At 01:35 PM 5/21/99 +0530, Anand wrote:
>Bernard Tschumii once wrote, "the concept of a dog does not bark, therefore
the concept of a dog is not a dog".
True enough!
>Do you think lifting patterns and structures from real-life processes and
as you say 'metaphorically' (or analogically) imposing them on architecture
is an end-in-itself?
No. It's one way of approaching the desire to give the architecture a higher
meaning.
> Or is it a limitation you think necessary?
It was necessary at some point, and maybe still is, but it's a limitation I
see being overcome eventually.
>The metaphoric transfer has existed in architecture since the very
beginning, the Aztec, Egyptian, Mesopotamian, Indus-Valley and Chinese all
had it, one cannot disagree with the notions that . . .
The fact that all cultures seem to understand how metaphor operates, and
seeks to make it, suggests that it's a valid way of conveying a realvant
higher meaning.
>1. architects must operate with the prevailing sciences (be it Voodoo,
Astrology, Astronomy or mathematics).
>2. They should build with the current technologies.
>These are homilies, they also don't say much about the meaning of the
building.
They don't---AS THEY ARE TYPCIALLY USED. Perhaps we need to become better
versed in these areas so we can use them better, more directly, and maybe
influence the growth of the bodies of knowledge they encompass.
Technology is just another limitation until you come up with a better
technology!
>To take your Rose window example, its mathemic structure is one thing, it
gives it shape. Its meaning is quite another thing. It constructs
propositions, as Panofsky, a recognised authority on that business showed,
about nature, Man and divinity within a Scholastic paradigm. And this
reliance on mathematics was dangerous even then. Panofsky ends his book by
saying "Here Scholastic dialectics has driven architectural thinking to a
point where it has almost ceased to be architectural". You may disagree, yet
this is an argument worth contending (Gothic Architecture and Scholasticism,
Erwin Panofsky. Meridian Books - 1957).
I'm not good on Scholasticism, but you make a great point. The Gothic was
mythic storytelling in stone and glass. The congregation was illiterate, and
probably did not understand the deep meaning behind the rational modules and
precise proportioning---but they sure understood the effect! Just as we do
now. Except that we look at it a bit differently---we know it was setup.
They didn't.
I guess what I'm hoping for is an architecture that uses the same power to
allow us to derive understanding of Nature, Humankind and Spirituality
DIRECTLY, without the power trip thrown on our backs.
>Is there an Architect's way of knowing? Why have academies stopped asking
this question?
I dunno about that; we were fed a lot of propoganda that as designers we DO
see and know in special ways, with the none-to-subtle suggestion that we are
better than someone else because of it.
>By relaying on analogies, we reduce architecture to a 'low level' system, a
system with low explanatory powers. A system like somebody else's system. I
do recognise the need for analogies, because they make possible the
inter-subjective transfers of architectural meaning, but is that all? Why
should architecture look 'like' language, or like biology or like a rat!
Ideally, it won't look "like" anything, but will embody principles that
opearte in nature. You're right. It's limited (and limiting) but sometimes
it's the best you can get. Often, it will still be better than most other
things, because most users will understand a well-chosen and stated metaphor
and buy in and derive benefit.
Most architecture students at one point in school, design something laid out
like a nautilus shell, and say it draws on nature for its inspiration. Well,
OK, but it's one thing to design something that looks like a sea shell, but
quite another to design a house that is designed to, say, grow to
accommodate a larger household as the shell grows, or exchange bad air for
clean, or recycle its waste, or whatever else a nautilus does---move around?
>In other words, why should it look like some other discipline or branch of
knowledge? Why should it mimic? Or as Catherine Ingram wrote, 'classifiable
but dumb!
>Why can't it look like architecture, or like god or like man or the shape
of our emotion, hope and desire-what is the subject-matter of architecture?
Good question!
Thanks, Anand.
Mark
>Bernard Tschumii once wrote, "the concept of a dog does not bark, therefore
the concept of a dog is not a dog".
True enough!
>Do you think lifting patterns and structures from real-life processes and
as you say 'metaphorically' (or analogically) imposing them on architecture
is an end-in-itself?
No. It's one way of approaching the desire to give the architecture a higher
meaning.
> Or is it a limitation you think necessary?
It was necessary at some point, and maybe still is, but it's a limitation I
see being overcome eventually.
>The metaphoric transfer has existed in architecture since the very
beginning, the Aztec, Egyptian, Mesopotamian, Indus-Valley and Chinese all
had it, one cannot disagree with the notions that . . .
The fact that all cultures seem to understand how metaphor operates, and
seeks to make it, suggests that it's a valid way of conveying a realvant
higher meaning.
>1. architects must operate with the prevailing sciences (be it Voodoo,
Astrology, Astronomy or mathematics).
>2. They should build with the current technologies.
>These are homilies, they also don't say much about the meaning of the
building.
They don't---AS THEY ARE TYPCIALLY USED. Perhaps we need to become better
versed in these areas so we can use them better, more directly, and maybe
influence the growth of the bodies of knowledge they encompass.
Technology is just another limitation until you come up with a better
technology!
>To take your Rose window example, its mathemic structure is one thing, it
gives it shape. Its meaning is quite another thing. It constructs
propositions, as Panofsky, a recognised authority on that business showed,
about nature, Man and divinity within a Scholastic paradigm. And this
reliance on mathematics was dangerous even then. Panofsky ends his book by
saying "Here Scholastic dialectics has driven architectural thinking to a
point where it has almost ceased to be architectural". You may disagree, yet
this is an argument worth contending (Gothic Architecture and Scholasticism,
Erwin Panofsky. Meridian Books - 1957).
I'm not good on Scholasticism, but you make a great point. The Gothic was
mythic storytelling in stone and glass. The congregation was illiterate, and
probably did not understand the deep meaning behind the rational modules and
precise proportioning---but they sure understood the effect! Just as we do
now. Except that we look at it a bit differently---we know it was setup.
They didn't.
I guess what I'm hoping for is an architecture that uses the same power to
allow us to derive understanding of Nature, Humankind and Spirituality
DIRECTLY, without the power trip thrown on our backs.
>Is there an Architect's way of knowing? Why have academies stopped asking
this question?
I dunno about that; we were fed a lot of propoganda that as designers we DO
see and know in special ways, with the none-to-subtle suggestion that we are
better than someone else because of it.
>By relaying on analogies, we reduce architecture to a 'low level' system, a
system with low explanatory powers. A system like somebody else's system. I
do recognise the need for analogies, because they make possible the
inter-subjective transfers of architectural meaning, but is that all? Why
should architecture look 'like' language, or like biology or like a rat!
Ideally, it won't look "like" anything, but will embody principles that
opearte in nature. You're right. It's limited (and limiting) but sometimes
it's the best you can get. Often, it will still be better than most other
things, because most users will understand a well-chosen and stated metaphor
and buy in and derive benefit.
Most architecture students at one point in school, design something laid out
like a nautilus shell, and say it draws on nature for its inspiration. Well,
OK, but it's one thing to design something that looks like a sea shell, but
quite another to design a house that is designed to, say, grow to
accommodate a larger household as the shell grows, or exchange bad air for
clean, or recycle its waste, or whatever else a nautilus does---move around?
>In other words, why should it look like some other discipline or branch of
knowledge? Why should it mimic? Or as Catherine Ingram wrote, 'classifiable
but dumb!
>Why can't it look like architecture, or like god or like man or the shape
of our emotion, hope and desire-what is the subject-matter of architecture?
Good question!
Thanks, Anand.
Mark