"It’s a practice rather than a religion, but the practice is essentially living by principles and then meditation," states Michael Rotondi. "It’s Buddhism without beliefs, I guess would be a way to look at it."
Currently the principal of RoTo Architects (among other roles with the firm's sibling studios), Michael Rotondi has worn many hats throughout his career. For sixteen years, he worked with Thom Mayne as a principal at Morphosis. A founding member of the Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc), Rotondi later became director of the school, serving in that capacity for ten years. In 2009, he received the AIA/LA Gold Medal and, in 2014, the Richard J. Neutra Medal from Cal Poly Pomona College of Environmental Design.
Rotondi is also a man of deeply-held spiritual convictions. He says that his spiritual journey led him out Morphosis, directed his directorship of SCI-Arc, and continues to play a primary role in his work as an architect and as an educator. I talked with Rotondi over the phone to hear more about his spiritual practice. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
How did you develop your spiritual practice?
Well, about 25 years ago—at least 25 years ago—I decided to reconceptualize and restructure my life. I was beginning to question lots of things with life. Not that anything was going wrong, in fact there was lots that was going right, but I had a longing for something deeper than just intellectual practice. My quest was to first go to Indian country and spend a lot of time reading Native American texts in the location that they were describing, so the fact of the physical geography and the fiction of the kind of narrative and the spiritual geography. And then I was hired to go and work with the Lakota in South Dakota, where I spent seven years going back and forth working with elders, medicine people, as well as educators, to help them with what I thought was initially just to rebuild their university—the first tribal university in the Americas—but what I was really searching for was any societies that had worked hard and long at achieving a total integration of both spiritual practice and intellectual practice. That’s really what I was longing for. I wasn’t looking for another religion, I wasn’t looking for a guru. I was trying to figure out how do I reconnect my heart with my brain. Because architecture is intensely not spiritual in any way.I was trying to figure out how do I reconnect my heart with my brain
Could you elaborate?
Architecture is an intellectual practice, and what I discovered at the time was you can’t even mention the word ‘spiritual’ the further east you go. You can get away with stuff in LA, but when I started moving east, as soon as you leave Denver, all of a sudden you had to go from spiritual to metaphysical, you know? And that really surprised me a lot. I’d been around students my whole life and there’s an identity crisis when people get into university. I’m generalizing here, but the same way what’s considered the terrible twos aren’t the terrible twos—that’s the first period when you’re starting to develop a sense of yourself—but you don’t know how to process it so you’re flailing your arms and your legs and if you don’t have understanding parents or siblings, you basically get in trouble a lot and it makes you go weird.
When you reach adolescence, you have no parents, and that’s another way of establishing identity. There’s a number of milestones in between but the next big milestone is when you get to university and you start to become really really smart and you move everything in your head for all the good reasons, to develop intelligence and hopefully a measure of consciousness. There is no God—I was opposed to that—and I was raised in [parochial] school until finishing in the seventh grade. Then I went to public school because I just wanted to go to public school and convinced my family to let me go to public school. But I thoroughly enjoyed the mysticism, the rituals and sort of being in service, so to speak, for about four years or five years. I was what I call a varsity altar boy. I had calculated that I had gone to mass, I had served and gone to mass about 1200 times in four years.
I was the same, funny enough.
Yeah, I loved that. You goofed off a lot, like the first thing you do is you eat the wafers and you find out that it does not burn a hole in the top of your roof, you know? And then we’d serve the pastor the chalices that are used for the high mass at the low mass at 6:30 in order to see how quickly he’d get drunk. So, he’d always request us! I’d always volunteer to be the one in any of the processions, the one that was holding the incense burners and I would put too much incense and then move it too fast and smoke out the church, and you heard people coughing, it was like a scene out of a movie. And then, you made friends with the other altar boys, so there was that kind of stuff going on.
I really loved this ritual, and I guess that’s why I still to this day see movement in a building, not just as circulation, I see it as procession. How do you approach a building? What does it sound like when your car stops? And when you get out? What is the first step down? And then the progression from the car to the building? Is it done in a conscious way? Usually it isn’t, but they are the little things we consider. You can look at all ecclesiastical work and it has that in it.
Anyway, I’d reached a point where I just wanted to integrate my heart and my mind. And then I wondered who else does that?
I still to this day see movement in a building, not just as circulation, I see it as processionI started off in Indian country. [Then I discovered] Thomas Merton and I was amazed that this monk that got up at 3:30 every morning was so prolific. Like a lot of people, [his work] just resonated because it made sense in the context of my Catholicism as well as how he was able to take the traditions and scriptures of Catholicism, Christianity, and move it [towards] the Eastern side. Because no one had ever done that at school, no one had ever looked in a more economical way at all the religions and helped us understand it culturally. It was always ‘there’s a good religion, there’s a bad religion, these are getting into heaven, these are getting into purgatory, the rest of you can go to hell unless you do something on earth’ and all of that. Anyway, reading Merton was a huge help.
Then, by what I call psychic marketing, I was invited to go and work on an Indian reservation with the Lannan Foundation. Why? I don’t know. I think I actually knew why, because there weren’t a whole lot of architects around who were also educators, who had aspirations to work at a high level and that were also working in a positive way with a spiritual conflict, if you will. I wasn’t conflicted spiritually, I was just conflicted on how to integrate spirituality back into my life.
Three years after the process began I got a call out of the cold from two people who had started an American Buddhist movement in America: Joseph Goldstein and Sharon Salzberg. It was really a bit of great fortune and it could be that it’s serendipity, but that’s when I started to really think about what eventually became understood by me as good as having Wi-Fi—way before computers ever did. We know that when somebody who you’re really close with—it can be a sibling, it can be a mate—that you look at each other and you don’t even have to speak because you’re both thinking about the same thing at the same time.
That happened to me in the gardens of Kyoto, where at the turn of the season, at the turn of the day, at the turn of the temperature, I’m doing the tea ceremony with a tea master because I want to know what the experience is like. We both look at each other at the same moment because I want to say something to her. She had experienced exactly the same thing, we both smiled, she said, ‘That’s what we call speaking in silence.’ That’s what the tea ceremony is about.
How did these experiences affect your architectural and educational practices?
I started to really wrap my mind around the limits of architecture based on how we teach, how we practice, and what we are. I didn’t know what was going to happen. At that time, I decided to dissolve a marriage of 22 years, dissolve my partnership with Thom [Mayne] and to move higher. At the same time, I was directing the school and I decided that everything had to change, including SCI-Arc. I had to go to a new location [...] So I said, ‘We’re moving’, and we went through a few months of discussion and debate until finally everybody decided.
You know what really got everybody to say yes? It was really funny, it wasn’t my persuasiveness. We had all-school meetings still, in those days. I set up what I would call an executive system based on parliamentary processes and so what that means is one person makes the decision but before he makes the most important decisions, you put it out to the crowd and everybody gets to weigh in. And it’s feedback, people don’t get to vote, so it was executive authority in that regard, but it’s more benevolent than doing it [entirely] based on your own wishes.
Anyway, so somebody in the crowd asked, “Why do you want us to move? Why should we move?” And I say, “Well, okay, why should we stay here?” And then another—I don’t even know who said it—coming in from the corner, it was silent, and somebody said, “Because we’re comfortable here.” And then there was a dead silence, and another voice came up that goes, “Ah shit, we’re moving. We’re moving.” I said, “Exactly. Exactly, we’re moving. Comfort is the death of us.” So, we moved and the students helped us move [...] I got us some budget to rent a truck, went back into the coordinating position and over four days everything was loaded on the truck and we moved from Santa Monica to Culver City.
You delude yourself into thinking that what benefits you benefits othersIt was a clean sweep, wondering whether or not I could get my identity back after 15 years at Morphosis and wondering whether or not I could ever love again, after dissolving a marriage that had gone a little bit dry for the last five years, and whether or not the school could ever get back to pull its grade. And what I really believed is that in order to grasp something new, you’ve got to let go of what you’re currently holding on to, at every scale, and I started to see that and understand conceptually that we’re really radical. Conceptually we take a lot of chances. But we don’t live the life that we expect others to live in the projects that we’re designing. And I said, “That’s not fair, that’s really not fair.” The ultimate test is whether or not I could survive putting myself through the kind of change that I expect others to go through. [...]
You delude yourself into thinking that what benefits you benefits others so there’s that other conflict which I didn’t thoroughly understand until I started turning to Buddhism and American Buddhism. I asked an American Buddhist, is there any monk I can hire for SCI-Arc, and they said, “Why?”, and I said, “Because I think it would be great to have a monk teaching a theory seminar at SCI-Arc”. And then a monk shows up who wants to be an architect—I mean what are the chances of that? The only Tibetan monk who’s an architect in the community—maybe there’s another one at this time—ordained by the Dalai Lama, in the Dalai Lama’s monastery in Dharamshala. He asked if he could come to America to learn English, enrolls in Santa Monica college, gets an AA degree and he’s going for a second AA degree and when I meet him I say, “You can’t get a double A degree,” and he says, “Yeah, but I’ve got nowhere else to go,” and I said, “Come to SCI-Arc, I’ll waive tuition, I’ll give you one class each semester to teach, you can be an advisor to me.” It turns out he was a Buddhist scholar. He had the equivalent of a PhD even though they don’t have degrees. We converted to see if he could qualify for graduate work and it turned out that he had the equivalent of a PhD in religious studies. He never uses the pronoun ‘I’. It’s the most astonishing thing.
Anyway, so I got him to SCI-Arc. [...]
How would you say that this spirituality has changed the way you approach designing a project?
I don’t come to conclusions, even though I see things quickly and the objective isn’t to come to closure. In game theory there’s a finite and an infinite. In the finite, the rules are set to bring things to closure, and somebody wins and somebody loses. In an infinite game, things can come to provisional closure but they keep on. The rules are setup to keep the game going.
As a child I played a lot of ping-pong, a lot of table tennis and when you are in competition you basically play a finite game but when you are playing with friends in order to get better and better and better, you play the infinite game. So, when I’m approaching a project, I have begun to understand that you can still operate with a sense of urgency but guided by a long-term vision.
I don’t come to conclusionsI was just asked that a little while ago, I did an interview for a project, and they were asking me that question: “What makes you the best, what makes you good, what makes you feel…?” And it really has to do with seeing myself now fundamentally as a teacher. I also practice but as a teacher it doesn’t mean I’m professing. A teacher for me has to do with having the highest degree of tolerance and patience and open-mindedness in order to let things in that you might not have heard otherwise, even from the innocents who may not be expressing it in the most coherent way. Then you begin a process of absorbing whatever it is you heard into your own life in some way.
With architecture, it has to do with absorbing what other people are saying or not saying. Then you can intuit and bring that into the work and then putting it back out again in ways they couldn’t have imagined. Sometimes you can’t speak about it because they think they just hired a guru instead of an architect, but I think it’s a capacity of patience and open-mindedness and then wanting other people to see what I see, not trying to always impress with how much I know and how good I am. It has to do with my relationship with other people. Then the same fairness that I try to understand and enact between people I begin to see between materials on a building, and the way details come together, and so it has shifted me radically from the time when you pretend you’re mean and angry and you’re making buildings that can cut you like a knife. You know, you make things that are going to shock you and scare you. It wasn’t about that. It shifted my view from the motivation being fear to the motivation being love. Not romantic love, but going from anger to joy, basically.
You started talking about this at the beginning, but did you find that when you changed perspectives your relationship with the local or larger architecture community changed? That you were no longer speaking the same conversation with them?
Yeah, I mean I’m able to delegate, I can shift conversation, but I can be able to extract it from anybody but I wanted to be consistent so—how old are you now?
Twenty-five.
Okay, still quite young. I would guess that you have a variation on your personality depending on who you’re hanging out with.
Definitely.
You know, you could be hanging with your really smart friends, you could be hanging out with your family, you could be hanging out with your college friends, you could be hanging out with buddies from the neighborhood who are on the verge of going to jail—whomever—you’ve got variations on your personality. I started to realize that it takes a lot of time to remember. It didn’t make sense to me at a certain point in time, to have variations on my personality. I realized that that was another kind of soft fear, a fear that I might be rejected, or I might be foolish, or I might be misunderstood.I decided to integrate my personalities
I decided to integrate my personalities and the way I look at things and the way I talk about things. I said that the one thing that I have to be really clear on is that I’m not afraid of making a fool out of myself. So I started lecturing in public about things that I was discovering within myself, and my lectures changed. My lectures changed from showing people how much I’d done and how good I am to things that I believed they already knew that they might be able to get back together if I taught it, or to rediscover by the way I talk about the ideas that are in the work and the way I get to the work. So instead of just showing projects I showed everything but projects. Then I began to break up the projects, instead of showing the project in total.
Anyway, so I consolidated all of my personalities into one and then I just began talking about whatever I was talking about. When I look at my sketchbooks over the last 30 years, there’s a lot of the same things I was saying then that I’m saying now, but I’m saying them with more insight and more sophistication because I’ve been thinking about them for so long. [...]
Do you think a space can be designed to inculcate a specific type of experience?
Yeah, I think so. I mean that’s what April and I attempted that 20 years ago when we bought Miracle Manor, the motel out in the desert. We wanted to see if it was possible to develop a total aesthetic instead of just a partial aesthetic. A total aesthetic starts with the base and the light and the color of the light. We immediately realized that, in order to achieve this, in order to get a total aesthetic, we can’t privilege the eyeball. So we’ve got to make all the things that we do have to be less than visible. You’ve got to look twice in order to see things once. What that leads to hopefully is that the design is transparent to the experience, so that everything you’re making becomes a lens through which you look, and it’s a portal into other worlds, it augments your imagination, it augments your intuition, it enhances emotional intelligences that are starting to come out. So, it was doing what the desert would naturally do anyway if you weren’t in a building. When you’re hanging out in wilderness, you basically open up.The only way you can work on selflessness is if you don’t market yourself
That’s why we kept it all these years: to make [such an experience] possible for others without ‘profitizing’. Giving them the opportunity to get in touch with themselves in ways they’ve never gotten in touch with themselves, and not using it as a vehicle for more work or for any kind of notoriety. That’s why we’ve never published Miracle Manor and this why I stopped publishing 10 years ago. This is why I stopped entering awards programs about 10 years ago. Because I was working on selflessness. The only way you can work on selflessness is if you don’t market yourself. It’s a bad idea for business but a good idea for self-development and it’s a long-term play.
It’s to see if it’s possible for me to survive, to practice, without doing all of the conventional things of promoting yourself. Instead, just [getting work] through word of mouth, work begetting work, and psychic marketing. You survive and things show up. [...] I’m interested in trying to incubate the careers of the people that are here now and help them develop notoriety and me being like a mothership without needing any credit, I don’t need any fame. I need a bit of fortune, but I don’t need any fame. [...]
It seems like that way of thinking really sets you apart from the main paradigms of today, the privileging of self-promotion and branding—something like a cult of the individual. Do you think that you are like a lone voice or do you think that people are coming around to thinking like you?
I don’t know that anyone is coming around to anything I’m doing. I do know that the deeper I go into myself the more connected I am to other people, and I know that I meet people who might be a certain way, that way begins to go into suspended animation for the time that I’m present, and that’s not out of fear, it’s out of them getting in touch with some side of themselves that they see present in me, that they aspire to themselves, even though they may not stay there very long. I don’t expect there to be great changes in anything. I think that just by my presence I might be able to help people get in touch with their lighter side, rather than their darker side, and that’s really what I’m hoping to do.
What is always hard to figure out is do I work on myself or do I work on the world?
What you learn from the Buddhists, the Tibetan Buddhists in particular, is that you work on yourself first and foremost because the healthier you are the healthier you are going to make everybody in your sphere of influence. I thought, “My God, that’s it, why didn’t anybody tell me that when I was a kid!” It’s not just working on yourself to serve yourself, you’re working on yourself to serve others. It sounds like an oxymoron, but that’s the way it works. [...]do I work on myself or do I work on the world?
Most importantly for me, architecture is a pretext for the relationships that you can begin to construct and develop over time. Life is one architecture in my world. No longer is architecture giving form to life and it doesn’t preclude still having the high times that I had when I was 25 or 30 or 35, it just means that the way I see the world and I see my role as an architect and the role that architecture has in the world is much different. I think architecture can enhance and augment the greatest products of ourselves. It’s not just privileging the eyeballs because the eyeballs go immediately to the brain, and the brain is the conceptual tool. Anything that doesn’t know any gravity, it has great great value because you can go to the end of the universe and back but the fact that it’s not grounded, it doesn’t always speak true, you know? The body never lies, so it’s not one or the other, or one against the other, it’s putting them both together. The brain is theory, the body is practice. Imagine a world without both simultaneously. Imagine a world with both simultaneously and that’s really the what the question is.
I may not be able to achieve it in my lifetime but it’s possible through the mentoring that I do through school but even more with the mentoring I do here in the office that some of these people might be able to realize the aspirations that I have over had the last 45 years. That’s all of it in a nutshell, Nicholas.
Thanks Michael.
Writer and fake architect, among other feints. Principal at Adjustments Agency. Co-founder of Encyclopedia Inc. Get in touch: nicholas@archinect.com
56 Comments
Great Interview. Very Inspiring.
I had the good fortune of working with Mr. Michael Rotondi as an Expert Consultant once and I have never forgotten one exchange we had. He asked me to look at the project as an opportunity to do something completely new. Something that I, as an expert, had always wanted to do but was limited by the boundaries of industry convention and recurrent client expectations. He said that because of his reputation he had the keys to escaping conventional expectations from clients and that I should take advantage of that situation. I quickly realized that I had often used a similar request on my students wth the goal of bringing out the best in them. It was then that I also realized that I had failed to do that in my practice. Ever since then I try to remind myself that being a facilitator that seeks to support and bring out the best in others is a very rewarding and meaningful life experience. Thanks Michael.
"The only way you can work on selflessness is if you don’t market yourself" seems rather pointed.
Awesome Interview. Here are a few choice excerpts:
"A teacher for me has to do with having the highest degree of tolerance and patience and open-mindedness in order to let things in that you might not have heard otherwise... the one thing that I have to be really clear on is that I’m not afraid of making a fool out of myself... You’ve got to look twice in order to see things once. What that leads to hopefully is that the design is transparent to the experience, so that everything you’re making becomes a lens through which you look, and it’s a portal into other worlds, it augments your imagination, it augments your intuition, it enhances emotional intelligences that are starting to come out.... Most importantly for me, architecture is a pretext for the relationships that you can begin to construct and develop over time." — Michael Rotondi
Caution reading this article. As an Architect, I strive to understand as many true things as I can. There are many small fallacies, unsubstantiated and extraordinary claims here which render this article without utility towards understanding what is actually true about Architecture or much else.
Timothy, care to elaborate? What, specifically, do you feel are "small fallacies, unsubstantiated and extraordinary claims"?
The reporting on the statements by Mr. Rotondi is no doubt accurately described in the article. I question the usefulness of the article if a young architect was looking for advice on Architectural Practice.
Examples of fallacies and extraordinary claims would be ...I don't come to conclusions... I wanted to connect my heart and brain.....working on oneself first is needed in order to serve others best... If a "I" become healthy then others around me become healthy... terms like suspended animation...These statements are simple statements, that seem harmless, but as an Architect I find them misleading or meaningless. If one stated, "I resist coming to conclusions until I know all the facts, I would agree...rather than to say, I resist coming to conclusions so I may have some room to "Intuit" or use spirituality in a design process. Architects, artists, poets, and musicians, create useful meaningful, transcendent experiences. But there are demonstrable ways to achieve those qualities. This article offers an odd and very personal tail using invisible, spiritual, and cultural references mashed together. That's fine as "one way". However, I caution the mentoring of students in muddy thinking early on. I suggest one make sure to explain to students that the good things that promote the well being of your clients, yourself and the people around you need not require intuition or anything supernatural. I may agree with Mr. Rotondi on many things that are "Good". I would probably not agree with his belief as to how he created those "Good things". Most of what is stated at the conclusion of the article, for example, seems dishonest or not useful in respect to the Architectural Profession. Again, I am sure the beliefs are honestly reported. I believe it may be dishonest as to how the "Good" was achieved. It may be that Mr. Rotondi's upbringing, work ethic, experience, education, willingness to look at different cultures and natural empathy was enough. Without the pseudoscience, spiritual mash-ups. Let's make sure we mentor that first.
Tim, I agree with both you and Rotundi and in a manner you state that as such towards the end of your paragraph with Rotundi as the example. First the rigor intellectual of the West (east coast?) and then the "loosening" up of the East (West Coast). It is a practice in which work does beget work. It can also be a life and not the other way around as Rotundi notes, and when it becomes a life the above "sprititual" notions become "useful"....otherwise its all Chuck Palahniuk nihilism while executing excellent practice....
I understand your position. However, I prefer not to inject spirituality of any kind into my professional process. One may step back and notice transcendence in the work if it emerges or occur in the process This would the result of rigor, examination, testing, science, fact finding and ordering in response to a problem. Imagine if a doctor executed their profession from intuition, cross cultural input, or a complexity open mind. I might find another doctor as the practice of this doctor would be harmful.to me and society. Careful with my profession please.
“Why do you want us to move? Why should we move?” And I say, “Well, okay, why should we stay here?” And then another—I don’t even know who said it—coming in from the corner, it was silent, and somebody said, “Because we’re comfortable here.” And then there was a dead silence, and another voice came up that goes, “Ah shit, we’re moving. We’re moving.” I said, “Exactly. Exactly, we’re moving. Comfort is the death of us.”
Mr. Witzig, with all due respect to your opinions, your comments remind me the above, and you remind me the person who said, "Because we’re comfortable here.”
In regards to comparing the medical doctors to architects; we work under much different circumstances and context and for different purposes. It has never been a good comparison but widely used for demagogical purposes. I find it very unnecessary and weak. If you think intuition has no business in architecture, then I can understand why you are so offended by this interview.
Also, I am an architect too and not necessarily identify with your type of guarding "my profession." I welcome Mr. Rotondi's spiritual if not forward looking and highly creative ideas regarding to "our profession."
I am for moving forward, evolving, growing. I am for removing oneself from one's comfort zone. I am for all of that. How should one do that? Intuition is our brain's innate ability to make sense of things quickly from what we know, experience, or observe. That's it. That's all that is. There is no convincing evidence that there is anything spiritual, supernatural, otherworldly, suspended in another "realm", or god like. A person's increase in knowledge, ability, or talent is not the result of anything unseen or in another dimension. If someone comes to you to design their home, and describes their vision your intuition may tell you that they like nature, animals, have no idea how much things cost, or have missed other opportunities. That's about it. That's about where you set your intuition aside. You don't destroy it (not sure one can do that) - but you set it aside! Now you go to work. Figure it out, look for solutions and test them. Words like Intuition, faith, and belief, are killers to human welfare and well being if those are not supported by evidence. You can work that way, but you would be a bad architect in my estimation. As far as comparing the Architectural profession to the medical profession goes. I think if you care about human well being and what is True, then the correct position would be if you were a Doctor, Architect, Builder, Plumber, Social Worker, or Chef - your intuition, beliefs and other crutches like spirituality would be held at bay in service to your profession. It would not be its foundation. It's more often a lie. Please do not teach or mentor the next generation in mumbo jumbo and sloppy thinking. Believe what you like and hug these childish "toys" to yourself, but do not ask me to play with these "toys", tell me about these "toys", or teach unsuspecting young people who pay good money for an education and read Archinect about these "toys". If you did that I would support having you removed from the educational environment. You are free to speak about it but I am free to warn others about it and ridicule it. I will guard the profession (and any other)that is polluted and diluted by sloppy thinking.
on "sprirituality":
The interesting thing to note about the "spirituality" that Mr. Rotundi is referencing, is that it has been integrated into the sciences, mainly within the world of neuroscience. It’s not the “spiritualism” we are used to in the West and when we hear the word we automatically discount its possibilities within the sciences and to compound our distrust, its from the East – this “spiritualism”.
I’m sure you’ve heard of "autopoiesis" ...via Patrik Schumacher (Parametricism) who is heavily influenced, if not arguably a disciple of Niklas Luhmann (see my link on the word itself), who borrowed it from Francisco Varela and Humberto Matura. The last two invented the concept and brought it into the sciences, one becoming a Tibetan Buddhist.
I'm sure the "spirituality" you are referring to, or offended by, is the Abrahamic Religion Versions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam) So like anyone from the west, the entire mythology and strange systems of values is probably a quick turn-off when "spirituality" is applied to architecture.
Tim mentions Transcendence: this was Immanuel Kant's key concept to rationalize his version of Christianity in light of David Hume's ultimately nihlistic existenialism (I'm well aware that's not what Hume was officially up to, that's a 21st century reassessment).
With that said, Max Weber wrote a book called "The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism” which is referenced in William Connolly’s Capitalism and Christianity, American Style. In short all of life, your spiritual life is now defined by quantities and not quality After all The Way to Wealth is through capital. The pursuit of happiness?
Martin Heidegger who with great rigor wrote Being and Time and towards the end sounds like a Eastern philosopher (in light of technology).
I’m sure we’ve all read about or read Heidegger’s texts on dwellings and in connection with Mr. Rotundi’s point above about architect’s designing space for others, in an essay by Massimo Cacciari – Eupalino or Architecutre”
With phrases as follows in relation to Heidegger on dwelling:
“Dwelling is not the result of building, but is that which building produces into presence.”
“The problem lies in the fact that spirit may no longer dwell – it has become estranged from dwelling. And this is why building cannot “make” the Home (Dimora) “appear.””
“But is it possible to build for “dwellers”? Only “dwellers” can do so. And it is precisely the “dweller” that is absent today.”
Then it gets very intellectual. Intuition anyone?
There is no such thing as spirituality integrated into science. There is no place for spiritual intuition in neuroscience. Complete nonsense. These are false statements no matter how many books cite or quote. Just because someone makes a claim or writes a book does not make it true. I am sorry if that is hard for you to accept. it makes no difference what quadrant of the globe you are from or what historic label you put on me or other people. Your statements and references have no meaning here or there or there.
" I'm sure the "spirituality" you are referring to, or offended by, is the Abrahamic Religion Versions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam) So like anyone from the west, the entire mythology and strange systems of values is probably a quick turn-off when "spirituality" is applied to architecture. "
What Chris said is particularly accurate here.
There is no place for spiritual intuition in neuroscience.
But neuroscience does accept that humans have a neurological impulse that we thus far have labeled intuition or spirituality, yes? And while actual scientists work on figuring out the biological science behind that impulse, we can agree that we don't understand it but it is, in fact, very powerful.
As architects we need to understand how to use that powerful tool - empathetic bodily responses to materials, for example - to make a better built world. As Bruce Hood shows with his serial killer's sweater demonstration, it's very real.
We do not need to understand how to use this "powerful tool", because there is no tool. "Empathetic bodily response to materials",? is about the most ridiculous statement I have ever had the displeasure of reading. I hope you are not teaching anyone. I could say that, "essential bodily essence is a necessary factor in a person's goals to pursue a better understanding of the clear nature of materials and their place within the environment and their worth to human well being… That was a joke by the way… Had I spent about 10 minutes more using your brand of sloppy thinking to better craft the above pile of verbal crap, it might have been accepted by you and worse by others! Very dangerous to understanding what is true.
The pursuit of knowledge and understanding is accepted, nearly ubiquitously, as a worthwhile goal but there's simply no reason to assert that any specific or ultimate understanding is attainable by neuroscience, personal reflection, empathy or "bodily response". Unless you simply mean something like, "that stone is slippery when cut and it may hurt my body", What are you tailing about? No,no... please don't try and explain it.
While it may be impossible to achieve an ultimate understanding by any method, the most consistently reliable path to understanding has proven to be the scientific one. If you are an Architect and you do not subscribe to that statement or place any other on equal or even un-equal footing…You are a bad Architect and you need to be flagged as such.
The idea of enlightenment, meditation, intuition, or any type of quiet reflection will somehow allow facts or reality to reveal itself to the individual, is another unsupported assertion which most likely reflects your wishful thinking of sentient beings who crave understanding.
Go back to school! Start with basic science, then work up to higher education, then maybe go into theatrical set design or become some sort of new age yoga instructor or something. Just shovel your crap somewhere off Archinect
Apologies, Donna. That was harsh. One should not accept spirituality, meditation, prayer, intuition, or anything like that as useful to the our profession. An Architect can design a space to support those activities if they want. You may have a definition or a label in your mind as to what you are trying to say. I apologize for being harsh if I don't understand what you are trying to say. I believe you may mean that people have feelings, immediate impressions, or common reactions to many things in a broad sense, and we may want to understand those better and monitor what the scientific community discovers in how our brains come up with those reactions. I agree with that. I don't want to put words in your mouth. But I would agree with that, if that is even close to what you mean. An example would be how color affects humans in enclosed and open environments. How it might quicken heart rates or decrease them, or even annoy a person for some reason. That make sense. Artists have known about complimentary or vibrating colors atmospherics or colors' impact in a work for many many years. But it is understood by science. It is not something we can just assert or meditate on to discover why or how it works. We cannot believe that one person's response is typical. We may be able to use it for something. But...It happens for a real reason and is demonstrable and repeatable across culture, time. Pointing it out as an artist by creating a work doesn't mean it was only knowable through intuition or any of the other loose thinking
As a Los Angelino, I have to quote System of a Down:
Science
Making two possibilities a reality,
Predicting the future of things we all know,
Fighting off the diseased programming
Of centuries, centuries, centuries, centuries
Science fails to recognize the single most
Potent element of human existence
letting the reigns go to the unfolding
Is faith, faith, faith, faith
Science has failed our world
Science has failed our Mother Earth
Science fails to recognize the single most
Potent element of human existence
letting the reigns go to the unfolding
Is faith, faith, faith, faith
Science has failed our world
Science has failed our Mother Earth.
Spirit-moves-through-all-things
Spirit-moves-through-all-things
Spirit-moves-through-all-things,
Spirit-moves-through-all-things
Spirit-moves-through-all-things…
Tim, I'm a sceptic. The author I referenced is a sceptic.
If you think humans in western society don't have a different bodily and emotional response to a brick than to a metal panel then you're *not* being a sceptic.
The thing is: there's a new-age yoga approach to that bodily response that accepts it and closes the door to trying to understand it on a scientific level. That response is enough for some people, and that's fine as long as it doesn't hurt anyone.
There's also a science-based approach that keeps asking for a deeper understanding of that response based in human biology and neurological function. If you're interested in neuroscience - you're interested in the mind - then you can't close the door on that deeper research.
And if you're interested in being a good architect you need to understand *both* of those attitudes.
PS: note to everyone listening: it would take a tanker truckload full of science for someone to convince me that what Tim W. just said to me wasn't "mansplaining". Thought experiment: If my user name was "Architect Joe Man" do you think he would have spoken to me like that?
Tim, responding to your last Jan 7 (although I read the rest) post to which Orhan confirms exactly what I was suggesting that Mr. Rotundi's "spiritualism" is quite different than the one you are probably considering, although that is not confirmed yet.
I doubt Mr. Rotundi's goal here is to get the Lord's Prayer into some CSI format in a spec book, no?
Wasn't it Frank Lloyd Write who said his religion was Nature?
The "spirituality" referenced above is more related to levels of consciousness which is important to neuroscience and all things in general.
But don't mind me, I'm just an architect, just like you, and your opinion like mine proves nothing, correct? http://www.neurophenomenology.com/
I just don't understand the blunt opposition to these concepts in "your profession" and the whole "fallacy" accusation, seems extreme.
We all know with regard to professional experience in academia you learn practically nothing. What you do learn is design, and design is just as subjective as religion. You learn about yourself as an architect, or you should, The worst schools stuff some dogma down your throat telling you 'that is how architecture is done.'
Tim, your opinion on how to use science is about as convincing as your opinion on "spirituality" in architecture, or in other words- It's subjective. Science is subjective, anyone who has spent some time understanding scientific problems should be aware of this.
and when you get down to it even practice is subjective.
Does this mean you don't build a railing at 50 plf to code at 42" high if the stars don't align? Does this mean you have to do yoga before you design an ADA bathroom? Answer: whatever the hell works for you.
For the record I'm like Forest Gump, I don't even know why the question of God is important and I was raised by Christian Missionaries. So I'm not really making a case for "spiritualism" I just don't understand why we are getting all excited about "my profession".
Are waterproofing details going to become worse If you do the sign of the cross before you draft a detail? Maybe if you meditate you'll solve a waterproofing detail no vendor, engineer, contractor, or anyone else could solve, because you approached it differently.
lastly, give up the doctor analogy, architects are nowhere close to the realm of doctors. I'll give you lawyers, but doctors, don't kid yourself.
Donna -
A ‘Mansplaining’ Hotline? Yes, Actually, Sweden Has One
Design is not subjective or "as subjective as religion". it's by far objective. One may overlay subjective elements or judgements upon it... But this thinking will kill our profession. Seriously? This is why folks often don't trust Archirects. Why would you say that? If it becomes that and most architects come to accept that statement I will give up ( or need to give up by virtue of a collapse) the title architect and aid lawyers who then sue architects for what I assume will be a never ending need for public protection.. As I said any profession - plumber, doctor, chef. Anyone who excels at a craft or gains expertise better not claim they got that expertise by intuition or eastern meditation or other divining rod contrivance. Design is not random and based on false beliefs. By the way, there is no evidence that there are levels of consciousness. There is consciousness. It can fail us at times or operate at a less than optimal level, but there is no levels which are hidden from investigation. This is junk. Luckily just about everything put forth on the other side of this argument is going out the window as humans demand more from architects builders and developers. Thank goodness for sustainability,responsibility and data driven design and death to just believing the architect's subjective desires. Or worse. Architecture in service of belief. Now think about that.
Mansplaining is new one for me . I looked it up. I admit I was condescending to Donna and others. Yes will continue to drive this point home. But gender has no bearing. I did admit and apologize for my harshness but the claims are outrageous on the other side and have no place in architectural education. They deserve ridicule and condescension and strong condemnation. I admit serving this in my responses but deny that mansplaining has taken place. If I had used words towards a person like tomato, baby, doll, missy, or made a "bake cookies' type remark, then yes that would be mansplaining. That's not me. My work environment and world is very diverse. I can be very condescending when crap is put forward that young architects might see. No way!
Erik. I will not say you are complexity nuts however the fact that you repeat lies as multiple repeated lines tells me something. An example would be... Repeating a lie by chanting or repeating it every Saturday or Sunday in a text or in the garden, in the temple, atop the mountain, around the fire or in a book doesn't make it true! It just might make the false idea stick around.
Tim-
I was quoting from the lyrics of a rock song. Musical lyrics often tend to be repetitive. :)
TIm,
I think you should reconsider your approach. You won't get very far with people, or really learn much in this world, if you run around calling other people's point of view, with which you may disagree, "lies" and "nonsense". Whatever you believe is "true" at any point in you life stands a fair probability of being wrong. Trust me.
"Anyone who says they have it all figured out is probably full of shit"
-Robert Anton Wilson
"Science and religion are two windows that people look through, trying to understand the big universe outside, trying to understand why we are here. The two windows give different views, but they look out at the same universe. Both views are one-sided, neither is complete. Both leave out essential features of the real world. And both are worthy of respect.Trouble arises when either science or religion claims universal jurisdiction, when either religious dogma or scientific dogma claims to be infallible. Religious creationists and scientific materialists are equally dogmatic and insensitive. By their arrogance they bring both science and religion into disrepute."
- Freeman Dyson (physicist, mathematician)
Uh ok Erik. I don't know a lot of things but when I don't know something I try to figure it out even if it takes a while or I ask for help but I don't meditate on it. I could use an app for example to find the Rock artist who wrote those unfortunate lyrics. Now if meditation means thinking about a problem in the shower, while exercising or listening to music, I do that. That is just thinking. It's not spiritual or tapping intuitive reserves or anything subconscious. If we architects give these misleading nonsensical musings an equal place at the table we do so at the peril of the profession's integrity. Rock on.
Religion and science are not equal Windows. One is a wall on which someone has painted the image of window.. You decide which lets you see what is true reality and which is a lie... that is true. You can stare at whichever you want. I might stare at the painted one but I hope the real one is never bricked up or frosted
That's fine, Tim. We disagree. I hope your scientism is fulfilling.
You will be getting a bit closer to a full view of reality when you realize that both points of view are actually walls on which you have painted an image of a window. :)
Tim W, you've unloaded a lot of personal frustration directed to the interview. These included personal accusations in an excitedly aggressive and highly paternal ways, not only against the interview but also people who are posting here. Whatever triggered those in you, are relatively transparent and easy to detect. Usually, these denials come from lack of clarity or confusing clarity with numerical bookkeeping. They are short of imaginative components or something of that sort.
You seem threatened maybe because, likely, you don't understand the interview's take on 'creative faith in architecture' (again, not necessarily in Abrahamic sense here.) Otherwise, you wouldn't make such colossal claims on its lack of content and deny it altogether. All the while doing it, fanatically warn the students of the dangers if they are taught by one of the best professors of architecture around.
You never tell the what the result would be if one really looks into what Rotondi is saying.You call them all kinds of surface words but you can't point one example or elaborate on what the resultant be. There is no shortage of words of spirituality in every piece of architectural works we learn from in schools and in life. There are many practicing good architects today who were exposed to his teaching of architecture. If you look at what he is saying in the article with an open mind, you will see that almost every paragraph is generative, beautifully meshed with current times and none-esoterically put.
We are mostly professionals here, as much as you are. There is nothing wrong with your views of architecture, we all know those and introduced to them in our education, in our professional exams, etc., the problem is with your denials. They are so black and white in a fanatical way and let's say it; discounting and disrespectful of architecture.
No, at the end, I think you have not been harsh to anyone but to yourself.
"The beauty of architecture is that it’s a leap of faith, but a very laborious leap of faith." -RK
How beautifully said.
There's a wonderful concept in quantum physics called "model agnosticism". Since we cannot actually see events at the sub-atomic level, but can only try to understand them through data gleaned from experiments, we don't really "know" what an atom looks like. We have invented a model of the atom, which looks like a little planet-like nucleus of little balls we call "protons" and neutrons" with fast little balls called "electrons" orbiting the little planet. But when we try to firm up that view, things get really fuzzy. Fact is that that image of the atom is just a "model" or a "map" of the atom, that happens to mostly correspond to experimental evidence, but is not to be confused with the thing itself.
Many physicists have decided that it's best To withhold "belief" in any particular models of reality, but to use them as useful fictions that help them understand a littler clearer. We can expand that "model agnosticism" to the universe at large. Science gives one model, and religion is another model. As Freeman Dyson suggests, both are useful, but incomplete. Both are necessary to get us close to a full understanding.
Tim - design, as in conceptual design is absolutely subjective and that is exactly why everyone thinks and many can do that part of our job. As Orhan noted we are all professionals here and as you can imagine we have all practiced architecture well beyond just conceptual design. The ability to execute the conceptual design - not everyone can do this and yes its probably less subjective but as I am sure you are aware every project has a detail or a moment that is a complete one-off and you the architect have to make an educated guess, based on science no doubt, whether this material with that material will remain effecive over 20 years - but its a guess because no one has ever tested that assembly and no one could foresee maybe the vendor getting sick, a foreign company offering a cheaper product, and a city that changes its laws constantly and in the end like Erik says, science is nothing more than man made models of how we believe the universe is working.........Tim I see you did not click on my link in case you wanted to see actual data indicating buddhists monks can with intention meditate to higher brain level frequencies, sure normal people can as well, but not with as much intention and willfully. I have 2 EEG headsets at home, I can move stuff with my mind - science. You also note you can use an "app" to find rock lyrics, come on man , you can use "the google"., I am just making fun of your lack of knowledge when it comes to computers and software and the interweb.....what i do not understand is this "my profession", especially when you want to talk about conceptual design, thats the least professional thing we do and who cares if someone says use some "spiritualism" to make a better design.......Did you know the escalators into Fosters Hong Kong Bank were located using Feng Shui? the structural hangers pointed down until the Feng Shui consultant said it was bad news. Did that make the building any worse or better?
My only caution is as I said in my very first response was ...i caution in the mentoring of young architects in these false and fallacious statements. That is threatening to the profession as a whole. Minor threat as most peolple find it to be bunk but bunk all the same. People will always believe and speak about this nonsense but I have a right to ridicule it in the most strident manner when I hear these things are being taught. This is Archinect. It's a forum for all kinds of ideas and I have learned a lot about what people are doing and how much amazing talent is out there. It's staggering. I use this site to find new talent and employees. I do call out conspiracy theories, false science, new age statements, eastern religions, western religions and anything else that creeps into Architecture masquerading as an equally valid participant at the table. Maybe those ideas can be stated but they should be called out and put in their proper place. A fact of human tripping, A fact of human psychology. A fact of human behavior we do not completely understand. But like other bad human behaviors like, false memories, fear of the other, arguments from ignorance, belief without justification or a need to find patterns in chaos they need to be put in their place. Faith is what you appeal to when a search for the truth seems too hard or will not give you the result which you have already decided follow. If a person accepts that. Fine. Have as much faith as you want. Just don't lure others in this forum. Do it in the sacred space to an audience who knows what it is and as the maturity to distinguish it
Tim - with conceptual design all things are fair game, lets not kid ourselves here, no one will die if you design by voodoo, deconstruction, or proportions. There is always code, engineering, materials, etc...to be processed post design. Also, architects all have preservationist egos, none of these kids are somehow following a cult leader here, and that is not what Mr. Rotundi is selling from what I can tell.
I hope. What you say is true. It is minor in the greater scheme of things. I used the word minor in my first post too. Then I was asked "care to elaborate" I am sure Mr. Rotundi means no harm nor anyone else. I love walking into sacred spaces and I even stand in awe of amazing places, magic, selfless people, and people who do kind things when nobody is paying attention. It is human and makes you think.
Vodoo scares s me. James Bond live and let die.
Tim- When you walk into a sacred place, and you feel awe, how do you explain that feeling? Where does it come from?
^who said it has to come from somewhere?
It's a phenomenon. It has to have an origin or an explanation.
nope, it totally does not. Who says it does?
You can have an effect without a cause?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causality
What a wanker. Did you even read the wiki link?
Here's the 2nd paragraph: "Causality is an abstraction that indicates how the world progresses, so basic a concept that it is more apt as an explanation of other concepts of progression than as something to be explained by others more basic. The concept is like those of agency and efficacy. For this reason, a leap of intuition may be needed to grasp it"
Can't we have intellectual discussions without it descending into calling people "wankers"? I simply asked the question:
"Can you have an effect without a cause?"
If a person feels an emotion, is it caused by something? Does it have a source? The answer could be, "yes..."awe" is a biochemical interaction between neurotransmitters", or it could be "yes... "awe" is the thing the human mind experiences when it is touched by the mind of God", or any number of other explanations. But it comes from somewhere, it is not causeless. Unless you believe in effects without causes.
mind of god = wanker excuse.
No point in discussing such empty position.
Not everything needs to be categorized and simplified to fit into your god box.
ok. I should have known better.
Out.
ramen
Erik
Responding to your question where my awe might come from when I walk into a scared space. Well, that would be different depending on the space or place so I would need to go to some example. Went to Taos Pueblo once. I was not aware that the Native Americans saw the Pueblo as sacred. I had wrongly assumed that it was merely an archeological site or I feared a bit of a tourist trap. Once it was explained to me that is was indeed sacred to the inhabitants, I admit I looked at it differently. There was a bit of tourist trap element in that money, buses, postcards and gift shops were kind of featured. But... I took some time to go off tour . Not breaking their rules, but I got as far back as I could. I got some distance until I came to a little stream barrier. Wondered for a moment was this stream the whole reason the Pueblo was here. I looked back. It hit me immediately. The similar shape, form, compressed ruggedness of mountain behind the Pueblo and the form of the Pueblo itself struck me. I imagined that perhaps building upwards with this relatively weak material (by today's standards) in order that the people could "nod to", "acknowledgement ", "blend with" nature. Acknowledge something greater than themselves? It was amazing. I was brought back to reality when I rejoined the tour and the guide said that there was (from her knowledge) entirely different reasons having to do with status and property and ease of construction actually. Children built above elders and next to each over time. One wall supports the next. Its easier, one less wall to build. Entering was from the top, for defense mostly. ladders were pulled up when attacked. Makes sense, but not as let's say... inspiring. In the end as the light changed and the pueblo kind of glowed I realized there is so much I don't know and how much stuff is lost to history. A thing is sacred because we say so. Because we imbue it with that label even if the reasons are not true. The tour guide was aware that the real history and reality was far more interesting, perhaps mundane, but still important. It was sacred because her ancestors had built this thing that survived like 1000 years, died their, struggled their, were buried near their, were forced to build a church right there by some other nut jobs with false belief, but that they still could make a living there to this day. The "sacredness" was almost what I would call irony. The reality was very very human. They were cautioning me in the nicest possible way I think. I was awe struck by that whole interaction and that the Pueblo was amazing because of facts I did not know. I came away, I think a better person. But it was, in end, a realization that I did not know facts and that the truth was far more interesting in understanding human well being and architecture than my bullshit mountain moment. The kicker was that the tribe also holds back facts from the public. They admitted this to the tour.
I had a similar experience at the Alhambra in Granada Spain at the age of 10. That's another wildly different light bulb moment, in not such a sacred space, but one that can affect a person in a similar way. I had a similar moment walking into Saint Patrick's Cathedral recently after it was cleaned.
Truth... Ha! It's the biggest lie. There is only perception. Truth does not exist and once you figure that out then you can move on with your life.
Here's an extraordinary claim... scientists propose that everything we know that exists in our universe started in the smallest of spaces that we cannot comprehend and suddenly expaned into a mass we cannot comprehend in a speed and time that we cannot comprehend resulting in our universe, galaxy and planet earth... Tadaaa!
hmmm... it's almost as if someone or something snapped their fingers and here we are...
The model we call the Big Bang which is really a sudden and very energetic expansion or inflation. Yes it's the current model. I don't think there are many folks out there who do not think there is more to learn throw away and learn again. There are true things however that do comport with reality. I'm texting for example. It can be demonstrated and repeated and if I wanted I could put my phone off and if no texts come out I could then say with reasonable certainty for my life that I can and do text and not text. That would be true to me. I suppose I can't assert that I'm not living in the Matrix but I have yet to see adequate evidence of a Matrix so I can say I don't believe in the Matrx because there is not adequate evidence for me to believe it. For lots of stuff I'm ok with saying I don't know. But I do not believe or assert something is True because it may be possible but lacks sufficient evidence. The universe is amazing from our view point admittedly
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