Social Scientist
Marxist Position in Aesthetics of Architecture
Author(s): Deepak M. Kambuj
Source: Social Scientist, Vol. 9, No. 2/3 (Sep. - Oct., 1980), pp. 86-95
Published by: Social Scientist
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MarxistPositionin Aesthetics
ofArchitecture
THERE is no absolute life of man and similarly there is no
"absolute architecture" of man. Man exists in reality, divided into
nationalities, classes and castes. Sometimes these distinctions overlap and are often complex and continuously evolving. Architecture
thus becomes a setting, created by man to deal with nature. This
setting evolves itself with the vicissitudes of life of human beings'
Thus architecture becomes inseparable from human societies.
One of the great Renaissance architects, Alberti, who was
known as a "Complete Man"-musician, painter, mathematician'
scientist, athlete and an architect-said, that between mathematics and architecture there was an aesthetic relation. In contemplating on the relations between various numbers and the
relations between architectural parts we derive a similar satisfaction and a similar sense of intrinsic order of things. Architecture
reflectsthe desires and responses characteristic of human beings.
It evokes feelings which may be described as brutal, polite, dehumanizing, wondrous, welcoming or forbidding. It has a scale-human, superhuman or subhuman. It has elements of surprise, joy,
gaiety, frolic, discipline, military expediency and so on. Architecture thus dictates to us a quality of experience. Architects anticipate this quality of experience. Therefore, Alberti recommended
architecture as the study of what is "just and appropriate". But
what is "just and appropriate"? Man's search for aesthetics was a
long process spread over centuries of human culture. By definition
aesthetics is a science that deals with the laws of beauty. For
centuries, starting from the early Egyptian civilization to the present, a search for aesthetics in human environment has occupied
the minds of the environmental artists and scientists.Many theories
have developed on this subject.
In the early days, men such as Vitruvious attempted to
define the laws of proportion in environmental artifacts, namely,
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AESTHETICS
OF ARCHITECTURE
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buildings. Such attempts were centred around experiments and
actual construction rather than in evolving logical and well defined
hypotheses. Thus there emerged, in the early ages, the grand Egyptian pyramids, the magnificent temples, the hanging gardens of
Babylon, the Athenian Acropolis, the Ziggurats and the well
defined street patterns of Mohen-jo-daro and Harappa.
As centuries advanced, the attempts to define environmental aesthetics continued with varying degrees of success. Such
attempts, reached their climax when industrialization came about
with a big bang. A survey of the history of architecture covering
more than 5000 years from the Egyptian temples aud pyramids
to the 19th century, reveals a tremendous variety the existence of
which was as yet unexplained. This variety had in it the form,
colour, texture, material structure composition and so on that
existed in the manifestation of the living organ isms and plant life.
Marx provided an answer to this: The ideas of the ruling class are
in every epoch the ruling ideas, i. e., the class which is the ruling
materialforce of society is at the same time its ruling intellectual
force. The class which has the means of material production at its
disposal, consequently also controls the means of mental production, so that the ideas of those who lack the means of mental production are on the whole subject to it. The ruling ideas are nothing
more than the ideal expression of the dominant material relations.
the dominant material relations grasped as ideas; hence of the relations which make one class the ruling one, therefore, the ideas of
its dominance. The individuals composing the ruling class possess
among other things consciousness, and therefore think. Insofar,
therefore,as they rule as a class and determine the extent and
compass of an historical epoch, it is self-evident that they do tlis
in its whole range, hence among other things rule also as thinkers,
as producers of ideas, and regulate the production and distribution
of the ideas of their age: thus their ideas are the ruling ideas of
the epoch. For instance, in an age and in a country where royal
power, aristocracy and bourgeoisie are contending for domination
and where, therefore, domination is shared, the doctrine of the
separation of powers proves to be the dominant idea and is expressed as an is expressed as an "eternal law".L
"If now in considering the course of history we detach the
ideas of the ruling class from tle ruling class itself and attribute
to them an independent existence, if we confine ourselves to saying
that these or those ideas were dominant at a given time, without
bothering ourselves about the conditions of production and the
producers of these ideas, if we thus ignore the individuals and
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SOCIAL
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world conditions which arc the source of ideas, then we can
say, for instance, that during the time the aristocracy was dominant, the concepts honour, loyalty etc., were dominant, during the
dominance of the bourgeoisie the concepts freedom, equality, etc.
The ruling class itself on the whole imagines this to be so. This
conception of history,which is common to all historians, particularly since the eighteenth century,will necessarily come up against...
the phenomenon that ever more abstract ideas hold sway, i. e.,
ideas which increasingly take on the form of universality. For each
new class which puts itself in the place of one ruling before it is
compelled, merely in order to carry through its aim, to present its interest as the common interest of all the members of
society, that is, expressed in ideal form: it has to give its
ideas the form of universality, and present them as the only
rational, universally valid ones."2 The class making a revolution
comes forward from the very start, not as a class but as the
representative of the whole of society, as the whole mass of society
confronting the one ruling class. It can do this because initially its
interest really is as yet mostly connected with the common interest
of all other non-ruling classes because under the pressure of hitherto existing conditions its interest has not yet been able to develop
as the particular interest of a particular class. Its victory, therefore, benefitsalso many individuals of other classes which are not
winning a dominant position, but only insofar as it now enables
these individuals to raise themselves into the ruling class. When
the French bourgeoisie overthrew the rule of the aristocracy, it
thereby made it possible for many proletarians to raise themselves
above the proletariat, but only insofar as they became bourgeois.
Every new class, therefore, achieves domination only on a broader
basis than that of the class ruling previously; on the other hand
the opposition of the non-ruling class to the new ruling class then
develops all the more sharply and profoundly. Both these things
determine the fact that the struggle to be waged against this new
ruling class, in its turn, has as its aim a more decisive and more
radical negation of the previous conditions of society than all
previous classes which sought to rule could live.
This whole appearance, that the rule of a certain class is
only the rule of certain ideas, comes to a natural end, of course,
as soon as class rule in general ceases to be the form in which
society is organized, that is to say, as soon as it is no longer necessary to represent a particular interest as general or the "general
interest" as ruling.?
Side by side with the glories of Egyptaian tombs, the
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89
marvels of Roman palaces, Greek villas and Hindu temples,
existed the slums of the slaves and the scum of these societies and
As in the history of human
who were the oppressed classes.
societies existed the oppressors and the oppressed, the Particians
and Plebians, the aristocrats and the slaves, the guild masters and
the journeymen so in the human environment existed the elegant
and the ugly, the magnificent and the lovely, the awe-inspiring
and the petty. The history of human environmental artifacts is the
history of the class struggles in human societies. Many early architectural constructions were castles, great walls, moats and drawbridges, fortifications in order to exclude and oppress the opponents. With industrialization emerged the industrial proletariat,
and with the emergence of the proletariat, started the proletarian
environmental conditions. Engels pointed out this problem like
this:
"The so-called housing shortage, which plays such a great
role in the press nowadays, does not consist in the fact thlatthe
working class generally lives in bad, overcrowded and unhealthy
dwellings. This shortage is not something peculiar to the present;
it is not even one of the sufferingpeculiar to the modern proletariat in contradistinction to all earlier oppressed classes. On the
contrary, all oppressed classes in all periods suffered rather uniformly from it. In order to put an end to this housing shortage
there is only one means: to abolish altogether the exploitation and
oppression of the working class by the ruling class. What is meant
today by housing shortage is the peculiar intensificationof the bad
housing conditions of the workers as a result of the sudden rush
of population to the big cities; a colossal increase in rents, still
greater congestion in the separate houses, and, for some, the impossibility of finding a place to live in at all. And this housing
shortage gets talked of so much only because it is not confined
to the working class but has affected the petty bourgeoisie as
well."'
The hlistoryof industrialization is a history of revolutions,
a history of the victory of the bourgeoisie over the aristocracy and
the landed gentry. It is a historyof developing imperialism side by
side with the development of the industrial proletariat and oppressed nations, their struggle against the rising bourgeoisie, the
victories of colonized countries against imperialist domination
and so on.
The history of human environment during this period shows
all the stresses and strains of the battles fought, the defeats suffered and the victories won by the various contending classes and
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the artists and the scientists representing them. During this period
Marxism lias been the battle-cry of the oppressed classes all over
the world. Its aim was to achieve a communist society; its objectives were to liberate man, and to achieve true freedom in order
to glorify the essential human being, and his ability to master
both nature and himself.
ModernTheory
of TownPlanning
There were also a number of contending ideologies opposed
to Marxism. Robert Owen (1799) emphasized the need to relieve
the conditions of the labouring poor by concessions.James Buckingham (1825) suggested that the stunted growth and the degradation
of the people were the results of architectural and municipal
defects. Fourier (1829) talked about the harmony between the
interests of the rich and the poor based on mutual associations
that will benefit all. Godin (1870) wanted smaller cities and
multiple buildings and the rest as open parks. Camillo Sitte
(1880) emphasized informal town planning, proper correlation
of buildings, and their heights and masses, and
large public
into
woven
the
Soria Mata
fabric.
spaces
organically
open
city
the
as
he
(1882), inspired by
was, proclaimed linear
countryside
cities that would engulf countryside and spread along traffic arteries. Patric Geddes (1892) wanted organic planning of both city
and society and wanted to treat cities as if they were disease
ridden human bodies--he was basically a doctor. He propounded
conservative surgery. His other contribution was the idea of
regional planning.
Ebnezer Howard (1898) was the architect of garden cities,
small self-sufficient communities engulfed by green belts of agriculture. Tony Garnier (1904) was a man of the drawing board
and made several sketches of his futurecity and how he wanted
it to look-he gave birth to many technological innovations in
the science of building. He propunded zoning in land use, thus
became the proponent of land speculation and transportation
bottlenecks in time to come. Last but not the least, Le Corbusier
(1922) wanted order, efficiency and mechanization along with
great buildings of poetic beauty.
All these ideas and several more contributed to what is
regarded as modern theory of town planning and architecture.
There was an essential fallacy in all these. These theorists treated
the symptoms of the disease, not the disease itself. They found
that there was something wrong with architecture, town and city
planning, whereas the actual problem concerned with the entire
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society as such. They thought that the problems could be solved
by improving on architecture, with a differentlyfunctioning setting, while the basic social setup went unchanged.
Marxism stood ahead of them for it was based on a historical understanding of human societies, a scientific understanding
of human conflicts and philosophical insights into human condition
with respect to the material world and the social world.
Marxism pointed out the actors and the director as apart
from the "setting" of the impending bourgeois drama. Marx and
Engels pointed out:
a) "The modern bourgeois society that has sprouted
from the ruins of feudal society has not done away with class
antagonisms. It has but established new classes, new conditions of
oppressions, new forms of struggle in place of the old ones."
b) "It has accomplished wonders far surpassing Egyptian
pyramids, Roman aquaducts, Gothic cathedrals; it has conducted
expeditions that put in the shade all formerexoduses of nations
and the crusades."
c) "The bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly
revolutionizing the instruments of production and thereby the
relations of production, and with them the whole relations of
disturbance
ofproduction,uninterrupted
society. Constantrevolutionizing
of all social conditions,everlastinguncertaintyand agitation distinguish
the bourgeoisepoch."
d) "The bourgeoisie has, through its exploitation of the
world market, given cosmopolitan character to production and
consumption in every country. To the great chagrin of Reactionists it has drawn from under tie feet of industry the national
ground on which it stood."
e) "The bourgeoisie has subjected the country to the rule
of towns. It has created enormous cities, has greatly increased the
urban population as compared to the rural and has thus rescued
a considerable part of the population from the idiocy of rural life.
just as it has made the country dependent on towns, so it has
made barbarian and semi-barbarian countries dependent on the
civilized ones, nations of peasents on nations of bourgeoisie, the
East on the West."5
About the living conditions of the various classes existing
in the bourgeois world, Marx and Engels said:
A) "The bourgeoisie has stripped of its halo every occupation hitherto honoured and looked up to with reverent awe. It
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has converted the physician, the lawyer, the priest, the poet, the
nan of science, into its paid wage labourers."
B) "Owing to the extensive use of machinery and the
division of labour, the work of the proletariat has lost all individual character, and consequently all charm for the workmaan. He
becomes an appendage of the machine, and it is only the most
simple, most monotonous and most easily acquired knack that is
required of him."
C) "Modern industryhas converted the little workshop of
the patriarchal master into the great factory of the industrial
capitalist. Masses of labourers crowded into the factory are
organised like soldiers. As privates of the industrial army they
are placed under the command of a perfect hierarchy of the
officersand sergeants. Not only are they slaves of the bourgeois
state, they are daily and hourly enslaved by the machine, by the
onlooker, and above all, by the individual bourgeois manufacturer
himself."6
The Indian Reality
Do these descriptions not fit into the Indian reality and
"setting", the architecture of the people of India today? About 60
percent of more than 600 million people occupying the land called
India today lives below the poverty line. In the cities and towns of
India, which embrace more than 20 percent of the population, the
mode of life is governed by bourgeois values and a state apparatus
run by the bourgeoisie. Here 80 percent of effectiveresidential
area is occupied by 20 percent of the population while the rest 80
percent infest themselves in 20 percent slum area, with densities as
high as 15000 persons per square mile; many livewithout a shelter
on footpaths and railway platforms. About 40 percent of the total
national income is produced in such cities and towns, and 60 percent of this is owned by the bourgeoisie who constitute a tiny
minority.
In the rural areas, the picture is one of desolation. The few
houses that exist are owned by traditional landlords, moneylenders
and shopkeepers. There it is a picture of small mud-houses and
starving children. These villages are often without wells to drink
water, not to speak of tapped water and modern methods of sanitation. Most of the time, the poor villagers ultimately migrate to
urban areas in thousands with the advent of floods or droughts
which recur alternatively every few years.
In one single sentence, the "setting", architecture of Indian
life today, is one sorrowful,long tale of devastationspread over a
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couple of centuries at least, caused by the advance of imperialism
antdall its ethos at first and later being completed by domestic
semi-feudal bourgeois rule.
The only relieving arehitectural spots spread over the entire
country today are the ruins of the bygone ages, of the great
Maurya period, of the so-called golden era of the Gupta dynasty,
of the Cholas, of the Mughals and so on. The ruins, apart from
being great experiments in formalistic aesthetics and technology,
often remind us of the undemocratic character of these regimes
and the pyramidal existence of these societies. Their achievements
were great in their times; today they can be of no excuse for the
present wretchedness.
And the present wretchedness has come about in India in
the past glory, in spite of the great formalistic aesthetic
of
spite
heritage and in spite of over 60 years of existence of "modern"
architects and town planners trained in the best institutions of the
imperialist West and their counterparts within the country.
In his treatise on architecture, Alberti wrote, "Architectural beauty is the harmony and concorde of all the parts achieved
in such a manner that nothing could be added or taken away, or
altered except for the worse." How far indeed we are from this
concept of architecture! Today everything may be taken away
or demolished and we miss nothing. This then is the character of
tlhepresent semi-feudal bourgeois settingin which we live.
How does Marxism envisage changes in this world?
"Of all the classes that stand face to face with the bourgeoisie today, the proletariat alone is a really revolutionary class.
The other classes decay and finally disappear in the face of
modern industry;the proletariat is its special and essential product.
"All previous historical movements were movements of
minorities,or in the interest of minorities. The proletarian movement is self-conscious, independent movement of the immense
majority, in the interest of the immense majority. The proletariat,
the lowest stratum of our present society cannot stir, cannot raise
itself up without the whole superincumbent strata of official society
being sprung into the air."7
With the springing into the air of the whole superincumbent strata of official society, will the setting of such strata, the
architecture of the bourgeois world, also be flunginto the air? And
what kind of setting shall the new society prefer to have? Marx
tells us, "The distinguishing feature of communism is the abolition
of bourgeois property. In communist society, accumulated labour
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is but a means to widen, to enrich, to promote the existence of the
labourer."
Thus from the Marxist point of view, aesthetics in architecture would consist of promotion, widening, enriching and
ennobling the existence of the labourer, the very opposite of wliich
is happening today.
The Marxist point of view does not seem to deny the architecture of early ages, beauty and character in formal sense. What
it does find unaesthetic about the architecture of early ages is its
spiritual essence. Above all, Marxism typefies what is "just and
appropriate" in a spiritual sense. For Marxism, "just and appropriate" is what is in the interest of the "essential human being" as
typefiedby the majority of the people. All attempts to sabotage
the interestsof the majority in the name of art, to take satisfaction in formal visual imagery at the expense of conscious, progressive content are "inappropriate" to say the least. Therefore in
the Indian reality, the search for aesthetics in architecture would
be in attempts that tend to create "better life" for the majority
of the hitherto oppressed people.
This of course cannot happen in one day. The firststep
would be that the oppressed raise themselves to the position of the
ruling class, in order that the society's material resourses are
utilized in the best interest of the oppressed. Further steps would
depend upon the condition of the proletariat when it comes to
power. Then step by step, as economy permits, the following may
occur.
Ensuring drinkingwater supply to all.
b) Ensuring sanitation to all localities.
c) Abolition of bourgeois housing and ensuring shelter,
housing, for all.
d) Improving means of transportation with state ownerof
all transportation.
ship
e) Creating better working conditions in factories, fields
and offices,in that order.
a)
f) Creating public spaces for socio-cultural and political
activities of the majority.
so on.
g)
h)
Ensuring facilities for sports, healthy physical life to all.
Creating free educational facilities for all children and
i) Combination of agriculture and manufacturing indusries, gradual abolition of the distinction between town and coun-
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OF ARCHITECTURE
try by a more equitable distribution of the population over the
country.
j) Creating "Commune-Architecture" for agricultural,
industrial, educational communes as the whole society turns into
a single officeand a single factory, and a single field, with equality of labour and pay in the initial phase of communism.
To begin with, this may happen with a strong centralized
government directing these activities and guiding them.
However when class distinctions disappear in course of
development spread over many years and all production is concentrated in the vast association of the whole nation, the public
power will lose its political character. In place of the old bourgeois society, we shall have an association in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all.
In such a situation, architectural aesthetics, having achieved its
spiritual nobility, will once again concentrate on building magnificent forms for the celebration of this stage and to create an
appropriate setting for the New Man and his enriched life. The
battle for architectural aesthetics will take on new dimensions.
DEEPAK M KAMBUJ
(This paper was presentedat the seminarof theIndian School of Social
Scienceson Marxism and Aesthetiesat Kasauli, 1979).
Marx and Engels, "Feuerbach, Opposition of the Materialist and Idealist Outlooks", The GermanIdeology,Moscow, ProgressPublishers, 1976, p 67.
3 Ibid, p 68.
3 Ibid, p 69.
"The Housing Question."
4Engels,
Marx-Engels, "Manifesto of the Communist Party", Selected Works. Emphasis
added.
o Ibid.
Ibid.
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