Architectural Modes of Collective Existence: Architectural Sociology as a Comparative Social Theory

Introduction: A Culturally-Comparative Architectural Sociology

Buildings, and architectural artefacts and activities in a broad sense (including inter alia built environments constructed with as well as without architects, textile architectures – tents – and the study and acquisition of architectural knowledge), do not merely reflect the values and norms of the society in which they have a place. Architecture is, rather, a symbolic medium and a cultural technique through which a particular society constitutes itself. Architecture is used to divide individuals, both spatially and visually, within a given society and, furthermore, imposes a relationship between society and nature. It is in part through approaches to architectural preservation that a society writes its own history. Through the affective use of materials, dimensions, surface qualities, and forms, distinct architectures evince their own distinct personalities and have their own particular attraction. These elements can be combined in many and various ways in the creation of all manner of built expressions of corporate identity. Collectives, or imaginary instituted societies (Castoriadis, 1987), use different building types to differentiate themselves visually, spatially, or even functionally. Architectures establish specific relationships between social beings and also between human beings and the earth, thereby mediating human territorialism. Every architectural space, every architectural disposition, enables, encourages, or discourages various movements, perceptions, feelings and other human responses. Because they are the material form of the collective and compose our everyday built environment, architectural artefacts are not exterior to society or to human social interaction. As with other symbolic arts – picture, sculpture, and discourse – the architectural is not mere passive expression of a society’s values and norms; it is, rather, a way in which a social collective constitutes itself, brings itself into existence, and may transform itself.

There are, of course, as many different architectures as there are different societies; though this diversity is not unbounded. This article aims to present a comparative sociology of architecture, by creating, following the methodology of structural anthropology (cf. Descola, 2013), a cross-cultural tableau of architectural modes of collective existence. Such a sociology of architecture analyses how societies constitute and transform themselves through architecture and architectural practices. Nomadic societies, for example, differ both socially and architecturally from settled communities, which by their nature maintain extensive infrastructure. The ephemeral, soft, and mobile architecture of the tent creates social forms, assemblages, perceptions, and feelings which differ from those engendered by architectures made of harder materials and fixed to the ground (for the case of the Tuareg, see Figure 3). A distinctiveness is evident when a society digs into the earth rather than builds upon it (that, for example, of Chinese Yaodong architecture – see Figure 5). In addition to these synchronic differences across cultures, there are also diachronic transformations (and continuities) within any given single culture; and these can be observed in any settled, urban, collective mode of human existence. In attempting to understand our own Western, or current European architectural culture (see Figure 1), it is, therefore, useful to examine the architecture of early cities. Uruk (3500–2800 BCE) and other early city-states, developed monumental architectural forms such as city walls and also complex infrastructure. It may, similarly, be telling and analytically productive to compare Western (or more specifically, European) society with Çatal Höyük (7400–6200 BCE – see Figure 2), an early settlement without any infrastructure or differentiated building types.

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Figure 1.

Societies of cities: urban, concentrated, fixed, infrastructured societies. Berlin street scene, 2015. (credit: author).

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Figure 2.

Societies of cities: interior architecture, Çatal Höyük (credit: Ian Hodder 1993).

Creating a culturally and historically comprehensive architectural sociology requires sustained interdisciplinary engagement with archaeology, ethnology, art history, cultural studies, geography, and other related disciplines. The crucial issues, though, remain sociological. On the one hand, there is the question of the theorization of society. What social functions and meanings does architecture have? Or, to ask this question in another way: what is a society, how does it construct itself, and which elements are active in this process? On the other hand, any architectural sociology must relate to the analysis of society. What is it that indicates our chosen ‘mode’ of collective existence; that is, in what kind of society do we live, and how is this related to a particular architectural culture? How do both architectural culture and societal life change over time, and to what extent is social or societal change promoted by the professional, creative discipline of architecture?

Intentionally placing itself within sociology of architecture, cultural sociology of architecture, and cultural theory, this article aims first to review recent theoretical debates within the sociology of architecture, situating these within the context of both the history of sociology and the history of sociology of architecture. The focus falls on the concept of the relation between the architectural and the social. The article then aims to explore the relationship between the architectural and social in a particular way – a way differing from classical sociological theories but also from social constructivism. Architecture is not considered as secondary in the representation of any given society or of any given social practice, but rather as an integral part of such. It is considered a ‘medium’ of the social (Delitz, 2010a), through which each imaginary instituted society constitutes and transforms itself, using the visual, tactile, acoustic, and bodily presence of architectural artefacts and their (re-)construction of space. Because the world presents us with a variety of different architectonic cultures, the article finally aims to suggest a kind of cultural comparison as a plausible research method for analysing both the differences between architectural modes of collective existence, and current architectural transformation of these collectives worldwide (see for example Figure 6).

The term ‘architecture’ is used here in the broadest sense: including more than the artefacts and practices of the modern profession. The formal definition of architecture used here does not distinguish between architecture and engineering, but includes buildings, infrastructure, and civil engineering. This approach allows the study to range over all cultures (see, for overview, Rudofsky, 1964), including those which have no concept of the autonomous architect, and those whose artefacts include materials that must be woven, or sewn. The approach is, in summary, inclusive of all architectural mechanisms through which human collectives seek to express or conceive of themselves as specific societies. It is in this catholic sense that Cache (1995) defines architecture as all artefacts and activities capable of allocating space and separating territory: architectures introduce ‘intervals’ in space, create a specific framework of interactions and perceptions, and arrange the physical. They establish, moreover, a specific image of the collective, and, inasmuch as they introduce different separations and connections, they are the ‘basis of our social coexistence’ (Cache, 1995: 23).

History of Architectural Sociology and Recent Theoretical Approaches

What do we mean by ‘architectural sociology’, what is its history, and what is the current state of research in this area? There are, in fact, multiple architectural sociologies, and these can be differentiated by their goals. Some are (newer) programmatic sociologies of architecture, while others deal with architecture, or concepts such as ‘space’, ‘the city’, ‘the built environment’, only en passant. These two approaches could be said to constitute two different strands of architectural sociology. As regards the latter, there have been, and there still are, both beyond the discipline and within it, many sociological thinkers who barely address the architectural and spatial nature of the social. Notwithstanding that they do address the spatial and architectonic aspects of contemporary society and of social life in general, these authors did not conceive any articulate theory of society or any social ontology which might view such affective and space-creating artefacts as part of the social. With regard to the former, there has been (for the past ten or fifteen years) not only a growing empirical, but also a theoretical interest within sociology in the social activity of architecture – as part of, or as parallel to, the spatial, the affective, and the material turn (all understood as a new wave of interest in hitherto overlooked and undervalued aspects of social life). It is, though, a little more complex than this two-fold analysis might suggest. Within the broad cultural-material turn in sociology there are now both implicit and explicit integrations of architecture within sociological thought. This differentiation within the history of sociology of architecture might be characterized as the difference between an empirical sociology of a specific cultural phenomenon and a set of theoretical conceptions of the social.

Within the first strand of this history (the implicit sociology of architecture) mention must be made of classical sociological authors such as Simmel, Tarde, Mauss, Sombart, Benjamin, Elias, and later Lévi-Strauss, Foucault, and Augé (for an overview of sociologies of architecture avant la lettre see Delitz, 2009, 2010c). These authors are, with a few exceptions, interesting with respect to sociology of architecture mainly because of their case studies of architectures. One of the exceptions is Georg Simmel, who not only constructs a spatial sociology but also addresses the artificial architectural shape of contemporary society. His sociology is a ‘formistic’ sociology: an analysis of contemporary society viewed through its artificial ‘skin’ (Maffesoli, 1985: 36). Simmel was interested in architectural style, size, and construction. In the metropolis, in individual buildings, and in the ‘comforts of space-conquering technique’, ‘such a tremendous richness of crystallizing, de-personalized cultural accomplishments [is to be found] that the personality can, so to speak, scarcely maintain itself in the face of it’ (Simmel, 1997 [1903]: 75). Simmel’s conception of the social is, however, ‘anthropistic’ (Seyfert, 2011: 180 ff.): for Simmel, as for all the classical sociological authors, only human beings are socii. Categorical, classical sociology has thus ‘blocked itself the way to technical and aesthetic artifacts’, building instead ‘categories from the picture of religious social life’, perhaps in order to reject the ‘enticements of the reorganization of society from the spirit of art or technique’ (Eßbach, 2001: 123, 127, my translation). In other words, the categorical view of society within the founding generation of sociologists of architecture is characterized by a ‘twofold blind spot’ (Reckwitz, 2014: 242). Conceiving the social as normative order (or, later, as language), sociological theory marginalizes both material-technological and aesthetic artefacts, excluding architecture in two ways from sociological theory. Later, social constructivism, or anti-essentialism, even gave rise to spatial sociology (see Löw, 2017 [2001]), which has a tendency to ignore both artefacts and matter itself in its categories: spaces are socially constructed, not material (for a critique, see Schroer, 2006: 175). In this respect, the material, the affective and the spatial turn allow a new conception of the social in general, and also new sociologies of architecture.

The second strand of the history of architectural sociology is the programmatic or expressive strand. Here, in contradistinction to the aforementioned ‘anti-aesthetic and anti-technical affects’ of classical sociology and its proponents, conceptual or theoretical architectural sociologies are explicated. These display a variety of aims and interests. Some are centred on theories of interaction or social practice, others on theories of society; some trace social differences, others subject-formation; some are interested in architecture as discourse, others in its connection to the body, or in the profession. In general, however, concepts of the relation between architecture and the social or society are presented today – especially in sociologies of architecture explicated in German, but also by Anglophone authors – as a way of abandoning the idée fixe of architecture as a merely passive and secondary expression of the social, or as mere result of interaction. Instead, these sociologies of architecture address expressis verbis the social positivity of architectonic artefacts and activities.

Such sociological approaches are based on general sociologies from different traditions, sourced from a variety of epochs and languages. Among those general theories of the social (as opposed to general theories of society) worthy of mention is the new social ontology of Latour and of Deleuze – a conception of the social as interaction between human and non-human actors, focusing on architectonic artefacts (for particular authors see below). Among general theories of society, authors such as Henri Lefebvre (but see also Augé, 1995, or Foucault, 1977) exert influence within sociological theories of architecture and conceptions of the architectonic constitution of society. As these are not intended as sociology of architecture, they belong to the first, implicit, tradition of sociology of architecture. For Lefebvre (1991: 31), for instance, discarding the dogmatic materialistic approach to society, each individual life within life of society ‘offers up its own peculiar space’ in its architectures. For Lefebvre, architectural structures create ‘conflicts between socio-political interests and forces’. It is, moreover, ‘only in’ built space ‘that such conflicts come effectively into play’ (1991: 365, original emphasis).

Every society, and therefore every mode of production, produces its own unique space. The cities of the ancient world cannot be understood as collections of people and things in space. The ancient city had its own spatial practice: it forged its own appropriated space. From this arises the need for a study of space able to apprehend it as such: in its genesis and its form, with its own specific time or times (the rhythm of daily life), and its particular centres and polycentrisms (Lefebvre, 1991: 31).

An important strand of architectural sociology now theorizes the social ‘activity’ of this cultural technique, instead of assuming a merely indicative function for architecture with respect to societal life. Such a programmatic architectural sociology re-examines no less than the discipline’s core questions: What is a society, how is it constituted, and what socii play a role? Architectural sociology does not focus on the aesthetic, is not about architectural criticism, and also not even primarily about social criticism, but rather about the questions of what a society is, and what kind of society we live in – questions answered architecturally.

In this short overview, one should note the overlap of the different linguistic traditions, and of several diverse concepts. There is, for instance, a close relationship between Science and Technology Studies and the writings of German architectural sociologists; and there is a shared indebtedness to Bourdieu in both German and English sociology of architecture (see for instance Jones, 2009, 2011). In general one could argue (with, for example, Delitz, 2009, 2010a, 2016; Jones, 2016; Löw and Steets, 2014) that Anglophone writings in architectural sociology are concerned first and foremost with critical, and empirical questions of power, in/equality, and post-colonial critiques, concentrating on contemporary, global and globalizing architectures (celebrity architects), on the circulation of capital, and on the hegemonic construction of cultural identities through architecture (see, for example, Delanty and Jones, 2002; Jones, 2011; King, 2007; Markus, 1993; and also Jones, 2016). Ethnographic studies of architecture-related activities constitute a further focus, viewing in particular the drafting and design process as central to all architectural activity (Yaneva, 2006). Thirdly, Anglophone architectural sociology features manifold historical sociological case studies (e.g. King, 1980, 2004; see also Jones, 2016, which lists one hundred case studies). Fourthly, there are in this tradition sociologists interested in the architectural profession (after Blau, 1984; Cuff, 1991; see also Grubbauer and Steets, 2014); and, finally, the practice-oriented sociology of architecture (Du Bois, 2001) is also worth mentioning. In relation to these empirical foci, fundamental theory-based perspectives (see Gieryn, 2002; or for more detail Jones, 2011) are perhaps exceptional, and in any case not central, to a sociology of architecture. To date, in French contexts, the sociology of professions was in principle the only realm of sociology dealing explicitly with architectural sociology (Champy, 2001). In relation to the aforementioned implicit architectural sociological works (Lévi-Strauss, Bourdieu, Augé, Foucault) there are but a few explicit ones (Chadoin and Claude, 2010; Freitag, 1992). In terms of sociology as a general theory of society, however, architectural-sociological concepts and research can also be found here within anthropology and in archaeology. Compared to both Anglophone and Francophone traditions, architectural sociology in German contexts has been more programmatic or more explicit. We see this even as early as 1927, with the marginal (or marginalized) author Franz Arens; then with Hans-Peter Thurn (1972) and Bernhard Schäfers (2003). Since then, German explicit architectural sociology has been particularly concerned with conceptual questions, seeking to incorporate architectural artefacts, actors, and forms of knowledge into general sociology or into sociological theory – in order to understand the social potential of architecture. In this respect, at least four different approaches can be seen as currently particularly significant in German architectural sociology (for a more extensive account see Fischer and Delitz, 2009; Fischer and Makropoulos, 2004). There are firstly elaborations of Luhmann’s theory of symbolically generalized communication media, seeing architecture as a particular medium of communication, beneath ‘money’ or ‘power’ (Baecker, 1990; Fischer, 2010). Secondly, Steets (2015) presented a Berger–Luckmann perspective on architecture, elaborating a phenomenological sociology of architectonic affections, perceptions, and sensations. Thirdly, some of the German sociologists of architecture are influenced by actor–network theory, seeing architecture as an ‘Atmospheric Actor Network’ (Göbel, 2015: 10; Müller and Reichmann, 2015). And, fourthly, there is my own perspective, based on post-foundational and post-structural authors such as Castoriadis, Foucault, and Deleuze (Delitz, 2010 ff.). What all of these four different approaches strive to express and to explore is that buildings and their spaces are ‘actively involved in the makings and unmaking of the socialities “inside” and “outside” of them’ (Göbel, 2015: 4).

Architecture as a Mode of Existence of Societies Constituted on the Imaginary

In contradistinction to concepts such as manifestation, representation, and reflection, I have suggested elsewhere that architecture ‘makes a “difference” with regard to the social’ (Delitz, 2010a: 11). Architecture brings the collective, or a particular society, into view and thus into existence, and, simultaneously, transforms it. Such a position applies Castoriadis’ (1987: 118) criticism to every sociological theory which sees the symbolic only ‘as merely neutral, surface covering […] neither adding anything nor taking anything away’. Such theories are mistaken: collective life is unthinkable without symbolic material cultures. Its very existence requires a unique architecture, a specific form that is visible and tangible – given the fact that constant change underlies all social life. Each society must therefore create meanings which secure collective identity and countermand such contingent and self-generated change. At the same time, any collective must overcome antagonism and promote some form of identity for the sake of unity. What is at stake here is the very possibility of society in general, and in this respect we share with Cornelius Castoriadis, but also Claude Lefort, Marcel Gauchet, Ernesto Laclau, and Chantal Mouffe, the post-foundational thought that society is ‘both impossible and necessary’ (Marchart, 2007: 137, original emphasis). In the words of Laclau and Mouffe: if the ‘social does not manage to fix itself in the intelligible and instituted forms of a society, the social only exists, however, as an effort to construct that impossible object’ (1985: 112, original emphasis). Any discourse, and indeed any other symbolical form, is ‘an attempt to dominate the field of discursivity, to arrest the flow of differences, to construct a centre’. A society as a totality and identity is an impossibility. It is precisely because of this that ‘society is still to have an identity’ (Marchart, 2007: 104), for a society in flux, or a society of pure antagonism ‘could not be called society at all’ (Marchart, 2007: 98).

This non-essentialist theory of society or of collective identity includes a symbolic theory of the social. Symbolically, societies have to give themselves identity through time, and despite social differences and contradictions. Because the social is permanently in flux (implicitly following an ontology of difference), and because the social is permanently antagonistic, societies have to imagine both fixed foundation and identity. Every society must construct itself as though time did not exist: it must give itself a stable symbolic and material shape. ‘The social-historical is perpetual flux of self-alteration – and can only exist by providing itself with “stable” figures by which it makes itself visible’ (Castoriadis, 1987: 204). A society of pure difference would, of course, be no society at all. For Castoriadis as well as for Lefort, the symbolic ‘defines the very way in which the […] instituting dimension of society [is] institutionalized’ (Castoriadis, 1987: 100). The claim that the symbolic is the mode of existence of society converges with theories of collective identity as a symbolical process by which the ‘fragile social order’ is considered to be self-evident (Eisenstadt and Giesen, 1995: 72), and by which differences between ‘We’ and ‘Others’ are claimed. Shared meaning is made possible by outward signs and thus also the constitution of collective identity. More complexly, the post-foundational notion of the symbolic refers to the (non-essentialist) Lacanian theory of the subject and of society: society is marked by a void as much as is the subject (see Marchart, 2007: 100). Any collective must give itself a signification or meaning: it has to identify itself.

If society as such requires spatial and temporal form, then architecture is not merely frame or manifestation: it is the activity through which societal life unfolds. Architecture is a mode of collective existence. Not all social continuity and differentiation is, of course, constructed through architecture. There are other symbolic modes of collective existence, such as image, language, and discourse, and other material artefacts. The force of architecture’s impact on the social, though, perhaps cannot be underestimated, operating as it does in a non-discursive way: physically, corporally, and visually. It is therefore necessary to analyse both architectural visibilities, and architectural artefacts. Architecture is an artificial body that surrounds all human and non-human beings. It brings social beings into contact with one another through specific posture, movement, sensation, and affect. Interactions almost always take place in assemblages of artificial and organic bodies traversed by discourse (see Deleuze and Guattari, 1987 [1980]: 88). It was in this sense that Foucault (1977) studied the interaction between disciplinary architecture and subject-formation. Benjamin (1999 [1927–1940]) had traced similar interactions within consumer society, and Deleuze and Guattari (1987 [1980]) did so for nomadic and territorialized collectives.

In what ways does a collective constitute itself architecturally – as this particular society and with these particular members? There are manifold aspects. Each society arranges its individuals into classes, generations, and genders. It is through this differentiation, this classification and arrangement of things and people, that societies constitute themselves. A society, as Durkheim knew, is ‘possible only when the individuals and things […] are divided into certain groups, that is to say, classified’ (1965 [1912]: 492). Every society also selectively arranges its own conception of time, creating particular relationships to the past and to the future. This can result in, for example, the continuous use of one architectural form or idiom, or in the introduction of the new (perhaps utilizing the creativity of the profession of architecture). Through historic preservation and reconstruction, societies construct selective pasts and collective memory. The relationship between culture and nature is also both signified and constituted by architectonic artefacts. A society which uses architectural forms in stark contrast to the natural environment (see the critical analysis in Frampton, 1996) is expressing a relationship with the natural world quite different from that expressed by a society which chooses to encompass and reference nature (by, for example, using natural materials). Architecture also determines the intensity of the hierarchical force of institutions. A building can be a ‘terrible machine’, as Le Corbusier (1987: 212) said of the Parthenon. Furthermore, a society’s chosen method of construction determines its level of mobility, based on the visual and acoustic perception of particular materials, of architecture’s affect, and of buildings’ temporalities and dimensions (for the becoming of matter in general see Simondon, 2017 [1958]). Certain building materials and building methods, such as tents and yurts constructed from felt, wool, and/or hides, encourage mobility and a nomadic way of living, and privilege the nomadic subject. Fixed buildings, by contrast, which necessitate setting foundations into the ground, are typical of permanently settled communities. A society’s relationship to the earth is thus established through an interaction with architecture which expresses ideas of territoriality, positions individuals and creates social space. In fixed societies, space is ‘striated’ through immobile architectures; whereas nomadic societies construct ‘smooth space’ for themselves, traversing the land lightly with their architecture almost ‘in hand’ (Deleuze and Guattari, 1987 [1980]: Chapters 12 and 14).

In relation to these many ways in which collectives architecturally constitute themselves, Castoriadis (1987: 143) speaks of a last horizon of meaning: the central social imaginary, which swallows all other meanings like a black hole, and presents one integrating principle – the ‘invisible cement, holding together this endless collection of real, rational and symbolic odds and ends that constitute every society’ (Castoriadis, 1987: 159). Such central imaginary significations ‘create objects ex nihilo, they organize the world’ (Castoriadis, 1987: 361). The central imaginary is the constitutive outside, or the imagined foundation, of a collective existence, from which a society obtains its collective identity, founds its norms and values, and denies its historical contingency. It is fully imagined; it is a primary signification. Such significations ‘denote nothing at all, and they connote just about everything’ (Castoriadis, 1987: 143, original emphasis), that is, all other societal significations. In medieval societies, and more generally in religious societies, such as today’s Islamic societies, this central imaginary is occupied by the signification of ‘God’ (Castoriadis, 1987: 139 ff.). Because they are imaginary, such significations must always be symbolized. Any collective existence (as an imaginary institution in this sense – with an imagined foundation) requires a particular symbolical-material shape or form. It is thus profoundly difficult to imagine a society without its architecture. A religious society, for example, which founds itself upon God, is impossible to conceive of without its cathedrals, temples, and churches, and the affects, perceptions, and movements these buildings create. Indeed, according to Martin Warnke (1976), late medieval society constituted itself in the medium of architecture – as exemplified by cathedrals and all of the endeavours that were connected to them. This is true, of course, also for contemporary examples of religious societies (see Kaika and Thielen, 2006). By extension, any other society aligned with a different central imaginary, or constituting foundation, could only be constituted through a specific architecture. A society concerned with ‘rationality’ (Castoriadis, 1987: 159) constitutes itself inter alia in using sober, serialized architectural forms free from ornament and built according to the principles of rationality – those forms invented in the era of classic modernism (for contemporary architecture see Kaika, 2011; for German 20th-century architecture see Delitz, 2010a). The imaginary, used in this way, does not, of course, connote the harmonious, but rather the hegemonic. Any architectonic shape is an artefact; it is the result of power. In many respects, then, architecture is a political activity, within which a society constitutes itself, differentiates individuals and their orders of coexistence.

Methodology: Comparing Divergent Architectural Modes of Collective Existence

Both in their conceptualization of what architecture is and in their analytical viewpoints, most architectural sociologies are ethnocentric and fixated upon the modern era. This is not surprising as these lines of research emerge from contemporary sociology of science and not from the more self-reflective fields of ethnology or anthropology. Diversity of architecture exists not only across cultures and eras, but can be found within a given society as well. Moreover, some societies have multiple architectures, often widely divergent. One sees this in both settled and nomadic cultures: architectures which differ greatly with respect to material, form, structural properties, durability and affectivity. Such cases create a tableau of diverse social architectures. The possibilities of each kind of architecture are, of course, circumscribed. In each of the aforementioned aspects – classification and differentiation, reference to nature, relation to history and tradition – polar-opposite possibilities always exist, and within these extremes of ideal types, or contrast-classes, there is a spectrum of possible architectures stretching both through time and through space. In reality, societies do not make use of every possible architecture. A collective may express and maintain social differentiations and hierarchies architecturally; or it may refuse to do this, constructing uniform buildings whose stature and appearance negate such distinctions. Collectives may also intentionally curtail architecture’s creative potential, choosing to use only a small number of forms in order to promote social cohesion and maintain tradition (for the example of the Kabyles, see Maunier, 1926). A research methodology of comparative architectural sociology might thus compare particularly divergent, or contradicting architectural modes of collective existence, because it is precisely through contrast that the effects of one’s own familiar architectural culture become expressible and thinkable. This methodological approach (similar to that of Descola, 2013) does not rest on an evolutionary perspective; it assumes that no society can be classified as ‘archaic’ based on its architectural forms (a classification often applied to nomadic societies in comparison with settled societies). On the contrary, each society is our contemporary, each has its own social reality, and each is necessary for our global collective existence.

The relationship of buildings to the ground and the ways in which architecture separates space are very significant because both these architectural realities determine other aspects of architectural artefacts and activities. The fixity of a structure (mobile, semi-mobile, or immobile etc.) determines choices regarding materials, techniques, design, manufacturing, aesthetics, acoustics and affectivity. The question of the relationship to the earth differentiates at least four divergent architectural modes of collective existence – ideal types, in Max Weber’s sense: societies which are cities, nomadic societies, residential atomism, and societies of maisons creusées. In addition, each of the last three types relates to the first one through a specific relation of opposition. Insofar as urban societies are thoroughly infrastructured and structurally fixed, they contrast with nomadic societies, which use soft, ephemeral, and mobile architectures. Insofar as urban collectives are densely populated they contrast with those societies which are relatively settled, but systematically dissipating themselves. The architectonic culture of the collectives in tropical forests and desert savannahs barely separates nature from culture; and dissipating themselves architecturally, such collectives accomplish a residential atomism (Descola, 1996 [1986]: 8). Urban societies have an architectonic culture above ground and contrast with societies whose dwellings are burrowed into the ground – sociétés à maisons creusées, with isolated, barely visible and almost non-communicative architectures. Other ideal types might include hybrid societies such as the Inuit who alternate semi-annually between nomadic and settled lives and architectures (Delitz, 2010b; Mauss, 1979 [1906]), or aquatic (swimming or boating) societies. They share many social features with nomadic societies. By examining these four divergent ideal types of societies and architectures, one can better appreciate urban, highly infrastructured architectures and better understand their social logic. Such a tableau of divergent architectonic modes of collective existence allows us to analyse historical and current architectonic transformations of societies and the societal consequences of architectural transformations.

Tent Societies: Nomadic Collectives, Mobile Societies

While the comparison between different urban collectives is revealing – in terms of both similarities and differences – it is very easy to recognize the specifics of fixed, durable architectures when we contrast them to completely different architectural modes, such as those found in nomadic societies (see Delitz, 2010b, with respect to Bernus, 1981; Casajus, 1987; and Claudot-Hawad, 2004). Different from settled, urban collectives, nomadic societies have their own unique architectures, affects, policies, and subjects. The collective life of the Tuareg would be unthinkable without the light, movable, soft architecture of their tents, made of sewn-together goatskins or braided palm fronds (see Figure 3). This style of architecture gives rise to its own phenomenological experiences. Although, for example, the interior design rigidly separates the genders spatially, there is virtually no visual or acoustic separation. Likewise, social layers are stratified based on the radius of activity, the speed and distance with which individuals can move from the tent. Tents create a specific visual environment: one that is flat, single storey, and undifferentiated. There is only one building type and no ornamentation which would distinguish one structure from the next. Significantly, the Tuareg conceptualize their political and social life with respect to the visual and structural form of the tent. The society is mostly non-hierarchical; each branch is equal, just as every support of the tent is of equal length and all equally serve to uphold the whole.

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Figure 3.

Societies of tents. Tuareg leather tent, ca. 2000 (credit: www.arlit-free.fr).

Permanent movement necessitates the use of tents and beasts of burden. It leads to a construction of social space in which the variable boundaries of the collective are more important than the centre and in which social status is considered profoundly changeable despite strict social stratification. The constant movement of the whole society, including its architecture, also inclines it to certain foreign policy – namely, a ‘culture of war’ (Claudot-Hawad, 2004, 2006) – and the dissipation against the immanent social tendency toward large, centripetal organized units (with regard to other societies see Clastres, 1977 [1974]). Nomadic societies know cities, but always as sites of ancillary (as opposed to central) functions. Nomadic societies are not merely the precursors of settled communities, but, rather, unique structural modes of collective existence, bound to a precise architectural culture.

Settled, Non-Urban Societies: Residential Atomism

Many societies found in savannahs and tropical forests are neither nomadic nor urban. These societies live in settlements of scattered houses, strictly arranged in relation to one another and to nearby water sources. Buildings are usually constructed around a central, dominant structure (the meeting house). Axial lines divide the residents, who are exogamous and connected to one another through marriage kinship groups (Lévi-Strauss, 1936). The architecture of these societies is decidedly non-artificial, using vegetative material which brings nature and culture closely together. It is essential that prescribed distances between villages are adhered to. This has to do with ‘residential atomism’, societies that are ‘near caricatures of zero-degree social integration’ (Descola, 1996 [1986]: 8) (see Figure 4). These societies also keep their collectives intentionally small as part of their established culture of war. They too are ‘societies against the state’ (Clastres, 1977 [1974]). The houses are thus conceived of and built as ‘individual and independent centres’ of the world (Descola, 1996 [1986]: 4). As Descola argues, although they are regularly abandoned and rebuilt elsewhere, these buildings offer the only factor of stability for this society, the single point that enables an imagination of social cohesion. The buildings therefore have a ceremonial significance, and are understood as being alive. Who or what constitutes a member of society is defined in such societies very differently from the way this is done in ours.

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Figure 4.

Residential atomism. Achuar house, 1980s (credit: Philippe Descola).

Sociétés à Maisons Creusées: Entrenched Societies

This type of architecture is characterized by its entrenched or partially entrenched nature. George Cressey (1955: 263) used the phrase ‘no house in sight’ to describe the Yaodong, the remarkable architectures dug vertically into the loessic sand on the Yellow River (see Figure 5). Habitats are constructed six meters underground and are connected to the surface by a small ramp. Families live in small units built around a central courtyard. We lack a proper designation for such an architectural form. They are not caves, but rather artificial structures built in a strictly codified, rectangular shape – architecture qua subtraction. When viewed from above, these houses form a regular pattern in the countryside but yet simultaneously create a non-form of the social. As the architecture does not rise above ground, no social differentiations are made visible to the public. All façades are underground and turned inward toward the space of the family. These maisons creusées (Loubes, 1988; see also Delitz, 2015) isolate each and every activity, both acoustically and visually, and they are grounded in the imaginary of the family – which is perhaps the central imaginary of traditional central Chinese society. The subterranean construction cultivates a unique relationship between culture and nature, where it is difficult to discern where the one ends and the other begins.

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Figure 5.

Yaodong, Central China, around 1935 (credit: Graf zu Castell).

The arrangement of houses, the relation to nature, the materials (the ramp; the wall that shields the entrance to keep away evil spirits) is linked to the belief system of Chinese cosmology through which the society orients itself and its position in the world. This belief system also determines and legitimizes the social positions of individuals. Cosmology divides the world into heaven and earth. These houses display this importance of this division by endowing the ground, or soil, with a vital and ritual importance (see Granet, 1953 [1922] on earth rites). The central architectural element, the subterranean courtyard, is referred to as the ‘shaft of heaven’. For this reason, the Yaodong are not a peripheral phenomenon. They are located on the Yellow River, a significant location in central China’s collective identity, and are described in the earliest written historical sources. Today, still inhabited by an estimated 40 million people, the Yaodong is experiencing an architectural renaissance because of its physical features. At the same time China is being transformed by another architectural mode: that of the complex, urban, heavily infrastructured society. More particularly, the adoption of Western skyscraper architecture is part of the sinicization of China and parts of Inner Mongolia (Loubes, 2015). This divides the space in right angles and gives society a vertical shape. European architectural cultures are considered to be defined by complexity, the stacking of buildings, high buildings, public spaces and communicative façades, and bear the social implications of inequality, differentiation, individuation. By contrast, these subterranean architectures establish none of these things – and the massive urbanization of China amounts to a radical transformation of collective existence and of societal imagination (as well as of social interaction, embodiedness, and affect).

Conclusion

Architectures differ greatly both in terms of form and in terms of how subjects and collectives relate to them; but all collectives institute themselves architecturally. Other symbolic media (text, image, ritual), forms of knowledge (mythology, rationalization), activities (economic, ecological, political, familial) also play a crucial role. Within the realm of the social, all things are linked in a kind of network, in which buildings are the ever-present part of any society. Like Descola’s matrix of socio-ontological modes, a synchronic comparison of divergent architectural modes of collective existence is less about making classifications and more about analysing the diversity and positivity of different architectures. The second, diachronic and more empirical method involves the analysis of architectural transformations. When analysing transformation some starting-point must be defined: some idealized point before an architectural culture has begun to be transformed in the process of architectural ‘globalization’. Descola (2013: xix) defends this method against the charge of being static and ahistorical. The idea of this retrospective history is ‘to concentrate first on the [ethnographic] present the better to understand the past’. But the converse also applies. From a heuristic point of view, it makes sense to describe cultures synchronically, starting at a specific ethnographically described past and assess changes from that point. In such a manner we can assess socio-historical questions, such as how a society became what it is, within its architectural culture. Thus one must first understand what sort of a collective mode of existence is associated with the Tuareg tents, the Mongolian yurts (Figure 6), or the Yaodong. Only then can one understand the transformations that occur through the importance of fixed architectures, the infrastructural turn in Mongolian society, or the massive construction programme in China. Such an architectural sociology is also an analytical way to understand ex negativo what kind of society we live in, and how we have become what we are. Compared to these other architectures, we are revealed to be, for instance, far less nomadic than we currently consider ourselves to be. At the same time, however, new architectural shapes, assemblages and materials will transform Western society (along with the imaginary which shapes and guides it) and its subject-formations, interactions, and affections. It is only with all the tools provided by architectural sociology that we can fully appreciate how deeply architectures are involved in collective life, and how crucial architecture is for any society.

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Figure 6.

Architectural transformations: Yurts in Ulan Bator, 2009 (credit: Bernd Gross).