Thursday 7 July 2011, in Nicosia, one day prior to the start of the 12th International Conference of the European Utopian Studies Society

This information is posted on behalf of Dr. Nathaniel Coleman,  Newcastle University. He  requests expressions of interest in a Masterclass on Architecture and Utopia he will be offering at the Utopian Studies conference in Nicosia this July. Please address any queries directly to  nathaniel.coleman@ncl.ac.uk . Please follow this link http://cyprusconferences.org/uss2011/uploads/Nicosia_Utopia-Architecture%20Master%20Class.pdf for detailed information on the Class, including how to apply and the deadline for doing so. Please follow this link for more general information on the Utopian Studies Conference in Nicosia: http://cyprusconferences.org/uss2011/ .

Andrew Ballantyne • Emily Brady • Ian Buchanan • Ian Ground • Paul Guyer • Simon James • David Leatherbarrow • Tom Spector
The subject of aesthetics is often taken as dealing with questions of mere beauty, where the word ‘aesthetic’ is colloquially interchangeable with beauty and liking. Someone might, for instance, explain their liking the look of a particular object on the basis of its ‘aesthetics’. Interestingly, even within the specialised architecture discourse, the aesthetic is largely discussed on the basis of an object’s appearance. Yet, the aesthetic is not limited and should not be limited merely to the way things look. Any philosophically informed aesthetician will contest this limited view, saying something along the lines of ‘the aesthetic is everything’. The aim of this conference is therefore in part to address this discursive limitation in architecture and related subjects by broadening the aesthetic discourse beyond questions relating to purely visual phenomena in order to include those derived from all facets of human experience.

In taking on the aesthetic in a manner that pushes its considerations beyond the realm of mere beauty, questions of ethics often arise. Indeed Wittgenstein is quoted as saying, “ethics and aesthetics are one and the same” (1921: §6.421). Questions as to why, for instance a building’s form takes the shape it does raises not only conventional aesthetic questions but also questions about what purpose or meaning the building serves beyond purely visual stimulation. Does the form for instance relate somehow to a social ideal or economic ideal? And if so, is this ideal something that its inhabitants subscribe to or are even aware of? In an effort to draw thinkers’ attention to the ethical role architecture plays as well as the ethical function architects play, the second part of this conference call addresses this often overlooked dimension of architecture.

Calling both philosophers and architects to grapple with questions regarding the ethical and aesthetic qualities of architecture, the hope is to propel the discourse beyond the limitations of a purely visual understanding of the architectural experiences. Such questions might include:

• what is/ought to be pleasurable architecture and environmental experience?
• how do/ought our experiences impact the aesthetics of architecture and environment?
• how do/ought we appreciate architecture and environment?
• how does/ought the ethical and aesthetic inform the understanding of architecture and environment?
• what is/ought to be a good architect?
• what is/ought to be a good architecture?
• how does/ought architecture embody societal and cultural ethical codes?

Paper Abstracts should clearly address one of the highlighted themes above and be no more than 500 words.

Additionally please see the conference’s strand pages for more information about the Ethics and Aesthetics of Landscape and the Ethics and Aesthetics of Professional Practice as well as the Posters page for more information regarding poster submissions. Please see each strand’s themes and submission guidelines (same deadlines apply throughout).

Deadlines:

Abstracts: 28 October 2011

Notification of Acceptance: 06 January 2012

Full Papers & Posters: 30 March 2012

Early Registration: 30 April 2012

References:

Wittgenstein, L. (1921 ) Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus Abdingdon: Routledge.

I wrote my study on verticality while I was in Hong Kong in 2010. The history of skyscrapers from the Chicago of the late 19th century seemed far away from the boom that Chinese cities are currently experiencing. However, both have in common the phenomenon of concentration. Skyscrapers are impressive in scale, but what is more impressive is what they represent: the value that citizens give to urban concentration. New skyscrapers are built mainly because of the proximity of other skyscrapers. Thousands of people want to take the same lift and cross the same door only because many other people do the same nearby. In the case of Hong Kong, concentration is driven by its port and commerce, followed by its financial institutions. Banks and the port still play an essential role in the city, but I am not sure that the density of Hong Kong is justified solely by commerce anymore. It has become self-sustaining, and the mere density of its population attracted new businesses, which then attracted more people. I wonder then if commerce still sustains the current density or if it is the density itself that maintains the commercial activity. After all, do we still need urban density to fulfil most of our commercial goals, especially in an economy of information and services? Is concentration becoming a value in itself and skyscrapers its monuments to worship?

Augé’s non-place describes a highly commercial global environment (e.g. airports, petrol stations, etc.) with one-dimensional and straightforward appropriation making it easy to ‘travel’ or ‘eat’ or ‘get petrol’ in a non-individual way, not a physically unpleasant place, nor historically shallow place per se. How is this taken into consideration in your work?

According to Marc Augé:

Historicity plays thus an important role in what differentiates a place from a non-place. The definition doesn’t involve commerce, but supermodernity and its advertisement are encouraging the emergence of non-places:

A characteristic of non-places is that they allow the execution of a task for which the visitors are willing to lose their identity:

I think however that this characteristic is only subjective. Some drivers feel that motorways are their true home, and some business people feel less anonymous in an airport than in their home town. At the same time, some residents barely take any time making their house or flat a home, and are more than happy to apply a pre-packaged home identify using IKEA furniture for example, which they can apply again wherever they go. These different methods of appropriating space are natural in my opinion. And Marc Augé describes them marvellously well. But I do not think they are characteristic of our times. What is new is the reshape of space by supermodernity.

Your reading appears to be post-modernist, believing that we are free to choose whatever reading we like. This raises the question as to whether place has got any say in the discussion. If this is the case, then it does not make sense to use the distinction place versus non-place, if any place can become a non-place, re-readable for a nomad or a meaningful place for a ‘sedentists’.

I am a postmodernist and I have at heart to demonstrate that it does not necessary lead to nihilism and inaction. Yes, any space can be perceived as a place or non-place depending on the context and the perceiver. But that does not mean the distinction does not make sense. It manifestly does, if not, we could not speak about it. We cannot classify objectively space into places on one side and non-places on the other. But we can debate it. The concept of non-place is a conceptual tool among many others to negotiate our environment. Seeing ourselves as pure ‘sedentists’ reduces our perspectives. Sure, most of us feel attached to certain places and organise their life around them. But we are also nomads, we are mobile, we can probably make any place our home and can change it the next day. We are willing to do so if it fits our ambitions, either in terms of career, freedom or cosmopolitan ideals. I believe that urbanism and architecture would benefit in recognising more often the ‘sedentist’/nomad duality of our human condition.

Would you agree that your work suggests Augé is reactionary?

No. I do not know about the author himself but I do not think that his book Non-Places: Introduction to an Anthropology of Supermodernity (1995) is reactionary at all. His description of historic places is far from being consensual. Cities have been turned into museums: restored and exposed areas, listed monuments that are illuminated like Christmas trees and pedestrian precinct. As Jean Baudrillard describes it in Simulacra and Simulation, disneyfication transformed our cities into theme parks ([1981] 1994). Marc Augé does not defend either places or non-places. The reactionary movement on the other hand insists on the supposed authenticity of places over non-places. They appeal to the authentic in order to preserve the market value of their real-estate assets, and the touristic attractiveness of their monuments. The paradox is that they also need non-places such as airports and motorways to maintain the attractiveness of their assets, yet still denigrate them.

The point about the ‘narrative’ architect is a reaction against Augé’s supposedly reactionary idea of anthropological place, and being is composed as an opposition to ‘places impose a strong narrative’. Isn’t it so that the difference is rather quantitative?

As explained earlier, I consider myself a postmodernist and do not think that we can classify objectively spaces into places and non-places. The distinction is artificial, subjective, both qualitatively and quantitatively. I have found however that the concept is useful in our negotiation of space. There is a widespread believe in architecture and urbanism that people need to be given places. Often the lack of identity in buildings, such as skyscrapers in Hong Kong, is perceived as being a kind of failure. The concept of non-place helps us to reconsider this assumption. I would like to see sponsors, urbanists and architects argument more explicitly the ‘placeness’ of their projects. Did the population express a desire for strong identity and placeness in a project? Or does it come from other considerations such as economic attractiveness? Would inhabitants prefer an unfinished urban environment in which they could construct an identity, or did they ask for the help of a narrative architect to build a turn-key story of their vicinity? What is the political intention behind the project: encourage sedentism or nomadism? All these questions arise thanks to the concept of non-place. They can inform the architectural practice even though it will always be impossible to tell if a space is objectively a place or non-place.

Do you consider yourself an artist, a writer, even a philosopher?

Gaston Bachelard demonstrated in The Poetics of Space ([1958] 1994) the distinction between these practices is arbitrary. There is tremendous value in connecting art, architecture and philosophy. I feel comfortable being in-between. I take a pragmatic approach and change my role depending on the context and social expectations. Being a philosopher seems to raise the expectations that correspond the most to what I intend to do. But it can only be partial.

References:

Augé, M. (1995) Non-Places- introduction to an anthropology of supermodernity. London: Verso.

Bachelard, G. ([1958] 1994) Poetics of Space. Boston: Beacon Press.

Baudrillard, J. ([1981] 1994) Simulacra and Simulation. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

1. It seems that the history of the skyscraper and their relationship to commerce is overlooked or ignored. Is there a reason why these aspects do not come into play in your work?

2. Auge’s non-place describes a highly commercial global environment (e.g. airports, petrol stations, etc.) with one-dimensional and straightforward appropriation making it easy to ‘travel’ or ‘eat’ or ‘get petrol’ in a non-individual way, not a physically unpleasant place, nor historically shallow place per se. How is this taken into consideration in your work?

3. Your reading appears to be post-modernist, believing that we are free to choose whatever reading we like. This raises the question as to whether place has got any say in the discussion. If this is the case, then it does not make sense to use the distinction place versus non-place, if any place can become a non-place, re-readable for a nomad or a meaningful place for ‘sedentists’.

4. Would you agree that your work suggests Auge is reactionary?

5. The point about the ‘narrative’ architect is a reaction against Auge’s supposedly reactionary idea of anthropological place, and being is composed as an opposition to ‘places impose a strong narrative’. Isn’t it so that the difference is rather quantitative?

6. Do you consider yourself an artist, a writer, even a philosopher?

Here, in shorter form, is that history. There are three missed opportunities for architects to conceive, explicitly, of the practice of architecture in terms of what is typically — and merely implicitly — appealed to in order to justify it, viz., its serving the public good. So these are missed opportunities or failures both to conceive of architecture as serving the public good and, via that first failure, to then also miss the opportunity or fail to in fact serve that good.  (Call ‘the practice of architecture’ PA for short.)

The first opportunity is missed by the modernists who, as the first fairly-large group of architects in history to be free from aristocratic control and other such hindrances to free activity, have the chance to conceive of PA afresh. But they blunder by conceiving of PA as justified by its serving not the public but a mere subset of the public, viz., the blue collar class. The second opportunity is missed by those replacing the modernists after that movement collapses. But the post modernists blunder by conceiving of PA as one activity among others one might take up in the free enterprise spirit according to which self-interest is at the heart of what it means to be a free agent in a democratic state. In line with this history, it is no coincidence that post modernist fancy has more than once been thought the result of a self-serving attitude.

The third opportunity is missed — but not so much really missed as, say, so far woefully under-developed — by those replacing the post modernists as that movement collapses due to its excesses under the weight of worldwide market failure and that failure’s underscoring of the desirability of simplicity, of sustainability, and of, in short, adhering to desiderata consistent with the green imperative. So, to sum up the history, we’ve got architects working before the rise of both large-scale democracies and a reasonably wealthy middle class and therefore serving an aristocracy (or the Church, or the autocratic State, etc.), then the modernists who are not constrained in those ways but serve the wrong interest, then the post modernists who are largely self-serving, and last we reach the present day in which the public interest does indeed begin to be served but is not served as well as it could be. It is not so well served because architects and other thinkers have not done the work needed to explicitly re-conceive of PA in the light of its serving the public good and, in turn, PA is not as effective in serving that good as it could be were it so conceived. Another way to put this problem of inadequate re-conceptualization is to say that the concept of PA is under-developed.

The under-development has at least two facets: (i) lack of the development of a conception of some kind of fit between the aesthetic features yielded by the architect’s adherence to a sustainability imperative on the one hand and, on the other, the set of aesthetic features by which we largely understand the history of architecture; and (ii) lack of development of a conception of the fit between some very common environmentalist conceptions of what nature preservation involves on the one hand and, on the other, PA itself, which would seem prima facie to be inconsistent with preservationism. I.e., with regards (ii), the use of nature as a resource for building materials and building site and building refuse waste dump, etc., and so the very practice which involves all those things and more like them is, at least at first blush, inconsistent with the preservationist agenda which a sustainability-driven PA would otherwise be presumed to serve.

That, then, is the history and the current predicament. Enter the ISPA’s aims. The primary one is to develop and make available to practitioners a consistent, comprehensive conception of PA having, at its core, an explicit account of both the public good and the way in which PA might serve that good.

There are two caveats to make at the outset. The first is a response to the following thought which someone might offer to what I have written so far: architecture has always, at least to some appreciable extent, been conceived of by practitioners as serving the public good, in which case the claim that a re-conceptualization of PA is an important and worthwhile task is an overblown one. The two-part response is this: (a) human agents’ degree of successfulness in meeting their aims is, in all cases but those involving lucky coincidence, limited by the degree of explicitness, clarity, and comprehensiveness with which those aims, and the means necessary for achieving them, are formulated by those agents; (b) so to the extent that practitioners have been or are being successful in serving the public good, an articulation of their formulations of the public good and of the way in which architecture serves that good are recoverable from past document (assuming that formulations have been in some way recorded) or from present inquiry directed at active practitioners; but (c) such delving into past documentation and such inquiry reveals the telling truth that no such articulation is there to be recovered. As Spector puts the point, “events have left the architecture profession’s longstanding official justification in the protection of the public welfare much as it was found: as something of an afterthought which has never been seriously analyzed or argued.” Given an awareness of (a), (b), and (c), we should not be at all surprised by someone’s claiming that architecture has fallen far short of its potential with respect to its serving the public good. The claim is, rather, to be expected.

The second caveat is a response to the following worry, put in the form of a question, which someone might voice when faced with my statement that ‘the ISPA’s primary aim is the development and dissemination to practitioners of a consistent, comprehensive conception of PA having, at its core, an explicit account of both the public good and the way in which PA might serve that good’: but by what right does the ISPA or its members both determine the substantive content of the public good and legislate the proper conduct of practitioners? The response is this: that very question’s being thought, by its poser, to be one legitimately made in the name of a defense of democratic ideals is itself symptomatic of the misunderstanding of the concept of liberal democracy that is a large part of the cause of the current predicament Spector intends to draw our attention to. The misunderstanding of the concept of liberal democracy I refer to involves the notion that the liberal democratic ideal entails a proscription of bringing into the public sphere conceptions of the common good for which one claims an objective status. The familiar colloquial form of this mistaken notion, put in the form of a question, is ‘Who are you to tell me how I ought to live my life?’ Such questions are symptomatic of the fundamental and currently widespread failure to recognize that well-functioning liberal democracies require not a proscription against challenges to various individual conceptions of the good but require, rather, that such challenges exist in wide abundance, in a context of unfettered and exuberant discussion, so that together we might more effectively come to understand what it is that is worth seeking and what ways those worthy things might best be realized.

That is the “vital public realm” of which Spector writes. The importance of its establishment, at least its establishment on a small scale among those working in and theorizing about architecture, should not be underestimated with respect to the probability of architecture’s coming to fulfill its potential with respect to furthering the common good. And to the extent that architecture of particular types might themselves help to bring about a more widespread establishment of such a realm, all of us interested in ISPA’s aim as I have stated it should recognize the importance of our attempt to realize that aim. Architecture can in that sense be thought just the beginning of something far more important.

To conclude by way of a few comments I hope will incite further discussion of these matters, I think it important to mention that though Spector and I agree on the importance of the establishment of such a realm for the health of liberal democracies and the welfare of their citizens, I disagree with his implicit suggestion that Habermas provides a favorable way forward. I disagree because Habermas’ notion of truth as consensus robs us of the fundamental impetus for dialogue, which is not consensus but discovery, through argumentative dialogue, of the truth. So I offer instead J.S. Mill as providing a favorable way forward. Mill believed that the exercise of those freedoms which liberty provides is the most effective means to the discovery and realization of the good for beings like us, beings with particular affective, volitional, and rational capacities. Mill’s utilitarianism has been much maligned and his theory of the liberal state much misunderstood, but they together remain, I think, the most clearly articulated and eloquently defended conception of moral and political life yet offered to us. There is a more important point to consider here, though, than our disagreement about which well-recognized thinker ought to be looked to for developing a theory of architecture and the public good. The more important point is that the flowering of this very disagreement and others like it is something to be welcomed and encouraged rather than discouraged, and it is so not only in the name of potentially furthering the promise of architecture or of liberal democracy but also in the name of furthering the far less involved but still not insignificant aims of the ISPA.

Flier for the seminar this post summarises and responds to.

Architecture was a latecomer to the Enlightenment.

Though repeatedly confronted by the technological, social, and artistic progress unleashed in the eighteenth century and always nominally proclaiming allegiance to the public welfare, the question of who the work of architecture should serve didn’t really get off the ground until the early twentieth century with the full onslaught of Modernism when wide-scale recognition that architecture was severely trailing the times finally culminated in its embrace of all the Enlightenment’s main tenets. Technological progress made possible by emancipation of science, democratization of the client enabled by Kantian morality, artistic freedom of a distinctly aesthetic realm, a cosmopolitan outlook, and a thoroughgoing rejection of the authority of tradition at last came together in one thrilling sweep of the hand. The cresting socialism of the era, in conjunction with modernism in the arts’ traditional disdain of bourgeois values, led, however, to architecture’s early modernists entirely skipping-over the Enlightenment’s bourgeois ideal of serving a legitimated public realm. Instead they directed their vision of social progress toward improving the lot of the proletarian sub-section of society. By the end of the 1970s, when each of modernism’s principles had exposed its dark side and modernism as a moral ideal was roundly repudiated, the opportunity to reconsider the idea of architecture’s directly serving such Enlightenment ends as “progress” or “the public” or “democracy” was this time thwarted by economic and political developments in the West towards a new conservatism in which the public good was seen as best served by the widely spread individual pursuit of personal gain. This cultural revision strongly in favor of private pursuits throughout the Western world was so rapid and so successful that by the late 1980s, no less important a figure than Margaret Thatcher could publicly deny the very existence of such a thing as “society” whose good could be served; thus precluding even from consideration by defining out of existence the entire intermediate category of a “public” existing between individual and state. A new modesty—an inward turn—in architects’ aims predominated. Its pilot organizations sought to legitimate architects’ work through the contribution it makes to the profit motive, but this effort was severely misguided.

Though the recession of 2008 has at least temporarily pulled the rug out from under free enterprise enthusiasts, thus providing an opening for alternate conceptions of the good, architecture’s resurgent moral compass has pointed elsewhere. The sustainability movement is the most prominent example of a perceived moral imperative given forceful public expression by members of the profession. While this initiative portends well for the profession’s engaging significant moral ideals, much work remains to be accomplished regarding just how the sustainability movement is to integrate with mainstream practices due to the uncertainty surrounding how the value of a building’s being sustainable integrates with architecture’s traditional values, as well as the difficulty with which the work of architecture integrates with an environmental ethic deeply critical of such anthropocentric activities as the work of architecture must by necessity be. While the sustainability movement has done much to capture architects’ desire to contribute to the greater good, other obvious opportunities for making social progress, most notably incorporating the lessons of feminism, have yet to make their impact on practice. This omission leaves considerable room for an enlarged ethic. Further cause for hope can be found in examples of functioning public space and in architects engaged in actively promoting the public good. “Architecture for Humanity,” “The One-Percent Solution,” AIA-sponsored urban design charettes and a myriad of small-scale initiatives demonstrate that the idea of serving the greater good lives. But the problem is that these initiatives are exceptional activities; not yet part-and-parcel with what it means to be a practicing architect in contemporary Western society. What is still noticeably lacking is a way of folding an ethical ideal into everyday practice. This was the initial draw of an ethic of public service but events have left the architecture profession’s longstanding official justification in the protection of the public welfare much as it was found: as something of an afterthought which has never been seriously analyzed or argued. It seems evident enough until you begin to examine it.

In fact, it’s an idea that will require considerable renewal to be taken seriously. We in established Western democracies mistakenly treat the idea of the public as self-evidently real, timeless and as roughly synonymous with the state. Philosopher Jurgen Habermas’s Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere (1962) charts its origins in the coffee houses and salons of the eighteenth century as a critical assertion against the prerogatives of church and aristocracy of the rightful, socially beneficial, existence of a self-organized intermediate realm between individual and state that is, in principle, open to all. That such a realm has never been perfectly realized does not blunt the fact that in its day it was a sharp instrument of social criticism. The ideal of a critical public realm has taken so many hits in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries that it is well worth wondering what of the concept, if anything, might remain. Signs of decline to the point of extinction abound: Participatory democracy is so debased by the procedural model in which the prime good of government is noninterference that Sheldon Wolin can warn of the “specter of inverted totalitarianism,” while simultaneously the alarming decline of the informal realm of organizations is exhaustively documented by Robert Putnam’s Bowling Alone and in Richard Sennett’s Fall of Public Man (1974) which charts the rising barbarity of today’s “culture of intimacy” which in turn chimes well with Charles Taylor’s diagnosis of the debilitating narcissism of our culture’s “Ethics of Authenticity.” Mike Davis portrays the growing privatization of what used to be considered the public in Evil Paradises. Even Habermas, the public realm’s most formidable proponent, agrees: “Tendencies pointing to the collapse of the public sphere are unmistakable, for while its scope is expanding impressively, its function has become progressively insignificant” (1962: 4). But these trends only make the opportunity to renew our commitment to the public realm and bolster its chances for flourishing all the more urgent. Thus it is worth asking: Can a vital public realm be rescued? If so, what would it look like? The theoretical backbone Habermas provides in his later work will help this reconstruction, but so will that of his critics for here I will have to look beyond the limitations of his somewhat disembodied ethical construct to more spatial conceptions of the modern public, to broader conceptions than Habermas wants to countenance for what constitutes real public discourse, and to architecture itself for examples of public renewal.

By promoting a flourishing public realm both the profession and the work of architecture stand to help insulate themselves from pure commodification in the marketplace by making their roles in democratic self-determination both sophisticated and tangible. We can point to examples both large and small where this already occurs, as well as examples where it is hindered, and suggest strategies for its furtherance. In this way, architects can begin to reconnect their desire to do good in the world with their everyday practices.

Tom Spector

Oklahoma State University

References:

Habermas, J. (1989 [1962]) The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society Cambridge: MIT Press.

Putnam, R. (2000) Bowling Alone. New York: Simon & Schuster.

Sennett, R. (1976 [1974]) The Fall of the Public Man. New York: W.W. Norton & Company.

The intent of this symposium, provocatively entitled ‘straining pulp-theory from architecture discourse’ is not to dissuade architects from reading philosophy or otherwise allow the ideas of philosophers to permeate their work, but to dissuade architects from the irresponsible activity of theorising. I do not mean the kind of theory which is effectively thinking about, contemplating or speculating about architecture. I mean the kind of theory or theoretical construct whose epistemic basis is metaphysical, more simply, I mean metaphysical theory. I would argue, given the time and platform, that the philosophical form of metaphysically-based claims on architecture are unsound and can cause confusion. Basically, these concepts do not function as they are meant or intended to. This, I think we would all agree, is an irresponsible use of theory.

Taking this position as the case and noting that contemporary architecture discourse is saturated with metaphysically-based claims, what do we do? What is the way forward? Furthermore, how do we suggest a way forward without contradicting ourselves by putting forward yet another theory? I think there lies an answer to this question in Wittgenstein’s writing.

Wittgenstein was in his day and today an odd philosopher. Amongst the many oddities is the paradox of his writing: he wrote his work fundamentally in criticism of his work. Looking to Stanley Cavell, it is clearest why this is the case and why this is meaningful. For Cavell, that Wittgenstein wrote in criticism of his own writing was not some masochistic act whose psychology ought to be explained, but as a way of drawing people’s attention to the very paradox of philosophy itself. Cavell’s Wittgenstein reminds us that speaking about the world, does not replace the world nor does it stand in place of the world, consequentially requiring active investigation of the adequacy of our descriptions. With regards to architecture, this requires introspective investigation of the language used to describe architecture and building. Does, for instance, a description of the building as a ‘machine’, adequately describe the cultural understanding of the building in question? Not always, not never, but sometimes. As such, we must take seriously language’s use and vigilantly maintain it.

Taking this as the case, a mild-Wittgensteinian as myself, would not consider all theory problematic, but would require thorough analysis and understanding of its practical use and effects on architecture discourse and building practices – clearly a position that evokes the pragmatic veins of Wittgenstein. It would require thorough understanding of a theory’s use and limitations. For instance, understanding the limitations of conceiving a building as a machine and so on, reveals the limitations of this claim on architecture. Some might respond to the limitations of a Corbusian-esque theory of architecture by proposing the construction of another theory on utopic bases. Instead of teething through the problems of a theory in order to develop its discursive and practical value, or appealing to a range of useful theories to solve the problems of architecture, some might want to start anew preferring the latest utopic vision. Yet, Cavell’s reading would contest theory for theory’s sake, asking what problem is the theory in question meant to solve; what is its use?

Approaching any kind of resolution to this problem regarding the use of theory in architecture discourse and building practice demands both the advanced analytic skill-set of the trained philosopher as well as the building expertise of the architectural practitioner and educator (though it should be noted that this does not preclude architects from philosophical investigation). It demands, according to a Wittgensteinian reading, a grammatical investigation of the language-games comprising the architectural institution. It demands of us all, sustained and rigorous investigation of the adequacy of our language-use in describing architecture and the built environment. The investigation of language’s adequacy requires both an understanding of the phenomenon its use is meant to account for and an analysis of its use.

Yet the very 15C paintings that are held by art historians to embody the new-found ‘rational’ knowledge of perspective also exhibit unique spatial/compositional qualities that cannot be readily accounted for. Yes – most of the elements within these paintings appear to be in correct ‘measurable’ relation to each other throughout the depth of the paintings – so much so that we can reconstruct the ‘real’ space depicted in, for instance, Piero’s Flagellation.

But it appears that along with Masaccio, Domenico Veneziano, Leonardo, Piero was also controlling how those elements that are in the depth of the painting relate to each other on the surface of the painting.  Why should this be, and the awkward question for art historians is, how could this be?  It is not something that could be easily or readily achieved using the geometric methods described by Alberti.  It would seem to indicate a method, a visual concern or approach amongst these artists that transcends the assumed intended purpose of linear perspective – the convincing illusion of three dimensions on the picture plane.

The key to unravelling this problem may lay in the fact that we habitually think of the trappings of linear perspective, particularly its geometry, solely as means to an end.  We overlook the fact that flat geometric diagrams, including patterns and those diagrams used in perspective constructions, can themselves be suggestive of depth, can suggest imagery, can be inherently ambiguous, and can therefore, be visually and conceptually exciting for the artist. I would suggest, therefore, that in these depictions of architectural spaces we are, in fact, seeing the traces of a creative interplay between depth and flatness.

Paradoxically, Ingarden’s system of architecture uses the concept ‘concrete’ only in the connection with the individual perceptions of the physical object, rather than using the word ‘concrete’ referring to the concrete, physical object (as a concrete realisation of an architectural idea). His view of the system of architecture, as a system of intentionality, is more complex, and instead of using only the concept ‘concretization’, he uses idealisation, actualisation, realisation and concretization(s).

One must note that not all buildings in Ingarden’s system reach a point of highly ordered intentionality of an aesthetic object (concretization). This level requires persuasion, clarification, semiotic interpretations and conscious rhetoric. This paper will discuss the differences of socio—ethical concretists and immaterial concretists in the light of Ingarden’s system of architecture as a work of art. The difference with the previous paradigm is implied in the presence of a new hyper-value based on global interconnectedness.

In itself this is not a new question, but the past 30 years of ‘pulp theory’ have made the vocabulary of the architecture discourse sufficiently fragile that a direct discussion of architectural principles has become increasingly difficult. If we are to treat it as a discipline proper, then we need to be clear about its parameters and its instruments. This involves studying the relationship between explicit and implicit ideas (as manifest in texts, drawings, buildings), as well as exploring how these ideas become a ‘body of knowledge’ (are communicated and disseminated).

Some of the most influential ideas in the architecture discourse were disseminated through more than one medium of communication – ranging from a primarily linguistic theoretical vocabulary, visual and spatial explorations in drawings and models, to the realized buildings that not only posit ideas, but add new, unforeseen realities to their surroundings.

Studying the architecture discourse through these precedents can offer insights into the knowledge-base of architecture: not as a rigid framework of abstract rules to be followed, but rather as a continually transforming culture of interaction between ideas, texts, drawings and buildings.