Design, Demos, Dialectics: Max Raphael’s Theory of Doric Architecture

The main focus of this paper is to examine the analysis offered of the Temple of Zeus at Olympia by Max Raphael in his study dedicated to the remains of the temple. The temple of Zeus at Olympia is often cited as the canonical example of Doric temple architecture and Raphael examines how a particular design can have such far ranging influence, to which end he elucidates the relationship of design to the activity of a participatory and democratic process specific to the Greek polis. By bringing to bear a highly dialectical analysis of the various forces at play in both construction and the elaboration of the temple, Raphael advances a brilliant interpretation which takes account of the social, spiritual and material dimensions at play and dissolves older academic understandings of the achievement of ‘classical art’. Design, Demos, Dialectics: Max Raphael’s Theory of Doric Architecture


Design, demos & dialectics
This paper will look at a discussion on design, "demos" and dialectics in a remarkable series of studies conducted by the German theorist and philosopher Max Raphael, whose writing about the Doric temple will be its focus. More specifically it will examine the arguments on the Temple of Zeus in Olympia to which his study is largely dedicated. As this work is not available in English, nor his earlier published work on the Doric temple from 1930, I take the liberty to give extensive paraphrases of the German original in English. 1 I will also show that the analysis provided by Raphael allows one to understand what is meant by speaking of a dialectical method for the analysis of the design achievements of the Doric, and the role of the "demos" -the term in Greek refers to the people -in their collective and participatory democracy with regard to the religious, spiritual and social meaning of these temples. This paper also expands on my previous notices of Raphael's work in my Beauty and the Sublime, (Healy 2006, 63-71) and an article for the inaugural number of Footprint, "Max Raphael, Dialectics and Greek Art," (Healy 2007, 57-77).
In the first part of this paper I will briefly indicate the reception of Raphael, especially  In the Introduction, Herbert Read suggested that the little known author had made "the most important contribution in our time to the philosophy of art." (Read 1968, xv). 3 In the following year, 1969, John Berger endorsed Read's judgement and bestowed high praise on Raphael's work. It was Berger's advocacy, in its evaluation, for example, of Frederick Antal and Max Raphael, which influenced the direct engagement with these authors-in the case of Antal, via Anthony Blunt at the Courtauld, and in the case of Raphael by the art theorist Jonathan Tagg. Tagg was in direct contact with the literary executor of Raphael, Claude Schaefer, in Paris. Tagg added considerably to the awareness of the range and extent of Raphael's work. 4 In the 1970's and 80's one can speak at the

Elizabeth Chaplin published Sociology and Visual
Representation in 1994, and in the first part of the study (Chaplin 1994, 19-112) there is an extensive discussion of Raphael that is largely influenced by  1). For Raphael, the understanding of the Doric temple and the classical conception of the human situation was a matter of fascination to historians, not only for the impact such creations exerted on Rome and India, but on all subsequent revivals of antiquity. He hoped that the understanding of such achievements would help in efforts to transform the world. Understanding the making of this art would allow one to clarify a few facts that had been obscured by "the evolutionary prejudice prevalent in the historical sciences". 8 The task Raphael advances is to grasp the creative method and not simply describe the product of the imagination of classical man. In other words, the task is to understand the transforming actions of creation, which needs to not only contemplate the "what", but also reflect on and re-experience the "how". To that end, one must gain insight into the forces which, under the name of Greek art, or the classical, have so profoundly influenced history for reasons that, Raphael argues, remains largely unknown. He would also, inter alia, address the question of how the design of the Doric Temple could be so paradigmatic over such a long period of time when social and other conditions changed from which it emerged. 9 Raphael opts to examine in detail a small number of works in order to clarify the method by which they were created and their historical background.
One dimension of the historical background suggests to him that the tradition, the ultimate Neolithic foundation, and its impact on Egypt was a hostile one, against which "nascent classical art had to assert itself." Raphael sets himself the task of solving the problem of the classical achievement, and thus provides a weapon against the irrationalism of the phenomenologists, existential philosophers, no less than against, what he calls the pseudo-classical works from Raphael of Urbino to Ingres, and contemporary abstract artists making the resounding claim that: "The heart of genuine classical art is dialectics, and it is one of the deepest ironies of history that the most dialectical of art should have come to be regarded as the most dogmatic, as the mother of the academic". 10 For Raphael, dialectical art cannot be imitated. It is the method by which it is created that deserves to be studied, not because it gives the direction to some new, third, or fourth, or fifth humanism, "but to a humanity that will for the first time in history be truly free." There is another relation between the triangular pediment and the rectangular peristyle, which if not directly perceivable is rationally recognisable and felt in its effects. As mentioned, the two slanting lines of the pediment suggest two movements-one ascending, and one descending from corners to centre, from centre to corners. This is matched in the peristyle by the fact that spacing between columns are greater at the centre than the sides and this leads to a structural paradox, that the greatest height and, hence, heaviest part of the pediment is above the widest intercolumniation, where it receives its weakest support.
Raphael's contention is that the triangle that begins in the peristyle is completed in the pediment, and yet the pediment remains a part of not only of the actual front, but also of the ideal triangle whose diagonals we obtain by extending the sides of pedimental triangle. Thus, the actual triangle has become part of an encompassing ideal space that is not embodied in a material form, just as the space surrounding the structure below the pediment remains invisible. What can be derived from this is that the same basic attitude toward infinite space is expressed in the dimension of both depth and height. The intention is to create a physical limitation, to express only a part of the whole, but also to express, at the same time, the whole in the part.
What is further argued is that, even in such a mental experiment, the upward movement of the column is counteracted by an ideal pressure originating outside the temple, at a level far above that of the entablature. Raphael, it is clear, uses this discussion to advance the strong thesis that one must reject the static conception of the Greek temple as a plastic, sculptural, body without spatial dynamism, or to see it merely as the solution to purely mechanical problems. In his rich array of arguments he wants to demonstrate how an artistic expression of broader, universal ideas takes place. So it is that the pediment as analysed must be looked upon as mediating between two forces, must be looked on not merely as a static force, but, as a field of opposing forces that has become form.
The central figure in the pediment continues the rising movement from below, but starts from a void. Therefore, it is not the continuation of the column. At the same time this figure, whose head is close to the apex of the pediment, is more exposed to the ideal pressure from above than to the force rising from below. For Raphael, the Greek temple embodies the dialectical interaction of antithetical forces of various kinds-spatial, physical, and intellectual-and in its architecture these forces are adequately embodied in a finite, enduring, and clearly articulated structural body, which is harmonious. When one understands such multiple forces, especially in respect to their role in shaping space, it is, as he argued in Der Dorische Temple, possible to recognise the meaning of the whole. What Raphael will discover through his analysis, is the fundamental principles which guide the design and making of the temple.
Staying with the pediment, however, the element to be most emphatically grasped is the element of The groups are arranged so that the action develops from centre to corners, which is the artistic action; whereas the real, referred-to action, develops from the corners to the centre. Thus, artistic time abolishes real time, and yet, the tension between the two is preserved. This shows Each column or figure that enters into relationship with other columns or figures is characterised first, in its high degree of elaboration-a value of its own defined by the fact that the form of the column has significance that goes beyond its function or expression. Secondly, by selfcontainment, independence, and self assurance, it suggests nobility, self reliance, and a free and self-confident individual who does not seek to dominate others and refuses to submit to others, and yet they change into their opposite and become part of a whole without resentment, without losing their individuality. This perfect balance between community as an independent entity, and existence as part of a community, expresses both law and freedom.
The individual elements are linked together as much by these subtle similarities as by contrasts in the fullest sense of the word. If it be contrast between load and support, between solid and void, the concave and convex, we are in any case made to perceive both the actual polarity and the actual interlocking, as well as the imaginary principle which is the source of the oppositions. The Greeks did not know the direct transition from similar to similar that bridges the opposites and that which is embodied in the arch; they knew only the conflict of opposites that were originally united and strive to achieve definite unity.
Raphael goes on to assert that the relation obtaining between the whole and the parts is not one of direct dependence; the parts do not directly determine the whole, nor does the whole directly determine the parts. The absence of dependence and directness is made possible not by the presence of a hierarchy of mediations, but by the operation of a formal, mathematical principle which governs the geometric shape and the proportions both of the whole and of the parts, so that their harmony is achieved indirectly, and each preserves an appearance of freedom.
The principle here is not a transcendent power. Classical art is bound to marble to such an extent that one could almost say that without marble it would not exist. As an artistic medium it is halfway between poros and granite. In the purest variety of Parian marble, for example, the average size of the crystals is 1-1.5 mm (sometimes 2-3 mm) Because of its coarser and firmer crystalline structure, this marble is more transparent than many other varieties, and light penetrates it from and for a greater distance. In its natural state light penetrates it and it is structured.
The physical and spiritual worlds are not merely juxtaposed, but matter is spiritualised to the same extent as spirit is materialised. The interpenetration of form and light makes possible a synthesis between outer and inner worlds, between body and soul. Neither is reduced to sameness nor conceived as congruent, the two are embodied in the work; one as air and light-filled space, the other as intense human expression. In the unity of content and visual means of expression there is the completion of the constitution of the artistic unity.
Classical art ultimately works with bodies and forms. The classical artist shifts his system of coordinates in such a way that the deviation remains measurable. In sculpture for example, the notion of the structural block is transformed into artistic space. The old square/cross section of the block has been replaced by a rectangular one, thus freeing the human figure from its subjection to the block.
Space is no longer seen as abstract opposition between full/empty, being/non-being, rather it is