ON THE COMPARATIVE METHOD
By Sir Banister Fletcher
‘The History of Architecture on the comparative method’ was written by Senior Banister Fletcher and his son Sir Banister Fletcher in 1895. Senior Banister Fletcher was an architect from London, Britain. He was surveyor and politician. He was professor in King’s College, London. His son Sir Banister Fletcher served as lecturer under his father at the same college. His work for the history of architecture became reference book for the next generation students, scholars, professors and craftsmen. The recent edition of the book published is the 20th in 1996 after almost 100 years of its 1st edition (1895).
The idea of one reference book as a compendium in books like Encyclopedia of different information has existed from 2000 years and has evolved and modified over the centuries. ‘One compendium for all different fields’ and ‘one compendium for one specific field’ are the notions or principles on which these texts were written by now. But importantly, why the compendium is necessary is here to be thought of. Philosopher Rene Descartes approached to uncover the truth of natural world from mathematics and science in 16th century. Scientists like Newton and Einstein also have explored the knowledge from questioning out of the preset framework of knowledge.
1st edition of this text covered European architecture that was published in 1901. There were two categories of architecture that time. One, kind of architecture included in the text and another was the left outside the compilation. The arguments between elites decided what type of architecture to be included or to excluded from their cultural, social gatherings.
In introduction the tree of architecture shows different styles and their growth or evolution from different aspects like culture, physical conditions, politics etc. canonical principles, structural, geometry and ideology.
19th edition structure of the text completely changed. There are new chapters on the twentieth-century architecture of the Middle East (including Israel), South-east Asia, Hong Kong, Japan and Korea, the Indian subcontinent, Russia and the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe and Latin America. History writing is also seen from the local perspective and tried to be understood from local cultural perspective in newer editions of the text.
Contemporary to that time, James Fergusson and James Burgess also wrote History of eastern architecture. But unlike Sir Banister Fletcher, these were regional category of architecture. Sir Banister Fletcher’s attempt covered the architecture across the world.
In India, one does not find the written/ documented historiography of the civilizations. Similarly, the documentation of styles of architecture is also not found through any historical documentation. This text has documented not only Indian, but also various styles of the world architecture. The methods of writing are also modified to the emerging approaches according to appropriateness. This text has been a reference text to study architecture for generations and continues to be… for architects, students, historians, artisans and so on…