106 What is Architectural History?
appeared in the latter’s journal L’Architettura (September
1957), Millon grappled with Zevi’s assertions as to how
useful architectural history ought to be and whether or not
historians ought to try to make their history useful to archi-
tects as a matter of course – to press home its utility by
conceiving of its applicability as a fundamental aspect of
architectural historiography. Behind these questions lies the
issue of architectural history’s proper audience. Are these
specialist histories written for specialists in architectural
history? Or for scholars and students of the humanities more
generally? Or for architects? Consider Millon’s questions:
Why does a man teach architectural history and how ‘useful’
can it be? What does the teacher hope to pass on to the
student? Is history a new tool for fashioning better architects?
Is history the distribution of capsules of information that will
either act as a purgative to rid the student of preconceived
notions, or as a vitamin to invest his designs with new vigour?
Is there a direct relation between historical knowledge and
architectural excellence?
Or, may history be simply one of those things which aids
in the maturation process of an individual, be he architect or
businessman? Is it perhaps a fi eld of study in which students
learn something about themselves and others as human beings
and as creators, in their greatness and their littleness? Does
it perhaps instil a respect for valid achievement, a contempt
for vacuous pretence, and develop the ability to discriminate
between them?^14Millon here responds to Zevi’s plea in L’Architettura for a
form of architectural education that would make history
teaching its ‘backbone’, subjugating all specializations of
architectural education to the meta-framework of architec-
ture’s history. The teaching of construction, design, building
law and so on would fall under departments of architectural
history. Everyone in a school of architecture would be a critic
or historian of one stripe or another, using historical knowl-
edge as best befi ts their specialist subject. In this way, all
architectural history would be useful, because it would help
students of architecture to understand their place in time and
would expose them to a plethora of worthy models and
exemplars: ‘Many professors’, Millon quotes, ‘with the most
varied artistic and technical inclinations teaching only one