievement of this kind of comfort is limited 10.2 small minority ~ and for relatively short periods of time at that, The many will find it in postures from sitting on the ‘gtound with legs fully extended and back unsupported (a ‘position adopted frequently in Asia and Polynesia, particu larly by women) to standing upright on one leg with the ‘other one thrust into the crutch (a position favoured for rest by certain tribes in Central Africa). The continuing, elaborate research on human measurement and the publication of such data as ‘if they were of vital importance indicates @ sharpened awareness in the mind of the observer of the ‘mechanical complexities involved in the sitting position, aiso of his inability to appreciate the meaning of the term comfort 4 it relates to the whole personality rather than any real