ABSTRACT

This article reassesses the influence of gothic design principles on twentieth century urbanism and considers their contemporary import. The paper elucidates how William Morris’s gothic design philosophy, which inspired two major strains of contemporary urbanism, became detached from its radical politics as it migrated from England to the United States. Architectural modernism came to dominate urban design, characterized in opposition to gothic principles, and aligned with capitalist production. Modern architects championed and fetishized machine aesthetics, which were applied to urban-scale design with ambiguous consequences. The scaling of design principles between objects, buildings and cities has been a prominent yet neglected aspect of twentieth century urbanism, requiring greater critical attention. The paper articulates a defense of “gothic ontology”, not as neo-revivalist style but type of praxis. It is contended that three gothic design imperatives - aesthetics of labour, politics of making and vitality of ecology – are resurgent in urban thought today.

摘要

本文重新评估了哥特式设计原则对二十世纪城市主义的影响，并考虑了它们的当代重要性。该论文阐明了威廉·莫里斯的哥特式设计理念，它激发了当代城市主义的两大流派，在从英国迁移到美国的过程中，如何脱离其激进的政治。现代建筑主义开始主导城市设计，其特点是反对哥特式原则，并与资本主义生产保持一致。现代建筑师拥护并迷恋机器美学，将其应用于城市规模的设计却产生了模糊的后果。物体、建筑和城市之间设计原则的扩展一直是二十世纪城市主义的一个突出但被忽视的方面，需要更多的批判性关注。该论文阐述了对“哥特本体论”的辩护，不是作为新复兴主义风格，而是作为实践类型。有人认为哥特式设计的三个必要条件是：劳动美学、制造政治和生态活力——在当今的城市思想中重新兴起。