The Modesty of Architecture

Politics and architecture are, in large part, known by their legacies. Among architecture’s oldest legacies is that presented by Marcus Vitruvius Pollio and his book De Architectura (known today as The Ten Books on Architecture)—a work that is not, however, merely architectural. Indeed, its writing was specifically designed to support a political legacy as well. With deference, Vitruvius addressed the book to the Roman emperor, Caesar Augustus, declaring his intent “to deliver down to posterity, as a memorial,” an account of the “many edifices” and “magnificent works” that were to Caesar’s credit. Although the book is perhaps best known for positing the architectural trinity of firmitas, utilitas, and venustas (or firmness, commodity, and delight, according to seventeenth-century translator Henry Wotton), it is a story from the introduction to Book II that is particularly pertinent here. A parable of architecture and politics, set in a book dedicated to the same pursuits, it tells of another architect and another great ruler—Dinocrates and Alexander of Macedon—but, as with all parables, its significance goes beyond surface meaning.