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| Collage by Christina Fez-Barringten |
Multidiscipline
[K] Axioms of metaphors influence on cognition
of architecture” [2]
By Barie Fez-Barringten
www.bariefez-barringten.com
11,531 on 33 pages includes all
Axioms: 7,087 words only
11,062 words (excluding abstract, bio) (including footnotes
and references)
Biographical note: (88 words)
Columbia University coursework in behavioral
psychology under Ralph Hefferline and voice in Linguistics, Bachelor’s of Fine
Arts [I] from Pratt Institute and Master
of Architecture from Yale University where I was mentored in metaphors and metaphysics
by Dr. Paul Weiss. For research I founded the New York City not-for–profit
corporation called Laboratories for Metaphoric Environments. . In addition to
authoring over fifteen published monographs by learned journals I have spent 20
years in Saudi Arabia and have written a book with pen and ink drawings on perceptions
of 72 European cities.
Affiliations:
Global University, Gulf Coast Writers Association,
American Institute of Architects, National Council of Architectural Registration
Boards, Florida licensed architect, Lee County Hispanic Affairs Advisory Board
and trustee of Yale Alumni Association of South west Florida
Abstract (158 words) .
Nineteen dominant, sub-dominant and
tertiary axioms are described from Andrew Ortony’s compendium called Metaphor and Thought [A] referencing the
results of the scientific method applied to metaphor in cognitive sciences,
education, linguistics, psychology, learning sciences and philosophy.
They are in the
broad categories of metaphor and meaning, metaphor and representation, metaphor
and understanding, metaphor and science and metaphor and education. These
axioms are the conclusions of the respective experiments as they may apply to
architecture and the stasis to architecture being an art, the stasis being the
metaphor. Since we are borrowing a term, metaphor, normally associated with
linguistics we turn to their respective scholars for understanding of the
metaphor so that we can find a metaphorical use of metaphor to explain both how
architecture is the making of metaphors and a tool for cognition.
It is a pragmatic
exercise in reasoning where the axioms are the evidence and/or warrants to the
inference to their claims supporting the stasis/resolution.
Key words:
metaphor, thought,
cognition, psychology, education, linguistics, learning, philosophy, axiom, art, architecture
Abstract:
Cognition and architecture
In the late
sixties as an Architect concerned about perception and knowing, I turned to metaphysics and leading
metaphysical philosopher Dr. Paul Weiss who told me that he is interested in
how we know that we know, to which I add existence, casualty and truth. He was followed
William J.J. Gordon and his study of Synectics and the metaphorical way of
knowing. Metaphor is a tool for the artist to know, perceive, to be known and perceived.
It is central to
cognition insofar as a sensed event links to a referent which can then be
known. We really know only when we make the new perceived strange event
familiar. As cognition is the metal process of knowing, including aspects such
as awareness, perception, reasoning, and judgment is what actually is known is
a result of that connection which is metaphor. Architecture as all the arts has
meaning of both idea and a proposition which lies in its observable practical
consequences in the work of art and architecture.
The axioms derived
from Metaphor and Thought provides
the metaphors variations which are shown to have practical consequences in architecture. It turns out that without cognition artistic work
would be inconsequent, nihilistic and absurd. And without an artist having some
sense of cognition he might merely create sensuous but totally incongruous
works. However much I owe to Weiss and Gordon it was Hefferline who taught me
the truth and difference between seeing and cognition.
There is a shift in
architectural paradigms from one set of architectural forms to another, from material
shelter to “meaning” and “significance”. As well as functioning, today it is
more important for the built-environment to mean something. For the architect
cognition is between the technical and conceptual metaphor in a continuous
inductive process adding new information and responsible to both creation and
perception of works which must be perceived as contemporary and relevant.
[F] What makes our present comparison about metaphor unique is the
important distinction that has been drawn between conceptual metaphors (or
metaphorical concepts) on one hand (as “architecture as the making of metaphors”)
and linguistic metaphors on the other hand (Lakoff and Johnson 1980) (architecture
as the making of metaphors lecture series was in 1967[A]).
The former
(concepts) refers to “love is war” and “love is Journey” while the latter is
actually "linguistical" in nature as Weiss’:” Richard the Lion
hearted”. Metaphorical language, consisting of specific linguistic expressions,
is but a surface manifestation of realization of conceptual metaphor.
Conceptual metaphors are systematic mappings across conceptual domains: one
domain of experience: the target domain (architecture).
[F] The
contemporary theory of metaphor: a perspective from China by Ning Yu says that
it can be that architecture is the
making of conceptual metaphors (not literal) This occurs where the
metaphor or extension of meaning from one object to the other is not in the
words (building) themselves but is the mental image. The words (or in the case of architecture the
shapes, forms, materials, etc) are prompts for us to perform mapping (cognition)
from one conventional image to another at the conceptual level.
While
metaphor of architecture to metaphors is conceptual many of its applications
find linguistic metaphors helpful, cognitively, as the work is perceived the
reader learns the metaphor and connects the event to the familiar past. Architecture: the making of metaphors
is cognitively a kind of so-called “body language”; it makes metaphors, poetry,
music, dance, ballet, etc. its is widely expressive but it does not converse with
hearing and responding as in normal human conversation.
Conceptual Metaphors (not literal) occurs
where the metaphor (or extension of meaning from one object to the other) is
not in the words themselves but is the mental image. The words (or in the case of architecture the
shapes, forms, materials, etc) are prompts for the user to perform mapping from
one conventional image to another at the conceptual level. We find works which
“welcome”, “open up”, “close”, “reject”, “turn-in”, “introvert”, “explode”,
“shout”, etc. Cognitively, works of architecture
as metaphors may be more onomatopoetic , then a full sentence, may be grasped
intuitively as analogy than overtly, may be sensed but never understood, may be
used but never seen, and may be ignored, condemned and obliterated with less
concern that of its human counterpart or preserved and worshipped as an icon as
a landmark . As a landmark it communicates a history of what people have done
in that place, a period of time; demarks a context and as a metaphor communicates
its past in terms of itself. It marks time, space and place; and the human epoch.
Conceptually it converses about the things it marks in terms of its designed characterization,
its mere age or method of construction (they don’t make them like that
anymore).
While both the linguistic,
conceptual and architectural metaphor makes the strange familiar, it is the
architectural and artistic that identifies our position in society and is the
emblem of who we are. We are not the
metaphor but our experience of it is as real as anything else we know. As we
perceive it, the metaphor is our virtual reality. It contains our identity,
signs and signals. Its' vocabulary, symbols and characters are symbiotic. The
metaphor itself is symbiotic and our relationship to the metaphor is symbiosis.
The metaphor is a change vehicle. It transforms and it is a transformer. It
works internally between its' elements and upon us as we complete metaphor. It is completion that users and audience
participate in the ultimate creation of any metaphor. By the way the Latin for
"transfer" is "metaphor". It is no wonder that my own study linking
metaphors to architecture in the realms of cognitions should be parallel with
important developments in cognitive linguistics.
This includes conceptual metaphors based on the idea that
form-function correspondences are based on representations derived from embodied experience and constitute the basic
units of language. (We are the sum total of all that has gone before us). So basic in fact that they may easily be the
same basis as they are for architecture. This is at the heart of our
presumption, that we can make metaphoric use of the term metaphor as for
linguistics as for architecture. For any
one work there are two metaphors: the concept and the manifestation of the
concept. Richard the Lionhearted is the manifestation whiles the concept of the
commonplace (bravery) linking Richard to the Lion is understood without being
visible. When we hear the voices of singers, the sounds of musician, the tones
of speakers and the quality of a manifest metaphor we encounter the presence of
other human beings. The cognitive essence of this presence authenticates our
identity and we transfer their realty to our own.
Axioms: 7,087 words
Axioms (shown in
Roman numerals) are self-evident principles that I have derived out of Ortony’s
Metaphor and Thought[A] and accept as
true without proof as the basis for future arguments; a postulates or
inferences including their warrants
(which I have footnoted as 1._._ throughout).These axioms are in themselves clarification,
enlightenment,
and illumination
removing ambiguity where the derivative reference (Ortony) has many applications. The below axioms define
properties for the domain of a specific theory which evolved out of the
stasis defending architecture as an art and
in that sense, a "postulate” and
"assumption" . Thusly, I presume to axiomatize a system of knowledge
to show that these claims can be derived from a small, well-understood set of
sentences (the axioms). “Universality,
Global
uniqueness, Sameness,
Identity,
and Identity
abuse” are just some of the axioms of web architecture. Francis Hsu of Rutgers writes that “Software Architecture Axioms is a worthy
goal. First, let's be clear that software axioms are not necessarily
mathematical in nature
In “Axiomatic
design in customizing home building
industry published by Engineering,
Construction and Architectural Management; 2002;vol 9; issue
4;page 318-324 Kurt Psilander wrote that “the developer would find a tool very useful that systematically and
reliably analyses customer taste in terms of functional requirements (FRs). Such
a tool increases the reliability of the procedure the entrepreneur applies to
chisel out a concrete project description based on a vision of the tastes of a
specific group of customers. It also ensures that future agents do not distort
the developer's specified FRs when design parameters are selected for the
realization of the project.
Axiomatic design is one method to support
such a procedure. This tool was developed for the manufacturing industry but is
applied here in the housing sector. Some hypothetical examples are presented”. Aside
from building-architect’s axioms directing that “form follows function”; follow
manufacturers requirements and local codes and ordinances, AIA standards for
professional practice architectural axioms are few and far between.
The axioms are divided between five groups
of broad categories of metaphor and meaning, metaphor and representation,
metaphor and understanding, metaphor and science and metaphor and education.
These groups of axioms are the conclusions of the respective experiments as
they may apply to architecture and the stasis to architecture being an art: the
stasis being the metaphor.
1. Metaphor and Meaning group
Axiom I. In making a habitable conceptual metaphor, after
assimilating the program the very first step in the design process is to
develop a “parte’ (a communication directed to the merits (outcome) of the
design process) …it’s the [B] resolution
of the argument supported by claims, inferences, evidence and warrants) It is a
“top-down” approach later followed by designs which meet the parte. The parte
may follow the design process and be presented to sell the product. Of course this parte would have to converse
with the parte of the street, neighborhood and township with all the social,
political, and legal matters pertinent to such an undertaking.
The generative metaphor is “seeing” as the “meta-pherein” or “carrying
–over” of frames or perspectives goes from one domain of experience to another.
You build one thing in terms of another where the other is the model, and, what
you build is the application. It is the
“ideal” of the proposed design. While architects
may initially state an ideal, it most likely evolves and even radically changes
by the time the design process yields an architectural configuration (building
manifestation). Once achieved the “parte” (concept/gestalt)
manifests and can be articulated. [1.1].
Axiom II. 1.2.1 Peculiarization, personalization and authentication are required for a
metaphor to live. This too is the way the user metaphorizes the using
process, the user and the work empathize. In this is the art of making metaphors for the
architect of public works where metaphor must “read” the cultural, social and
rightness of the metaphor’s proposed context. They are “techne” driven engineering
a building without architectural concerns. Practically, such a work is a techne
driven design where craft-like knowledge is called a ‘techne.' It is most
useful when the knowledge is pragmatically applied, rather than theoretically
or aesthetically applied. It is the rational method involved in producing an
object or accomplishing a building design where techne is actually a system of practical knowledge. As a craft
or art technê is the practice of design which is informed by knowledge
of forms such as the craft of managing a firm of architects where even virtue
is a kind of technê of management and design practice, one that is
based on an understanding of the profession, business and market.
Axiom III. 1.2.2/1.2.3 A conduit is a minor framework which
overlooks words as containers and allows ideas and feelings to flow, unfettered
and completely disembodied, into a kind of ambient space between human heads. Irregardless of the details the overall
concept is “transferred “from one to the other, irrespective of sub-dominant
and tertiary design elements.
Geometry of urban
blocks and the location of building masses that reflect one anther is a scheme
to sharply define the volume and mass of the block and experience of city
streets (Vincent Scully). In New York City the grid and this insistence on
buildings reflecting the geometry of the grid is a metaphor of city-wide
proportions. The streets are defined by the 90 degree corners, planes and
tightness of the cubes and rectangles to the city plan.
In this way the
metaphor of the overall and each building design no mater where it’s location
on the block; no matter when or in what sequence the metaphoric constraint of
appropriateness or zoning formulas, all lead the ideas to flow from one to
another architect. Furthermore, the reader is able to “appreciate” (to value is to attach importance to a thing because of its worth)
the street, its geometry, limits and linearity as an idea on the 1.2.2/1.2.3 conduit from the
architect, through the metaphor and to the reader. 1.2.2/1.2.3
Axiom IV. 1.3 Culture is a product of man-made, unnatural things, that instead of
culture shaping the architecture, architecture shapes the culture, and
cognitions beget cognitions. Building
shapes and forms tend to reflect common geometry; building types tend to share
common facilities; building code use designations influence the selection of applicable
code requirements, architecture, forming clusters and community spaces create
opportunities for neighborhood identity and nurturing cultural identity.
Axiom V. “Each metaphorical mapping preserves
image-schema structure:” In acting it is called a” handle” where your whole
character’s peculiarity is remember by one acting device (accent, slang, twang,
wiggle, walk, snort, etc) ;in architecture the building’s roof top, cladding,
silhouette, interior finishes, lighting, gargoyles, entrance, rounded corners,
etc. If the facade of a building is designed in one order of architecture
you can presume the other parts are in like arrangements where the whole may be
of that same order including its’ plan,
section and details because of mapping and channeling one idea from one level
to another. 1.4.1 for example, the “superimposition of the image of an hour
glass onto the image of a woman’s waist by virtue of their common shape”. As
before the metaphor is conceptual; it is not the works themselves, but the mental
images. In this case Metaphor is a mental image.
Axiom VI. Since metaphor is the main mechanism through which
we comprehend abstract concepts and perform abstract reasoning: 1.4.3 what is built is first thought and conceived separately from
building as thinking and conceiving is separate from the outward expression, so
metaphor is a process and architectural metaphor is a process and what we see
is what the process issues; not the manifest metaphor.
Axiom VII. The metaphor-building clarifies our place,
status and value.
As Metaphor is the main mechanism
through which we comprehend abstract concepts and perform abstract reasoning so
works of architecture inform our social, psychological and political condition.
Axiom VIII. 1.4.4 Much subject matter, from the most mundane to the most abstruse scientific
theories, can only be comprehended via metaphor. The metaphor is engrafted with knowledge about
the state of contemporary technology, scientific advancement, social taste and
community importance, even an anonymous Florentine back ally’s brick wall,
carved door, wall fountain, shuttered windows, building height, coloration of
the fresco.
Axiom IX. The architects process and what is assembled
may or may not correlate; likewise what we perceive of what we see is not
necessarily what we think or believe we have seen. As thought, poetry,
song, etc architecture is both precise around the technique but vague about the
cultural, psychic and social bridges. Yet architecture is rich with its icons,
classic silhouettes, orders of architecture, styles and periods. 1.4.5 Metaphor is fundamentally conceptual, not linguistic, in nature.
It is the difference between the thing and what we perceive. Our perception of
the building is the metaphor while the building is the evidence of the design
process and the keys to unlock our mind; that is to say that when we recall the
metaphor we recall the concept.
Axiom X. 1.4.6 Metaphorical language (in this case a building) is a surface
manifestation of conceptual (program, design and contact documents) metaphor. The built metaphor is the residue,
excrement, product and periphery of the deep and complex reality of the
building’s creative process and extant reality. As we don’t know the inner workings of our car
and yet are able to drive so we can use our building. What we design and what
we read not the metaphor but a surface manifestation of the concept metaphor. A
concept which we can only know as well as we is able to discern metaphorical
language. The construction and the
metaphor beneath are mapped by the building being the manifestation of the
hidden conceptual metaphor. To know the conceptual metaphor we must read the
building.
Axiom XI. 1.4.7 Through much of our conceptual system is metaphorical; a significant
part of it is non-metaphorical. Metaphorical understanding is grounded in
non-metaphorical understanding. Our primary experiences grounded in the laws of physics of gravity , plasticity,
liquids, winds, sunlight, etc all contribute to our metaphorical understanding
often the conceptual commonality accepting the strange .
Axiom XII. 1.4.8 Metaphor allows us to understand a relatively abstract or inherently
unstructured subject matter in terms of a more concrete, or at least, more
highly structured subject matter. The
whole of the conceptual metaphor is designed in such a way as to clarify,
orient and provide “concrete” reification of all the design parameters into a
“highly structured’ work; a work which homogenizes all these diverse and
disjointed systems and operations into a well working machine. A structured
building is a structured subject offering access to relatively abstract and
unstructured subject matter. Hence architects translate
their architectural conception from philosophy, psychology, sociology, etc into
two dimensional scaled drawings and then to real-life full-scale multi
dimensions conventions consisting of conventional materials, building elements
(doors, windows, stairs, etc).
Axiom XIII. Sifting through the program the architect
seeks the “commonality” between the reality and experience to make the
metaphor. Mapping is only possible when makers know the “commonplace”, the
commonality, the characteristic common to both, the terms that both the source
and the target have in common in which the mapping takes place. The
architect’s design agenda and the user’s requirements find both their
commonalities and differences. As the architect structures his program, design
and specifications he simultaneously structures the metaphor of his work of
architecture. Architecture consists of program specifics where the conditions,
operations, goals and ideals are from heretofore unrelated and distant contexts
but are themselves metaphors “mapped across conceptual domains”.
Architects translate their architectural conception from
philosophy, psychology, sociology, etc into two dimensional scaled drawings and
then to real life full scale multi dimensions conventions consisting of
conventional materials, building elements (doors, windows, stairs, etc).1.4.9 As maps are the
result of cartographers rendering existing into a graphics for reading so is
mapping to the reading of metaphors where the reader renders understanding from
one source to another. As the cartographer seeks lines, symbols and shadings to
articulate the world reality so the reader’s choices of heretofore unrelated
and seemingly unrelated are found to
have an essence common to both the reality and the rendition so that the
metaphor can be repeated becoming the readers new vocabulary. As the reader can
describe the route he can identify the building. 1.4. 10 Each mapping (where mapping is the systematic
set of correspondences) is that which exist between constituent elements of the
source and the target domain. Many elements of target concepts come from source
domains and are not preexisting. To know a conceptual metaphor is to know the
set of mappings that applies to a given source-target pairing. The same idea of
mapping between source and target is used to describe analogical
reasoning and inferences. For example, reception area to receive people, doors
and door frames, columns as vertical supports, parking spaces for cars, Iron
and stained glass design patterns, and typical design details appropriated for
a given building system.
1.4.11 Aside from articulating
a program architects carry-over their experiences with materials, physics, art,
culture, building codes, structures, plasticity, etc. to form a metaphor.
Identifying conditions, operations, ideals and goals are combined to form
plans, sections and elevations which are then translated in to contract
documents.
Later the contractors map this
metaphor based on their schemes of cost, schedule and quality control into
schedules and control documents. It is not until equipment, laborers and
materials are brought to the side that the metaphor starts to form. Once formed the only evidence for the user
(reader) are the thousands of cues from every angle, outside and inside to
enable use and understanding. An informed user can read the building’s history from
its inception to opening day. 1.4.12 Mappings are not
arbitrary, but grounded in the body and in every day experience and knowledge.
Mapping and making metaphors are synonymous. The person and not the work make
the metaphor. Without the body and the experience of either the author or the
reader nothing is being made. The thing does not have but the persons have the
experiences. As language, craft, and skills are learned by exercise, repetition
and every day application so are mappings. Mappings are not subject to
individual judgment or preference: but as a result of making seeking and
finding the commonality by practice.
1.4.13 A conceptual system
contains thousands of conventional metaphorical mappings which form a highly
structured subsystem of the conceptual system.
Over the year’s society, cultures, families and individuals experience
and store a plethora of mapping routines which are part of society’s mapping
vocabulary. As a potential user, when encountering a new building-type, such as
a hi-tech manufacturing center, we call upon our highly structured subsystem to
find conceptual systems which will work to navigate this particular event. 1.4.11 The scale of habitable
metaphors is the intrinsic relation between the human figure and his
surroundings as measured, proportioned and sensed. It is dramatically
represented by Da Vinci's Vitruvian Man is based on the correlations of
ideal human proportions with geometry described by the ancient Roman architect Vitruvius.
1.4.11 Architecture as a surrogate
is accepted at face value. As a surrogate (a work of architecture) is "a
replacement that is used as a means for transmitting benefits from a context in
which its’ user may not be a part”. Architecture’s metaphors bridge from the
program, designs and contactors a shelter and trusted habitat. The user enters and occupies the habitat with him
having formulated but not articulated any its characteristics. Yet it works.
“It makes sense, therefore, to speak of two sides to a surrogate, the user side
and the context side (from which the user is absent or unable to function). “
Each of us uses others to achieve a benefit for ourselves. “We have that
ability”. “None of us is just a person, a lived body, or just an organism. We
are all three and more. We are singulars who own and express ourselves in and
through them. As Weiss proclaims that we cannot separate these three from each
other so that it follows that we may find it impossible to separate us from the
external metaphors. Inferences that are not yet warranted can be real even
before we have the evidence.
Metaphors are accepted at face-value
and architecture is accepted at face-value. Accustomed to surrogates
architecture is made by assuming these connections are real and have benefit.
Until they are built and used we trust that they will benefit the end user.
Assembling the ambulatory we assume the occupancy, frequency and destinations.
We each are surrogates to one
another yet fitted into one message. When this passage had been used as read as
had been other passages, corridors and links. Like a linguistic, the building stands, like a great, stone dagger, emphatic against the sky.
The stair, the exit, the space calls, gives emphasis and is strongly
expressive.
Axiom XIV. Elegant
architectural metaphors are those in which the big idea and the smallest of
details echo and reinforce one another. Contemporary architects wrapping their
parte in “green”, “myths” and eclectic images” are no less guilty than was
their predecessors of the Bauhaus exuding asymmetry, tension and dissonance as
were the classics and renaissance insisting on unity, symmetry and balance. The
architect’s parte and the user’s grasp of cliché parte were expected and easy
“fill-in” proving the learned mappings, learned inference trail and familiarity
with bridging.
1.5.1 People ascertain the
deep metaphor that underlies one or more surface metaphors by filling in terms
of an implicit analogy”. A unique building metaphor may be reckoned by its
apparent similarity to another from a previous experience.
As a grain silo is to a methane gas
plant and to oil tank storage, what may be implicit are the shapes,
appurtenances, and locations.
1.5.2 We see the architectural metaphor, we read its extent, we synapse,
analogies and metaphorize absorbing its information, contextualizing and as
much as possible resurrecting its reasons for creation. The architectural metaphor only speaks
through its apparent shape, form, volume, space, material, etc that the
concepts which underlie each are known to the user as they would to a painting,
poem, or concerto.
1.5.3 Architecture is often more suggestive and trusting rather than being
pedantic; it leads and directs circulation, use recognition while abstracting
shapes and forms heretofore unknown but ergonometric. Furthermore as observation, analysis and use
fill in the gaps users inference the locations of concealed rooms, passages and
supports; the user infers from a typology of the type a warehouse of
expectations and similes to this metaphor from others. In this way there are
the perceived and the representations they perceive which represents when
explored and inert what we call beautiful, pleasurable and wonderful. For example, in any culture, upon entering a traditional
church we anticipate finding a common vocabulary of vestibule, baptistery,
pews, chancel, and choir area including transepts, chapels, statuary, altar,
apse, sacristy, ambulatory and side altars.
1.5.4 Metaphors are cognitions, while architecture is the making of metaphors
and architects are making metaphors, their works, though metaphoric, are not
themselves the metaphors but the shadow of the metaphor which exists elsewhere
in the minds of both the creator and the user, and, it is there that the
creator and the user may have a commonality (not commonplace) . Ideally, if
I design my own house, decorate my own room there will likely be that
commonality. If an architect is selected from a particular neighborhood his
metaphor will likely be sympathetic (common) to the culture of the area. Or, a
concerted effort on the part of the design team to assemble the relevant and
commonplace information. 1.5.5 Architects make a spatial representation in which local subspaces can
be mapped into points of higher-order hyper-spaces and vice versa is possible
because they have a common set of dimensions. Architects organize broad categories of operations
and their subsets seeing that they are different from each others so as to
warrant a separate group and that their subsets fit because they have common
operational, functional conditions, operations, and models.
Axiom XVI. The two domains of the building and its
context may have analogies that relate to both. The site and the building
will absorb a high amount of pedestrian traffic. Both are ambulatories and both
guide and protect the pedestrian. Like a building metaphor’s common elements
with an uncommon application the common connects to the unfamiliar and the
architect is able to find a way to bring them together and the user discovers
their relevance. The neighborhoods walkways and the access to and through the
building are analogous.
As a child a
Kresge 5 and 10 was built as a huge and wide corridor diagonally connecting
Westchester Avenue with Southern Boulevard thus saving lots of steps, time and
distance but providing a wonderful weather-free comfort- zone cutting through
this block. Westchester and Southern Boulevard were two major thoroughfares
which intersected and the joining corners of the two avenues were filled with
shops facing their streets which we could alternately frequent as an
alternate.
“Alleys” in big cities and Munich subway shopping malls
are also examples of these design analogies, called galleries, “alleys”, mews,
etc. 1.7.1 Metaphors
work by “reference to analogies that are known to relate to the two domains”.
Axiom XVII. A work of architecture has congruence if the
whole and the parts share the same architectural vocabulary with respect to its
building systems, materials and design philosophy. In a building with
dominant 90 degree, cube and squares we do not expect to find plastic, curved
and circular elements. (Not that there aren’t many successful introductions of
unlike geometries) On the other hand if we can reason these differences we
still would question this disparity to the expression of that incongruous relationship
in the final work .For this reason we have design juries, inspections and
rejects of design and doing the course of construction, to stop a part or
incongruity between the design and the construction and between a part and the
whole. Buildings designed to be seen
from the highway or visited for a fleeting moment are designed with one set of expectations
while a home, terminal, office, etc may be more elaborate and scaled for
scrutiny. A built metaphor with all of its metaphorical baggage call to mind
another meaning and corresponding set of truths. The metaphor is not part of
the building but is made from those meanings. The meanings of one and the
meanings of another may be similar so that the other comes to mind.
1.8.1 A “problem of the metaphor concerns the relations between the word and
sentence meaning, on the one hand, and speaker’s meaning or utterance meaning,
on the other.” “Whenever we talk about the metaphorical meaning of a word,
expression, or sentence, we are talking about what a speaker might utter it to
mean, in a way it that departs from what the word, expression or sentence
actually means”. The design program, building codes, manufactures
recommendations are compared to the
final design to test for meaning and compliance to test the architectural work.
The complaint against Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fifth Avenue Guggenheim Museum was
the inferior quality of the concrete pours resulting in uneven and mottled
surfaces. The design and the expression are often incongruous and out of the
control of the architect. Such work’s often are carried out with contractors selected
prior to the design beginning and are part of the design process. Aside from
apparent defects examiners and inspectors look abandon concrete specifics for
paradigms and protocols to determine validity.
1.8.2 What are the principles which relate literal sentence meaning to
metaphorical utterance meaning” where one is comprehensive, complete and coordinated
while the other is merely an incomplete scanty indication of a non-specific.
1.8.3 How does
on thing remind us of another? The basic principle of an expression with its
literal meaning and corresponding truth-conditions can, in various ways that
are specific to the metaphor, call to mind another meaning and corresponding
set of truths”. Unlike a legal brief, specification and engineering
document a work of architecture with all its metaphors tolerates variety of interpretations,
innuendo and diverse translations.
Axiom XVIII. Building
style and decoration are often adaptations of a former and existing building emphasizing
economic and financial status, quest for status, adaptations to local common
ground of knowledge, beliefs, and attitudes. Choice of structural, building
systems, building height and color are often in the vernacular of the building
use (office, residential, commercial, industrial, etc.) and the zoned and neighboring
fashion.
2. Section on “Metaphor and Representation”:
1.9.1 Explaining tropes (turn, twist, conceptual guises, and figurations)
‘Human cognition is fundamentally shaped by various processes of figuration”.
“The ease with which many figurative (Based on or making use of figures {abounding
in or fond of figures of speech: Elizabethan poetry is
highly figurative} of speech; metaphorical: figurative language) utterances are comprehended are as often
been attributed to the constraining influence of the context” ………..Including
“the common ground of knowledge, beliefs, and attitudes recognized as being
shared by speakers and listeners (architects and users (clients, public). One
can say one’s speech is affected; affected by peer pressure and the urge to
communicate and adapt. Medieval German, French and Italian cities are replete
with merchant building’s roofs configured, elongated and attenuated to be
higher than others. Near the Rhine, Germany’s Trier is a fine example. The roof
tops of Manhattan’s skyline is a eclectic collation of referent figures form
one or another European city and building.
Axiom XIX. A habitable metaphor is not meant for the
user to fully, continuously and forever recall all that went into its’ production.
The fact that the roof silhouette was to emulate a Belvedere in Florence,
windows from a palace in Sienna, and stucco from Tyrol is lost over time. Even,
the design principles so astutely applied by the likes of Paul Rudolf, Richard
Meier, or Marcel Breuer may be unnoticed in favor of other internal focuses. These many design considerations may be the
metaphor that gave the project its gestalt that enabled the preparation of the
documents that in turn were faithful interpreted by skilled contractors and
craftsman. Yet at each turn it is the affect of metaphor and not necessarily
its specifics that make a good design not a great work of architecture or a
working metaphor.
3. Section on Metaphor and Understanding
1.10.1” A metaphor involves a nonliteral use of language”. A non-literal
use of language means that what is said is for affect and not for content.
At each moment in its use the metaphor may mean different things, least of
which may be any intended by its authors.
Axiom XX. In an
attempt to make the strange familiar matching,
copying and emulating the design of other buildings or adapting the design of
one to the current project is adapted to the more familiar. In the Tyrol
offices are often housed in larger chalets with it all the roof, hardware,
doors and flower boxes of the more typical residence. The new building is made
to appear like the others. Often the signature of the original dominates the
new. There is no attempt to hide the emulation. Users will easily transfer
their experience from the familiar old to the emulated new. Appreciation is
when a metaphor as an abbreviated simile (a figure of speech in which two
unlike things are explicitly compared, as in “she is like a rose.”) designed to
appreciate similarities and analogies. 1.11.1 In psychology “appreciation” (Herbert (1898)) was a general term for
those mental process whereby an attached experience is brought into relation
with an already acquired and familiar conceptual system (Encoding, mapping,
categorizing, inference, assimilation and accommodation, attribution, etc).
1.11.2 “In principle, three steps, recognition,
reconstruction, and interpretation, must be taken in understating metaphors,
although the simplest instance the processing may occur so rapidly that all
three blend into a single mental act. A metaphor may be regard as a compressed
simile, the comparison implied in the former being explicit in the latter;
where the making the comparison explicit is the work of the designer and
reader.
Like the writer ,
sculptor and musician the work f the architect in making metaphors is to reify
amorphic matter, ideas and principles into occupiable reality. When we face a new metaphor (building) a
new context with its own vocabulary is presented, one which the creator must
find and connect and the other which the reader must read and transfer from
previous experience.
Axiom XXI. Buildings in one group often have more
known versions than others. In one city exposed wide flanged steel structures
may be preferred to the reinforced concrete in another. In Dubai and Qatar
High rise and multi story and iconic are synonymous and know to represent commerce
buildings. Iconic is the trigger for all the rest. High and rise used together
recalls how the elevator and quest for grated real estate earnings encouraged
the higher number of floors per single zoned building lot.
1.12.1 Prototype theory is a
mode of graded categorization
in cognitive
science, where some members of a category are more central than
others. For example, when asked to
give an example of the concept furniture,
chair is more frequently cited
than, say, stool.” I asked a
New Yorker to give an example of an office building and they answered the
Empire State Building it would be because of its height, and reputation, In
fact the office building and not the “church “building shape has come to be a
metaphor of the city. New York is an office building city. I can see only a
flash glimpse and I will know it is Manhattan.
1.12.3 “Metaphors are generally used to describe something new by reference to
something familiar (Black, 1962b), not just in conversation, but in such
diverse areas as science and psychotherapy. Metaphors are not just nice,
they are necessary. They are necessary for casting abstract concepts in terms
of the apprehendable, as we do, for example, when we metaphorically extend
spatial concepts and spatial terms to the realms of temporal concepts and
temporal terms”. Most designers of shelters are predisposed to the geometry of
the rectangle and its variations (with exceptions of amorphic and ergonometric)
and present the completed design as its offspring and/or compounded variations.
The built variation certainly refers to its base and vice versa. It is not just
nice but necessary; otherwise it could not be built. Most building types and classical orders from
Egypt, Greece and Rome to the skewed iconic towers of the emirates hearken back
to their essence as a kind of rectangle.
Axiom XXII. Without having an apriori parte a design may
evolve until a final design is achieved which is no more representative as
whole from any other building of its type. Toledo’s Escarlata Partablela brought me, a picnic lunch and her guitar to a
small mountain across from her city. She urged me to sketch while she
serenaded. After a while I noticed her wry smile as she scanned my sketches and
when I noticed how familiar they looked she confessed that she had sat me down
on the very spot El Greco sat to sketch “View Of Toledo”. Arab “tentness” and “home-sweet-home” map
basics from the “home-sweet-home” to the Arabness to make all the bits and
pieces be understood. Following engineering,
building and code conventions it si no wonder that most building of one type
are similar to others. Architects choose building elements from catalogs and in
the most metaphoric circumstances designs elements form scratch. Metaphor
buildings may or may not be composed of element metaphors and buildings which
are analogies may of or may not have elements designed metaphorically. However,
it is less likely that an analogues design will contain metaphorical elements.
Architects and clients begin their
conversation by finding both the abstract and commonplace to condition, model, and
purpose and describe the operations. Selecting existing commonplace and
choosing special design is determined by which can be analogous and which do
not exist.
4. Section on Metaphor and Science
1.13.1 Much of architectural making of metaphors is a matter of mapping,
diagramming and combining to conclude the validity of combining and matching
unlike materials, shapes, & systems. In this way any one of the metaphors
and the whole system of bridging and carrying over is metaphoric. 1.13.2
Metaphor
is reasoning using abstract characters whereas reason by analogy is a straight
forward extension of its use in commonplace reasoning.
1.13.3
“In
processing analogy, people implicitly focus on certain kinds of commonalities
and ignore others”. 1.13.4 An analogy is a kind of highly
selective similarity where we focus on certain commonalities and ignore others.
The commonality is no that they are both built out of bricks but that they both
take in resources to operate and to generate their products. 1.13.5 On the creative
architect’s side: “The central idea is that an analogy is a mapping of
knowledge from one domain (the base) into another (the target) such that a
system of relations that holds among the base objects also holds among the
target objects”. On the user’s side in interpreting an analogy, people seek to
put objects of the base in one-to-one correspondence with the objects of the
targets as to obtain the maximum structural match. 1.13.6 “The corresponding objects in the base
and target need not resemble each other; rather object correspondences are
determined by the like roles in the matching relational structures.”
1.13.7 “Thus, an analogy is a way of aligning and
focusing on rational commonalities independently of the objects in which those
relationships are embedded.”
1.13.8 “Central to the mapping
process is the principle of “systematicity: people prefer to map systems of
predicates favored by higher-order relations with inferential import (the Arab
tent), rather that to map isolated predicates. The systematicity principle
reflects a tacit preference for coherence and inferential power in interpreting
analogy”.
1.13.9“No extraneous associations: only commonalities
strengthen an analogy. Further relations and associations between the base and
target- for example, thematic consecutions- do not contribute to the analogy.”
Axiom XXIII. More
often than not designers are influenced by the existence of similar types than
to re-invent themselves from scratch. Rather than deriving a new model
designers use prototypes and translate concepts into two dimensional graphics that
which ultimately imply a multidimensional future reality. She tests the
horizontal and vertical space finding accommodation and commonality of
adjacency, connectivity and inclusiveness.
It is the commonplace and not the abstract necessity that communicates
more readily. The architect is challenged to imbue in the design the more
subtle analogy then the obvious.
For example, 1.14.1 “Interaction view” of
metaphor where metaphors work by applying to the principle (literal) subject of
the metaphor a system of “associated implications” characteristic of the
metaphorical secondary subject. These implications are typically provided by
the received “commonplaces” (ordinary; undistinguished or uninteresting;
without individuality: a commonplace person.); about
the secondary subject: ‘The success of the metaphor rests on its success in
conveying to the listener (reader) some quieter defined respects of similarity
or analogy between the principle and secondary subject.” (1.14.2 Metaphors simply impart their commonplace)
Axiom XXIV. Publically
perceived architectural metaphors are all about names, titles, and the access that
the work provides for the reader to learn and develop. At its best the
vocabulary of the parts and whole of the work is an encyclopedia and cultural
building block. The work incorporates (is imbued with) the current state of
man’s culture and society which is an open book for the reader. The freedom of
both the creator and reader to dub and show is all part of the learning
experience of the metaphor. In the
sixties I dubbed this ”popular architecture” (POPARCH; not “Pop Art”)
However objective,
thorough and scientific the designer or the design tools the work gets dubbed
with information we may call style, personality, and identity above and beyond
the program and its’ basic design. It is additional information engrafted into
the form not necessarily overtly and expressly required. Dubbing (imbuing) may
occur in the making of metaphors as a way in which the design itself is
conceived and brought together. Dubbing may in fact be the process which
created the work as an intuitive act. Imbuing is often what distinguishes the
famous from the ordinary architect and the way the architect dubs is what
critics calls the art of architecture.
1.15.1“Dubbing” (invest with any name, character, dignity, or title; style;
name; call) and “epistemic access”
(relating to, or involving knowledge; cognitive.).”When dubbing is
abandoned the link between language and the world disappears”, adding a sound
track to a film is the best use of the word where the picture remains but the
experience of the whole is changed. Now we have both picture and sound.
Certain contemporary works of architecture are minimal and only by
dubbing the program can functionally superficial non-minimal features be added However, the
architect’s artistry (way of design, proportioning, arranging spaces,
selections of materials, buildings systems, etc. can be dubbed to enhance an
otherwise “plain vanilla” solution. Like fashion stylist building too have
stylist whose formal signatures are unmistakingly peculiar . You can recognize a Wright
building from a Saarinan ; a Corbusier form and Pei; a Bau Haus from a
Beaux Artes; and a Mies from a Kahn,
etc.
Axiom XXV. Structural engineers design from the top
down so as to accumulate the additive loads to the consecutive lower members
and ultimately the foundation which bears it all. Conceptual design and first
impressions both begin with the general and go to the specific. We can do this by going from the general to
the specific as we go from the known to the unknown. 1.16.5 About a “top-down strategy” called
“structured programming” in computer science allows for a point of entry into a
the development of a new idea where you begin with an idea and after testing
and developing that idea bringing everyday knowledge to bear on the development
of theoretical ideas with some confidences that they are new either incoherent
nor contradictory, and furthermore with some way of exploring what they
entail. 1.16.6 Explaining this approach as a
“skyhook-skyscraper" construction of science from the roof down to the yet
un-constructed foundations” describes going from the general to the specific in
and decreasing general to an increasing amount of detail and pragmatic
evidence, referents, claims and resolutions.
1.16.7 “The difference between literal and
metaphorical description lies primarily in such pragmatic consideration as (1)
the stability, referential specificity, and general acceptance of terms: and
(2) the perception, shared by those who use the terms, that the resulting
description characterizes the world as it really is, rather than being a
convenient way of talking about it, or a way of capturing superficial
resemblances”. 1.16.8 Pylyshyn asserts that: “metaphor induces
a (partial) equivalence between two known phenomenons; a literal account
describes the phenomenon in authentic terms in which it is seen.
As 1.16.1 Pylyshyn explains:
“…………….consider new concepts as being
characterized in terms of old ones (plus logical conjunctives)” 2.0 And as
William J. Gordon points out we make the strange familiar by talking about one
thing in terms of another. Pylyshyn: "On the other hand, if it were
possible to observe and to acquire new “knowledge” without the benefit of these
concepts (conceptual schemata (an underlying organizational pattern or
structure; conceptual framework) which are the medium of thought.
1.16.2 “Knowledge” would not
itself be conceptual or be expressed in the medium of thought, and therefore it
would not be cognitively structured, integrated with other knowledge, or even
comprehended. Hence, it would be intellectually inaccessible”. In other words
we would not know that we know.
Where knowing is
the Greek for suffer, or experience. This was the Greek ideal proved in
Oedipus; “through suffering man learns”; we know that we know. Therefore, when
we observe that architecture makes metaphors we mean that we know that we know
that works exists and we can read authors messages. We learn the work. 1.16.3 Pulling from three
dimensional and two dimensional means
and methods, from asymmetrical and symmetrical, and from spatial and volumetric
design principles the architect assembles metaphor metaphorically by
associating and carrying-over these principles applying to the program at hand
to lift and stretch the ideas into space and across the range of disassociated
ideas and concepts making a new and very strange metaphor unlike anything ever
created yet filled with thousands of familiar signs and elements that make it
work .
5. Section on Metaphor and Education is the final section:
Axiom XXVI. 1.17.1 “Analogical transfer
theory (“instructive metaphors create an analogy between a to-be-learned-
system (target domain) and a familiar system (metaphoric domain. Not unlike
classical Gothic modern architecture
wants to express the truth about the building’s systems, materials, open life
styles, use of light and air and bringing nature into the buildings
environment, not to mention ridding building of the irrelevant and time worn
cliches of building design decoration, and traditional principles of classical architecture
as professed by the Beaux-Arts movement. For equipoise “Unity, symmetry and
balance” were replaced by “asymmetrical tensional relationships” between,
“dominant, subdominant and tertiary” forms and the results of science and
engineering influence on architectural design, a new design metaphor was born.
The Bauhaus found the metaphor in all the arts, the commonalities in making
jewelry, furniture, architecture, interior design, decoration, lighting,
industrial design, etc.
Axiom XXVII.
Metaphorical teaching strategies often lead to better and more memorable
learning than do explicit strategies which explains why urbanites have a
“street smarts” that is missing from sub-urban; they actually learn from the
metaphors that make up the context. Of course this is in addition to the social
aspects of urbanity which is again influenced by the opportunities of urban
metaphors: parks, play grounds, main streets, broadways, avenues, streets,
sidewalks, plazas, downtown, markets, street vendors, etc. When visiting new cities in another country
one is immediately confronted with metaphors which create similarities as
interactive and comparative as we seek to find similarities and differences
with what we already known in our home context.
Visiting,
sketching and writing about over seventy European cities I noted the character
and ambiance of each and the differences between one and another. Each metaphor
was of the past’s impact on the future with the unique design of crafts,
building materials, and skills that were peculiar to their times but were no
enjoyed in the present. In this context there are the natives who experience
these metaphors all their lives and the visitor who is fist learning the lesson
of these metaphors. Both experience these in different ways. The native knows the place and comprehends
both the old and the new knowledge domains whereas the visitor the very same
metaphor may be interactive, creating the similarity under construction. The
visitor (this is my word) may “well be acquiring one of the constitutive or
residual metaphors of the place (this is my word) at the same time; same
metaphor, different experiences. 1.18.1 “Radically new
knowledge results from a change in modes of representation of knowledge,
whereas a comparative metaphor occurs within the existing representations which
serve to render the comparison sensible. The comparative level of metaphor
might allow for extensions of already existing knowledge, but would not provide
a new form of understanding.
Axiom XXVIII. 1.19.2 “Speech is a fleeting, temporarily linear means of communicating,
coupled with the fact that that, as human beings, we are limited in how much
information we can maintain and process at any one time in active memory, means
that as speakers we can always benefit from tools for efficiently bringing
information into active memory, encoding it for communication, and recording
it, as listeners, in some memorable fashion.” Many architects can make metaphors to
overcome cognitive limitations and resort to graphics rather than language to explain
the metaphor. Metaphor as a design act serves as a graphic tool for overcoming
cognitive limitations.
1.19.1 Metaphors have a way of
extending our capacities for communications.
As most artists their language is
beyond speech and the peculiar craft of
their art of which their practice and exercise develops new capacity and
opportunity to teach and express thought outside of the linguistics but is
nevertheless perhaps as valuable and worthy. Architects both compose the program and reify
its contents from words to diagrams and diagrams to two dimensional graphics
and three dimensional models to reify and bring- out (educate) the user’s mind
and fulfillment of unspoken and hidden needs. Needs which many or may not have
been programmed and intended; the metaphor is the final resolution until it is
built and used. Then it is subject to further tests of time, audience, markets,
trends, fashions, social politics, demographic shifts, economics, and cultural
changes. 1.19.3 Metaphor is the solution insofar as it encodes
and captures the information:” transferring chunks of experience from well
–known to less well known contexts; 1.19.4 The vividness thesis, which maintains that metaphors permit and impress a more memorable
learning due to the greater imagery or concreteness or vividness of the
“full-blooded experience” conjured up by the metaphorical vehicle; 1.19.5 and the inexpressibility thesis, in which it is noted that
certain aspects of natural experience are never encoded in language and that
metaphors carry with them the extra meanings never encoded in language. One
picture is worth a thousand words and how valuable are the arts as makers of
who we are as a people, society and time. 1.19.6“The mnemonic (intended to assist the memory) function of metaphor as expressed by
Ortony’s vividness thesis also points to the value of metaphor as a tool for
producing durable learning from unenduiring speech.
Conclusion
When kingdoms
created dynasty’s iconic buildings the architect and artisans took their ques
from the reigning monarch. They converted these verbal instructions into
habitable iconic cognitions, places to store and represent their wealth and
places to defend their domains. The referents were clearly monetarily valued as
in more is better or security and privacy. With the introduction of civil codes
that architecture was concerned about the health, safety and welfare of the
general public. In certain modern
pluralistic societies the free reign of ideas and opinions as to contexts and
their meanings are diverse.
Not only is my
childhood quest relevant but the essence of the responsibility of today’s architect
who not only reasons the technical but individually reasons the conceptual. It
is to the architect that society turns to be informed about the shape and form
of the context in which life will be played. With this charge the need to know
that we know and do by reasoning what science verifies by the scientific method
to know that we know about the buildings, parks, and places we set into the environment.
It is a public and
private charge included in the contract for professional services but unspoken
as professional life’s experience; to prove the relevant, meaningful and
beneficial metaphors that edify encourage and equip society as well as provide
for its’ health, safety and welfare. So it is critical to realize, control and
accept as commonplace that the role of the architect is to do much more than
build but build masterfully.
Citations listed alphabetically:
Boyd, Richard; 1.14.0
Conrad, Ulrich; 1.3
Fraser, Bruce; 1.10.0
Gentner, Dedre ; 1.13.0
Gibbs, Jr., Raymond W.; 1.9.0
Glucksberg, Sam; 1.12.0
Jeziorski, Michael; 1.13.0
Kuhn, Thomas S.; 1.15.0
Keysar, Boaz; 1.12.0
Lakoff, George; 1.4
Mayer, Richard E.; 1.17.0
Miller, George A.; 1.11.0
Nigro, Georgia; 1.5.0
Ortony,Andrew;1.0
Oshlag, Rebecca S.; 1.18.0
Petrie, Hugh G; 1.18.0
Pylyshyn, Zeon W.; 1.16.0
Reddy. Michael J.; 1.2
Rumelhart, David E.; 1.7.0
Sadock, Jerrold M.; 1.6.0
Schon, Donald A. ; 1.1
Searle, John R.; 1.8.0
Sternberg, Robert J.; 1.5.0
Thomas G. Sticht; 1.19.0
Tourangeau, Roger; 1.5.0
Weiss,Paul; 1.4.11
Footnotes listed sequentially:
[A] Metaphor and Thought: Second
Edition
Edited by Andrew Ortony: School of
Education and social Sciences and
Institute for the learning
Sciences: North Western University
Published by Cambridge University
Press
First pub: 1979
Second pub: 1993
1. Section on Metaphor and Meaning
1.1 Generative metaphor: A perspective on
problem-setting in social policy: by Donald A. Schon
1.2 The conduit metaphor: A case of frame conflict in
our language about language: by Michael J. Reddy.
1.3 In Programs and Manifestoes on 20th-Century
Architecture about Glasarchitektur Ulrich Conrad'
1.4 The contemporary theory of metaphor by George
Lakoff
1.4.11 "Surrogates,"
published by Indiana University Press. By Paul Weiss
1.5.0 Metaphor, induction, and
social policy: The convergence of macroscopic and microscopic views by Robert
J. Sternberg, Roger Tourangeau, and Georgia Nigro
1.6.0 Figurative speech and
linguistics by Jerrold M. Sadock
1.7.0 Some problems with the
emotion of literal meanings by David E. Rumelhart
1.8.0 Metaphor by John R. Searle
2. Section on “Metaphor and Representation”:
1.9.0 Process and products in
making sense of tropes by Raymond W. Gibbs, Jr.
3. Section on Metaphor and Understanding
1.10.0 Interpretation of novel
metaphors by Bruce Fraser
1.11.0 Images and models, similes
and metaphors by George A. Miller
1.12.0 How metaphors work by Sam
Glucksberg and Boaz Keysar
4. Section on Metaphor and Science
1.13.0 In the Metaphor
and Science section of the book: The shift from metaphor to analogy in
Western science by Dedre Gentner and Michael Jeziorski
1.14.0 Metaphor and theory change: What is” metaphor”
a metaphor for? By Richard Boyd
1.15.0 Metaphor in science by Thomas S. Kuhn
1.16.0 Metaphorical imprecision and the “top down”
research strategy by Zeon W. Pylyshyn
Zenon W. Pylyshyn is Board of
Governors Professor of Cognitive Science at Rutgers Center for Cognitive Science.
He is the author of Seeing and
Visualizing: It's Not what You Think (2003) and Computation and Cognition: toward a Foundation for Cognitive Science
(1984), both published by The MIT Press, as well as over a hundred scientific
papers on perception, attention, and the computational theory of mind.
5. Section on Metaphor and Education is the final section:
Readers may wish to review my
monograms on Schools and Metaphors (Main Currents in Modern Thought/Center for
Integrative Education Sep.-Oct. 1971, Vol. 28 No.1, New Rochelle, New York
and The Metametaphor of architectural
education", (North Cypress, Turkish University. December, 1997)
1.17.0 The instructive metaphor: Metaphoric aids to
students’ understanding of science by Richard E. Mayer
1.18.0 Metaphor and learning by Hugh G Petrie and
Rebecca S. Oshlag
1.19.0 Educational uses of metaphor by Thomas G.
Sticht
References:
A. Background:
The first lectures
"Architecture as the Making of Metaphors" were organized and
conducted by Barie Fez-Barringten near the Art and Architecture building at the
Museum of Fine Arts Yale University 11/02/67 until 12/04/67. The guest speakers
were: Paul Weiss, William J. Gordon, Christopher Tunnard, Vincent Scully, Turan
Onat, Kent Bloomer, Peter Millard, Robert Venturi, Charles Moore, Forrest
Wilson, and John Cage.
Three major questions
confront both the student and the practitioner of architecture: First, what is
architecture? Second, why is architecture an art? Third, what are the architecture's organizing
principles? Many answers to these questions have been provided by scholars and
professionals, but seldom with enough rigors to satisfy close scrutiny. Nor
have the questions been attached to proven and workable forms, so that the art
could be developed beyond the limits of personal feelings.
During the series
of colloquia at Yale on art, Irving Kriesberg [C] [4] had spoken about the
characteristics of painting as a metaphor. It seemed at once that this
observation was applicable to architecture, to design of occupiable forms. An
appeal to Paul Weiss drew from him the suggestion that we turn to English
language and literature in order to develop a comprehensive, specific, and therefore
usable definition of metaphor. But it soon became evident that the term was
being defined through examples without explaining the phenomenon of the
metaphor; for our purposes it would be essential to have evidence of the
practical utility of the idea embodies in the metaphor as well as obvious
physical examples. Out of this concern grew the proposal for a lecture series
wherein professional and scholars would not only bring forward the uses of
metaphor but would also produce arguments against its use.
Thus developed
the symposium, which was presented by the Department of Architecture at Yale in
the same year. 1967, with the intent "to illuminate, in order to refine
and develop, the idea because it makes metaphors; that a work of architecture
is a metaphor because it too blends certain programmatic specifics with
concerns implicit to its own medium.
"Those exploring these possibilities
included Paul Weiss, William J.J. Gordon, Peter Millard, Robert Venturi and
Charles Moore; the following statements are edited transcriptions of a small
portion of the talks which were contributed to this discussion.
The beginning was
steeped in deductive reasoning since we could not find new information pertaining
to metaphors. This included analyzing and explaining the syllogism:
- Art is the making of metaphors
- Architecture is an art
- Therefore architecture is the making of metaphors.
Till now we did
nothing to reason why art is the making of metaphors, why architecture is an
art nor why architecture is an art. Since 1967 I proceeded to analyze the
presumptions and find its many applications. This new information by Andrew
Ortony first published in 1979, provides information to support inductive
reasoning and to this end each axiom is its own warrant to the inferences of
the above syllogism and the answer to question of why metaphor is the stasis to
any of the syllogism’s claims and implications.
B. “Argumentation: The Study of Effective Reasoning, 2nd
Edition; by Professor Dr. David Zarefsky of Northwestern University and
published by The Teaching Company, 2005 of Chantilly, Virginia
C.. Irving Kriesberg; the American
painter was born in 1919. He studied painting in America at The Art Institute
of Chicago and the University of Chicago from 1938-1941 and later in Mexico
from 1942-1946. Kriesberg began his interest in art as a cartoonist in high
school in Chicago. In the 1930's he spent many days sketching the work of the
great masters Titian & Rembrandt when visiting The Art Institute of
Chicago. In the late 1930's he came under the influence of modern art via
School of Paris exhibit.
D. 5.0 “Difference
and Identity”: [C] 4.0 Gilles Deleuze (French pronunciation: [ʒil dəløz]), (18
January 1925 – 4 November 1995) was a French
philosopher of the late 20th century. Deleuze's main philosophical
project in his early works (i.e., those prior to his collaborations with
Guattari) can be baldly summarized as a systematic inversion of the traditional
metaphysical
relationship between identity and difference.
Traditionally,
difference is seen as derivative from identity: e.g., to say that "X is
different from Y" assumes some X and Y with at least relatively stable
identities. To the contrary, Deleuze claims that all identities are effects of
difference. Identities are neither logically nor metaphysically prior to
difference, does Deleuze argue, "given that there are differences of
nature between things of the same genus."
E. Webster’s
standard dictionary; latest edition
G. The
Contemporary Theory of Metaphor: a perspective from Chinese by Ning Yu
H. Paul Weiss 1.4.11
"Emphatics," about the use of language. 1.4.11 "Surrogates," published by
Indiana University Press. Weiss says that: “A surrogate is "a replacement
that is used as a means for transmitting benefits from a context in which its’
user may not be a part”. Architecture’s
metaphors bridge from the program, designs and contactors a shelter and trusted
habitat. The user enters and occupies the habitat with him having formulated
but not articulated any its characteristics. Yet it works. “It makes sense,
therefore, to speak of two sides to a surrogate, the user side and the context
side (from which the user is absent or unable to function). “ Each of us uses
others to achieve a benefit for ourselves. “We have that ability”. “None of us
is just a person, a lived body, or just an organism. We are all three and more.
We are singulars who own and express ourselves in and through them. In my early
twenties I diagramed a being as “”appetite”, “desire” and “mind”. I defined
each and described there interrelationships and support of one another.
Metaphor is one and all of these and our first experiences of sharing life with
in to what are outside of us. As Weiss
describes our mother, language and other primary things we too ascribe like
relations with objects and even buildings assigning them the value from which
we may benefit and which may support. As Weiss proclaims that we cannot
separate these three from each other so that it follows that we may find it
impossible to separate us from the external metaphors. Inferences that are not
yet warranted can be real even before we have the evidence. Metaphors are
accepted at face value and architecture is accepted at face value. Weiss:” It
is surely desirable to make a good use of linguistic surrogates” .
I. Art is the intentional and skillful act
and/or product applying a technique and differs
from natural but pleasing behaviors and useful or decorative products in their
intent and application of a developed technique and skill with that technique.
Art is not limited to fields, prisons or institutions as science, government, security,
architecture, engineering, administration, construction, design, decorating,
sports, etc. On the other hand in each there are both natural and artistic
where metaphors (conceptual and/technical)
make the difference, art is something perfected and well done in that
field. For example, the difference between an artistic copy and the original is
the art of originality and authorship in that it documents a creative process
lacking in the copy.
J. TOC: Metaphor 2009 Monographs
- Deriving the Multidiscipline
axioms from Metaphor and Thought [1]
- Metaphor and Cognition
- The science supporting
the stasis to architecture being an art [I]:
- Language of
metaphors applied to multidisciplined architecture
- “Metaphor’s interdisciplinary
Axioms
- Metaphoric Axioms for Micro disciplinary Architecture
- Complex Structure: art and architecture stasis
- Metaphor axioms of art, architecture and aesthetics
- Aesthetic
principles of metaphor, art and architecture
- The Six Principles of Art’s & Architecture’s Technical and Conceptual Metaphors
- Framing the art [A] vs. architecture argument
- Metaphoric Evidence
- Managing the benefits and risks of architectural artificial intelligence
K. Axiom’s contextual forms
Three levels of axioms matching
three levels of disciplines:
- Multidiscipline: Macro most general where the
metaphors and axioms and metaphors used by the widest and diverse
disciplines, users and societies. All of society, crossing culture, disciplines,
professions, industrialist arts and fields as mathematics and
interdisciplinary vocabulary.
- Interdisciplinary: Between art fields Where as
metaphors in general inhabit all these axioms drive a wide variety and aid
in associations, interdisciplinary contributions and conversations about
board fields not necessary involved with a particular project but if about
a project about all context including city plan, land use, institutions,
culture and site selection, site planning and potent ional neighborhood
and institutional involvement.
- Micro Discipline: Between architects all involved in
making the built environment particularly on single projects in voting
relevant arts, crafts, manufactures, engineers, sub-con tractors and
contactors. As well as owners, users, neighbors, governments agencies,
planning boards and town councils.
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| Collage from Legend by Christina Fez-Barringten |
