Q&A with Mark McInturff

Peter H. Miller, Hon AIA, publisher of Traditional Building, recently visited Mark McInturff to chat about a lecture McInturff delivered to the Washington DC, Mid Atlantic Chapter of the Institute of Classical Architecture and Art, titled “The Classical Roots of Modern Architecture.”

Peter Miller: I am with Mark McInturff, sitting in his beautiful conference room, in a great little office on the back of his property that doesn't meet building code. But we're not telling anybody— that's not part of the story. We're interviewing Mark about a lecture he gave titled “The Classical Roots of Modern Architecture.” We're interested to hear more from Mark about this because we believe that a classical training is good for any kind of design. Mark, what are the basic tenets of classicism including the orders?

Mark McInturff: I might back up from classicism and modernism and talk about the training of an architect. There are common threads that weave through the training of anybody who makes buildings. There is construction—about structure and organization. And there is hierarchy…. what’s important when making a building and what's less important? So when we talk about the orders, it’s not about Doric, Tuscan, Corinthian and composite. It’s about the columns which hold up buildings, how they are elaborated or not elaborated, it doesn’t really matter. What matters is that you make architecture out of the elements of a building. Columns are part of that, and that leads us into the orders.

PM: So, the orders are really about structure?

MM: Yes, structure. What is interesting about the orders, and this is true in contemporary architecture, is that the real variation in the orders is thickness. With the Colosseum in Rome, for instance, where you have column above column, the heaviest are at the bottom and they lighten as they go up. There are all kinds of modern buildings which do the same thing where the column, as it’s carrying less load, gets smaller. It's just a simple logical gravitational phenomenon that has been translated into the orders, historically, but that works throughout architecture.

PM: Is a vertical bump out an order? It's not structural, but it's a vertical element.

MM: That would be a pilaster. A column which is engaged into a wall is a pilaster. Louis Kahn talked about the parting of the wall and becoming. The wall opens and then generates pilasters and columns to make openings in the wall. It’s that primal. That's what interests me about all architecture — what's the primal origins of this thing? Let’s not lose track of that and use things in a gratuitous way. When things are primal, they are essential.

PM: To be trained in the classical language of architecture is to learn what's primal?

MM: I think so. It depends on whether Classicism must go all the way to using triglyphs and metopes and all the little elements of the orders. Or if you say, no, it's really about walls and columns and making space, and all of that having to do with structure. That could be a Classical piece of the puzzle.

PM: How does Classical ordering inform modern proportions?

MM: I'm not sure I would use the word proportion. All of it has to do with rules. And rules are not a gratuitous invention—let's not just make some rules up—it has to do with “what can we do?” What do we need to do to hold up a building? What do we need to do to make an enclosure? What do we need to make a roof? The fundamentals of making any kind of floor plan are how far you can span the roof—you can't span a roof a mile, you can't span it 200 yards, historically you couldn't span it very far at all—and when you made a space with the roof, how far is an occupant from light? So even if you could make the building a mile square, no one would want to be in that building because it’s nowhere near light. When you start to introduce light into a building, next to spanning roofs and so forth, you begin to break buildings into pieces which are in proportion to the way we live.

PM: Speaking of bringing in light, that too is an ancient—that was during candles, right?

MM: Yeah, and you can imagine the kind of mystery with that. Too much artificial light really takes away the magic of materials. I remember going into a Gothic cathedral, a small one, in France when I was walking the Camino. In the evening, they were having a music performance in the cathedral, and it was all candlelight. They were playing Miles Davis “Sketches of Spain.” It's a trumpet piece. The candlelight in there, with a little bit of daylight coming through the windows was magic. If they had turned on the lights, which they probably didn't have, it would’ve lost all that. We talk a lot about natural light as if the more the better. But there are some architects who realize that you want a more graded scale between bright and dark.

It doesn’t matter if architecture is modern or traditional. What matters is that its good.

PM: That's what I want to get across to traditionalists It's not about Doric columns—it's about good architecture, whether it's modern or traditional. And if you are well trained, classically trained, you can switch hit.

MM: You can, But I think there's a point where you're working within one design language… you can't work in every language. It doesn’t get you deep enough.

PM: Did your clients take you from post-modernism, early in your career, to the modern design you practice now?

MM: No, I took my clients there. I've been doing contemporary architecture in Washington D.C.… I won’t say longer than anybody, but longer than anybody.

I don't know what the evolution was, exactly, but relatively quickly I found a place in contemporary architecture that clients began to come to me for. Now there's a lot more people doing it. Somebody doing traditional architecture badly is not going to do as much damage as somebody doing modern architecture badly.

PM: How come?

MM: The rules in classical architecture are clear; if you follow them, it's hard to go wrong. Rules in contemporary architecture are specific to each building. Each modern building we do has a different set of rules. They're related but they're not always the same. Somebody who comes to contemporary architecture and thinks, well, I’ll make some white boxes, and I’ll put some wood stuff on it… and I'll do some other stuff…it’s so bad. The modern infill houses are terrible.

PM: I think you are describing speculative infill modern houses.

MM: Spec houses are evil. They're selling volume not quality. Quantity not quality. That’s doing a lot of damage to streetscapes.

PM: Back to new design, which begins with old rules. Can you talk about how your contemporary design starts with fundamentals?

MM: It is largely organizational—how you put a group of rooms together. Take the center hall colonial house. We all know this house. You come in the front, there's a stair in the middle, and you can go out the back through the same hall. There are rooms on both sides. It's an elegant plan. Louis Kahn said it's a good organization. There's nothing that is either traditional or modern about that—it's just a “simple society of rooms.” I start with the site and place the rooms where I think they ought to be. I organize them. Then I impose on that the construction logic of it. I work with dimensions that are credible in construction. Our practice is particularly construction heavy—we do buildings where what's holding it up is visible. Then we start to care about what that looks like and how that's put together. You make architecture out of that. There's a lineage to our thinking. Louis Kahn also said, “No great space can be made without evidence of its making.” We get right into what it's going to be made of and how it's going to be built.

PM: Why do modernists and classicists feud?

MM: Only the stupid ones who do that. First, there is no morality. People will say modernism is morally superior, classicism is morally superior… no, no, no. It’s just not true. When you get away from that, it’s, OK that you prefer this, and I may prefer that. We should be able look at something we don’t prefer and still recognize its beauty. That’s architectural literacy. When I’m sketching buildings, I make no distinction between Le Corbusier and Palladio. I’m near Palladio? I’m going to draw it. I’m near Le Corbusier? I’m going to draw that. They’re both great things. 

Mark McInturff, FAIA, McInturff Architects, is a native of Washington DC and received his B. Architecture from the University of Maryland School of Architecture with its first graduating class in 1972. He taught at the University of Maryland from 1980 to 2006, from 1987 as an annual visiting critic. He was appointed as the University of Maryland Kea Professor for Spring 2003. He is a visiting critic at the Catholic University of America’s School of Architecture and Planning, co-teaching a studio that focuses on historic preservation and adaptive reuse. McInturff was elevated to the College of Fellows of the American Institute of Architects in 2000.

Mark McInturff is the author of the book, "Home/Work". A beautifully illustrated volume showcasing residential and commercial/institutional designs across North America, with a special focus on artful interiors, the craftmanship and the dynamics at play within each space.

Spectacularly presented throughout with stunning full-colour photographs, detailed plans and diagrams, and thoughtful commentary and insight into the details and process behind the designs.

The fourth in a series of monographs on McInturff's incredible body of works.