The Story of Britain’s Best Buildings by Dan Cruickshank, 3/5

The commentary was generally tolerable and I appreciated the fact that all the photos were taken especially for this book (though it needed more photos).  However, the first chapter was filled with some of the most unmitigated bullshit I have ever read.  In the absence of reliable historical records about ancient Durham Cathedral, Cruickshank resorts to absolutely ridiculous architectural guesswork, making all sorts of strangely specific assertions about different aspects of the building.  For example, he describes a certain point in the cathedral as “the physical centre of the building and, in the analogy of the cathedral as Christ’s body, it marks the heart, the omphalos or navel that draws sustenance and sacred power from above.”  So what is it, the heart or the navel?  Could it perhaps be just the center of the building, which is an inevitable and not always wildly symbolic part of every single building ever made in the history of ever?  Here is another paragraph whose utter bullshittiness has to be read to be believed.  Keep in mind, this commentary is on a plain pillar with a simple chevron pattern carved into it.

“A simple analysis of the columns offers another answer.  The pattern is formed by 12 bands on each column, and each band has eight points, four pointing up and four pointing down.  The key or prime number here is four because eight and 12 evolve from four, and four is the number of the square.  In fact, the chevrons on this pattern can easily be explained in relation to the square.  Take a square and then place a second square on top of it but rotated 45 degrees and you have an octagram or eight-pointed star.  Turn alternate points up and down and you have one of the chevron bands on the column.  This pattern seems, then, also to be proclaiming the importance of the square in the design of Durham – this time in the form of an eight-pointed star.  The column, based on the circle, and the chevron, based on the square, are in combination perhaps another exercise in squaring the circle.”

Now if only Cruickshank would do an exercise in taking his head out of his own ass.