The persons who profess that art, are severally builders, ecclesiastical, naval, or of whatever other name their work may justify but building does not become architecture merely by the stability of what it erects and it is no more architecture which raises a church, or which fits it to receive and contain with comfort a required number of persons occupied in certain religious offices, than it is architecture which makes a carriage commodious or a ship swift. That one edifice stands, another floats, and another is suspended on iron springs, makes no difference in the nature of the art, if so it may be called, of building or edification. Thus we have church building, house building, ship building, and coach building. To build, literally to confirm, is by common understanding to put together and adjust the several pieces of any edifice or receptacle of a considerable size. It is very necessary, in the outset of all inquiry, to distinguish carefully between Architecture and Building. Architecture is the art which so disposes and adorns the edifices raised by man for whatsoever uses, that the sight of them contributes to his mental health, power and pleasure. Lo, and VeniceĮxtract from the beginning of Chapter One: The Lamp of Sacrifice He would later write The Stones of Venice (1851–53), for which he is most well known. Although not an architect himself, he lived through the height of the British Empire with Queen Victoria at its helm, and helped to pioneer the proliferation of the Romantic and Gothic Revival movements in England. The opening chapter- The Lamp of Sacrifice-attempts to 'distinguish carefully between Architecture and Building,' set against the backdrop of Ruskin's ( often criticised) world-view on the discipline at large.īorn in London in 1819, Ruskin was an art, architecture and society critic who, throughout his eighty-one year life, painted, wrote and campaigned for (widespread) societal change. These 'Lamps' were intended to guide architectural practice of the time, advocating a profound respect for the original fabric of existing buildings. In this extract from The Seven Lamps of Architecture, published in 1849 and considered to be John Ruskin's first complete book on architecture, his studies are distilled into seven moral principles. Welcome to the third installment of The Long(ish) Read: an AD feature which uncovers texts written by notable essayists that resonate with contemporary architecture, interior architecture, urbanism or landscape design.

The seven lamps of architecture