the following is a forwarded exchange regarding Eisenman, and i think
it links into Anand's post regarding 2nd order architectures... brian
........................................................................
bc: first, i think anthro-architecture is at the core of the questioning
of an 'architectural code'. i think it is the key, so to speak, to
understanding how Structuralism and Post-Structuralism/Post-Modernism
have come about in the interdisciplinary architecture departments. my
feeling has been one of trying to uncover the prime movers of thought
in architecture. that is, why are people reading Derrida and Semiotics
and Baudrillard... and, for me, it seems that the influence of both
linguistics (arriving in architectural discourse in the 1960s...) and
anthropology are a focal point for the paradigmatic change from the
Modern to pre- and post-Modernism. that is, i think these fields, and
their combination, are at the locus classicus of the change.
nold >>>In my view it is rather an either/or question.
I am very sceptical regarding the 'applications' you mention.
I have dealt quite some time with Levy-Strauss. He widely
projects his French rationalism on 'wild' thought. This is
particularly evident where he deals with the spatial organisation
of traditional environments. Within anthropology this has been
critically registered (e.g. Oppitz in 'SOFTWARE FOR A SOFT
PREHISTORY' -> our website) but in the architectural domain this
problematic aspect seems not yet clarified. Doubtless there is
an affinity of these highly abstract theories to architecture,
but my conviction is, that we have to study architecture itself to
gain relevant and reliable criteria. Why always use 'second hand
theories'?
not that i really know this to be officially/legitimately "true", but
it has sparked what i consider a link inbetween your anthropological
architectural research and recent and present-day architectural theory.
that is, i think that 'archaeology' is the discipline that neatly fits
inbetween anthropology and architecture, and that is where i am now
conceptually organizing/identifying the origin of my own research.
nold2>>>Basically I agree with you, but "true" is probably not an adequate
word in this context. "Plausible" might be better. Remember Karl
Popper's white and black swans. We just formulate hypotheses,
build theories. They might be plausible. Eventually they will be
falsified. We have to modify our hypotheses.
In regard to archaeology there is a problem. Its sources might be
extremely fragmented. Consequently, it might not be the best method
to reconstruct the developments of architecture (-> 'Habitat
Anthropology and the anthropological definition of material culture).
In view of your posts in the Design-List:
nold>Sometimes I was temptated to enter into the discussion, but working
>essentially from my inductive sources, I hesitate to write about things
>which I do not feel well informed about. With new topics this may take
>time.
what i desire to know about your work is how you apply it to every-
day knowledge. that is, how do you approach architectural situations-
what are your first thoughts, what are your first actions, what do you
think about traditional architecture and modern buildings, and even
famous World Class Architecture of the priests of the discipline..
nold2>>>Maybe it is better to talk about this in a later discussion.
your following insightful ideas i look forward to reading on Design-L:
n>I read with great interest your recent review of Eisenman's article 'The
>End of the Classical'. It sounds like a "super-reformation" of architecture
>being on the way! However, creation, invention, belief based on 'reading'
>architecture without understanding its historically grown language is, I
>think, highly questionable (exaggerating: imagine a Chinese child having
>learned Western letters, but not knowing English as a language. It does not
>make sense to 'read' English!). Evidently Eisenman wants to re-invent the
>wheel of architecture!
Eisenman, and others, seem to think 'letters' have no materiality, that
they are transparent and ethereal. i take the opposite position, if only
due to the language phenomenon of dyslexia, the misinterpretation of the
form and order of letters and numbers, amongst other things. i think that
letters are spatio-temporal objects, a code, so to speak. it is a thesis
i hope to write about someday, called the Architecture of Language. my
premise is that, for Greco-Roman civilization there is an often repeated
symbol, it is a square with axes crossing over it at midpoints and at
corners. this architectural form (i intuited), was an interesting anomoly.
i played around with it and realized that the whole Roman alphabet could
be found in this geometric form. i made a few animated examples of how
the alphabet and number systems could be derived from this symbol, at:
http://www.architexturez.com/site/proposals/hiox/jewelry/jewelry_m.htm
nold2>>> Eisenmann has probably never dealt with Chinese signs. They are
abstracted, but not abstract. Turn the sign for tree upside down and
it will be absurd. There is a very concrete relation between sign
and reality: Chinese signs are icons. Whatever their prototypes,
they would not exist without them. We have to clarify these
processes!
as for semiotecture or 'architecture as language', i think i agree with
Eisenman that most people do not need to be told what buildings are in
the most basic sense. that is, we are born in a culture that incorporates
buildings into our psyches. but, Eisenman differentiates between mere
buildings and 'Architecture', that special, mystical establishment. in
that sense, i do not think most people can read buildings at the level
of clarity of someone who knows the "words/buildings" of the past. i
also think, like you, that it sounds of a reformation of mind, which
i think could be dangerous thinking in certain circumstances, potentially
erasing ideas/memories/buildings as a result. interesting thoughts, Nold..
n2>>>This is, I think, an important point. "we are born in[to] a culture
that incorporates buildings into our psyches". The architect
knows very little about these conditions. He is trained to measure
himself with other architects, essentially, in a constant 'what's new'
procedure which is considered as norm. But, there might be another
dimension, a need for continuity, stability, which to some extent
finds compensation today in rural or urban tourism. In my view these
architectural 'imprints' are not mystic: we do not sufficiently
understand how architecture creates identity.
Again regarding Eisenmann:
nold>I can definitely not agree with his 3 fictions. As you imply: they are
>tactics. In my view: to 'virtualise' terms ('jelly-words') and thus cut the
>problem off from the concrete aspects of the subject, also from the need of
>factual knowledge about history.
yes, i've been wondering about how one goes about 'reading' his buildings
if they cannot use reason, history, or representation. i think these are
still necessary, maybe not always first-order principles of design, but
of logic and thought, most certainly, .. unless-- and maybe this is what
Eisenman was speculating: a post-language/pre-language architecture. in
that, i think your premodern preclassic work is prescient.
n>Of course it can be said, that the whole perceptional history of 'The
>Classic' is distorted from Winckelmann on. But, this stands in the wider
>framework of the historistic antiquity euphory, which has its roots and
>impulses in Renaissance. It is active into our days among those favouring
>'classic' education or Renaissance 'humanism'.
yes, i think that is where Eisenman argued that 'The Classic' became a
second-order, as 'The Classical', Humanism driving its euphemism of an
enlightenment that i think Eisenman conjures from the absence of such
second-order ideas/veils of truth/reality, or the absense thereof.
nold2>>>I think Eisenman is essentially a reaction, a movement towards the
wrong side of higher abstraction. 'Tabula rasa' is not a very
convincing program.
nold>On the other hand, in spite of these distortions, there was a 'high
>ontological value element' related to 'The Classic'. As a secret code it
>supported the survival of classic forms in the framework of a nebulous awe
>related to an elitarian past. In my view this code survives also in its
>virtual form (TV White House!).
exactly. you nailed the idea i was trying to present on the head. the
US White House is an enlightenment messaging system that is still at
work when being transmitted electromagnetically through television.
the architectural CODE is still working, centuries later, in the
newer electronic medium. not only that code, but codes nonetheless.
i think Eisenman would agree about your statement above and below...
n>This code is the important thing! We might call it the 'anthropological
>code', because we know today (archaeology of the Ancient Near East and
>Egypt) that what we call 'The Classic' was not a beginning. It had already
>thousands of years behind it. We can not understand 'The Classic' without
>its deeper roots.
for me this idea of an architectural CODE is at the center of my mind.
i often wish that given our parallel architectural processor of Design-L,
that we could collectively crack it, and store the data on architexturez.
this architectural code, i belief, is somewhere inbetween the structural
and conceptual connections between anthropology-archaeology-architecture.
that is my guess. that is where i am finding my research methodology from.
n>Remarkable in this context is the widely demonstrated and cross-culturally
>valid premodern fact that a society uses the forms known from the most
>venerated past to form their contemporary architectural works of highest
>ontological value. Ontology here implies 'worldview' that is a complex
>value system composed of religion, philosophy, aesthetics, social
>structure, etc.). It is an identity problem. If one does research into this
>parameter ('settlement core complex'), one finds out that premodern
>architecture zealously preserved this code through thousands of years
>because it was felt to have some primordial informations. This could be
>used in support of any cultural conditions (because it was considered
>basic), or could stand critically against the Zeitgeist of an epoch
>(because the latter was felt not to be basic). Now, it would be a pity to
>theoretically throw this tremendously continuous code on the garbage heap
>of history. If, in the near future, we were forced to introduce
>'sustainability' into architecture, it might help us to reconstruct the
>architecture of the 21st century.
exactly. i do think Eisenman _wanted_ this result, but viewed only the
original, not the copy, as the "real" architecture/code. what, if not
language, is the basis for the medium and messaging of architecture?
nold2>>> ...architecture itself!
n>On the other hand I am not surprised that architectural theory transcends
>its conventional aesthetic pseudo-theology into the even higher level of a
>real theology of the architect as an absolute and omnipotent creator.
>However, the same can be seen as a very problematic step towards a
>'globo-totalitarian anarchy of autistic invention'. In the following some
>arguments supporting this:
>* As an art pour l'art theory it neglects the anthropos for whom, in fact
>it pretends to build. In contrast to modernism, when the programs were
>substantially rooted in the 'belief' of an industrialised sedentarisation,
>Eisenman's 'theory' offers merely the subjective 'architectural fiction'
>taylored on the absolute freedom of the architect genius himself.
>* It propagates an attitude of ominiscience and omnipotence which neglects
>the consequences in terms of adaptations required by 'commoners' or 'laics'
>to such 'readable landscapes'.
>* It is blinded by a highly speculative creative progressism ("timeless"
>space of invention) which neglects the fact that the built environment is
>also an important orientation system for the rest of the population and
>that it always includes history.
very very interesting!
n>In short: I agree that architecture can be read. But someone who suggests
>reading it by considering 'The Classic' as fiction cannot be taken serious.
>Eisenman shows that he may be able to read architecture 'literally' but,
>unfortunately', does not understand architecture as language. At least in
>the case of 'The Classic'!
i may indeed have mistaken/misread Eisenman and presented his argument
without enough clarity, but i do think these points hold from my own
experience, even though i think Eisenman did/does think 'The Classic'
can be read literally-- he may be ulta-modern, as in 'tabula rasa'...
nold2>>>Maybe one should clarify the relation between "ultra-modern" and
"plausibility".
n>These are just some ideas stimulated by your review. Maybe I am wrong,
>developments will go in the direction of Eisenman towards some sort of a
>'hightech-neo-medievalism'. Humanities are artificially retarded,
>technology develops without restraints. Architects will increasingly build
>the 'cathedrals' of their own cults. Or, maybe I am not entirely wrong. The
>humanities would then discover the misleading historicisms in their 20th
>century 'scientific' worldview and would develop as a whole more towards a
>global anthropology extending the term architecture into this direction.
>Eisenman's extreme subjectivity will be questioned by billions of
>architects who, through thousands of years, modestly experimenting with
>their traditions, found some very valuable solutions, particularly in
>regard to 'identity' and 'sustainability'! We would have a lot to learn!
right on. maybe the issue, in a word, is this: Classic Eisenman. and
Classic Gehry, Classic Kahn, Classic Wright, Classic Mies, Classic
Namibian, Classic Rome, Classic High-Tech... an evolution from the
collective of civilizations to the arcitectural styles of individuals
and their copyrighted design CODES, with mimicry/infringment in tow.
nold2>>> I would rather tend to leave the term classic where it is, suggesting
that it should be studied more in depth. If we understand the codes
that made it livable in the widest sense, we might use them for our
times. Not by copying its forms, but by using their essence for more
humane modern purposes.
>Best regards
>
>
>Nold Egenter
>
>P.S. 1 I agree with you that architecture can be seen as 'letter' in the
>concrete sense, but this would be another discussion into the problems of
>semiotics with their linguistic roots. You may have noticed that I was
>invited to write my article in Semiotica as some sort of 'advocatus
>diaboli'.
i hope, over the next few years, we can get more into these ideas. i
didn't see the Semiotica article, please send a link if you have one..
>>> It is found under the title 'Did Rock Art Copy fibroconstructive Art?'
in our website.
>P.S. 2 Thank you also for the forwarded text regarding the website on
>Harappa finds. It seems that there too in the earliest stages twigs and
>bundeled objects were used as signs and (cultic?) symbols.
you bet. i have two books which come to mind: Primitive Architecture,
(Rizzolli Press) and Animal Architecture. i think you would find both
of interest.
>>> I know both. Marvellous pictures in 'Animal Architecture' of Pallasmaa.
Or do you mean the one by von Frisch?
>P.S. 3 What did you mean with "...(too) a-moral, in the extreme." in regard
>to Eisenman's philosophy?
good question: i don't know. you see, i try to keep level-headed, but
when i heard Eisenman give a lecture when i was in architecture school,
he was bragging about how he made occupants of a Japanese Office Building
trip when they would walk up the stairs, because he made every stair of
a different rise and tread. thus, people would have to pay attention to
the way they were walking, to notice the stairs, else they might fall
or even hurt themselves. about this, Eisenman intellectually laughed.
but, from my viewpoint, it wasn't funny, it was bravado, an issue of
total control, of a potential power-freak. that is when i thought his
philosophy was unethical or 'too a-moral'.. i both do and do not agree
with this feeling on the whole, but, i do think there are some ethical
slights of hand that can ultimately become dangerous, such as if this
design philosophy spread and another, less-human establishment begins
to build its empire on top of this one...
>>> A kind of architectural sensitivity training, which could be
interesting. But, it is true, in this form (stone-stairs) it is
fairly malicious!
>> > > > > > > > > > See our INTERNET-Homepage:
>>http://home.worldcom.ch/~negenter
>
>Nold Egenter
>DOFSBT, Chorgasse 19
>CH-8001 Zuerich, Switzerland
>Tel.: +41-1-2516075
>Fx: +41-21-3231707
>----or:
>e-mail: negenter@xxxxxxxxxxx
it links into Anand's post regarding 2nd order architectures... brian
........................................................................
bc: first, i think anthro-architecture is at the core of the questioning
of an 'architectural code'. i think it is the key, so to speak, to
understanding how Structuralism and Post-Structuralism/Post-Modernism
have come about in the interdisciplinary architecture departments. my
feeling has been one of trying to uncover the prime movers of thought
in architecture. that is, why are people reading Derrida and Semiotics
and Baudrillard... and, for me, it seems that the influence of both
linguistics (arriving in architectural discourse in the 1960s...) and
anthropology are a focal point for the paradigmatic change from the
Modern to pre- and post-Modernism. that is, i think these fields, and
their combination, are at the locus classicus of the change.
nold >>>In my view it is rather an either/or question.
I am very sceptical regarding the 'applications' you mention.
I have dealt quite some time with Levy-Strauss. He widely
projects his French rationalism on 'wild' thought. This is
particularly evident where he deals with the spatial organisation
of traditional environments. Within anthropology this has been
critically registered (e.g. Oppitz in 'SOFTWARE FOR A SOFT
PREHISTORY' -> our website) but in the architectural domain this
problematic aspect seems not yet clarified. Doubtless there is
an affinity of these highly abstract theories to architecture,
but my conviction is, that we have to study architecture itself to
gain relevant and reliable criteria. Why always use 'second hand
theories'?
not that i really know this to be officially/legitimately "true", but
it has sparked what i consider a link inbetween your anthropological
architectural research and recent and present-day architectural theory.
that is, i think that 'archaeology' is the discipline that neatly fits
inbetween anthropology and architecture, and that is where i am now
conceptually organizing/identifying the origin of my own research.
nold2>>>Basically I agree with you, but "true" is probably not an adequate
word in this context. "Plausible" might be better. Remember Karl
Popper's white and black swans. We just formulate hypotheses,
build theories. They might be plausible. Eventually they will be
falsified. We have to modify our hypotheses.
In regard to archaeology there is a problem. Its sources might be
extremely fragmented. Consequently, it might not be the best method
to reconstruct the developments of architecture (-> 'Habitat
Anthropology and the anthropological definition of material culture).
In view of your posts in the Design-List:
nold>Sometimes I was temptated to enter into the discussion, but working
>essentially from my inductive sources, I hesitate to write about things
>which I do not feel well informed about. With new topics this may take
>time.
what i desire to know about your work is how you apply it to every-
day knowledge. that is, how do you approach architectural situations-
what are your first thoughts, what are your first actions, what do you
think about traditional architecture and modern buildings, and even
famous World Class Architecture of the priests of the discipline..
nold2>>>Maybe it is better to talk about this in a later discussion.
your following insightful ideas i look forward to reading on Design-L:
n>I read with great interest your recent review of Eisenman's article 'The
>End of the Classical'. It sounds like a "super-reformation" of architecture
>being on the way! However, creation, invention, belief based on 'reading'
>architecture without understanding its historically grown language is, I
>think, highly questionable (exaggerating: imagine a Chinese child having
>learned Western letters, but not knowing English as a language. It does not
>make sense to 'read' English!). Evidently Eisenman wants to re-invent the
>wheel of architecture!
Eisenman, and others, seem to think 'letters' have no materiality, that
they are transparent and ethereal. i take the opposite position, if only
due to the language phenomenon of dyslexia, the misinterpretation of the
form and order of letters and numbers, amongst other things. i think that
letters are spatio-temporal objects, a code, so to speak. it is a thesis
i hope to write about someday, called the Architecture of Language. my
premise is that, for Greco-Roman civilization there is an often repeated
symbol, it is a square with axes crossing over it at midpoints and at
corners. this architectural form (i intuited), was an interesting anomoly.
i played around with it and realized that the whole Roman alphabet could
be found in this geometric form. i made a few animated examples of how
the alphabet and number systems could be derived from this symbol, at:
http://www.architexturez.com/site/proposals/hiox/jewelry/jewelry_m.htm
nold2>>> Eisenmann has probably never dealt with Chinese signs. They are
abstracted, but not abstract. Turn the sign for tree upside down and
it will be absurd. There is a very concrete relation between sign
and reality: Chinese signs are icons. Whatever their prototypes,
they would not exist without them. We have to clarify these
processes!
as for semiotecture or 'architecture as language', i think i agree with
Eisenman that most people do not need to be told what buildings are in
the most basic sense. that is, we are born in a culture that incorporates
buildings into our psyches. but, Eisenman differentiates between mere
buildings and 'Architecture', that special, mystical establishment. in
that sense, i do not think most people can read buildings at the level
of clarity of someone who knows the "words/buildings" of the past. i
also think, like you, that it sounds of a reformation of mind, which
i think could be dangerous thinking in certain circumstances, potentially
erasing ideas/memories/buildings as a result. interesting thoughts, Nold..
n2>>>This is, I think, an important point. "we are born in[to] a culture
that incorporates buildings into our psyches". The architect
knows very little about these conditions. He is trained to measure
himself with other architects, essentially, in a constant 'what's new'
procedure which is considered as norm. But, there might be another
dimension, a need for continuity, stability, which to some extent
finds compensation today in rural or urban tourism. In my view these
architectural 'imprints' are not mystic: we do not sufficiently
understand how architecture creates identity.
Again regarding Eisenmann:
nold>I can definitely not agree with his 3 fictions. As you imply: they are
>tactics. In my view: to 'virtualise' terms ('jelly-words') and thus cut the
>problem off from the concrete aspects of the subject, also from the need of
>factual knowledge about history.
yes, i've been wondering about how one goes about 'reading' his buildings
if they cannot use reason, history, or representation. i think these are
still necessary, maybe not always first-order principles of design, but
of logic and thought, most certainly, .. unless-- and maybe this is what
Eisenman was speculating: a post-language/pre-language architecture. in
that, i think your premodern preclassic work is prescient.
n>Of course it can be said, that the whole perceptional history of 'The
>Classic' is distorted from Winckelmann on. But, this stands in the wider
>framework of the historistic antiquity euphory, which has its roots and
>impulses in Renaissance. It is active into our days among those favouring
>'classic' education or Renaissance 'humanism'.
yes, i think that is where Eisenman argued that 'The Classic' became a
second-order, as 'The Classical', Humanism driving its euphemism of an
enlightenment that i think Eisenman conjures from the absence of such
second-order ideas/veils of truth/reality, or the absense thereof.
nold2>>>I think Eisenman is essentially a reaction, a movement towards the
wrong side of higher abstraction. 'Tabula rasa' is not a very
convincing program.
nold>On the other hand, in spite of these distortions, there was a 'high
>ontological value element' related to 'The Classic'. As a secret code it
>supported the survival of classic forms in the framework of a nebulous awe
>related to an elitarian past. In my view this code survives also in its
>virtual form (TV White House!).
exactly. you nailed the idea i was trying to present on the head. the
US White House is an enlightenment messaging system that is still at
work when being transmitted electromagnetically through television.
the architectural CODE is still working, centuries later, in the
newer electronic medium. not only that code, but codes nonetheless.
i think Eisenman would agree about your statement above and below...
n>This code is the important thing! We might call it the 'anthropological
>code', because we know today (archaeology of the Ancient Near East and
>Egypt) that what we call 'The Classic' was not a beginning. It had already
>thousands of years behind it. We can not understand 'The Classic' without
>its deeper roots.
for me this idea of an architectural CODE is at the center of my mind.
i often wish that given our parallel architectural processor of Design-L,
that we could collectively crack it, and store the data on architexturez.
this architectural code, i belief, is somewhere inbetween the structural
and conceptual connections between anthropology-archaeology-architecture.
that is my guess. that is where i am finding my research methodology from.
n>Remarkable in this context is the widely demonstrated and cross-culturally
>valid premodern fact that a society uses the forms known from the most
>venerated past to form their contemporary architectural works of highest
>ontological value. Ontology here implies 'worldview' that is a complex
>value system composed of religion, philosophy, aesthetics, social
>structure, etc.). It is an identity problem. If one does research into this
>parameter ('settlement core complex'), one finds out that premodern
>architecture zealously preserved this code through thousands of years
>because it was felt to have some primordial informations. This could be
>used in support of any cultural conditions (because it was considered
>basic), or could stand critically against the Zeitgeist of an epoch
>(because the latter was felt not to be basic). Now, it would be a pity to
>theoretically throw this tremendously continuous code on the garbage heap
>of history. If, in the near future, we were forced to introduce
>'sustainability' into architecture, it might help us to reconstruct the
>architecture of the 21st century.
exactly. i do think Eisenman _wanted_ this result, but viewed only the
original, not the copy, as the "real" architecture/code. what, if not
language, is the basis for the medium and messaging of architecture?
nold2>>> ...architecture itself!
n>On the other hand I am not surprised that architectural theory transcends
>its conventional aesthetic pseudo-theology into the even higher level of a
>real theology of the architect as an absolute and omnipotent creator.
>However, the same can be seen as a very problematic step towards a
>'globo-totalitarian anarchy of autistic invention'. In the following some
>arguments supporting this:
>* As an art pour l'art theory it neglects the anthropos for whom, in fact
>it pretends to build. In contrast to modernism, when the programs were
>substantially rooted in the 'belief' of an industrialised sedentarisation,
>Eisenman's 'theory' offers merely the subjective 'architectural fiction'
>taylored on the absolute freedom of the architect genius himself.
>* It propagates an attitude of ominiscience and omnipotence which neglects
>the consequences in terms of adaptations required by 'commoners' or 'laics'
>to such 'readable landscapes'.
>* It is blinded by a highly speculative creative progressism ("timeless"
>space of invention) which neglects the fact that the built environment is
>also an important orientation system for the rest of the population and
>that it always includes history.
very very interesting!
n>In short: I agree that architecture can be read. But someone who suggests
>reading it by considering 'The Classic' as fiction cannot be taken serious.
>Eisenman shows that he may be able to read architecture 'literally' but,
>unfortunately', does not understand architecture as language. At least in
>the case of 'The Classic'!
i may indeed have mistaken/misread Eisenman and presented his argument
without enough clarity, but i do think these points hold from my own
experience, even though i think Eisenman did/does think 'The Classic'
can be read literally-- he may be ulta-modern, as in 'tabula rasa'...
nold2>>>Maybe one should clarify the relation between "ultra-modern" and
"plausibility".
n>These are just some ideas stimulated by your review. Maybe I am wrong,
>developments will go in the direction of Eisenman towards some sort of a
>'hightech-neo-medievalism'. Humanities are artificially retarded,
>technology develops without restraints. Architects will increasingly build
>the 'cathedrals' of their own cults. Or, maybe I am not entirely wrong. The
>humanities would then discover the misleading historicisms in their 20th
>century 'scientific' worldview and would develop as a whole more towards a
>global anthropology extending the term architecture into this direction.
>Eisenman's extreme subjectivity will be questioned by billions of
>architects who, through thousands of years, modestly experimenting with
>their traditions, found some very valuable solutions, particularly in
>regard to 'identity' and 'sustainability'! We would have a lot to learn!
right on. maybe the issue, in a word, is this: Classic Eisenman. and
Classic Gehry, Classic Kahn, Classic Wright, Classic Mies, Classic
Namibian, Classic Rome, Classic High-Tech... an evolution from the
collective of civilizations to the arcitectural styles of individuals
and their copyrighted design CODES, with mimicry/infringment in tow.
nold2>>> I would rather tend to leave the term classic where it is, suggesting
that it should be studied more in depth. If we understand the codes
that made it livable in the widest sense, we might use them for our
times. Not by copying its forms, but by using their essence for more
humane modern purposes.
>Best regards
>
>
>Nold Egenter
>
>P.S. 1 I agree with you that architecture can be seen as 'letter' in the
>concrete sense, but this would be another discussion into the problems of
>semiotics with their linguistic roots. You may have noticed that I was
>invited to write my article in Semiotica as some sort of 'advocatus
>diaboli'.
i hope, over the next few years, we can get more into these ideas. i
didn't see the Semiotica article, please send a link if you have one..
>>> It is found under the title 'Did Rock Art Copy fibroconstructive Art?'
in our website.
>P.S. 2 Thank you also for the forwarded text regarding the website on
>Harappa finds. It seems that there too in the earliest stages twigs and
>bundeled objects were used as signs and (cultic?) symbols.
you bet. i have two books which come to mind: Primitive Architecture,
(Rizzolli Press) and Animal Architecture. i think you would find both
of interest.
>>> I know both. Marvellous pictures in 'Animal Architecture' of Pallasmaa.
Or do you mean the one by von Frisch?
>P.S. 3 What did you mean with "...(too) a-moral, in the extreme." in regard
>to Eisenman's philosophy?
good question: i don't know. you see, i try to keep level-headed, but
when i heard Eisenman give a lecture when i was in architecture school,
he was bragging about how he made occupants of a Japanese Office Building
trip when they would walk up the stairs, because he made every stair of
a different rise and tread. thus, people would have to pay attention to
the way they were walking, to notice the stairs, else they might fall
or even hurt themselves. about this, Eisenman intellectually laughed.
but, from my viewpoint, it wasn't funny, it was bravado, an issue of
total control, of a potential power-freak. that is when i thought his
philosophy was unethical or 'too a-moral'.. i both do and do not agree
with this feeling on the whole, but, i do think there are some ethical
slights of hand that can ultimately become dangerous, such as if this
design philosophy spread and another, less-human establishment begins
to build its empire on top of this one...
>>> A kind of architectural sensitivity training, which could be
interesting. But, it is true, in this form (stone-stairs) it is
fairly malicious!
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