Philadelphia's 'ethical' architecture

Looking down from the monument of George Washington towards the Benjamin Franklin Parkway (Philadelphia’s very own Champs Elysees) I always — in the course of one of my frequent visits — know that I am back in one of my favourite American cities. Before going down to this specific area, with the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Boathouse Row, the Rodin Museum, the Franklin Institute, the Swann Memorial Fountain, Logan Square, the Free Library of Philadelphia and the Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul all within easy walking distance from one another, that feeling of being back here is not yet tangible, not yet in my bones, as it were.

When the woman in my life and I have parked our car in Market Street, sipped our coffee at Starbucks on Market to prepare for our Sunday visit to the museum district, and started walking down the Parkway, I start getting that feeling of having at last arrived on American soil again, and the feeling culminates in the satisfaction derived from turning around at Washington’s statue to look back the way we have come. I have often wondered why this is the case and concluded that it is not simply the proximity of these wonderful buildings to one another, but especially the manner in which they modulate this part of the city’s space into a configuration of interconnected places with a very distinctive spatial quality that imparts to it the character of a region with its own special genius loci (spirit of place). Moreover, this “region” gathers together places where what Heidegger calls the “fourfold” (the unity of earth, sky, mortals and divinities) may be encountered at every level — in the physical exhilaration of walking the distance, and that accompanies the visual experiences, in the time it takes to walk and to stand still while taking in the changing scene, and finally in the experience of satisfaction and edification in the face of so much creativity.

Nor is this experience restricted to the area described in its entirety, either; it repeats itself in proximity to individual buildings. Take the Philadelphia Museum of Art, for instance, where it majestically presides over the space projected by the Benjamin Franklin Parkway at its far end. To most moviegoing people in the world it may be recognisable as merely being the magnificent building that provided a grand staircase for Sylvester Stallone’s character in the film, Rocky, to train; to anyone truly familiar with this space, however, it marks the point of arrival after the exhilarating walk down the Parkway, and the gateway to a variegated aesthetic experience afforded by one of the finest collections of art in the world. While still outside, walking towards the main entrance, one may admire the colourful north pediment of the Museum, with its Olympian figures reinforcing the symbolic presence of ancient Greece already intimated by the Museum’s Parthenon-like appearance; once inside, the statue of the huntress, Diana, at the top of the stairs, uncompromisingly signals the neoclassical provenance of the building, with all that this entails regarding the cultural tradition represented by it. Only someone who is completely insensitive to such a transformation of space into an architectural “place” where one may discover variegated artistic “worlds”, as it were, would not feel welcome to explore the various artistic traditions preserved here. On the other hand, if anyone has become as accustomed as we have to the Museum’s various domains, he or she would probably experience the same tranquility and edifying viewing as we do, visually as well as existentially — at the level of Heidegger’s “fourfold” — exploring the unique works preserved there, such as the Duchamp collection, to mention one of my personal favourites.

Or think of Boathouse Row along the Schuylkill River in irreplaceable Fairmount Park, the biggest municipal park in America, where one could easily forget that one is in close proximity to a city. These rowing club homes, some of which date back more than a century, conjure up a distinctive sense of witnessing generations of people traversing a specific time and space by engaging in shared activities which impart to them a sense of belonging. Walking, skating or cycling along the walkway parallel to the river, one is invariably struck by the civic congeniality of a space configured, once again, into a distinctive place, not least by the many sculptures encountered along the way — including Lipchitz’s The Spirit of Enterprise, with its paradigmatic connotations of America’s pioneering role in history. Even the thought of Star Trek’s imaginary starship, the Enterprise (which can hardly be avoided) is consonant with this pioneering spirit and it is not difficult to see in this sculptural work — within its setting — an instantiation of the combined presence of the members of the “fourfold”: “earth” (physical desire and striving), “mortals” (the meaning of limited human time), “sky” (the challenge to live creatively beyond existing boundaries) and divinities (giving meaning to life through constructive, self-transcending activity).

It is not only on this side of the city that one encounters (architectural) places which make one feel at home for reasons outlined above, of course. Another of our regular destinations is the South Street area where Philadelphia cheesesteak beckons tantalisingly at Jim’s, between browsing for books at second-hand bookstores and hunting for footwear bargains or rare CDs. But whether or not one really needs to shop around for something, South Street is a “Philadelphia place” where strolling on the sidewalk is never boring, always interesting and most important, invariably surprising.

It is impossible to enumerate, let alone do justice to, all the architecturally “created” spaces in Philadelphia — appropriately, the city of “brotherly love” or friendship — which have been transformed into “places” in various ways, usually by a combination of the architectural design of buildings and the spatial interrelationships between different buildings of such distinctive design. As the example of the Philadelphia Art Museum illustrates, the architectural design of a building determines both the quality of its interior space(s) and the space immediately exterior to it, but in both cases the design of other buildings in proximity to it, as well as the modulation of the spaces connecting them, interacts with, and modifies the space(s) of the building in question. Hence, looking down Broad Street from inside Philadelphia’s City Hall, one is aware of the effect of this dialogue between the exterior “Avenue of the Arts” and the interior civic space, namely to allow the spectator a vivid experience of the city as a place where creative cultural pursuits are intimately connected with municipal policy and functions.

As for the buildings and places encountered on Broad Street, suffice it to say that Philadelphia would not have had such a strong association with the arts if the latter were not enshrined in these buildings and the manner in which they interconnect spatially. Architecturally speaking, for instance, the Philadelphia Academy of Fine Arts surpasses its pragmatic function as art school and repository of a fine collection of early American art: both its exterior and its interior testify to its being an artwork itself, in which a variety of stylistic influences converge. But more than being an artwork, in its role as the oldest art school in the US it also demonstrates — as does the relatively new Kimmel Center — what the American philosopher Karsten Harries (of Yale University) has described as the “ethical function of architecture” in a book with that title. The fact that the Academy has provided students of art with a congenial space for pursuing artistic studies for a long time is witness to the success with which it has transformed ordinary space into an architectural “place” ethically oriented towards the arts, and a place, moreover that embodies the “fourfold” in a tangible manner.

It may come as a surprise to find architecture associated with an ethical function, as opposed to an aesthetic one. While Harries would not deny the aesthetic appeal of many of the elements in a building (such as its materials, the formal aspects of its design and so on) he claims that, primarily, architecture differs from the other arts insofar as its inescapable practical function — to be inhabited — imparts to it a distinctive ethical vocation, namely to provide a sense of “place” or an ethical orientation in the world. This “ethical” function is related to the word “ethos”, and hence, when attributed to architecture, indicates its capacity to impart to the people who inhabit buildings such a sense of “place”. So, for example, when one “feels at home” in a specific building or when an interior space allows one to use it well for its assigned purpose (whether it is to sleep, study or play-act) one may say that it satisfies the ethical requirement to transform impersonal “space” into human “place”. Conversely, when a building makes one feel uneasy or insecure, or does not promote its intended purpose on the part of the individuals or groups who use it — such as studying art, performing music or simply being “at home” — it may well be a sign that it has failed to fulfil this ethical purpose.

From this point of view it is probably no accident that Elfreth’s Alley, in Old City, has been designated the street which has been continuously inhabited longer than any other street in America — just walking along its cobblestones and experiencing the solid home-providing ethos or presence that it projects even to the visitor, confirms the persuasiveness of Harries’ novel philosophy of architecture. It need not be the case, of course, that such a sense of place should be experienced only in or around a building or adjacent buildings. A public park such as Rittenhouse Square in the west of Center City — admittedly partly because of the buildings surrounding it — allows every bit as much of an experience of “place”, in this ethical sense, as some of the spaces inside the Pennsylvania Convention Center in the east of Center City, like the refurbished Victorian train shed exhibition hall.

It is not the case, of course, that what I have described — drawing on the work of Heidegger and Harries — as the edifying awareness of the “fourfold” and of the “ethical” function of architecture, may only be experienced in public places or buildings with a kind of monumental “presence”. As intimated earlier, an ordinary home, to the extent that it serves the purpose of being a home or an ordinary neighbourhood, could impart such a sense of place just as well. I recall with pleasure the many times we experienced this, walking from my wife’s apartment in Havertown, on the outskirts of the city, to some of our favourite coffee shops — including The Point, a place with all the necessary attributes to make one feel at home — or to the Haverford College campus, itself richly endowed with the architectural and spatial prerequisites for a sense of place. Sometimes we walked through the snow (often feeling the falling snowflakes on our faces) or under a canopy of Fall colours, catching our breath at the beauty around us and discovering, every step of the way, what Heidegger meant when he remarked that we, as humans, so easily forget to be “astonished”. Astonished at what? At the sheer miracle of being and of being able to discover, even in the ostensibly most ordinary of experiences or places, a world or “fourfold” of meaning, an easily forgotten ethos by which to find orientation in what often seems to be a world lacking all sense of direction. (A longer version of this essay appeared in the Schuylkill Valley Journal of the Arts.)