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Quatremère de Quincy became an influential administrator of the arts at the Institut des Beaux‐Arts in Paris during the early nineteenth century. He initially studied as a sculptor, however, at the French school in Rome, where he was influenced by Winckelmann’s ideas, and in his early career wrote extensively on architecture. In the present text, he argues against claims that Greek architecture was indebted to Egypt, and tries to look below the surface of what he regarded as merely superficial similarities, in order to essay something akin to a grammar of architecture. What makes this of note for the present anthology is that he rooted his conception of architecture in contemporary theories of human social evolution, from hunter‐gatherers to pastoralists to agriculture (cf. IIC8). Quatremère argues that three primordial architectural forms – the cave, the tent and the hut – stood at the root of Egyptian, Chinese and Greek architecture respectively. What is significant about the text is not so much the veracity of Quatremère’s claims as such (e.g. whether Chinese architecture was ‘really’ grounded in the tent, or Egyptian in the cave, or Greek in the hut) but the way that his argument builds a bridge between socio‐economic theory on the one hand and material culture on the other – a connection that is not always secure even today. In changed circumstances – not least in the wake of fully fledged theories of evolution – Quatremère’s claim about the roots of architecture and early technologies of plaiting and weaving was to have a bearing on the nineteenth‐century debate over the origins of art (cf. IIIA12 and IVC passim, especially IVC8). The present extracts are taken from De l’Architecture Égyptienne, considérée dans son origine, ses principes et son goût, et comparée sous les mêmes rapports à l’Architecture Grecque, Paris, 1785, pp. 12–19. They were translated for this volume by Chris Miller. (Further selections from Quatremère de Quincy can be found in Art in Theory 1648–1815 IVB7, pp. 710–18 and Art in Theory 1815–1900 IB5 pp. 120–5.)

Architecture was not invented by any one people. It is, by nature, a universal consequence of the needs of humankind and of the pleasures that are, in the social state, inseparable from those needs.

The invention of architecture must be paralleled with that of language, meaning that neither invention can be attributed to any individual; both are among the attributes of humankind. […]

It would be a grave error if, by confusing the principles of the universal grammar that pertains to language itself with the syntactical rules particular to each language, one sought to establish an affinity based solely on the fact that two languages both possessed declensions and conjugations. In this field, I am not aware of anyone who has fallen into such error.

By contrast, one might say that, in architecture, this kind of error has very rarely been avoided. The general maxims of the art of building, common to all forms of architecture, have almost invariably been confused with the particular principles and originating circumstances of each tradition, so that connections and kinship have been imagined to exist between the most mutually exclusive species of architecture.

A great many authors claim that the origins of Greek architecture are to be found in Egypt because the Egyptians employed columns, capitals, cornices, and so on in their buildings before the Greeks.

In an area as susceptible to the spirit of system as architecture, if once superficial authors bring to bear either too vague or too confined a knowledge, if once an ignorance of the facts, an irrelevant preoccupation or mere bad judgement infiltrate the elements of their analysis, there is no limit to the abuse that they are capable of committing in this field, no limit to the superficiality of their inferences, analogies or comparisons.

One needs neither profoundly researched notions nor a great power of reason to perceive that several of the similarities discovered between the architectures of different peoples indicate neither a common origin nor a communication of taste. There is, in the nature of the case, an important distinction to be made between characteristic features and general ones. In this field, the spirit of sane enquiry lies in distinguishing common features – the elementary resemblances resulting from the uniformity of certain universal causes – from true resemblances, which are the local or particular results of affinity or imitation. […]

Among the causes that must very actively have determined the characteristic forms of different architectural traditions, one can hardly deny that the lifestyle of the nascent societies should be among the foremost; and it must be confessed that this cause is one of the easiest to discern. One finds it inscribed in the history of a people and imprinted on their monuments.

Three styles of life necessarily predominated in the earliest societies. In accordance with the diversity of the regions in which they found themselves, nature presented them with one of these three conditions, which even today distinguish the different regions of the world. Men were, depending on their location, either hunters, shepherds or farmers. Fish‐eaters are of course to be included in the class of hunters.

The notion that this difference in lifestyle failed to produce an essential and characteristic difference in the style of the first shelters that primitive industry appropriated for itself beggars belief.

For a long time, hunting or fishing peoples cannot have constructed any habitation for themselves. The former in view of the long expeditions that they make, and the latter in view of their sedentary and indolent condition of life, either on the shores of lakes or seas or along river banks, find it more convenient to excavate dwellings from the earth or take advantage of excavations already made by nature itself. All travellers’ accounts testify to the continued existence of this mode of being, and their narratives, like those of the past, prove to us how natural and common the use of underground chambers was for the primitive dwellings of a great number of peoples.

A people of shepherds, constantly in movement, always migrating from one place to another to find new pastures, cannot make use of these dwellings hollowed out by the hand of nature. They cannot be detained by a fixed dwelling, as they need movable ones that can accompany them; hence, from time immemorial, the use of tents.

By contrast, agriculture requires a life that is simultaneously active and sedentary. This must have suggested to mankind that it build solider and more fixed dwellings. Moreover, the farmer, living on his field and on what it produces, has provisions to store and needs a safe, comfortable, healthy and extensive dwelling. The wooden cabin, with its roof, must soon have arisen.

These three conditions of life necessarily had an active and immediate influence on the use and choice of the earliest inhabitations. But it is not at all my intention to deny that other natural causes, such as the materials available, the scarcity or abundance of forest, and the influences of climate also acted as determining causes in these habits. It is not suggested that anything here can be attributed exclusively to a single principle. On the contrary, the object is to argue and demonstrate a plurality of principles and from these deduce the inevitability of divergent consequences.

The various principles cited above suggested to mankind dwellings of very different kinds and these primitive dwellings, in their turn, suggested a wide range of models to the art of architecture.

It should further be observed that, in every country, architecture takes on at the moment of its generation that essential form whose development subsequently produces such remarkably different results. Shapeless as this seed might seem, it already bears within it certain characteristics it will never subsequently lose and that can be discerned in its loftiest development. […]

The knowledge of the state of Egyptian architecture that it is our task in this volume to impart and develop therefore requires that we distinguish certain of the essential causes that must have imprinted its character. From this form of discernment will arise our ability to establish a parallel between it and Greek architecture, which, uncovering the properties of each, will help to distinguish, among the resemblances that will be encountered, those that must be attributed to the general action of a universal principle from those that reveal the spirit of imitation or borrowing.

All buildings, in every architecture, have supports known as columns. But does this element of conformity between, for example, Chinese and Indian architecture prove that the one borrowed from the other? Before drawing this conclusion, we must examine the character, system and kind of their columns. And if we find that they are not only different but indeed contrasting in their forms, proportions and essential mode of being, we should conclude that completely different types presided over their formation. Imitation of tents is inscribed into every limb of Chinese architecture. Its curved roofs, its cut‐out effects,¹ its narrow supports and coloured decorations together declare that their houses imitated the primitive dwelling of the former pastoral state – and this is consistent with the most reliable information that we have on the early lifestyle of the Chinese, who were, like all Tartars, nomads or tent‐peoples, that is, they camped with their flocks before they had towns.

The pavilion‐shaped roofs of China and the gabled roofs of Greece are, moreover, objects that have no relation other than the general one of covering and capping. The Greek gable or pediment belongs to a system of construction independent of any other. Like every other part and arrangement of this architectural tradition, it is connected to the principle of the wooden frame and to a faithful imitation of the wooden cabin, whose imprint has survived in so authentic a fashion in the productions of the highly developed art as to guarantee its originality.

In Egyptian architecture, too, a native principle must be acknowledged. And if, in all its buildings, both overall and in every detail, we find a perfect resemblance with the taste and nature of underground dwellings, it will be concluded, that, having an origin so very different to that of Greek architecture, it could not easily have communicated its tastes and principles to that tradition. It follows that Greek borrowings from Egypt can only have been of details and accessories alien to the constitution of its architecture.

It may also follow that the two traditions should be considered devoid of any generic mutual relationship, like two species distinct in their essential conformation. That the one should have preceded the other – even were this as clearly demonstrated as it is, in fact, difficult to show – would be an argument of little value in this field. The date of their birth is, indeed, of little importance if each was born of a different seed.