I make no special attempt to relate architecture to other
things. I have not tried to "improve the connections between
science and technology on the one hand, and the
humanities and the social sciences on the other . . . and
make of architecture a more human social art."' I try to
talk about architecture rather than around it. Sir John
Summerson has referred to the architects' obsession with
"the importance, not of architecture, but of the relation of
architecture to other things." He has pointed out that in
this century architects have substituted the "mischievous
analogy" for the eclectic imitation of the nineteenth century,
and have been staking a claim for architecture rather than
producing architecture.' The result has been diagrammatic
planning. The architect's ever diminishing power and his
growing ineffectualness in shaping the whole environment
can perhaps be reversed, ironically, by narrowing his concerns
and concentrating on his own job. Perhaps then
relationships and power will take care of themselves. I
accept what seem to me architecture's inherent limitations,
and attempt to concentrate on the difficult particulars
within it rather than the easier abstractions about it ". . .
because the arts belong (as the ancients said) to the practical
and not the speculative intelligence, there is no surrogate
for being on the job.