Complex Structure
Collage from Legend by Christina Fez-Barringten |
“Architecture is an
art [I] because, as art[I] , it
too, makes metaphors”
By Barie Fez-Barringten
www.bariefez-barringten.com
Email: bariefezbarringten@gmail.com
academia.edu; blogger.com; wordpress.com; authorsden.com;
& Flicker.com.
11,173 words on 22 pages
Actual Sections and Issues (7,462 words)
(Abstract, key words, bio
and institutional affiliations 411 words)
Abstract:
Eighty two issues and claims, where
each claim has been derived from a corresponding issue, built the case for the
resolution of the argument about the controversy that architecture is an art [I]
resolved that architecture was the making of metaphors because it (architecture)
made metaphors, personified by metaphor stasis’
two technical and conceptual
dimensions. Both are valid separately
and even more usual in combination. But
how do these two work, and, how does this
knowledge benefit design, use and evaluation of built works? The claims and
issues were derived by examining Andrew Ortony’s Metaphor and Thought and works by Paul Weiss, William J. Gordon and
the Yale lecture series on the same subject. While many arguments can be
tailored to a specific audience others can be generic and shared. When they are
shared the issues and claims supporting the resolution are usually broad in
range, maximized and amplified. Amplified by number and range to hedge against
the heterogeneity of the audience. However what was valid for Ortony will suffice
for this effort, and a complete, comprehensive and coordinated approach will further
understanding.
Keywords: claims,
resolution, inferences, warrants, issues, stasis, topoi, evidence, metaphor,
architecture, thought, commonality, commonplace, dubbing, cognitive, knowing,
stasis, art, linguistic analogy, equilibrium, equipoise, topoi, top-down, frame
conflict, appreciate, conduit, parte, design system, modified culture, mapping, structure, domain, signs,
apparatus, spaces, volumes, shapes, forms, metaphorical mappings, invariance principle, alive, dead, onomatopeics,
surrogates, appetite, desire, mind, indirect use, direct use, vision, gestalt, formulae, grand
design, psychological, processes, metaphor comprehension, memory, mnemonics, encoding, mapping, categorizing, inference,
assimilation, accommodation, attribution, inferential import, structured
programming, stability, referential specificity, general acceptance of terms,
vividness thesis, difference, identity, comparison sensible, communications,art
[I]
Biographical note: (88 words)
Columbia University coursework in behavioral psychology
under Ralph Hefferline and others in voice Linguistics, Bachelor’s of Fine Arts
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 containing pen and ink drawings on perceptions of 72 European cities.
Institutional
affiliation: Global University
;American Institute of Architects; Florida Licensed Architect; Programming
Chairperson for the Gulf Coast Writers Association; National Council of
Architectural Registration Boards; Al-Umran association, American Society of
Interior Designers; and founding president of Architects International Group/
Mid East.
Method:
There are two parts to this proposal; one: what is the
problem? And the second is what the solution?
I am generally against claiming
anything in terms of problems since
the term problem implies choice whereas
most of my own work is derivations and reasoned creations resulting, not from problem solving, but making metaphors by
aggregating systems, materials and information.
To reason this monograph, picture a square with the resolution
in the upper right hand corner and controversy in the upper left. Now picture
all the issues below the controversy and
the claims under the resolution. Now
picture the inferences as the
connector between the issues and the claims with certain of the inferences
having warrants attached.
Where there is one declarative statement as the main
ultimate claim called the Resolution-Answer.
The ideal interrogative question is the
“starting-point” expressing the controversy
out of which comes an issue out of which comes claims. Issues sustain the resolution and are implied questions inherent in the controversy and vital to the resolution.
The Problem:
The major question at the heart of
the controversy is architecture an
art[I] ? And, if so, why? And the resolution
stasis answer is because it is the making of metaphors. This implies that
both art and architecture have a commonality in that they both make metaphors. The problem can be stated in the wider context
of all man-created services and products, and includes the aesthetic, social, cultural
and psychological relations we have with our man-made
environment.
This is complex
argument, where a major question which begets, has (issues) many minor
questions. As I’ve said these issues
are questions inherent in a controversy
and vital to the success of the resolution.
These issues are also
implicit in the resolution and were located in different ways:
- Located by examining the text of the
resolution(“architecture is the making of metaphors”)
- Located by examining the underlying
context (“art” [I])
- Derived from a pattern of claims and
responses (“architecture is an art because of its value, technique, icons,
identity, and authenticity”.
The resolution could have been either a stasis in conjecture is
whether the act occurred or a stasis in quality concerned with whether
the act concerns conjecture and definition. However architecture as the making
of metaphor is stasis in definition concerned what the act should be called and
implicitly concedes conjecture and is supported by the claims resulting from
each of the issues.
This conjecture is each and inference from the issue to the
claim. This is why the argument is complex and must be taken as whole as
reasoned below. Since the resolution/Stasis: Architecture is art because it too makes metaphors states the answer
to why is architecture an art [I]?
Without the reasoned issues/claims
becoming the definition of why architecture is an art educators, practitioners,
clients, and users cannot with a high degree of certainty equate, judge, and
negotiate works of architecture. They are concerned about the fiduciary role
between owners and contractors, educators, practitioners, clients, and users who
could dilute the certainty and value of the architect’s contract documents with
the ambiguity and uncertainty of art. Indeed,
this current line of reasoning is inductive and has a degree of uncertainty as
opposed to the deductive and presumably certain, much of law, statutes, licensing,
specifications, and contract documents presume certainty. Actually in the
administration, arbitration and trial of the construction contract they too
have their share of uncertainty. This
reasoning should solve the problem and on balance improve the standards of the
field as promulgated by arts and architectural societies, licensing board and regulating
authorities. As metaphors, topoi and conventions can affect practice at the
very least by sharpening already existing practice of making metaphors where contemporary
metaphors are things of value, technical, iconic, identifiable and antithetic.
Manufacturers of such basics as steel,
bricks and windows as well as master builders are less concerned with generic
labels for themselves and their work, class or academic identifications. It is
the referees of culture that face the commonalities and differences of our society
to reckon our social mores and folklores. This reckoning is what
produces the curriculums for schools, colleges, and universities as well as
research, development and government licensing and regulating agencies.
As architects are schooled, apprenticed,
tested and licensed the field is faced each year with continuing education, new
technologies and contemporary social ideals. The best of our culture produces
authentic and original prototypes, leaving cloning and emulation to
others. It is why art [I]
is a significant contributor to
society. Because art and architecture is such a huge subject encompassing many
different facets of our culture, science and technologies it is worthwhile to
have an objective resolution and supporting issues to value works. Richard
Meier says that architecture is the greatest of all the arts. A wider definition
often includes the design of the total built environment, from the macro level
of how a building integrates with its surrounding context like town planning,
urban design, and landscape architecture to the micro level of architectural or
construction details and, sometimes, furniture and hardware. Wider still,
architecture is the activity of designing any kind of system. Even though our
culture considers architecture to be a visual experience, the other senses play
a role in how we experience both natural and built environments. Attitudes
towards the senses depend on culture. The design process and the sensory
experience of a space are distinctly separate views, each with its own language
and assumptions.
Architectural works are often
perceived as cultural and political symbols and, sometimes, as Work of art.
Historical civilizations are often known primarily through their architectural
achievements. There is no lack of questions, investigations and reasoning about
architecture likening it to building supervision to the master minding of the
great pyramids and contemporary iconic supersaturates.
Likening architecture to one of the
other sciences, arts, philosophies, etc is trying to see it through one or the
other prisms, perspectives to reconcile it into our cultural vocabulary.
Depending on the architecture being
viewed architecture many sometimes seem very scientific as science fiction, or
artistic when viewing the architecture of Rome or the renaissance. The
proposition that architecture is the making of metaphors is quest for a generic
one size-fits-all theorem to stasis the question with the topoi of architecture
for all times, building types and systems. It should even work when the term is
not applied to making buildings or landscape but also computers, programs,
communications systems and military strategy.
The Answer:
Architecture is an art [I], because like art [I], it too, makes metaphors which are
a stasis because “architecture as the making of metaphors” enables the center
of the dispute to be argued with common purpose. So this is a stasis in
definition which concedes conjecture. While there may be other concepts
justifying the relationship between art and architecture the metaphor is the stasis, common ground
and apparent commonality. It not only is apparent but with wide and broad
applications to a variety of arts and architectural definitions, practices and
contexts. There may have been a time when the architect was the “master
builder” and the lead craftsman but for most that is only true by his skill in
drawing, design and specifying and not his skill as a master carpenter.
The metaphor stasis is metaphor’s two technical
and conceptual dimensions. Both are
valid separately and even more acceptable in combination. But how do they two operate and how does
knowing this benefit design, use and evaluation of built works? The technical is that all art, including
architecture, expresses one thing in terms of another by its inherent and
distinct craft. On the one hand there is
the architect who acts as the master
builder (head carpenter); and on the other the fountain of conceptual metaphors which expresses ideas as
built conceptual metaphors other wise known as works of architecture. Techne is actually a system of
practical knowledge as a craft or art informed by knowledge of
forms. For example,
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. In this case the technai are such activities as drafting, specifying, managing, negotiating,
programming, planning, supervising, and inspection. By association with these technai,
we can include house-building,
mathematics, plumbing, making money, writing, and painting. So much so that the study and practice of
design is devoid from the humanities and downplays theories of
architecture; developing rather the crafts, skill and understandings needed to
engineer, plan, sketch, draw, delineate, specify, write, and design. Contemporary
architecture is replete with axioms, principles and theorems guiding the
geometry, applications of science, use of engineering, and formal logic to
produce technical metaphors and justly excluding a whole conversation about the
conceptual part of the built metaphor.
Therefore out of both the
resolution and the controversy consider the below issues: We derive issues for
the controversy between art and architecture and the resolution that they both
make metaphors which is both their commonality, stasis, topoi and resolution to
all claims. Depending on the medium, application and utility art manifests
itself through the metaphor in varying degrees and levels. The referents, commonality not connectivity
may not always be apparent as in so-called “abstract art” and ‘brutalism
architecture”. These issues are the
questions inherent in the controversy
and vital to the resolution that architecture
is the making of metaphors.
Inherent because the declarative nether
defines how art makes neither metaphors nor the apparently unrelated manifestations
of architecture. On face value art and its casual referents do not compare to
architecture and architecture does not always link to art. So the declaration
is inherently controversial thus yielding the overflow of its internal
commonalities and differences. These issues are vital to the inductive
reasoning of the resolution. Most of these issues are parallel but there are
some that are convergent. The issues are coupled with their corresponding
parallel claim supporting the resolution, parallel because they are neither a
series nor convergent claims as they are each independent and not progressive
nor interrelated to each other. Presumably, most of these issues grew out of
controversy but not all issues were contested, therefore some are uncontested
leaving a few controversial issues, they will be apparent in the below process.
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 contractors. As well as owners, users, neighbors, governments agencies, planning boards and town councils.
There are 82 issues
which have been combined together with their resulting claims and are each numbered consecutively with [numbered] or small
italicized font references to
footnotes and [lettered] references below. In my other works I have called these
axioms and sub-axioms as they were reasoned differently. I also use italicized script where I quote the
author.
The Issues are subdivided into five
sections numbered with roman numerals
distinguishing the dominant disciplines of each as:
I. Philosophy,
Linguistics, Psychology, and English.
II. Urban Studies and Planning, Linguistics, Cognitive
Science, Experimental Psychology, Psychology and Opinion Research.
III. Psychology, Special Education, Social Policy, Learning
Sciences, and Education
IV. Psychology, Philosophy, Linguistics, and Cognitive
Science.
V. Psychology, Education, and Applied Behavioral and
Cognitive Sciences.
All the below issues argue the case
that architecture is art because it too makes metaphors. These issues are the
relevant and strong reasons of why architecture is making of metaphors. There
is only 1 reason why architecture is an art and that is because it makes
metaphors.
(Technical and conceptual).But,
what are the underlying (common) metaphorical facts common to art and
architecture why architecture could be in the same family as art.
Each of the below either argue or presume that:
- Since art [I] and architecture share in the way they make metaphors then one must like the other; and
- There can be fields and sub-fields where the subfields share dominant characteristics.
- That certain of metaphor’s characteristics exercised in art are also exercised in all other arts.
- That in the making of any art, including architecture, the making of metaphors sanctifies products and processes; and,
- That the metaphoric process exercised in the making of a work of architecture transforms the process and the work from non-art to art, and the maker from manufacturer to artist.
Sections, issues
and claims (7,462 words)
I. Metaphor and Meaning
(view metaphor as a form of language)
1. Art [I] and architecture both
begin with a “top-down” approach later followed by products which meet the parte. Alternatively, the parte may follow the design/creative
process and be presented to defend the design. All arts including architecture have a parte which is a model and concept that
may be developed after assimilating the program in the process of making a
conceptual metaphor, the very first step in the creative process is to develop
a “parte’. Parte and top-down are both
relevant because they are authentic and easily understood values.
` 2. Both art
[I] and architecture share [1.1]
generative metaphor which “carries –over” perspectives from one domain
of experience to another where artist builds one thing in terms of another
where the other is the model, and, what is built is the application, the model
being 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.
3. [1.2.1]
Both art and architecture Peculiarize,
personalize and authenticate for their metaphor to live. This the way the user
metaphorize the using process, the user and the work empathize. In this is the art of making metaphors for
the architect of public works. His metaphor must “read” the cultural, social
and rightness of the metaphor’s proposed context.
4. When is a work not a work of art
and a building not a work of architecture? When it is a dead metaphor which really does not contain any fresh metaphor
insofar as it does not really “get
thoughts across”; designs without concerns for scale, hierarchies,
scenarios, surprise, delight, vistas, etc will be “dead”. They are “techne”
driven, engineering a building without metaphoric concerns. Such a work is a techne driven design with craft-like knowledge. Art without a
fresh metaphor can be decorative, colorful and interesting but will not be
considered a work of art.
5.
Both art [I] and architecture involve techne (a system of practical knowledge).
As a craft or art 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 and technai are such activities as
drafting, specifying, managing, negotiating, programming, planning,
supervising, and inspection; by association with these technai, we can
include house-building, mathematics, plumbing, making money, writing, and
painting. So much so that the study and
practice of design is devoid from the humanities and downplays theories of
architecture developing rather the crafts, skill and understandings needed to
engineer, plan, sketch, draw, delineate, specify, write, and design.
6.
As art [I], architecture is a conduit of 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.
7. In
works of architecture there can be a [1.2.2/1.2.3] Conduit City-wide metaphor where the Geometry of urban blocks and
the location of building masses reflect one anther into a scheme to sharply
define the volume and mass of the city 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 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.
8. As art[I] , architecture
shapes the culture. As art 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. 1.3“It's a strange thought, that culture is a product of
man-made, unnatural things, that instead of culture shaping the architecture,
architecture shapes the culture. Applied and fine art both affect the utility,
consumption and business of normal life.
9. The metaphor between art[I]
and architecture is
a mental image [1.4] where metaphor maps the structure of one domain onto
the structure of 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. “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. Frank Lloyd Wright designed his prairie
architecture with dominant horizontal axis thrust to his structure as common to
the horizontal axis of the land upon which the building sat. In geometrical formal parts of an
architectural metaphor we note those common elements where fit, coupling and
joints occur.
10. 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. When we hear a symphony, poem; watch
a dance or see a painting what we perceive is the residue of the artist
composing and dealing with the similarities and apparent differences of medium,
context, aesthetics and story.
11. For both art and architecture 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.
12.
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.
13. 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.
14. 1.4.6
Metaphorical language (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.
15. 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.
16. 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. A structured building is a structured subject offering
access to relatively abstract and unstructured 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. 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).
17. Commonalities are the keys to mapping across
conceptual domains. As the artist either
at random or intentionally experiences or perceives the times, place s and
events of the times so the architect sifts through the program to discover
“commonality” between the reality and experience to make the metaphor. Mapping is only possible when artist
knows 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.
18. [18. 1.4. 10] Each mapping (where mapping is the systematic set of
correspondences that exist between constituent elements of the source and the
target domain) where 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. Audiences,
for example perceiving Mozart, contemporary music, and abstract art seek the
systems of mappings which lead to finding their source and targets. In this way
both art and architecture share a common experience in both creating and use,
the system of relationships is the precedent which enables understanding of the
specific.
19. [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) is 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.
20. [1.4.11]
The scale of habitable metaphors is the
intrinsic relation between the human figure and its 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. From realism to
destructive visual arts, harmony to cacophony, etc. all the arts scale works to an audience which form,
in and around the place which the work exists.
21. [1.4.11] It
seems that onomatopeics are metaphors
and can be onomatopoeic (grouping of
words that imitates the sound it is describing, suggesting its source object,
such as "click", "bunk", "clang",
"buzz", "bang", or animal noises such as "oink",
"moo", or "meow").
In this case an assemblage instead of a sound. As a non-linguistic it has impact beyond
words and is still a metaphor. Then a metaphor is much more than the sum of its
parts and is beyond any of its constituent constructions, parts and systems.
The family of arts and particularly buildings’ very
existence is a metaphor and may not be valued much more than an onomatopoeic.
22. [1.4.12]
a. Mappings are not arbitrary, but
grounded in the body and in every day experience and knowledge.
b.
Mapping and making metaphors are synonymous.
c. 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.
d.
In this way making metaphors is the process of empathizing.
23. 1.4.13
In art[I] , 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.
24. Architecture
as a surrogate [G] 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 metaphor bridge from the program, designs and contractors
to a shelter and trusted habitat. The user enters and occupies the habitat with
him having formulated but not articulated any of its characteristics. Yet it
works. Works of art are likewise the transmitter of values, identity and social
orientation. (“Music metaphor” by
Barie Fez-Barringten published by GCWA)
[G] “It makes sense,
therefore, to speak of
a. 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”.
b. “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
c. 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.
d. 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.
e. Like a linguistic, the building stands, like a
great, stone dagger, [H] emphatic against the
sky. The stair, the exit, the space calls,
gives emphasis and is strongly expressive.
25. 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.
26. 1.5.1
People ascertains 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.
27. 1.5.2
As with all arts, 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.
28. 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.
Upon entering a traditional church
in any culture 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. Whereas the user
is passive in most other arts [I] in architecture the user is active, likening
it most closely to dance and viewing sculpture. Common to all art is the users’ distinctions between active and passive appreciation and metaphorically
linking one type of work to the other.
29. 1.5.4
Metaphor is in the mind: So while art and architecture
is the making of metaphors and artists 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.
30. 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, models and object is. Hotel front and back-of-the-house
operations; Hospital surgical from outpatient and both from administration and
offices are obvious sets and subsets.
31. a.
Shelter and its controlled creation contains sensual ,graphic and
strategic information fulfilling shelter
needs by real deed rather than words of hope and future expectations.
b. The building and not its
metaphor is direct while its metaphor is indirect and being the sticks and
stones of its manifestation. Yet the metaphor may be explained with language it
would not accomplish the buildings shelter metaphor. The shelter prototype and
its incarnation is itself indirect since its referent is obscured by contextual
realities.
II. Metaphor and Representation (view
them as forms of representations [1.0])
32. 1.6.1
There is a difference between the
indirect uses of metaphor verses the direct use of language to explain the
world.
33. 1.6.2
The distinctions and relationships
between
a.
micro and macro metaphors and the way they can inform one another is as the
form of design may refer to its program, or a connector reflects the concept of
articulation as a design concept.
b.
Where articulation is being jointed together as a joint between two
separable parts in the sense of "divide (vocal sounds) into distinct and
significant parts" or
c. Where an architect parses the
program and reifies words to graphic representations bringing together
desperate and seeming unrelated parts to join into parts and sub-parts to make
a whole.
34. a. 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. 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.
35. 1.7.1
Metaphors work by “reference to analogies
that are known to relate to the two domains”.
36. a.
A work of architecture has integrity 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.
b. A built metaphor with all of its
metaphorical baggage call to mind another meaning
and corresponding set of truths.
c.
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.
37. 1.8.1
A “problem of the metaphor concerns the
relations between the means of expression and design meaning, on the one hand,
and architect’s meaning or sketch 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”.
38. 1.8.2
a. What are the principles which relate built design meaning to metaphorical design
meaning” where one is comprehensive, complete and coordinated while the other
is merely an incomplete scanty indication of a non specific.
39. 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. Building owners are asked to translate a two dimensional set of
drawings ass fulfilling their design requirements to what might eventually be
built.
40. 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.
1.9.1
a. Design is constrained by context
with few absolutes save the “sate of the art”, culture, precedence and social
opinion.
b. Human cognition is fundamentally shaped by various processes of
figuration (designs) (shaping into a particular figure (design). The ease with which many designs 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 architects and users (clients,
public). One can say one’s design is affected; affected by peer pressure (design
profession) and the urge to communicate and adapt (win awards, professional
recognition). 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. Tropes are
turn, twist, conceptual guises, and figurations
41. 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.
Collage from Legend by Christina Fez-Barringten |
42. 1.10.1
“A metaphor involves a nonliteral use of language”. The building design and the
program cannot be a perfect mapping. A non-literal use of language means that
what is said is to have an affect and but may not be specific. At each moment in its use the metaphor may
mean different things, least of which may be any intended by its authors.
43. a. 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 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.
b. Appreciation is when a built 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. My office is like my home.
44. 1.11.1
The general public users prefer the familiar, customary and traditional; forms
and uses which are prevalent rather than a new dissimilar design. 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).
45. 1.11.2
For both art and architecture: “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.
” 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.
46. 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, the terms
“high-rise”, “multi-story” and “iconic” are synonymous and known to
represent commercial 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.
47. 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 and Chicago are office building cities. I can
see only a flash glimpse and I will know it is Manhattan.
48. 1.12.3
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.
49. 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”.
50. 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. Escarlata
Partablela of Toledo 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”.
IV. Metaphor and Science (role
of metaphors and analogies in science [1.0])
51. 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.
52. 1.13.2 Metaphor is reasoning using abstract
characters whereas reason by analogy is a straight forward extension of its use
in commonplace reasoning.
53. 1.13.3 “In processing analogy, people implicitly
focus on certain kinds of commonalities and ignore others”.
54. 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.
55. 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.
56. 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.”
57. 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”.
58. 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.”
59. Common
to all arts including architecture is [Axiom XXIII] more often than not designers are influenced by the existence
of similar types than to re-invent themselves from scratch. Architects
design by translating 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.
60. 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.
61. 1.14.2
Metaphors simply impart their commonplace not necessity to their
similarity or analogous.
62. a. Architectural metaphors
are all about names, titles, and the access so that the work provides 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.
b. However objective, thorough and
scientific the designer and 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.
63. c. 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.
d. 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.
64. 1.15.1When 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. Today’s 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.
65. 1.16.1 a. consider
new concepts as being characterized in terms of old ones (plus logical
conjunctives)” Climbing the stairs of a pyramid in Mexico City or a fire stair
in a high rise is essentially the same except for the impact of its context and
what the stair connects (create and base) and the object on which the stair
ascends and descends.
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.
Architecture combines and confirms the secular (of this time), “how things
really are” with the gestalt of personal, social, community and private
importance.
66. b. [F] As William J.J. Gordon
makes the strange familiar by talking
about one thing in terms of another.
67. 1.16.2
We would not 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 author’s messages. We learn the work.
“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”.
68. 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 .
69. 1.16.4
Except for writers, authors, playwrights, poets, actors, artists and architects
can express in design what cannot be expressed in words. About the difference
between words (which are limited and specific to concepts Pylyshyn notes: “…in the case of words there is a
component of reason and choice which mediates between cognitive content and
outward expression. I can choose what words I use, whereas I cannot in the same
sense choose in terms of which I represent the world.” So architects and readers
deal with materials, structures, systems and leave the concepts to a variety of
possible outcomes.
70. 1.16.5
A work of architecture may begin with a design with our parte or program and
the find ideas which fit. 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.
71. 1.16.7
Vocabulary and reality about a building metaphor not coincide as the
perceptions and descriptions may only be to communicate and what communicates
may not be the reality of the experiences of a work of architecture. “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”.
72. 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.
73. Expressionist,
Realist and other art movements as well as modern architecture wants to express
the truth about what they dream as reality. In the case of architecture that
includes 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.
V. Metaphor and Education (role
of metaphor and analogy in education [1.0])
74. 1.17.1
“Analogical transfer theory (“instructive metaphors create an analogy between to-be-learned-
system (target domain) and a familiar system (metaphoric domain. Art and architecture’s
commonalities make the strange familiar by presenting one thing in terms of
another. [F]
75. 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.
a. Visiting, sketching and writing
about over seventy European cities I noted the character and ambience 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.
b. 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.
76. 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.
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. As
most artists their language is beyond speech and to 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.
77. 1.19.1
Metaphors have a way of extending our capacities for communications.
78. 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.”
79.1.19.3
Metaphor is the solution insofar as it encodes and captures the information:”
transferring chunks of experience from well –known to less well known contexts
of a work of art are clues to their appreciation, use and understanding.
80. 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;
All art including architecture teaches us fundamental and long-lasting memoirs.
81. 1.19.5
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 explains 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.
82. 1.19.6
True for both works of applied and fine art, built metaphors are vivid and indelible messages.” The mnemonic 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.”
Post Script:
Use any and/or all of these to test a created work whether
it has been identified or not as art, whether in the process of creation,
enjoyment, use, inhabiting, judging, evaluating, or appraising to wee these
issues and claims prove that art is the making of metaphors and that as art,
architecture too is the making of metaphors.
Collage from Legend by Christina Fez-Barringten |
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:
1.0 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
I. 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
1.5.0 Metaphor, induction, and social policy: The
convergence of macroscopic and microscopic views by Robert J. Sternberg, Roger
Tourangeau, and Georgia Nigro
II. Metaphor and Representation
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
1.9.0 Process and
products in making sense of tropes by Raymond W. Gibbs, Jr.
III. 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
IV. 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.
V. 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. “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
B. “Difference and
Identity”: 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." That is, not only are no two things ever the same, the categories
we use to identify individuals in the first place derive from differences.
In analyzing a metaphor we
ask: “What are its commonalities and
significant differences and what are
the characteristics common to both”.
D. The Contemporary
Theory of Metaphor: a perspective from Chinese by Ning Yu
E. 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.
In 1967, a
group of master students gathered to discuss the issuance of Perspecta 12,
Yale's architectural journal - a discussion which summarized the sad state of
the profession as well as the major environmental problems society was
generating and failing to solve. The group had already been exposed to studies
on the creative process, on contradictions of form, on the comprehension of
relevant facts of an existing life style, on planning systems, in educational
theories, and in building methodologies, yet it seemed that fundamental
question inherent in the profession were being skirted rather than directly
attacked.
During the series of colloquia at
Yale on art, Irving Kriesberg 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. For obviously there can be dissent from the metaphorical method; in this
case the dissent (which focuses upon the possibility that the metaphor might
obscure reality) actually reinforces the metaphor's wide structural
applicability. 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.
Gordon, Peter Millard, Robert Venturi and Charles Moore; the following
statements are edited transcriptions of a small portion of the talks which were
contributed.
F. William J.J. Gordon:
Synectics:”The Metaphoric way of Knowing” Cambridge, Mass
G. "Surrogates," published by Indiana University
Press. By Paul Weiss
H.
“Emphatics” (The Vanderbilt Library of American Philosophy) By Paul Weiss
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, persons 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. Axioms:
Axioms are self-evident principles that I have derived out
of Ortony’s Metaphor and Thought[1.0]
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. Hopefully, these can be starting points from which other
statements can be logically derived. Unlike theorems, axioms cannot be derived by
principles of deduction as I wrote: "The metametaphor theorem" published by Architectural
Scientific Journal, Vol. No. 8; 1994 Beirut Arab University. 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”. Furthermore, in his book titled The
Book of Architecture Axioms Gavin
Terrill wrote: “Don't put your resume ahead of the requirements Simplify essential complexity; diminish accidental
complexity; You're negotiating more often than you think ;It's never too early to think about performance and
resiliency testing; Fight repetition; Don't Control, but Observe and Architect as Janitor”. In “Axiomatic design in the 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.
J. Art is an intentional and skilled expression usually
converting some idea with the use of a technique or craft. There is always a
product which may or may not be either practical or aesthetic. Art may manifest
it self in sciences, medicine, business, commerce, education, governance,
security, architecture, and any of the fine or applied arts. While Art is the intentional and skillful act and/or product applying a technique it 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, persons 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.
Collage from Legend by Christina Fez-Barringten |
Researched Publications: Refereed and
Peer-reviewed Journals: "monographs":
Barie Fez-Barringten; Associate professor Global University
1. "Architecture the making of metaphors"
Main Currents in Modern Thought/Center for
Integrative Education; Sep.-Oct. 1971, Vol. 28 No.1, New Rochelle, New York.
2."Schools and metaphors"
Main Currents in Modern Thought/Center for
Integrative Education Sep.-Oct. 1971, Vol. 28 No.1, New Rochelle, New York.
3."User's metametaphoric phenomena of
architecture and Music":
“METU” (Middle East Technical
University: Ankara, Turkey): May 1995"
Journal of the
Faculty of Architecture
4."Metametaphors and Mondrian:
Neo-plasticism and its' influences
in architecture" 1993 Available on Academia.edu since 2008
5. "The Metametaphor of architectural education",
North Cypress, Turkish University. December, 1997
6."Mosques and metaphors" Unpublished,1993
7."The basis of the metaphor of
Arabia" Unpublished,
1994
8."The conditions of Arabia in
metaphor" Unpublished, 1994
9. "The metametaphor theorem"
Architectural
Scientific Journal, Vol. No. 8; 1994 Beirut Arab University.
10. "Arabia’s metaphoric images" Unpublished, 1995
11."The context of Arabia in metaphor" Unpublished, 1995
12. "A partial metaphoric vocabulary of Arabia"
“Architecture: University of Technology
in Datutop; February 1995 Finland
13."The Aesthetics of the Arab architectural
metaphor"
“International Journal for Housing
Science and its applications” Coral Gables, Florida.1993
14."Multi-dimensional metaphoric
thinking"
Open House, September 1997: Vol. 22;
No. 3, United Kingdom: Newcastle upon Tyne
15."Teaching the techniques of making
architectural metaphors in the twenty-first century.” Journal of King Abdul Aziz University Engg...Sciences; Jeddah: Code:
BAR/223/0615:OCT.2.1421 H. 12TH
EDITION; VOL. I and
“Transactions” of
Cardiff University, UK. April 2010
16. “Word Gram #9” Permafrost: Vol.31 Summer 2009 University of Alaska Fairbanks;
ISSN: 0740-7890; page 197
17. "Metaphors
and Architecture." ArchNet.org. October, 2009.at MIT
18. “Metaphor as an
inference from sign”; University of Syracuse
Journal of Enterprise
Architecture; November 2009: and nominated architect of the year in special
issue of Journal of Enterprise Architecture explaining the unique
relationship between enterprise and classic building architecture.
19. “Framing the art
vs. architecture argument”; Brunel University (West London); BST: Vol. 9
no. 1: Body, Space & Technology Journal:
Perspectives Section
20. “Urban Passion”:
October 2010; Reconstruction & “Creation”;
June 2010; by C. Fez-Barringten;
http://reconstruction.eserver.org/;
21. “An architectural
history of metaphors”: AI & Society: (Journal of human-centered and
machine intelligence) Journal of Knowledge, Culture and Communication: Pub:
Springer; London; AI & Society located in University of Brighton, UK;
AI & Society. ISSN
(Print) 1435-5655 - ISSN (Online) 0951-5666 : Published by Springer-Verlag;; 6 May 2010 http://www.springerlink.com/content/j2632623064r5ljk/
Paper copy: AIS Vol. 26.1. Feb. 2011; Online ISSN 1435-5655; Print ISSN
0951-5666;
DOI 10.1007/s00146-010-0280-8; :
Volume 26, Issue 1 (2011), Page
103.
22. “Does
Architecture Create Metaphors?; G.Malek; Cambridge; August 8,2009
Pgs 3-12 (4/24/2010)
23. “Imagery or
Imagination”:the role of metaphor in architecture:Ami Ran (based on
Architecture:the making of metaphors); :and Illustration:”A Metaphor of
Passion”:Architecture oif Israel 82.AI;August2010pgs.83-87.
24. “The sovereign
built metaphor”: monograph converted to Power Point for presentation to
Southwest Florida Chapter of the American Institute of Architects. 2011
Contract to publish: 2011
Cambridge
Scholars Publishing
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