split

"architecture was deeply affected by the separation of surface and substance. up until the nineteenth century, formal architecture made regular use of ‘load-bearing walls’, walls that –in addition to any decorative motif they might have–provided the support system of the building, held the building up. even though it was common to apply neoclassical or other facades to brick wall surfaces throughout the eighteenth century, walls served an important structural function. in designing them, an architect had to combine purposes of engineering and ornamentation simultaneously… there was a connection, a symbiosis, between the intricacy of the image and the method of craft being used to fashion that image...(by the nineteenth century) there was an intrinsic tension between the look of a building—which attempted to reproduce a style originally achieved by the chisel of the preindustrial craftsman—and a method of construction which was only hastening the degradation or annihilation of the decorative crafts. style architecture was becoming a matter of pure appearance..."

stuart ewen, all consuming images. the politics of style in contemporary culture