Don't neglect the landscape as architectural artifact. WC
________________________________ From: Frances Kelly <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Wednesday, May 6, 2009 9:51:11 PM Subject: Architecture and Philosophy Frances to interested listers with thanks... Architecture in theory is regrettably described and defined and explained by experts in various ways, which has resulted in a vague standard that frustrates any attempt at attaining a global consensus of agreed opinion for the learned study of this skilled field. The objects of architecture are far too often at once held in a contradictory way as either ordinary objects or as extraordinary products and edifices; and then as the effort of either all living organisms tending toward shelter or as the engineered design of only living humanisms; and then as either not art or as some kind of art, or only as lofty fine art; and then either as accidentally found or as deliberately made, or only as intentionally planned without any necessary fabrication or construction; and then as either utilized in any way or as necessarily occupied. The implied range of member objects that fall under architecture as a typical class furthermore tends to go from being pseudo tokens like natural caves and crevices and trees, to quasi tokens like animal hives and nests and dens, and proto tokens like human tents and bins and sheds or even dams and docks and pylons, as well as proper tokens like shacks and cabins and cottages and houses, and pure tokens like tombs and churches and mansions and towers. The implied range of aesthetic objects for architecture also tends to go from those that are natural, and those that are cultural to include those social objects that are of humanal art, which art in turn can be either of fine art or of applied art like skilled craft and engineered design. The aesthetic approach would seem to suggest that the architectural object must at least have a beautiful form and a useful function and a civil orientation. The further confusion, in accepting that objects of architecture are semiotic signs, is just exactly what kind of main sign the objects normally are, as either an icon or an index or a symbol. When architectures are deemed to be like pictures and sculptures, then they are often held as being mainly humanal and visual, which makes them mainly an iconic sign; but when deemed to be artifacts or edifices found in social cultures, they are then often held to be indicative of only humans as their causal agents, which makes them mainly an indexic sign. The semiotic approach would seem to suggest that the architectural object must at least be sensed and signed. My task in wrestling with this thorn is to find out if it is possible to frame a philosophic theory of architecture.
