Style is a myth

Wood

Classicism doesn’t actually exist. I looked for it when I was building a molding plane to cut a raking cyma made out of wood from a tree that never should have been harvested.

Stone

I looked for classicism when I was dutifully carving task models of the orders out of Bedford limestone, I found myself laughed out of academia.

Metal/Form

I looked for classicism at Monticello and found a master tinsmith enslaved, rude notes from his owner about his “performance”.

I can’t actually find “it”. Oh I looked in Delorme too, and Vitruvius. I went to conferences and attended molding theory lectures under halogen lights. I found salesmen in polo shirts with beach tans. And shashmaster Duffy Hoffman screaming into the void, the polished “Historical” crowd calling him a mean drunk….

What I can find in the classical building literature is authors telling me what to do with stone, wood, or how to perform stereotomy, they talk about subdividing and proportions as manual steps performed. When I follow their rules, I find the academy of classicism hostile to the labor.

There are no elusive hidden properties, or lost arts. Just tedious steps on how to walk a compass out, subdivide space and stretch circles. Just tedious steps on how to construct elaborate patterns.

Carpenters and sparrows, alike. cry in the corners of the roof.

It’s all physical process you can follow step by step to please your masters and specifiers. I can’t find any mysteries in the literature dang it, just a ton of hard work.

I just can’t find it. Where did it come from?