ARRANGEMENT
An axis is perhaps the first human manifestation; it is the means of every human act. The toddling child moves along an axis, the man striving in the tempest of life traces for himself an axis. The axis is the regulator of architecture. To establish order is to begin to work. Architecture is based on axes. The axes of the Schools are an architectural calamity. The axis is a line of direction leading to an end. In architecture, you must have a destination for your axis. In the Schools they have forgotten this and their axes cross one another in star-shapes, all leading to infinity, to the undefined, to the unknown, to nowhere, without end or aim. The axis of the Schools is a recipe and a dodge.
Arrangement is the grading of axes, and so it is the grading of aims, the classification of intentions.
The architect therefore assigns destinations to his axes. These ends are the wall (the plenum, sensorial sensation) or light and space (again sensorial sensation).
In actual fact a birds’-eye view such as is given by a plan on a drawing-board is not how axes are seen; they are seen from the ground, the beholder standing up and looking in front of him. The eye can reach a considerable distance and, like a clear lens, sees everything even beyond what was intended or wished. The axis of the Acropolis runs from the Piræus to Pentelicus, from the sea to the mountain. The Propylea are at right angles to the axis, in the distance on the horizon—the sea.
