55 Door Handles‑

or what is a detail?
 What precisely, is an architectural detail? Is detailing nothing more
than small scale architectural design, requiring a bit more techni-
cal knowledge simply because it is at the end of the process, or is
it something else? Many would argue that the concept of the detail
is of no importance in Modern architecture. Paul Rudolph and Philip
Johnson maintained that Modern architecture has no details, and Rem
Koolhaas argues that there should be none.

For those who believe that the idea of detailing has relevance, the
simple, popular view is that detailing is the extension of the large
scale ideas of the building into the small. Good detailing will enhance
those ideas; bad detailing will obscure them. Good detailing is simply
a question of consistency.

A smaller group holds an opinion not so much contrary as the inver-

sion of the above, that architecture is about details, that the whole is
the sum of its parts. Within any phase of Modernism there are build-
ings whose architecture is inseparable from its components and the
characteristic ways in which they are assembled. The Greenes, Mies,
Rietveld, and Scarpa designed buildings which without their details
would lack all unity and coherence.

There is an even smaller group who believe details undoubtedly exist

but not serve this function. They do not relate the part to the whole;
they do not establish a visual unity. This type of detail consists of
parts which are autonomous, in which detailing constitutes an inde-
pendent arena of design.

55 Door Handles‑ The question of the appropriate detail, and thus of the appropriate
door handle, is part of some larger questions. What is the appropriate

or what is a detail? relationship of the architectural part to the architectural whole? What,
exactly, do we mean by scale? If the forces acting on two architec-
tural elements-structure, performance, program- are the same, how is
the solution changed by differences in size, if at all? Let us begin with
three handles that encapsulate the basic argument followed by five
sections on answers to the question of what is appropriate detail, all
illustrated by door handles, albeit sometimes through their absence.
Peter Eisenman, Wexner Center

The handle replicates the pattern of the building as a whole-a three

dimensional cage of square tubes- at a small scale. This is an example
of what might be called the cloning theory of detailing, the detail as a
kind of DNA from which the building is generated.
Walter Gropius, The Dessau Bauhaus

Unlike Eisenman's handle, it lacks a one to one formal correspondence

with the building itself, which contains few cylinders, yet it unquestion-
ably belongs there. For Gropius in the 1920s, the industrial was mani-
fested in the geometric, and the Bauhaus- the school as factory- was
very much in conceptual alignment with the prisms and cylinders of
the handle. It does not replicate the geometry of the building but it is
ideologically sympathetic. It is an example of consistent detailing, of a
conceptual if not formal unity of part and whole.
Alvar Aalto, Saynatsalo Town Hall

There is nothing anywhere in the building anything like it except per-

haps the exterior door handle. Why is it then, that it is the most easily
recognizable of these examples, that we know immediately that it is
Aalto’s? Perhaps because the form and concept are recognizable as
connected to his other work than to this building. In relation to its
immediate context it is both autonomous even subversive; it works
against rather than with the concept of the building as a whole. This
is the essence of the argument, that the significant detail is not that
which is formally or conceptually consistent but that which is formally
and ideologically autonomous.
The Detail as Ornament This opposition, between the concept of ornamentation as a decora-
tive unity relating the parts of building to one another as opposed to
The concept of the detail is relatively young; the concept of ornament the concept of ornamentation as an autonomous activity relating to
is much older and is a subject with its own much broader and longer the world beyond the building, became by extension two attitudes in
history, but two attitudes toward ornament and its relation to buildings Modernism-detailing as a formal and conceptual unity or detailing as
as a whole have found their way into Modernism. autonomous design.
The first is the idea of a building whose parts are the small replicas of
its totality. It is a concept particularly associated with Gothic. Wilhelm
Worringer wrote: Gothic man seeks to lose himself not only in the infin-
ity of the large, but also in the infinity of the small. The infinity of move-
ment which gets macrocosmic expression in the architectonic form of
the whole, gets microcosmic expression in every smallest architectural
detail . . . It repeats in miniature but with the same means the expres-
sion of the whole . . . A pinnacle tip is a diminutive cathedral.1

For Gothic rationalists, ornament was about structural expression, and,

in theory, the same forms could not be used for different purposes if
the material and functional considerations were not the same. This was
however, a frequently broken guideline.

John Ruskin disdained both the idea of ornament as constructional

expression and as a means of formal unity, arguing that ornament had
it own higher independent purpose. He disliked repetitive ornaments,
particularly Classical ones: . . .We must no more expect to derive either
pleasure or profit from an architecture whose ornaments are of one pat-
tern, and whose pillars are of one proportion, than we should out of a
universe in which the clouds were all of one shape and the trees all of
one size.

Likewise he saw ornament as having a role autonomous from archi-

tecture: Architecture consists distinctively in the adaptation of form to
resist force. . . . but the beauty of ornament itself is independent of
the structure, and arrived at through powers of mind of a very differ-
ent class from those which are necessary to give skill in architecture
proper.2
Bath Abbey, Restored by G. G. Scott

Late English Gothic- particularly the fan vaults of King's College

Chapel, Peterborough Cathedral, and Bath Abbey- are the most
extreme versions of the geometric unity described by Worringer.
The lancet form occurs in the door, the window, the arch, the rail-
ing above the door and is the pattern imposed on the vault. It is
sometimes structural, sometimes decorative, and it can be used
in any material at any size. It does not however, occur in the door
handle.
A. W. Pugin, St. Giles's, Cheadle

Pugin, a Gothic rationalist, disdained the use of characteristic forms

of Gothic architecture at the small scale in his writings, although by
his own admission he frequently did so in practice. He argued rather
for the ornamentation of unclad structural elements. The front door of
Cheadle has no handles or visible construction except fasteners. It is
rather filled with two facing lions, the emblem of the church's patron,
the Earl of Shrewsbury.
A. W. Pugin, St. Giles's, Cheadle

Pugin's primary concerns were religious and social, but he admired the
'honest' expression characteristic of Gothic or 'Pointed' architecture.
He wrote of Gothic hardware: . . .Hinges, locks, bolts, nails &c. which
are concealed in modern designs, were rendered in Pointed architec-
ture rich and beautiful decorations. Here at the side door, actually the
main entry, the double lion motif is repeated but hinges and fasteners
are used as an integral part of the design.3
H. H. Richardson, Glasner House

Richardson's hardware, with its exposed bolts and hinges, is similar

to Pugin in intent, but the hinge is vastly over designed and the door
handle underdesigned.
Deane and Woodward, Oxford Museum

Despite the building's constructional inventiveness and rigour, its com-

plex and original ornament has little more to do with the construction
than association, as in the floral iron capitals. John Ruskin, who was
one of the founders of the museum, argued that ornament was largely
unrelated to construction. This door handle, like the rest of the build-
ing, is an expression of the building's content; It is natural history
museum. The ornament forms a kind of parallel exhibit, primarily of
plant forms in stone and metal.
H. P. Berlage, Stock Exchange, Amsterdam

Berlage's ornaments are minimal but significant. Some are drawn from
Gottfried Semper; some manifest political themes, but many, including
the door handle, are inspired by images plants and animals drawn from
Ernst Haeckel's Kunstformen der Natur. It recalls the delicate foliage of
Jugendstil but this ornamental language is confined to only the small el-
ements of the building- hardware and lamps- forming a kind of autono-
mous narrative within the whole.4
Burnham and Company, Reliance Building

The detail as advertising.

The Detail as Motif Thoreau agreed. He wrote in A Week on the Concord and Merrimack
Rivers: Every where it is nature’s business constantly to create new
Modernist claims to the contrary, the ornamental tradition of motival leaves and to repeat this type in many materials (nature is) a vast manu-
detailing of Gothic and Art Nouveau found its way into Modern archi- factory of leaves- the leaf is her constant cipher. It is grass in the field. .
tecture in a variety of ways, and what it lost in decorative exuberance . it flutters in the oak,- it spring in the mold on a jar- and in animal veg-
it gained in conceptual importance. For many Modernists the motif, in etable and mineral- in fluids and in crystals-plain or variegated- fresh or
various modes, became the basis for whole languages of design- as decayed it acts how a large part in the economy of the universe.6
the expression of organic form, as cultural/spiritual symbols, as repeti-
tive types of joinery, as a repetitive symbol, or simply as repetitive It is not then surprising that Frank Lloyd Wright, who was brought
geometry used to achieve stylistic unity or simply style. Motival detail- up on Emerson, should restate this idea in one of his first writings on
ing is not associated with any historical period. Josef Hoffmann, Aldo architecture in 1900:
van Eyck, and Carlo Scarpa especially can be numbered among its
practitioners. We marvel with a tinge of envy at the simple inevitableness with which
the life principle in so slight a thing as a Willow wand, for instance,
The most popular of these modes was the organic. Its origins lay in will find its fullness of expression as a Willow tree. . . .the secret of the
the German Romantic concept of organic life- a primitive if inaccurate acorn is the glory of the Oak. The fretted cone arises as the stately
theory of biology something like our modern understanding of DNA- Pine. . . we walk in the cool, calm shade of the trees, and they say to
the part from which the whole is generated. It began with Goethe, who us as they said to Emerson long ago, "Why so hot, my little man?7
wrote in Italian Journey: It came to me in a flash that in the organ of
the plant that we are accustomed to call the leaf lies the true Proteus
who can hide or reveal himself in all vegetative forms. From first to last
the plant is nothing but leaf. . . The same laws will apply to all living
organisms.5

Emerson brought the idea in to American Transcendentalism: A leaf or

the eye of the leaf is the unit of botany, and that every part of a plant
is only a transformed leaf to meet a new condition: and by varying the
conditions, a leaf may be converted into any other organ, and any other
organ into a leaf.

Emerson expanded the idea to include all natural forms organic or oth-
erwise. He wrote in 'Compensation:'
. . .the universe is represented in every one of its particles. Every thing
in nature contains all the powers of nature. Every thing is made of one
hidden stuff . . . Each new form repeats not only the main character
of the type, but part for part all of the details. . . Each one is an entire
emblem of human life.
Louis Sullivan, Guaranty Building

Either by influence or accident, Sullivan's methodology for designing

ornament coincides with the transcendentalist idea of a geometrical
structure underlying all organic forms, apparent in both the terra cotta
blocks and the door handles of the Guaranty building.
Louis Sullivan, Charnley House
The motif on the projecting bay is repeated on the door, but turned 90
degrees.
Frank Lloyd Wright, Dana (Lawrence) House used in the Lawrence (Dana) house at Springfield but in every case the
motif is adhered to throughout.8
The motif for Wright was far more than a device for controlling orna-
ment but a pattern that determined the plan, section, and elevation. There are several motifs in the Dana house-Sumac is used in the typi-
Wright wrote . . From one basic idea all the formal elements of design cal windows and the dining room frieze, Wisteria in the second floor
are in each case derived and held together in scale and character . . . windows above the entry, and butterflies in the lamps and fanlight at
its grammar may be deduced form some simple plant form that has ap- the entry, but the geometry of the Sumac motif also determines the
pealed to me, as certain properties of line and form of the sumac were upturned eave and the pointed bay windows.
Frank Lloyd Wright, Marin County Civic Center

The use of the organizing motif, although subdued in the work of

Wright's middle years, dominates the work of his last decade; the circle
in particular seems inescapable. Here it is used for arches, window
openings, the circular ramp, handrails, cornice ornaments and every-
thing in between, in plan and in section, large and small. The circles of
the site plan find their way down to the door handles.
Eliel Saarinen, Hvittrask
Eliel Saarinen's view of organic form was similar to that of Goethe
and Wright and based on two phenomena- the existence of individ-
ual cells, and the correlation of these cells into individual tissue. The
part contained within it the character of the whole: every single cell
in these organisms becomes an expressive exponent of the species
it belongs to. These same principles, particularly correlation, were
present in the constructions of man: Whoever, if he were sensitive has
traveled in those countries where towns were built in ancient times
has no doubt felt that correlation is not an empty aesthetic theory. . . .
Eliel Saarinen, Hvittrask

He has felt that the proper correlation of forms was consistently carried
through the whole organism, beginning with the minor things in the
rooms and residences and ending with the highest pinnacles of towers
and turrets.9

The result, as with Wright, was a design strategy based heavily on mo-
tifs. Thus at Hvittrask the same spiralling form occurs in door handles,
hinges, and the tops of columns.
Eliel Saarinen, Cranbrook School Library

The details of the Cranbrook School are organized around a few simple
geometric motifs- concentric octagons, hexagons or squares, as in the
concentric squares of the door itself. This door handle, however, sits
outside the motival framework of the whole complex and is a welcome
departure from this geometry. Saarinen wrote: A healthy organism,
through an orderly set of vibrations, always has rhythmic configuration
of cell pattern; Whereas an unhealthy organism, through is disorderly
set of vibrations shows a distinct leaning to disintegration.10
Eliel Saarinen, Kingswood School, Cranbrook
 The ornamental motis of Saarinen's
early work evolved into more geo-
metric patterns. The motif in the
Academy is a flattened C shape,
used in the benches and door han-
dles. This is motival detailing at its
least convincing. The same shape
is made to function as bench,
hardware or ornament, in stone,
bronze, or wood. Differences of
function, material, structure and
scale are suppressed in favor of a
stylistic unity.

Cranbrook Academy Library, Exterior Door Handle, Interior Door Eliel Saarinen, Cranbrook Academy
Handle, Bench
Eliel Saarinen, First Christian Church, Columbus, Indiana
Eliel Saarinen, First Christian Church, Columbus, Indiana

The motif of the door handle is repeated in the stonework of the

facade.
Thorncrown Chapel, Fay Jones

Jones work owes a great debt to Wright, so it is no surprise that he

is a motival detailer. The triangles of the handle replicates almost
exactly the rhomboid shape of the steel connectors at the inter-
section of the rafters of the interior wood truss, and the rhomboid
occurs in both the window mullions and the intersection of the
truss chords. It is also the primary motif in Wright's Robie house.
Marty Leonard Chapel, Fay Jones

The motif here is a 45 degree triangle, used in the doors, roof rafters, the
cross bracing, the joist hangers, the candle holders and the door handle.
Thorncrown Worship Center, Fay Jones

The flat rhomboid shape that forms the steel connector fo the roof
truss rafters is replicated in the geometry of teh window mullion and
thesha;e of the door handle.
Fay Jones, Cooper Memorial Chapel

The Cooper chapel returns motival detailing to its Gothic origins. Roof,
door, and handle take the shape of a stone Gothic arch, though the
materials are steel, wood, and aluminum respectively. Jones here sim-
ply accommodates, rather than expresses, requirements of structure,
construction, and comfort, sacrificing all other articulation to geometric
unity. While some of Jones’ work shows what can be accomplished
with motival detailing, the Cooper Chapel does not. It is an example of
motival detailing at its most superficial.
 Brion Cemetery, Font, Carlo Scarpa
Gate to the Brion Cemetery, Carlo Scarpa (T(h)ed Ferringer)
To many Scarpa is the quintessential modern detailer, but his work
relies heavily on motifs, often to its detriment. While Scarpa drew on the
decorative traditions of Italy and Vienna, he also drew heavily on Wright,
and one of his favorite motifs was also one of Wright's- the double
intersecting circle. Another Scarpa favorite was the stepped echelon or
ziggurat pattern, which is used on seemingly every surface at the Brion
cemetery. These two motifs occur in one of the largest elements, the
gate, and one of the smallest, the Holy water font.
Carlo Scarpa, Brion Cemetery, Door Pivot

The ziggurat motif occurs in the concrete walls, the concrete canopy
and, in a miniature version in the door pivot.
 Aldo van Eyck argued that the chief problem with modern architecture
was the absence of 'identifying devices:' I am not so sure we are suffi-
ciently aware of the fact that it is those identifying devices- call them im-
ages- which not only articulate visually but also frame civic association
between people, i.e. which still posses direct physical meaning and still
bear witness to this decay by day, which remain in our memory most
persistently.11

What precisely these identifying devices were was represented in two

cultures van Eyck admired- the Anasazi of the American Southwest
and the Dogan people of Africa. The Dogan cosmic symbol is a
circle in a square representing their view of the universe and is used
in baskets, granaries, and ceremonial masks. Van Eyck wrote: There
is no limit to what the Dogan basket can hold, for with tits circular rim
and square base it is at once basket and granary; at once sun firma-
ment and cosmic system at once millet and the force which causes
millet to grow . . . . in order to be at home in the universe man tends
to re fashion it in his own image, accommodate it to his own dimen-
sion. Constructed enclosure was hitherto seldom sufficient. There was
Dogan Houses (Huib Blum)
always the limitless exterior beyond- the incomprehensible, intangible,
and unpredictable. . . so his cities, villages and houses- even his bas-
kets-were persuaded by means of symbolic form and complex ritual to
contain within their measurable confines that which exists beyond and
which is immeasurable; to represent it symbolically. The artifact- wheth-
er large or small, basket or city, was identified with the universe or with
the power of the deity representing the cosmic order. It thus became
a habitable place comprehensible form corner to corner, familiar and
tangible.12

The element, the circle in the square, which he also saw as having
cosmic significance, was to become the principle motif of van Eyck's
architecture.
Aldo van Eyck Hubertus House, Amsterdam

In a 1959 lecture Aldo van Eyck echoed Goethe's concept of the motif:
tree is leaf and leaf is tree- house is city and city is house- a tree is a
tree but it is also a huge leaf- a leaf is a leaf, but it is also a tiny tree- a
city is not a city unless it is also a huge house- a house is a house only
if it is also a tiny city.13 The motif in all of van Eyck's work is the same
as that of the Dogan culture- the circle in a square- used at every scale
in every material for every purpose. In Hubertus house, a later work, it
has been reduced to a series of curves used in windows, partitions and
door handles.
Alison and Peter Smithson, Dormitory, St. Hilda's College, Oxford

In a 1962 essay Peter Smithson used the examples of the Parthenon

and the Ise Shrine to argue the validity of 'orders' in architecture. He
said of the Parthenon: The stone-Order is a metaphor of the once-
actual construction. A metaphor is an explaining, a magical exact
showing-forth. It does not involve exaggeration or falsification.14
Smithson's own orders at times come close to motifs, as in the door
here. The order of St. Hilda's is a freestanding wood screen over a
concrete and masonry core. In true motival fashion the door takes the
form of the wood screen. Smithson wrote of the Greek temple: It is no
exaggeration to say that one needs only a fragment of a temple to be
put in touch with the buildings whole form.15
Otto Wagner, Postal Savings Bank

While not a motival detailer on the order of Wright or Saarinen, Wagner

did use geometric elements to unify a design. The horizontal mullions
of the door parallel the horizontal lines of the stone facing and the
door handles do the same. Though not as bound by motifs as his con-
temporary Hoffmann, Wagner used a system of what could be called
structural motifs, the round fastener in particular. This is another type
of motival detail, the repetitive joint or fastener.
Otto Wagner, Postal Savings Bank

Although Wagner used the circular fastener in functional ways, as in

the aluminum caps covering the iron bolts that anchor the stone, he
also used it as a motif- in ivory inlays in furniture and here in the cir-
cular door handle shown above. The technical origin of the patterns
in Wagner's buildings give them a validity lacking in some of the other
motival detailers but they nevertheless use shapes that tend to unite
unrelated, disparate elements.
Otto Wagner, Neustiftgasse Apartments

Although the familiar round fasteners are used in this building they
occur only in a few locations since the primary building facing is stucco
rather than stone. Aluminum caps are embedded in the stucco, alu-
minum bolts hold the opaque glass in place, and round fasteners are
used in the door. Here Wagner uses a lever handle rather than a round
knob, perhaps because the circle is not so prevalent in this building as
in others.
Edward Cullinan, St. John's College Library

The motif is the circle and it is used for the bench and plaza in front,
the lantern, the columns and arches, the sinks and tap handles, the
fasteners and the holes to accommodate them. The virtue of the circle
here is that there are none in the surrounding older buildings, allowing
Cullinan to use traditional forms without literal imitations. The door is
built of circular segments and on a central pivot so that swings in a
circle, defined by the tile paving below.
Edward Cullinan, Studley Royal Visitor's Center

Cullinan's use of motifs, particularly the circle, is present here, but more
subtle than at St. John's. It occurs in the roof, the benches, and in the
doors, both types of which are miniature version of the wall construc-
tion.
Steven Holl, Cranbrook Science Museum

The motif is by no means absent from contemporary design, particu-

larly at Cranbrook. While this handle is perhaps not a motival detail,
it is certainly a clone, as the handle is the plan of the museum. It also
approximates the J shape of the stone facade. The handle by Holl at
the St. Ignatius Chapel takes almost the opposite approach.
Peter Eisenman, Wexner Center

Eisenman's clone-like handle, replicating the pattern of the building

as a whole, could illustrate contemporary theories of detailing, which
insofar as they exist (Frampton, Smithson), turn the idea of detailing as
small scale design on its head, arguing that architectural design is the
concept of the detail carried into the larger building.
The Non-Detail This third condition is the most significant, an element of a building
which is some way descriptive about the fundamentals of building-
In 1963 the Architectural Record asked the prominent practitioners weight, shelter, joinery, and support. But the difference between 'articu-
of the day to write a short essay on their philosophy of detailing. late' and 'solve' is a critical one. In any building there are a myriad of
Strangely, few of those asked could give a definition of detailing, much elements which solve fundamental problems of building in ways which
less articulate a philosophy, and all seemed to view the concept as are obscure or invisible. The typical detail tells us something about a
being of little importance. Philip Johnson wrote: Can we ever speak building but it does not tell us everything. The essence of detailing is
meaningfully of details today? . . . The Robie house of the 1900's selective revelation and the most revealing details are often those that
is full of beautifully worked out "details." The Guggenheim Museum tell us the least about the building in its totality.
of the 1950's has none, not even a stair rail. Details today are hardly
more than enlarged structural connections and corners. Marcel Breuer The door handles that follow are for the most part invisible or hope to
found the concept no less irrelevant: Today our details tend to exist be so, and they illustrate the problem of the concept of non-detail per-
solely for service of the whole structure, and become inherent par- fectly. It can only be achieved by the suppression of information, in this
ticles of the whole. . . . So much so that details often fuse completely case, how to open the door.
with the greater architectural form, and Paul Rudolph emphatically
declared: there are no details. While the concept of detailing can be
said to be a decidedly modern one, it is a concept that made more
than a few Modernists uncomfortable.16

Rudolph’s non-definition- that Modernism has no details- is very much

alive today. Rem Koolhaas wrote in 1995: For years we have concen-
trated on NO-detail. Sometimes we succeed– its gone, abstracted:
sometimes we fail- its still there. Details should disappear- they are old
architecture.17

The problem with this argument of course is that the word detail has
been used to describe a variety of conditions- elements that are purely
ornamental, technical solutions to problems of construction that are not
visible in the completed building, but most importantly 'detail' has been
used to describe solutions to technical problems that do have visual
consequences, that become a demonstration that the problem exists
and has been solved.
Rem Koolhaas, McCormick Center, IIT

Koolhaas may not have eliminated the detail here as was his stated
intention, but he has eliminated the door handle. The door opens auto-
matically. Superimposed on the door is the face of Mies gazing at his
own buildings across Michigan avenue. He opens his mouth to allow
one to enter.
Sigurd Lewerentz, St. Mark's Church, Bjorkhagen

It is almost a non-handle, one that wants to disappear. Compare this

door with the Aalto door on the interior of Saynatsalo. Both emphasize
vertical members while suppressing horizontals. It is a non-detail- the
detail that would prefer to disappear- a detail that conceptually and to
a degree formally is not there.
Rudolph Schindler, Schindler Chase House

Schindler embraced the benign climate of Southern Californina with

a vengance so that haalf oth exerior wall is sliding doors opening to
the garden.There is almost no door so there is almost a no handle
Huntstanton School, Alison and Peter Smithson

The door is a made from a window section and the handle is an almost
unnoticeable angle welded to the frame face.
Querini-Stampalia Gallery, Carlo Scarpa

Scarpa was very much a motival detailer but tended to avoid the use
of any type of door handle. There are none in the glass or stone doors
here, perhaps because neither door, in Scarpa's thinking, belonged in
the restored building in the historical sense. This generic palazzo space
the sotto portego, was typacilyope to the elements. Scapa wanted to
return the space to something like its original character, conveying the
sense of an open portico and a monolithic stone wall.
Kimbell Museum, Louis Kahn

Doors in Kahn buildings are often minor events, but none more so than
the one on the left. Most of the doors cover storage cabinets for the
bookstore, but the first two are the entry to the library and lead to a stair
to the floor above.
The Consistent Detail

Theo Crosby wrote in 1962: Detailing begins with the first conception
and must go purposely from there. More recently Meinhard von Gerkan
wrote: every detail has to be an integral part of the whole.18

This definition for a majority architects is the most popular, probably

because a great number of bad details are inconsistent- the too large
mullion that destroys the transparency of the wall, the fussy trim that
compromises purity of form, the oversized coping that calls far too
much attention to itself. Consistency does not of course require formal
similarity, only the absence of contradiction. The problem with the
definition is that there are a large number of good details that are also
inconsistent.

Architecture involves the expression of two qualities of building that are

contradictory- the building as a totality, as a form that is transformed,
eroded, rotated, broken or peeled, and the building as a assembly of
parts that are joined, assembled, and which are so numerous that they
cannot be comprehended in their entirety. The detail is often caught
between the two, it cannot express one without contradicting the other.
Le Corbusier, Villa Savoye

Conceptual detailing is less restrictive than motival detailing and more

responsive to particular functional demands. It is a method that cre-
ates a correspondence between detail and building but of a concep-
tual rather than a formal nature.

This handle has more of an affinity than a formal correspondence with

the building. Like most of Le Corbusier’s early work it is composed of
entirely of prismatic solids- cylinders and spheres. These shapes occur
in the building but more important is the rationale for their use- that
they are both inherently beautiful and logically industrial.

The handles of the Villa Savoye and the Bauhaus also raise the ques- Le Corbusier wrote in The Decorative Art of Today: The machine is all
tion of standardized detailing, a concept more proclaimed than prac- geometry. Geometry is our greatest creation and we are enthralled by
ticed- the part that repeats itself a maximum number of applications, it. The machine brings before us shining disks, spheres, and cylinders
as in the repetitive identical windows. The idea is less prevalent in the of polished steel, shaped with a theoretical precision and exactitude
hardware. which can never be seen in nature herself.18
Walter Gropius, The Dessau Bauhaus

First designed for the Fagus Factory, the handle has no formal similari-
ties with the building. Yet, like the Villa Savoye handle, while it does not
replicate the geometry of the building, it is conceptually sympathetic.
Gropius believed mass-produced 'standardized' elements should be
composed of simple geometric shapes.
Walter Gropius, Dessau Bauhaus, Doorknob at Auditorium Entry

The geometric shape here is a simple spere.

 Wilhelm Wagenfeld, Door Handle (fsb)

Wagenfeld was Bauhaus student who went on to become a successful

industrial designer. His work at the Bauhaus, like Gropius's handle, was
composed almost entirely of spheres, cylinders, and rectilinear prisms.
He later wrote: It is characteristic of that moment that Moholy-Nagy who
saw me at Jenaer (Glasfabrik) while I changed my earlier cylindrical milk
jugs into drop-shaped ones, said to me 'Wagenfeld, how can you betray
the Bauhaus like this? We have always fought for simple basic shapes,
cylinder, cube, cone, and now you are making a soft form which is dead
against all we have been after.'19
Tea Service and Lamps, Wilhelm Wagenfeld (sailko)
 Ludwig Wittgenstein, Stonboroough house, Vienna (fsb)

In 1926, five years after he published Tractatus Logico-

Philosophicus, Ludwig Wittgenstein designed a house for his sister,
including custom made hardware.

(David Crowley)
The Autonomous Detail may appreciate in an abstract/sculptural way as in the titanium sheets
of Bilbao- an ability to suggest a material other than its own. These two
These four theories of detailing described above- the detail as orna- readings often occur simultaneously or are mistaken for one another.
ment, the detail as a motif, the detail as an extension of concept, and Much of the minimal nature of Modernism is perceived as tectonic
the detail as invisible- are useful, at least to describe certain condi- when in fact is abstract/sculptural and the role of detailing in these
tions, but all are in some way problematic. There is clearly another cases is to suppress the reality- eliminating trim, molding, and clad-
class of details that fit none of these categories. The best detailing is ding- although they are functionally required more than ever. An appro-
often not of a piece with the building in form or concept, but rather is priate concept of detail will recognize to at times articulate rather than
an independent, autonomous activity, one that makes fewer connec- hide these functions.
tions to the total building and more to the world outside- to history,
to the architect’s previous work or to the work of other architects. It
is often not only conceptually disconnected from its container, but
actively works against it, proposing alternative attitudes, using other
materials and other forms which seem contradictory to the building as
a whole, and thus a sixth definition is the detail that is not only autono-
mous, but is actively subversive.

The history of architecture is full of details that have lives and histories
of their own, independent of the buildings that contain them. Thus we
can find an affinity between a column by Williams/Tsien and one by
Alvar Aalto although the buildings that contain them may have little
else in common.

Detailing, if it is not subversive, should at least include the introduc-

tion of concepts and ideas beyond those implied at the macro scale.
Otherwise we are left with the motival and geometric, whether in the
form of Saarinen, Scarpa, or Hadid, and if it is the role of architecture
not merely accommodate but to articulate the nature of construction it
must do a great deal more.

If the appropriate detail is thus the autonomous or subversive one,

what is the source of its autonomy? What rules does it follow that the
building does not? First and most important are those associated with
scale, but a second characteristic is our perception of the relation of
material to architectural form. We may appreciate a building a in a tec-
tonic/ intellectual way as in the vault and buttress of a cathedral, or we
 E. G. Asplund, Stockholm Public Library

Ther handles of teh library, such as the Mecury of the water fountain,
were a sculptural addition to a context that was primarily architectural.
(Eugenio Hansen) It was a work of the first, Classical phase of his career, but It forms the
basis for later sculptural intrusions in the second, Modern, phase of his
career.
E. G. Asplund, Woodland Crematorium

In the door to the left there is no handle because although it is on axis

with the chapel and the entry to the courtyard. This is an exit- the end
point of the sequence through the funerary chapels. There are handles
at other locations, shaped to fit the hand, examples of the "humanized"
detail used by Asplund and Aalto, but also a sculptural intrusion in to a
geometric assembly as at the Stockholm library.
With Aalto's work we enter a different realm‑of detail- the subversive
one- in which the detail is formally unrelated, even contradictory, to
the form and perhaps the concept of the building that contains it.
Like many details in the house the handle juxtaposes different levels
of technology and different levels of craft and one can understand
the building as an industrial construct subverted by these handicraft
intrusions. The leather wrapping on the brass handle is an example of
what Aalto called the humanizing of industrialization.
Alvar Aalto, Villa Mairea, Interior Door to the Wintergarden
Alvar Aalto, Saynatsalo Town Hall

Aalto's handles may be humanized, but they are, like Asplund's, a

moment of sculptural, even anthropomorphic expression in a context
that is otherwise geometrical and abstract.
Alvar Aalto, Baker House

The door handle here is simpler but still "humanized." The perforated
grid of circles is more in the nature of a motif, something Aalto used at
a variety of scales in a variety of materials for a multitude of functions.
 Pensions Institute, Alvar Aalto
Otaniemi Technical University, Alvar Aalto
Pensions Institute, Alvar Aalto
Arne Jacobsen, St. Catherine's College, Oxford

Jacobsen's work is in the tradition of Asplund and Aalto and contin-

ues the concept of humanized detail, an attitude that extends as far
up in scale as the Master's dining chairs but no farther. Jacobsen's
buildings are more regular, minimal and rigidly standardized than his
Scandinavian contemporaries so that the contrast to these details is all
the greater.
Steven Holl, Chapel of St. Ignatius

Given the religious symbolism of other parts of the building, its form is
presumably meant to recall a scroll or perhaps a cincture. The design
is in keeping with the general themes of the building but formally inde-
pendent of the whole and begins to introduce another language- a
sculptural one- in that one material, metal, begins to imply another,
paper or cloth.
Steven Holl, Simmons Dormitory at MIT

The St. Ignatius handle is replicated here in aluminum but in a differ-

ent context as the dormitory is composed of two languages- one, the
rigid geometry of the rooms and structure, and the organic shapes that
weave through the design of which the handles are a part.
Louis Kahn, Erdman Hall, Bryn Marr

The circular openings that were to characterize Kahn's later work appear
here in a strange location, as small openings around the door handle.
Steven Holl, Simmons Dormitory, MIT
Williams Tsien, Cranbrook Natatorium

It may be coincidence but the telescoping cylinders of the handle echo

the telescoping motifs of Saarinen's nearby buildings. A more autono-
mous detail is the clustered column of the canopy, a clear reference to
Aalto but unrelated to the rest of the building.
Timberline Lodge

Most of the details of Timberline lodge are motival in character. The

basic structural form of a a rectilinear opening with chamfered corners,
formed by two bracketed columns and beams creating is repeated
throughout. athroughout the structure, even in the psnel of teh front door.
Timberline Lodge

The chamfered rectangle of the bracketed beam and column shape is

repeated in the chair backs and mirrors.
Timberline Lodge

The custom made wrought-iron door latches adn locks of the individual
rooms are free of the motival aspects of the rest of the lodge. They are
autonomous details at their best.
Conclusion The third general type- the detail as an extension of concept- has a
variety of manifestations, the most intriguing of which are the stan-
To summarize this typology of details and their subcategories: dardized details in the work of Le Corbusier, Gropius, Foster and
others. Yet there is a conflict between hierarchical systems of struc-
The first general type the detail as ornament, has in Modernism largely tural order in which each functional role is articulated by a separate
morphed into the second, the detail as motif. The common result of component as in the work of Mies, Rogers or Grimshaw, as opposed
the second type- the cloned detail- are repetitive patterns applied to to the multifunctional but ambiguous elements of Myron Goldsmith,
a variety of conditions at a variety of scales in a variety of materials to Craig Ellwood, and Jean Prouvé.
serve a multitude of functions. These motifs may be geometric; they
may be tectonic, or they may be sculptural. There are numerous theo- Of the fourth type- the non-detail- the common, traditional and popu-
ries and numerous examples: lar version is the Brutalist detail- the elimination of the middle layer
of detail by incorporating the small-scale elements into the overall
- The motival detail as organic form, as in the work of Frank Lloyd structural system or eliminating them all together. This is the ‘enlarge
Wright and Fay Jones. The origins of motival design lie in German or eliminate’ strategy of detailing, as in the oversized concrete gutters,
Romanticism and American Transcendentalism and the influence of mullions and furniture of Le Corbusier, Ando, and Erskine.
Louis Sullivan.
The non-detail, even if possible, is perhaps the most difficult type to
- The motival detail as cultural symbol, as in the traditional architec- achieve and, if one believes in truth in building, the least ‘honest.’
ture of the Dogan people the work of Aldo van Eyck, who used of Building techniques have not advanced so much as to eliminate the
motifs to articulate a world or even a cosmic view. need for visible signs of technical resolution- trim, joints, fasteners-
we have simply developed methods for disguising them.
- The motival detail as stylistic unifier, as in the work of Josef
Hoffmann, Carlo Scarpa or contemporary architects such as Peter The fifth type, Independent detailing is in two broad categories, auton-
Eisenman and David Cullinan. omous and subversive:

- The motival detail as structure, as in the work of Greene and Greene, - Autonomous details are independent of the building that contain
Otto Wagner, Santiago Calatrava and Gerrit Rietveld, who achieve them, such as the undigested technical fragments in Holl and others,
visual unity through the use of repetitive, uniform systems of joinery, or the Modernist historical references of Gehry or Koolhaas.
a strategy that often results in elements that are either vastly under or
over designed. - Subversive details posit a position contradictory to that of the build-
ing’s totality. Aalto, Kahn, Morphosis, and Bohlin, fall in this category.
To me the concept of the motival detail is not a bad definition of This may take various forms for various reasons- the vestiges of craft
detailing so much as a definition of bad detailing- the fact that these such as the clustered columns in the work of, Saarinen, Scarpa, or
strategies accomplish what they set out to do is often the problem. the tactile humanizing in the handrails and door handles in the work of
The result in many cases is a building that is the less rational and Asplund, Aalto, Jacobsen, and Foster.
more stylized.
While no building can obviously be composed entirely of autonomous invisible detail that tells us nothing by hiding everything, or the con-
details, they are the most important details, and any building without sistent detail which is in reality in inconsistent, and if it is the role of
them is the poorer for it. The good detail is often not only conceptually architecture not merely accommodate but to articulate the nature of
disconnected from its container, but actively works against it, propos- construction it must do a great deal more.
ing alternative attitudes, using other materials and other forms which
seem contradictory to the building as a whole, and thus a fourth defi- I have come to recognize and believe that the best detail is not the
nition is the detail is one that is not only autonomous, but is actively logical extension of the idea of the whole into the part, is not the ele-
subversive. ment that unifies the whole, is not the cellular building block of the
totality, and that the best detailed buildings are often not those that tell
A great many buildings are detailed in a way that is the simple, direct us the most about themselves, are not those in which every element
extension of general concepts into particular situations, but this type of the construction is revealed or expressed, and in which each part is
of building in many cases the least rational and most stylized. This subordinate to the whole.
definition is very much alive today in the work of many contemporary
architects, many of whom go to great technical lengths to achieve
a sort of non joinery and non detail in which materials and elements
have minimal geometric form and do not so much connect as simply
collide. This seamless result is often achieved through considerable
technical effort.

The difficulty with the consistent theory of detailing is the architecture

is not a consistent process. It requires the consideration of form as
an abstract/conceptual form, but it also requires the consideration of
form in an assembled constructional way. Very often a detail is the
mechanism that mediates between, perhaps by accommodation, but
more commonly by a demonstration of the conflict.

A great many of Modernism’s finest buildings contain something more

than consistency- a transformation, a contradiction, an alternative
ordering system as the scale of the problem is reduced, as the typical
condition is repeated, something is added, something is transformed,
or something is contradicted. These may and often do parallel contra-
dictions, transformations and additions that occur at the large scale
and are determined in the schematic phase, but often they are not.

This makes the case in a subtle way for the necessity of, if not sub-
version, at least the articulation of concepts and ideas beyond those
Notes 19. Le Corbusier, The Decorative Art of Today; translated and intro-
duced by James I. Dunnett. (London: Architectural Press, 1987), p. 103.
1. Wilhelm Worringer, Form in Gothic (London: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 20. Reyner Banham, Theory and Design in the First Machine Age, 2d
Ltd., 1927. ed. (New York: Praeger, 1967), p. 282.
2. quoted in Kenneth Clark, Ruskin Today (Baltimore: Penguin, 1964),
p. 227.
3. A. W. Pugin, Principles of Pointed or Christian Architecture, First
printed 1841 (New York: Academy Editions,1973), p. 22.
4. Pieter Singelenberg, H. P. Berlage, Translated from the Dutch by G.
Schwartz. (Amsterdam: Meulenhoff, 1969) p. 134.
5. J. W. Goethe, Italian Journey.
6. Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essays and Lectures (New York: Library of
America, 1983) p. 289: Journals of H. D. Thoreau.
7. Frederick Gutheim, ed., Frank Lloyd Wright on Architecture (New
York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1941), p. 7.
8. Frank Lloyd Wright, “In the Cause of Architecture” Architectural
Record 23 (March 1908), p.161.
9. Eliel Saarinen, The City (New York: Reinhold, 1943), p.8-18.
10. Eliel Saarinen, The Search for Form in Art and Architecture (New
York: Reinhold, 1943), p. 197.
11. Aldo Van Eyck, Forum.
12. Charles Jencks and George Baird, eds., Meaning in Architecture
(New York: G. Braziller, 1969), p. 183.
13. quoted in Alison Smithson, ed., Team 10 Primer (Cambridge: MIT
Press, 1968), p. 99.
14. Peter Smithson, “A Parallel of the Orders,” Architectural Design 36
(November 1966), p. 557.
15. Ibid.
16. Philip Johnson, “Details,” Architectural Record 135 (April, 1964),
p. 137; Marcel Breuer, “Details,” Architectural Record 135 (February,
1964), p. 121.
17. quoted in Ed Melet, The Architectural Detail, (Rotterdam: Nai Pub-
lishers, 2002), p. 116.
18. Theo Crosby, Architectural Review, 1962.
55 Door Handles is not a book. It is subject to change but it is not a
work in progress because it has no goal other than getting longe. It is
not printed and it is not mass-produced, in fact there are minor differ-
ences between each copy.