122 What is Architectural History?
of the theory that Terry Eagleton wrote of as ‘critical self-
refl ection... Theory of this kind comes about when we
are forced into a new self-consciousness about what we are
doing.’^10 When we follow Vidler’s cue and ask what ‘work’
architectural history does, or did, we are also asking how it
participated in this theoretical moment as an expression of
disciplinary or epistemological self-consciousness. How did
critical history-as-theory serve architectural culture in this
moment of (sometimes extreme) relativization and (often
dense, even impenetrable) textual production? How did the
interdisciplinary dissemination of critical theory shape its
historiographical production – and the ‘work’ done by archi-
tectural history for architecture?
Although widespread and infl uential, this development
was not universal. Many architectural historians resisted
architecture’s turn to theory, offering a fi rm ground for those
pursuing the scientifi c study of architectural history that was
regarded as obstinate and naïve by those of the theory camp.
Some openly declared this theory moment as transitory and
refused to engage with its whimsies. Others recognized the
theorist-historian’s tools from the older traditions of philol-
ogy and the cultural sciences. It is in the nature of this resis-
tance not to be explicit about methods and perspectives, but
to focus on the subject at hand. The dust-jacket copy of
Christoph L. Frommel’s Architecture of the Italian Renais-
sance (2007) is nevertheless symptomatic of this latter insis-
tence on a solid approach to architectural history.^11 His
publishers present the book by observing, ‘Avoiding the
straitjacket of fashionable theory, this book is organized
traditionally by period and architect. Social context, techni-
cal innovation and aesthetic judgement are all given due
weight.’ We ought not to read too much into this statement.
Frommel’s position is not, after all, conservative in the sense
that non-theoretical histories were regularly held to be across
recent decades. He rather intimates the security with which
he views the tools of his discipline and their limitations.
Despite the high profi le and often-privileged status of theo-
rized architectural history in the 1980s and 1990s, the
persistence of architectural historians like Frommel and
institutions like the Bibliotheca Hertziana, for which he once
served as Director, gave post-theory historians of architecture