"...but in being sound the theory must also be held as fallible, thus tentative and contingent and conditional and provisional and probative and probable. All we can hope for is a good guess".
Good guess is not enough for sound theory. Boris Shoshensky ---------- Original Message ---------- From: "Frances Kelly" <[email protected]> To: <[email protected]> Subject: RE: LUIS 2 Architecture and Philosophy Date: Sat, 9 May 2009 12:14:45 -0400 Frances to Luis with many thanks and many words... (1) It is agreed that drawn drafts and scale models can be preparatory to architecture, but not likely always required; nor would drawings or carvings of buildings be tectonic or architectural in their own right on their own alone, if say the actual depicted product were never started, let alone completed or finished. It also seems that temporality and territoriality in initializing and finalizing an architectural product would be irrelevant to the product being tectonic or architectural. This also raises a further point in regard to fabrication or construction and even utilization or occupation as to whether the architectural product upon being initialized need be fully settled and completed and finished to be finalized as architecture. In other words, could the tectonic architectural product as art or as nonart be started and settled and deemed finished or finalized and indeed realized, yet remain incomplete or even unfinished, as many pictures and sculptures indeed are. This kind of probe may actually turn best on semiotic finality, in regard to the syntactic and semantic and pragmatic states of products when held as representational signs. My visual thought here swings toward comparing say the syntactic formal abstraction of colors or shapes and the semantic referential abstraction of objects or contents. (2) In regard to tectonic architectural edifices, the graphic pictural sketches or drafts that replicate proposed or produced products, and the plastic sculptural reliefs or models that duplicate them, even if necessary in the design stage as conceptual maps and prototypical tools, might not be tectonic nor architectural. They could be held in theory at least as being merely pictures and sculptures that iconically represent architectures. Such pictural and sculptural artifacts of course can be held as artistic in their own graphic or plastic right, but likely not in any tectonic way. It seems to me that for an artifact to be a tectonic architecture its start need be initiated by fabrication or construction to some settled degree, even if its final realization remains forever incomplete or unfinished, due to whatever cause or reason. (3) There may be an irony and error in my thinking here on visible objects that needs some further reflection or correction. The small scale sketch of an envisioned large mural is seemingly not the real mural, although the sketch and mural are both graphic pictures. The small scale doll of an envisioned large statue is seemingly not the real statue, although the doll and statue are both plastic sculptures. The small scale model of an envisioned large edifice is seemingly not the real edifice, therefore the model and edifice are not both tectonic architectures, because the model is a plastic sculpture that cannot be utilized nor occupied as a tectonic architecture. The picture and the sculpture furthermore can certainly both be a "depiction" of the architecture, by way of formal iconic representation and mimetic simulation, but they are not actually nor really nor truly the architecture. (4) The factual tectonic object of human action, in being artistic or not, must be mainly an objective material construct, and not only a subjective mental construct; and this state likely holds whether the artifactual object is visual or aural or verbal. The silent spoken poem for example may be made and stored in the mind, but the artistic poem is of an oral linguistic language, which is an objective material construct, and the original of the creation is the remembrance of the poem in memory, even if no literal documented record for the poem ever exists. The art is in the poem, and not in the mind. The mind is in thought about the poem, but the thought and the poem is not in the mind. The rape of a mate for example cannot occur only in the mind. The body as a further example is in motion, but the motion is not in the body. The mind therefore is in thought, but the thought is not in the mind, because the thought is always in the signs that the mind merely uses. If the mind is in thought and thinks of an idea with lingual words, the thought and the idea will be in the spoken statements or in the written texts, but not in the mind. (5) The collective community of learned experts in the architectural world who by a growing consensus of their agreed opinion will likely be the main source for making a definitive theory of architecture, but in being sound the theory must also be held as fallible, thus tentative and contingent and conditional and provisional and probative and probable. All we can hope for is a good guess. You partly wrote... Architecture can be the plans, models, 3D views that allow us to conceptualize the work. They are products of the mind to be interpreted by the body/mind when existing in a concrete form. I can tell you that many architectural projects throughout history that were never built, but existed only in drawings and models have had major influences on other architects and architecture. It would be safe to say that most architectural projects are never realized but remain on the drawing boards - are they then not architecture? Considered one of the greatest modern architects, Le Corbusier's church is completed 45 years later, long after his death. So architecture can be a mental construct that is documented in any way that attempts to delimit a potential concrete entity in the realm of architecture. Yes, I know, we have not defined clearly the realm of architecture. I suspect that the realm of architecture is more of a quantum field that mutates, expands, contracts at any given moment based on the sum total of all human interactions. ____________________________________________________________ Click here to find the right business program for you and take your career to the next level. http://thirdpartyoffers.netzero.net/TGL2241/fc/BLSrjpYRam5nL4iTpI8J7NHZTywgw3 780YjE1EXbnWW46jxk6QqCA2N58cA/
