The tower of Christ Church, Spitalfields (38), is a
manifestation of both-and at the scale of the city. Hawksmoor's
tower is both a wall and a tower. Toward the
bottom the vista is terminated by the extension of its walls
into kinds of buttresses (39) perpendicular to the approaching
street. They are seen from only one direction.
The top evolves into a spire, which is seen from all sides,
spatially and symbolicalLy dominating the skyline of the
parish. In the Bruges Cloth Hall (40) the scale of the
building relates to the immediate square, while the violently
disproportionate scale of the tower above relates to
the whole town. For similar reasons the big sign sits on top
of the Philadelphia Savings Fund Society Building, and yet it is invisible from below (41). The Arc de Triomphe also
has contrasting functions. Seen diagonally from the radial
approaches other than the Champs Elysees, it is a sculptural
termination. Seen perpendicularly from the axis of the
Champs Elysees, it is spatially and symbolically both a
termination and a portal. Later I shall analyze some organized
contradictions between front and back. But here I shall
mention the Karlskirche in Vienna (42), whose exterior
contains elements both of the basilica in its fasade and of
the central-type church in its body. A convex form in the
back was required by the interior program; the urban space
required a larger scale and a straight fagade in front. The
disunity that exists from the point of view of the building
itself is contradicted when the building is seen in relation
to the scale and the space of the neighborhood.