The Secret Lives of Buildings: From the Ruins of the Parthenon to the Vegas Strip in Thirteen Stories

by Edward Hollis

  65 “Solomon, I have outdone thee!”: Quoted in Heinz Kaehler and Cyril Mango, Hagia Sophia (Zwemmer, 1967), p. 18.

  65 “seems somehow to float in the air”: Procopius, De Aedis, trans. H. B. Dewing (Loeb Classical Library, 1940), http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Procopius/Buildings/iA*.html.

  65 “Wondrous it is to see”: Paul the Silentiary, Descriptio S. Sophiae, trans. W. Lethaby and H. Swainson (Macmillan, 1894), p. 52.

  66 “We knew not whether we were in heaven or earth”: Quoted from The Russian Primary Chronicle in Rowland Mainstone, Hagia Sophia: Architecture, Structure and Liturgy of Justinian’s Great Church (Thames and Hudson, 1988), p. 11.

  67 “guide his laden vessel”: Paul the Silentiary, Descriptio S. Sophiae, p. 52.

  67 “a large flame of fire issuing forth”: Nestor Iskander, quoted in Roger Crowley, Constantinople: The Last Great Siege, 1453 (Faber, 2005), p. 179.

  68 “Hurl your javelins”: Emperor Constantine XI Palaeologus addressing his forces on 28 May, Chronicle of the Pseudo-Sphrantzes, quoted in Judith Herrin, Byzantium, The Surprising Life of a Medieval Empire (Penguin, 2007), p. 22.

  68 “In the name of Allah”: Quoted in Crowley, Constantinople, p. I.

  73 “this ancient building . . . lit with the rays of true belief”: Quoted in Kaehler and Mango, Hagia Sophia, p. 10.

  73 “the victorious Shah of them all”: Quoted in Robert Mark and Ahmet Çakmak, eds., Hagia Sophia from the Age of Justinian until the Present (Cambridge University Press, 1992), p. 22.

  75 “What a travesty it is!”: George Young, quoted in Lawrence Kelly, ed., A Traveller’s Companion to Istanbul (Constable and Robinson, 1987), p. 245.

  76 “The Caliphate, your office”: Quoted in Harold Courtenay Armstrong, Gray Wolf: The Life of Kemal Ataturk (New York: Capricorn Books, 1961), p. 201.

  THE SANTA CASA OF LORETO

  88 “In order that you may bear testimony”: Quoted in Sister Katherine Maria MICM, “The Holy House of Loreto” (n.d.), http://www.catholicism.org/loreto-house.html.

  93 “Beholde and se, ye goostly folkes all”: Richard Pynson, Ballade of Walsing-ham (1490), stanzas 1, 2, http://www.walsinghamanglicanarchives.org.uk/pynsonballad.htm.

  94 “O doughter, consider”: Ibid., stanzas 4, 5.

  96 “O gracyous Lady, glory of Jerusalem” : Ibid., stanza 21.

  99 “ ’Twas in the moon of wintertime” : Jean de Brebeuf, The Huron Carol (ca. 1643), trans. Jesse Edgar Middleton (1926), http://www.angelfire.com/ca2/cmascorner/Huron.htm.

  GLOUCESTER CATHEDRAL

  107 “In winter woe befell me”: Quoted in Alison Weir, Isabella: She-Wolf of France, Queen of England (Jonathan Cape, 2005), p. 264.

  108 “Sitting at the table in the abbot’s hall”: Historia et Cartarium Monasterii Sancti Petri Gloucestriae, quoted in David Welander, The History, Art and Architecture of Gloucester Cathedral (Alan Sutton, 1991), p. 144.

  110 “took much delight in working with his own hands”: Ibid., p. 150.

  110 “the offerings of the faithful” : Ibid., p. 146.

  115 “died without having done anything”: Ibid., p. 236.

  117 “John Gowere”: Quoted in Welander, The History, Art and Architecture of Gloucester Cathedral, p. 254.

  118 “Hic incipient constituciones”: http://freemasonry.bcy.ca/texts/regius.html.

  119 “In the name of the Lord”: Quoted in Weir, Isabella, She-Wolf of France, Queen of England, pp. 203—4.

  THE ALHAMBRA, GRANADA

  136 “Had I been he”: Quoted in Robert Irwin, The Alhambra (Profile Books, 2005), p. 63.

  137 “a gate where the roads bifurcate”: Quoted in Oleg Grabar, The Alhambra (Penguin, 1978), p. 57.

  137 “His throne comprises the heaven and earth”: Quoted in Irwin, The Alhambra, p. 34.

  137 “I am like a bride”: Quoted in Grabar, The Alhambra, p. 141.

  137 “With how many fine draperies”: Quoted in Irwin, The Alhambra, p. 33.

  138 “He is the all-mighty”: Quoted in ibid., p. 44.

  138 “In this garden I am an eye filled with delight”: Quoted in ibid., p. 151.

  138 “a pearl which adorns”: Quoted in Grabar, The Alhambra, p. 124.

  139 “The hands of the Pleiades”: Quoted in Irwin, The Alhambra, p. 126.

  139 “No victor but Allah”: Quoted in ibid., p. 33.

  139 “And how many infidel lands”: Quoted in Grabar, The Alhambra, p. 140.

  141 “The palace was furnished”: The Arabian Nights, quoted in Irwin, The Alhambra, p. 15.

  THE TEMPIO MALATESTIANO, RIMINI

  149 “Sigismondo Malatesta was an illegitimate member”: Pius II, Commentarii Sinea, quoted in Franco Borsi, Leon Battista Alberti: Complete Edition (Phaidon, 1975), p. 128.

  150 “Before you blooms and grass lie down”: Quoted in Hugh Bicheno, Vendetta: High Art and Low Cunning at the Birth of the Renaissance (Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2008), p. 170.

  151 “so full of pagan images”: Pius II, Commentarii Sinea, quoted in Borsi, Leon Battista Alberti, p. 128.

  156 “I bear the horn that all may see”: Quoted in Bicheno, Vendetta, p. 176.

  156 “Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta, the son of Pandolfo”: I. Pasini, Il Tempio Malatestiano, exhibition catalog, Sigismondo Malatesta e suo tempo (Rimini, 1979), p. 134.

  157 “Offer supreme honour to those”: Leon Battista Alberti, Fatum et Fortuna, from the Intercoenales, quoted in Mark Jarzombek, On Leon Battista Alberti: His Literary and Aesthetic Theories (MIT Press, 1989), p. 132.

  159 “What he handed down was in any case not refined”: Leon Battista Alberti, On the Art of Building in Ten Books, trans. Joseph Rykwert, Neil Leach, and Robert Tavernor (MIT Press, 1988), p. 154.

  159 “What we have written”: Ibid., p. 155.

  159 “Examples of ancient temples”: Ibid., p. 154.

  161 “The greatest ornament to the forum”: Ibid., p. 265.

  162 “I affirm again with Pythagoras”: Ibid., p. 301.

  162 “Beauty is that reasoned harmony”: Ibid., p. 156.

  162 “Greetings. Your letters”: Quoted in Robert Tavernor, On Alberti and the Art of Building (Yale University Press, 1998), p. 61.

  163 “As for the business of the pier”: Quoted in ibid., p. 61.

  164 “If someone will come here”: Quoted in ibid., p. 61.

  164 “Wherever there was some noble stone”: Quoted in Alberti, Leon Battista Alberti: Complete Edition, p. 166.

  165 “Divine Vespasian”: Quoted in ibid., p. 166.

  SANS SOUCI, POTSDAM

  173 “There was a nobility and harmony”: Franz Kugler, Karl Friedrich Schinkel, Eine Characteristik siner kuenstlerishchen Wirksamheit (Berlin, 1842), first published in the Hallesche Jahrbuecher, 1838.

  174 “The description of nature”: Quoted in Barry Bergdoll, Karl Friedrich Schinkel: An Architecture for Prussia (Rizzoli, 1994), p. 156.

  177 “If God made the world for me”: Quoted in Nancy Mitford, Frederick the Great (Penguin, 1970), p. 79.

  177 “Quand je serai là”: Kunst- und Ausstellungshalle der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Filmreihe: Schätze der Welt—Erbe der Menschheit, p. 11 (German, PDF, n.d.), http://www.kah-bonn.de/bibliothek/schaetze_pr.pdf.

  181 “ennobles all human relationships”: Quoted in Michael Snodin, Karl Friedrich Schinkel: A Universal Man (Yale University Press, 1991), p. 1.

  181 “They consisted of a series of villas”: Diary entry of Field Marshal Alanbrooke, chief of the general staff, 15 July 1945, quoted in Alex Danchev and Daniel Todman, eds., War Diaries, 1939—1945: Field Marshal Lord Alanbrooke (Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2001), p. 705.

  181 “All the Germans have of course”: Letter from Sir Alexander Cadogan, permanent undersecretary, Foreign Office, to his wife, 15 July 1945, in David Dilks, ed., The Diaries of Sir Alexander Cadogan, 1938–1945 (Cassell, 1971), pp. 761–62.

  182 I spared that beautiful country as far as possible”: Quoted in Mitford, Frederick the Great, p. 200.


  182 “Admit that war is a cruel thing”: Quoted in ibid., p. 145.

  182 “in the end God will take pity on us”: Quoted in ibid., p. 215.

  182 “Hats off, gentlemen!”: Quoted in ibid., p. 291.

  183 “the bestial stench of revolution”: Hubertus Löwenstein, The Germans in History (Columbia University Press, 1945), p. 271.

  184 “Deep into the most distant jungles”: Quoted in Dr. Annika Mombauer, “Germany’s Last Kaiser—Wilhelm II and Political Decision-Making in Imperial Germany,” New Perspective 4, no. 3 (March 1999), http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~semp/wilhelmii.htm.

  185 “Devastation of Potsdam terrible”: Anthony Eden, The Reckoning: The Eden Memoirs, vol. 2 (Cassell, 1965), p. 545.

  185 “My hate had died with their surrender”: Quoted in Martin Gilbert, Churchill: A Life (Minerva, 1991), p. 850.

  NOTRE DAME DE PARIS

  191 “The story of the arsonists”: Guy Debord, “Sur La Commune” (1963), quoted in Ken Knabb, ed. and trans., Situationist International Anthology (Bureau of Public Secrets, 2006), p. 400, http://www.bopsecrets.org/SI/Pariscommune.htm.

  193 “The artist must efface himself”: Eugene Viollet-le-Duc and Jean-Baptiste Lassus, Project de Restauration de Notre Dame de Paris (Lacombe, 1845) (trans. by the author), http://www.gutenberg.org/files/18920/18920-h/18920-h.htm.

  193 “It was necessary to perform”: Ibid.

  194 “It is impossible to conserve the form”: Ibid.

  194 “We think therefore that the replacement”: Ibid.

  195 “The only espaliers he could conceive”: Victor Hugo, Notre Dame of Paris, trans. John Sturrock (Penguin, 2004), p. 177.

  196 “some goodwives, milk-jugs in hand”: Ibid., p. 486.

  196 “raised his eye to the gypsy”: Ibid., p. 490.

  197 “I have visited your Notre Dame”: Adèle Hugo, Victor Hugo, by a Witness of His Life, trans. Charles Edwin Wilbour (New York: Carleton, 1863), p. 172.

  197 “What a shame”: http://www.georgianindex.net/Napoleon/coronation/coronation.html.

  203 “Great buildings, like great mountains”: Hugo, Notre Dame of Paris, p. 129.

  204 “that divine creation”: Ibid., p. 124.

  205 “the term restoration and the thing itself”: Viollet-le-Duc, Dictionnaire Raisonné, quoted in M. F. Hearn, ed., The Architectural Theory of Viollet le Duc: Readings and Commentary (MIT Press, 1990), p. 269.

  205 “a destruction accompanied”: John Ruskin, Seven Lamps of Architecture: The Lamp of Memory, quoted in Jukka Jokilehto, The History of Architectural Conservation (Butterworth Heinemann, 1999), p. 175.

  205 “Surely it is a curious thing”: William Morris, History and Architecture, quoted in Chris Miele, ed., William Morris on Architecture (Sheffield Academic Press, 1996), p. 118.

  205 “Watch an old building”: Ruskin, Seven Lamps of Architecture, quoted in Jokilehto, The History of Architectural Conservation, p. 180.

  205 “If it has become inconvenient”: William Morris, Manifesto of the SPAB, quoted in Miele, William Morris on Architecture, p. 55.

  205 “We understand the rigour of these principles”: Viollet-le-Duc and Lassus, Project de Restauration (trans. by the author).

  206 “Gothic construction”: Viollet-le-Duc, Rational Building, from Dictionnaire Raisonné, quoted in Hearn, The Architectural Theory of Viollet le Duc, p. 116.

  THE HULME CRESCENTS, MANCHESTER

  211 “Hello, good evening”: www.exhulme.co.uk/page2.php.

  212 “A Mini Town with All Mod Cons”: Manchester Evening News, 4 June 1969, quoted in Rob Ramwell and Hilary Saltburn, Trick or Treat? City Challenge and the Regeneration of Hulme (North British Housing Association and the Guinness Trust, 1998), p. 5.

  212 “It is our endeavour at Hulme”: Quoted in Trick or Treat?, p. 5.

  212 “In a rather deep hole”: Friedrich Engels, The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844, quoted in ibid., p. 2.

  213 “Abolition of property in land”: Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848), http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/cho2.htm.

  214 “Communists know only too well”: Friedrich Engels, The Principles of Communism (1847), http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/11/prin-com.htm.

  214 “We will sing of great crowds”: Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, The Founding and Manifesto of Futurism (1909), http://www.cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/T4PM/futurist-manifesto.html.

  215 “We stand on the last promontory of the centuries”: Ibid.

  215 “In spite of disease and death”: Manchester Guardian, 10 January 1923, quoted in Ramwell and Saltburn, Trick or Treat?”, p. 2.

  216 “unlocks all the doors to the urbanism of modern times”: Le Corbusier, The Athens Charter (Grossman, 1973) (1st ed., 1943), p. xiv.

  216 “An immense, total mutation”: Ibid.

  216 “the Charter must be placed”: Ibid., pp. 25—26.

  217 “a three-dimensional, not a two-dimensional, science”: Ibid., p. 105.

  218 “Why are you showing me this desolation?”: Quoted in Miles Glendinning and Stephan Muthesius, Tower Block: Modern Public Housing in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland (Yale University Press, 1994), p. 256.

  219 “The planning brief for Hulme stage 5”: Minutes of meeting of Housing Committee, 6 July 1966, quoted in Manchester Housing Workshop, Hulme Crescents: Council Housing Chaos in the 1970s (Moss Side Community Press Women’s Co-op, 1980), p. 4.

  219 “a high quality of finish”: Ibid., p. 5.

  219 “I was four”: “Caroline,” 15 November 2007, quoted in www.exhulme.co.uk.

  222 “A list to be drawn up”: Quoted in Ramwell and Saltburn, Trick or Treat?, p. 7.

  222 “The day I moved in was 11th Dec”: Compost City 2: blog page on Hulme Crescents MySpace page, posted 18 December 2006, http://myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendId=55432167&blogId=206922483.

  222 Moved to Hulme in 1982: “Karen,” 22 April 2007, quoted in www.exhulme.co.uk.

  223 “Remember Queenie?”: Ibid.

  224 “Punks, goths, ratios”: Hulme Crescents MySpace page, “would like to meet.”

  225 “My fondest memory”: “James,” 10 February 2008, quoted in www.exhulme.co.uk.

  226 “I recall Jamie taking a jackhammer”: “Mark/Bruce,” 22 April 2007, quoted in www.exhulme.co.uk.

  226 “There was a massive sound system”: “John Robb,” n.d., quoted in www.exhulme.co.uk.

  226 “the memorable Hulme Demolition Sound System”: “Gonnie Rietveld,” 18 April 2007, quoted in www.exhulme.co.uk.

  227 “safe, clean, and attractive”: Quoted in Ramwell and Saltburn, Trick or Treat?, p. 19.

  228 “Madchester City Council”: Ibid., p. 12.

  229 “The oldest of us is thirty”: Marinetti, The Founding and Manifesto of Futurism.

  THE BERLIN WALL

  236 “Did the wall fall out of the sky?”: Calvin University German Propaganda Archive, http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/wall.htm.

  243 “We know about this tendency in the population”: http://www.coldwarfiles.org/files/Documents/19891109_press%2oconference.pdf.

  243 “It comes into effect”: Ibid.

  244 “This ninth of November is a historic day”: Tagesthemen, broadcast on ARD, quoted in Frederick Taylor, The Berlin Wall, 13 August 1961—9 November 1989 (Bloomsbury, 2006), p. 427.

  245 “a presentation and holding device”: http://www.google.com/patents?vid=USPAT6076675.

  THE VENETIAN, LAS VEGAS

  259 “A very regal-looking environment”: Quoted in Connie Bruck, “The Brass Ring: A Multibillionaire’s Relentless Quest for Global Influence,” New Yorker, 30 June 2008, http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/06/30/080630fa_fact_bruck?currentPage=all.

  259 “Kublai Khan does not necessarily believe everything”: Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities (Harcourt Brace, 1974), pp. 5–6.

  265 “tailored to one lifestyle—yours”
: http://www.wynnlasvegas.com/#Shopping/.

  265 “Dream with your eyes open”: http://www.wynnlasvegas.eom/#entertainment/.

  266 “Our goal was to build”: Steve Wynn, quoted in Las Vegas Strip Historical Site, http://www.lvstriphistory.com/ie/sands66.htm.

  266 “It’s much more difficult to give a party”: Steve Wynn, quoted in http://thinkexist.com/quotes/steve_wynn/.