Architecture depicting architecture

This story began long ago. At first, ancient architects designed sculptural compositions — gods, palm trees, plants (ornament) — essentially acting as artists depicting nature in stone. Then the Greeks began to build stone temples that depicted wooden houses, the everyday work of carpenters.

If you look at the Doric order, it's an exaggerated depiction of a wooden porch with a canopy: posts (columns), the ends of the joists (triglyphs), the ends of the rafters (mutules), and even the nail heads (guttae). The real fragments and joints of the structure are masked, while others are merely depicted.

Creating something new is hard. The mind clings to patterns. A century ago, Le Corbusier advised treating the house as a machine — a revolutionary step, but still framed by reference to something else. Carriages and the first automobiles were built in the shape of baroque houses on wheels. Facade decor carefully depicts the houses and materials of bygone centuries.

The fear of being yourself is architecture's inherited trauma.