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From: churayj@xxxxxxxxxx (raymond Chung)
Subject: Re: architecture, not sculpture
Message-ID: <churayj-220293024547@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
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<1993Feb20.071319.3519@xxxxxxxx>
Date: Mon, 22 Feb 1993 09:10:15 GMT
Lines: 87
In article <1993Feb20.071319.3519@xxxxxxxx>, rwzobel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Rick
Zobel) wrote:
(a few words removed)
> I do not believe that we are in a
> class above any of the other arts, if anything, just the opposite. We
> have not yet learned how to directly control the medium in which
> we work except through abstractions and scaled down three
> dimensional jewel boxes of models.
(more words removed)
> I would propose that we, as architectural designers lack the
> appropriate tools to adequately accomplish spatial design and
> spatial/experiential representation in anything more than two
> dimensional media, and so we are stuck saying that we are somehow
> better because we can do the same kinds of things as sculptors but
> without ever seeing what we are actually doing until it is far too late
> to do anything about it.
Ok, what you say is all and good, but you seem to be approaching the
argument from an inductive, almost pessimistic point of view. That is,
you've looked around and seen examples of really big mistakes or accidents,
so you want to develop a medium that safeguards against the unpredictable.
I was looking at it in an ideal way, as in "ideally, architects should be
able to transcend their models and drawings and anticipate every last
detail of their design." We have to, precisely because we cannot
experiment at full scale.
It seems that your problem with models and drawings is that they are
inadequate at communicating the design fully. Drawings and models, of
course, don't just sit there, they mean to communicate. And with any
communication, there is a speaker and a listener. If you consider the
speaker in this case to be the designer's drawing, and the listener to be
the designer himself (I don't do that "himself/herself" apology), then you
have a point -- but here the designer is obviously not brilliant enough to
see in his mind exactly what it is that he wants. This is where I say,
"ideally, architects should be able to transcend their models and
drawings..."
If, on the other hand, you consider the designer to be the speaker, and his
client the listener, then it is merely the designer's poor use/choice of
representational media that is at fault, not the media.
To reiterate, I think architects, true architects (the ones that go to
architect heaven), design experientially, haptically -- everything you say
drawings and models can't do -- and they do this with their mind's eye.
Drawings and models only begin to express aspects of a design that is very
real and very whole to them. It goes "design first, draw later."
Then there's the next point I want to make, which is that good architects
should be able to "read" a drawing or a model for what it suggests, and use
those suggestions to guide the design process. It is this very ability to
"read" that allows him to "write": if there is an idea that needs to be
expressed, the architect will find a way to express it, perhaps to the
exclusion of other ideas, but those other ideas will in turn find their own
drawing. (An extremely basic example is the plan-section drawing.) If the
viewer can't read the designer's drawing, then maybe something like VIRTUS
has to be used. But here, once again, it is only a failure to convince the
client, since the designer knows fully well what it is he wants to say.
If the architectural designer builds a model and studies it as chipboard
and glue, and not as a selective representation of an extremely complex and
whole thing, then he is nothing but a sculptor. This is, of course,
absurd. The simple ability to design at 1/4" scale, for example, is sign
of higher thinking, beyond sculpture and poetry. It is beyond those arts
because the final product exists until the very end only in the designer's
mind, and there it demands that the designer have complete understanding of
what will be, as there is nothing to study in person.
(I realize that sculptors, too, can design at 1/4" scale. Still, sculptors
have the benefit of changing their final full scale piece if necessary. As
Frank Lloyd Wright said, a doctor can bury his mistakes, an architect can
only plant some ivy.)
So to make all this talk about true, great, heavenly, ideal architects
relevant to us in the real world, I'll say that we should attempt to design
with our minds, and learn to read and write our ideas in the form of
drawings and models. It's all we CAN do, in fact. (Virtual reality
notwithstanding.) As long as we keep in mind that our precious jewel boxes
are more than Smurf houses, we shouldn't have the problem of unpredictable
architecture. So goes the theory anyway...
? = ! > .
raymond Chung
Newsgroups: alt.architecture
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From: churayj@xxxxxxxxxx (raymond Chung)
Subject: Re: architecture, not sculpture
Message-ID: <churayj-220293024547@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Followup-To: alt.architecture
Sender: news@xxxxxxxxxxxxx (USENET News System)
Nntp-Posting-Host: morse-college-kstar-node.net.yale.edu
Organization: peanut brittle college
References: <churayj-190293220344@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
<1993Feb20.071319.3519@xxxxxxxx>
Date: Mon, 22 Feb 1993 09:10:15 GMT
Lines: 87
In article <1993Feb20.071319.3519@xxxxxxxx>, rwzobel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Rick
Zobel) wrote:
(a few words removed)
> I do not believe that we are in a
> class above any of the other arts, if anything, just the opposite. We
> have not yet learned how to directly control the medium in which
> we work except through abstractions and scaled down three
> dimensional jewel boxes of models.
(more words removed)
> I would propose that we, as architectural designers lack the
> appropriate tools to adequately accomplish spatial design and
> spatial/experiential representation in anything more than two
> dimensional media, and so we are stuck saying that we are somehow
> better because we can do the same kinds of things as sculptors but
> without ever seeing what we are actually doing until it is far too late
> to do anything about it.
Ok, what you say is all and good, but you seem to be approaching the
argument from an inductive, almost pessimistic point of view. That is,
you've looked around and seen examples of really big mistakes or accidents,
so you want to develop a medium that safeguards against the unpredictable.
I was looking at it in an ideal way, as in "ideally, architects should be
able to transcend their models and drawings and anticipate every last
detail of their design." We have to, precisely because we cannot
experiment at full scale.
It seems that your problem with models and drawings is that they are
inadequate at communicating the design fully. Drawings and models, of
course, don't just sit there, they mean to communicate. And with any
communication, there is a speaker and a listener. If you consider the
speaker in this case to be the designer's drawing, and the listener to be
the designer himself (I don't do that "himself/herself" apology), then you
have a point -- but here the designer is obviously not brilliant enough to
see in his mind exactly what it is that he wants. This is where I say,
"ideally, architects should be able to transcend their models and
drawings..."
If, on the other hand, you consider the designer to be the speaker, and his
client the listener, then it is merely the designer's poor use/choice of
representational media that is at fault, not the media.
To reiterate, I think architects, true architects (the ones that go to
architect heaven), design experientially, haptically -- everything you say
drawings and models can't do -- and they do this with their mind's eye.
Drawings and models only begin to express aspects of a design that is very
real and very whole to them. It goes "design first, draw later."
Then there's the next point I want to make, which is that good architects
should be able to "read" a drawing or a model for what it suggests, and use
those suggestions to guide the design process. It is this very ability to
"read" that allows him to "write": if there is an idea that needs to be
expressed, the architect will find a way to express it, perhaps to the
exclusion of other ideas, but those other ideas will in turn find their own
drawing. (An extremely basic example is the plan-section drawing.) If the
viewer can't read the designer's drawing, then maybe something like VIRTUS
has to be used. But here, once again, it is only a failure to convince the
client, since the designer knows fully well what it is he wants to say.
If the architectural designer builds a model and studies it as chipboard
and glue, and not as a selective representation of an extremely complex and
whole thing, then he is nothing but a sculptor. This is, of course,
absurd. The simple ability to design at 1/4" scale, for example, is sign
of higher thinking, beyond sculpture and poetry. It is beyond those arts
because the final product exists until the very end only in the designer's
mind, and there it demands that the designer have complete understanding of
what will be, as there is nothing to study in person.
(I realize that sculptors, too, can design at 1/4" scale. Still, sculptors
have the benefit of changing their final full scale piece if necessary. As
Frank Lloyd Wright said, a doctor can bury his mistakes, an architect can
only plant some ivy.)
So to make all this talk about true, great, heavenly, ideal architects
relevant to us in the real world, I'll say that we should attempt to design
with our minds, and learn to read and write our ideas in the form of
drawings and models. It's all we CAN do, in fact. (Virtual reality
notwithstanding.) As long as we keep in mind that our precious jewel boxes
are more than Smurf houses, we shouldn't have the problem of unpredictable
architecture. So goes the theory anyway...
? = ! > .
raymond Chung