I think it all boils down to the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle.
Either I know where I am but can't tell you how I got here, or I can tell you how I got here but have no idea where I am.
Indeed. Although sometimes excellence on Archinect seems to be pursued via the Infinite Monkey Theorem. I'm not mentioning any names, but the dude can really type.
Not an architectural historian, but I think whoever mentioned the concept of the "parti" is moving this discussion in the right direction. It's certainly from the "Ecole des Beaux Arts," but beyond that I think you'd need to hit the history books to learn more.
I do think the OP is really missing something if he or she thinks the great modernists (FLW, Corb, Mies) were not process-driven. The beauty of their architecture is built on the decades of building experience and experimentation ("process") which preceded it. Much of Corb's most significant work is variation on a theme derived from the maison domino. Same can be said of Mies and classically-proportioned steel and glass. Both architects were essentially learning how to design and construct in completely new systems and materials. If that is not process, I don't know what is.
you can't really teach 'end product.' 'process' in school is how the professor communicates with you, to help lead you in a direction where you can think critically and do a better job of guiding your thoughts towards where they ought to be if you're going to be a better designer.
school is practice (as is practice of course). where you put you efforts is where you will get better. having a good project at the end is not as important as spending your time in school practicing and learning things you need to practice and learn.
that probably made more sense in my head than in a forum post.
If you're going to teach process in architecture the least you could do is include some construction process. Or is architecture just a theoretical exercise with no practical applications in reality?
professors without practical experience can't really teach practical applications can they? they have to fill time with something, and they can't very well fill that time with waiting to see your end product then telling you did it wrong.
they apparently do a good job of teaching people to work free overtime without expecting any benefit from it. i'm beginning to think that's the real time saver with revit - the apparently endless free overtime.
@tint and thoomp: I have a proposed process for the vision approach
1. Meditation
2. Collage
3. Reverse Engineer
4. [Neuro]Phenomenology
1. Meditation is the way I design - apparently. I've only really become aware of this now at 36, after 6 years of school and 12 years of working, of which teaching was 3 years (overlapping). Learned the most about the mind and design teaching, by watching students develop their designs through various processes. I taught the skills, not the process, so I spent lots of time translating desired processes into presentation moves. Problem with meditation as an architect, especially as a student, it's hard to stay awake when you get there.
*"Neurophenomenology combines the careful study of experience from within with investigations of the brain and behavior from without. It uses descriptions of direct experience to guide the study of the brain processes relevant to consciousness" p. 28
Abhidharma philosophers agree with Western Philosophers (Edumund Husserl) "...that all consciousness is consciousness of something in one way or another." (intentionality) p36
Heidegger towards the end is very similar to Eastern Philosophy...
By modeling your visions and studying them through architectural processes: craft, while studying your own mind - you are developing a process that not only documents the poetic, but you are also creating a method for design that is more rigorous and scientific than the current accepted conceptual process by incorporating Neuroscience.
oh NullPointer, i gave you bait, you didn't take it because you probably couldn't recognize it, since you have not actually read anything I referenced.....I made a false statement - Deleuze is animal when it comes to philosophy, not platonic, which also puts a hole in your argument - The Black Swan cutting through Deleuze's bullshit..
Chris, on recording architectural dreams... I love it... that is exactly what I am talking about.
Thanks for the links, I think you have pointed me towards the Mind in Life book before and I see why, looks great. Thank you. I help run a learning clinic with a psychologist (my partner) and I have been working with and studying the sensory-cognitive processes for almost 5 years, fascinating stuff. We teach basic skills like mental imagery and verbalization, two cognitive skills I think could be taught to arch students.
Actually, I just chose to ignore you. I dislike e-fights. Hopefully this doesn't devolve into one.
Deleuze gets close to reality, but he still gets close with words. The platonic narrative remains and no matter how close he gets to reality, he is still limited by the narrative. This is extremely apparent on his notion of ethics and individuality/power. I'm not saying it's not useful, but I am saying it's limited (and potentially irrelevant in the face of science, ie: in a deterministic reality).
I read Taleb's The Black Swan, I don't remember enjoying it. He says the same thing over and over again and that is what you don't know is gonna get ya! Mmmm, k.
A review of the hits from a look at Ngram suggest that "process" really began being used in the context of writing about architecture or design, in the way you mean, around the late 1960s/1970s at least in english...
Some of that definitely went over my head but thanks, Chris! I will definitely try that out. I have had some very vivid architectural dreams - mostly a long time ago, but I can still remember them quite well. I never thought to analyze them or put them down on paper before though.
Oh man, thanks Nam. That's really interesting, didn't know such a tool existed. I wonder why that is the case, though. Perhaps related to post-modernism, or maybe the other sorts of reaction to modernism?
Also, thanks tint, and the others as well, definitely some interesting replies here... guess I should have been more patient.
Do you actually talk this way to clients? I always enjoyed arch theory in school but I couldn't imagine applying most of it in real practice. I suppose their are the rare exceptions but most clients would think you were a nut or worse if you started talking this way. I always found theory to be architects entertaining each other I couldn't imagine what a commoner would think of the silly archispeak in most theory books.
I think that "process" as contemporary architects have come to understand it is actually a outgrowth of Modernist movements in the arts, and as such is relatively recent in conception.
The École de Beaux Arts was mentioned earlier, and the concept of the "parti". The parti was a direct result of what they called the "Esquisse", or "sketch". This was a quick drawing done, usually on a single sheet of paper, which captured the idea and essence of a project. At the École, students would be given a design assignment, usually many weeks in duration, and initially they would be given a few days to visit the site, do research for precedent, and then in an hour or two, generate the esquisse. They would have a studio crit right after that, for immediate feedback, and then from that point were required to develop their project based upon that idea. This is similar to the way FLW worked, and to some extent visionary architects like Gehry. His famous sketch for Bilbao is essentially an esquisse in the Beaux Arts tradition. The story of Wright designing Fallingwater, in a flurry of drawing with colored pencils, while the client was in transit to Taliesin is famous example
The notion of carefully following a detailed process, sort of like an assembly line, where you take raw data, apply the process, and out pops a unique solution at the end of the process, is a modern one. I think it is part of the modernist art tradition of the artist as neutral conduit for external forces. "The solution is inevitable. I took the facts of the case, applied the process, and look what resulted". It is a pseudoscientific approach.
For those of you who have read William Hubbard's "Complicity and Conviction", the modernist approach attempts to convince us that much of architecture belongs in the realm of the "inevitable", i.e. things we accept because we have no choice but to do so. The Beaux Arts approach maintains that architectural design largely resides within the realm of the "conventional", or things that we understand could have been otherwise, but that we accept because we want them to be the way they are.
Creative inspiration is driven by many things - from critical analysis, experience and intuition to a pending meeting with a client for which one is wholly unprepared.
Inevitable architecture is simply a reflection of money culture.
Here's a quote from Hubbard, from "Complicity and Conviction":
"If there is one characteristic that links the diverse art movements of the modernist period, it is perhaps the hyperawareness of the fact that one's personal sensibility could have been otherwise. A modernist artist is so deeply aware of this possibility of otherwise-ness that he feels a deep unease about simply accepting his own sensibility. He feels a need for some reason that will convince him that he ought to feel one way and not another. So he searches for such a reason. He tries to open himself to conditions that are not conventional, but inevitable, to conditions that exist apart from him and his arbitrary likes and dislikes, to forces at work in the world that produce inevitable effects, effects therefore undistorted by arbitrary preferences. His goal becomes to attain a sensibility such that he will prefer what he finds when he thus opens himself, and his sensibility will replicate the action of those forces at work. He will become as a conduit of those forces to "work their will."
is this person who is talking about 'modernists' a modernist? or is it a person making up a bunch of BS because there is something he doesn't like, and he doesn't have mental facility to understand why he doesn't like it without inventing a boogeyman?
don't create an enemy because you can't figure out how to make your ideology stand on it's own. rather, just be confident in your ideology without trying to tear others down.
if you think i don't have the least understanding of classicism, then i would suggest you have no understanding of assembly lines.
that book was written in 1982. you can keep the 80's. the whole decade. it brought nothing but greed and selfishness anyway.
Hubbard isn't trying to create enemies, or to tear anyone down. However, he's identifying a real difference between the modernist approach to art, and the pre-modernist approach to art. That was the OP's question... when did "process" become a focus for architects? I'm saying that, in the sense that most contemporary architects think of "process", it began in the 20th century.
and i'm saying that "process" predates your notion of 'modernism' with vitruvius's written descriptions of the materials and methods common in his day, which of course was written as a guide to caesar augustus for building and restoration projects going on at the time it was written. vitruvius was explaining a process for design and construction was he not?
what i see wrong with your attribution of "contemporary process" stemming from the "modernist movement" is that you're not a modernist and you don't understand anything about what any particular sect of modernism might believe in. you certainly don't understand my process, or what design sensibilities i might prefer. nor do you understand mies or venturi or rem or any other so-called 'modernist.' you just invent a bunch of bullshit to try make your narrow ideology sound rational, which it clearly isn't. you should not be speaking for such a large group of people you don't understand. what kind of ego and self-delusions would be required for you to speak for so many people, especially when you don't consider yourself an adherent of their philosophy?
whenever you speak of 'modernism,' it's in a negative connotation. that's what 'modernism' is to you. stop doing that. if your design philosophy has any redeeming qualities, then talk about them. think of positive things to say about the things you believe in, not the negative things in those things you don't believe in.
your take on 'modernism' is essentially someone looking at a light bulb and saying 'i don't understand how this glows, so i will attribute it to god.' in that analogy, you don't know anything about light bulbs or god. of course that doesn't detract from your belief system at all. however, the opinion expressed in this analogy is not rational or sound. the person saying 'i will attribute it to god' should not be telling public internet forums 'god did it.' rather, they should be asking how light bulbs work, so they don't stay mired in their ignorance.
what i would like to see, rather than seeing you go away, is for you to speak positively about the things you believe in. you just don't do well when you try to speak for all modernists.
your credentials for modernism don't serve you well. if you really went to a modernist school, and were trained as a modernist, and designed and built more modernist buildings than me, then you've obviously fallen far short of successful, what with your adherence to non-modernist philosophies and your inability to present a cohesive modernist belief of your own. i would prefer you talk about what you're good at, not what you aren't good at.
was your modernist education filled with people telling you that you should be modernist because of all the things 'traditional' or whatever did wrong? i fell sorry for you if so, as that would essentially be the opposite of an education.
i don't speak for 'traditionalists' the way you speak for 'modernists.' i don't tell you what 'tradionalists' believe. i don't tell you what 'modernists' believe either, since i don't think the modernist movement revolves around me. that would be a dumb and selfish thing for me to do. i can only tell you what i believe, which is that you don't speak for modernists.
Just to be clear, I wasn't speaking formodernists. I would never presume to do that, since I no longer consider myself to be one, although I once did.
I was speaking about modernism. There is a big difference.
And besides that, what I noted about modernist movements in art and architecture was not necessarily a value judgement. I was simply pointing out that there is a difference in the philosophies, and in the design approaches that result from them. I'll leave it up to you, and everyone else here to decide if one point-of-view is preferable to the other.
Dec 4, 14 4:39 pm ·
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Modernism comes out of the "progressive modernism" movement in the late 19th century and early 20th century and the values.
It doesn't divorce all the notions of its precedence but differs on certain priorities.
As for the 1980s being all about greed and selfishness, that statement is total bullshit. The selfishness and greed comes out of the "rise of the baby boomers" into the social-economic circles. Lets remember that many of baby boomers in the 1960s were often children and teens and had no influence on how business anf government is ran. Then the 1970s came and they were becoming adults but they didn't get into positions of power and influence over how corporate, political, governmental operations ran until the 1970s and 1980s.
1980s marked a period of transitions from a stark values difference. But you need to look back to why the baby boomers have this sort of culture described by some as selfish and greedy. It maybe because they were spoiled but lets remember the Baby Boomer's parents generation whom were children and teens during the Great Depression. Their personal frugality but also growing up and serving in World War II. WW II has certainly had an effect on their appreciation of their fellow bretherens. Thanking their lucky stars to be alive after the worst horror that this world has ever seen in 1000 years. So yes, with nearly every able man was serving during WW II to stop a world class A-hole's quest for world dominaton.
Now, the baby boomer generations.... they have a division within its own generation. Those that went to Vietnam and served there and those that didn't. When the ones that returned from Vietnam came back, they were spitted at, ridiculed, called "Baby Killers" and other horrible deriding and utter disrespect. Suprisingly, most of that came from their fellow baby boomers that didn't go but frankly put, this disrespect had a profound effect on them. They certain developed a "Fuck You then" perspective. At least for awhile because why would they want to be nice, compassionate and giving to those who gave them the middle finger so if there is selfishness and greed in these folks, they developed that out of being disrespected to the most extreme degree possible by their fellow citizens.
But funy thing is, greed and selfishness isn't unique to any generation. Certainly, certain events and actions caused some to turn away from others and become more selft-centered because they get disrespected by everything from an uncompassionate bureaucracy system to a derision by fellow citizens in some of the most horrible ways possible that can be done towards those who have put their life and limb for this country.
Then you have a corporate culture which has been selfish and greedy as they always have been for decades. But in a time of cultural value shifts (times of transitions), you get a bit of back stabbing and conflict. We can call the 80's a period of selfishness and greed but that is bullshit because the 1980s brought about the Video Game consoles, Video cassette (home movie entertainment, the personal computers (Commodore 64, Apple II, Mac, Amiga, PC, etc.), Computer Aided Designing (which can be anything from CAD like Autocad, BIM, 3d modeling, but also graphic programs for bitmap graphics which evolved to programs like Photoshop, GIMP, etc.), Computerized Word Processors, Database, Networking, etc.
80s is marked as the beginning of the technology era in our lives. Technically starting in the mid-1970s but it really got "public" in the 1980s. It was this last quarter of the 20th century and the 1980s really broke the ice on computers, home video game consoles and home entertainment and major movement into the technology driven lifestyle that we have today. The 80s set the foundation for the 1990s and 2000s and the 2010s. It brought about changes in our lifestyle.
So to say it only brough selfishness and greed is a limited negative-only perspective.
Curtkram, your narrow view on the 80s fails to understand what the 80s was about and what it brought. After all, if it wasn't for VHS, you wouldn't have DVD or Bluray. If it wasn't for audiocassette, you woudn't have Music CDs. It brought alot. Is it all about selfishness and greed... no. It was a big part of CONSUMERISM which can be viewed from all sorts of perspective. Would you want to live without that computer on your desk. Would you want to go back to mechanical typewriter, slide rule and drafting & modeling by hand because the 1990s, and 2000s and 2010s are largely just an extension of the 1980s but with evolving generations of technologies but it is the technology driven culture that we live in.
If there is one characteristic that links the diverse art movements of the modernist period, it is perhaps the hyperawareness of the fact that one's personal sensibility could have been otherwise. A modernist artist is so deeply aware of this possibility of otherwise-ness that he feels a deep unease about simply accepting his own sensibility.
This is the basis for some kind of argument - that one's perceptions could be different than what they are? Egad. Such has been the way of all artists and thinkers throughout history. This is the very essence of innovation and new ideas.
If anything modernism died in the 20th century when architecture became even more commoditized and styles developed from the egalitarian ideals of the Bauhaus were poorly copied without understanding either their philosophical foundation or purpose. The movements that followed - largely stylistic exercises rejecting the failed copies of modernist style - have for the most part been empty of real content, existing only as competing styles supported on foundations of pseudo-intellectual garbage like that quoted above.
It's far from pseudo-intellectual garbage, although the nuance of the argument is a bit hard to grasp in a quote without context. If you haven't read the book, Miles, you should.
One of the interesting things about being a craftsman is a heightened sense of smell that makes the odor of bullshit instantly detectable. This probably comes from working in the physical world with tools and materials that can be incredibly unforgiving, leaving nowhere to hide. Words are meaningless here, except perhaps for oops or Doh!
The work also establishes a clear hierarchy with other workers. A true craftsman's goal is achieving the respect of their peers and masters, who inevitably are the only ones with the experience and knowledge necessary to fully appreciate the work.
The work doesn't lie. Ever.
Harry Frankfurt alludes to this in a beautiful little poem in his book, which I must now go find. I'm hoping my daughter didn't take it with her to school.
You PM me your address, and I will send you a copy of Hubbard's book, and you read pages. Then you look me in the eye and tell me it's bullshit. Fair enough?
tint - your work sounds really interesting, would love to see it. Rotondi bringing up Damasio was awesome, unfortunately Damasio is sitting on my bookshelf still unread...
null pointer - a bit disappointing, given your response is more valid than your first. the way you formulate your response coincides with what I was trying to suggest via [neuro]phenomenology - i.e. reality once conceptualized isn't reality, and to be deterministic it must be conceptualized...similar to Miles qouting Heisenberg earlier - you need to be conscious to observe your consciousness, but at no point will you be able to determine what is making you conscious...
robbmc - no I don't talk like this to clients, for the most part I do very technical legal and practical stuff that never makes it into a 'portfolio', often for other designers. I'm not here talking to clients, am I? Old boss said it's like dating - listen and build the conversation around their interests...but if a client wanted to talk about what I'm interested in outside the usual, that would be great.
Nam - you sure find the best resources.
Thwoomp and Nam - it's either B6 or B12 that will help enhance the vivid (lucid) dream effect. I only realized this after I became immune to Red Bull (which I don't drink anymore) and was having seriously lucid dreams, barely knew I was dreaming sometimes...best thing though is to not to focus and let it roll.
EKE - "The École de Beaux Arts was mentioned earlier, and the concept of the "parti". The parti was a direct result of what they called the "Esquisse", or "sketch". This was a quick drawing done, usually on a single sheet of paper, which captured the idea and essence of a project. At the École, students would be given a design assignment, usually many weeks in duration, and initially they would be given a few days to visit the site, do research for precedent, and then in an hour or two, generate the esquisse. They would have a studio crit right after that, for immediate feedback, and then from that point were required to develop their project based upon that idea. This is similar to the way FLW worked, and to some extent visionary architects like Gehry. His famous sketch for Bilbao is essentially an esquisse in the Beaux Arts tradition. The story of Wright designing Fallingwater, in a flurry of drawing with colored pencils, while the client was in transit to Taliesin is famous example"
esquisse....sounds like meditating on the site and project, collage, reverse engineer
^Yes, the process driven approach of which is the topic of this thread is not from the Beaux Arts, but a movement away from it. Sound right? Wonder why? Nobody is answering this yet.
One of the founding principles of Beaux-Arts was practicing professionals teaching. That seems to be a small minority now - I'd guess economics has something to do with it.
Olaf would tell you money really isn't physical either, or at least how it is valued, but in a low capacity to focus culture no one appears to know the difference between myth, matter, and the mind. In my opinion I think the move away from what EKE described so well started with Modernism via Abstraction with intent on conforming to industry - a good place to dump and increase ones capital. Once Architecture became organized into Abstractions that had monetary value inherently attached to them such as land values, zoning ordinances, and square foot construction costs, Architecture then found its home in spreadsheets like nearly everything else. Internal ideas are less important when everyone can see what the spreadsheet says, right? ....... Rem Koolhaas realized this before anyone else I think and the only person who think got the Venice Bienele joke was Sanford Kwinter (I think) as expressed in logs recent issue, noting the toilet was center and critical thought convention was where the toilets would be at an expo. But somehow whether Koolhaas has been mocking capitalism the whole time or not, his very shitty way of explaining everything in data in SMXXL format is now process, the dogma. Fakes science
@thwomp and to EKE's point of this (ie: process) being an outgrowth of Modernist movement and also to OP's question, awhile back Javier Arbona penned a critique of Design as Research. He focused more on the rise of DaR in opposition to theory. But the focus on research i think ties closely with the last decade or two push in this process driven direction...
Where did the dogma of "design process" originate?
tint,
You'd probably like, as I do, how Kenya Hara begins his book, Designing Design:
"Verbalizing design is another act of design."
I think it all boils down to the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle.
Either I know where I am but can't tell you how I got here, or I can tell you how I got here but have no idea where I am.
Indeed. Although sometimes excellence on Archinect seems to be pursued via the Infinite Monkey Theorem. I'm not mentioning any names, but the dude can really type.
Wonderful, yes, thank you, jw.
Not an architectural historian, but I think whoever mentioned the concept of the "parti" is moving this discussion in the right direction. It's certainly from the "Ecole des Beaux Arts," but beyond that I think you'd need to hit the history books to learn more.
I do think the OP is really missing something if he or she thinks the great modernists (FLW, Corb, Mies) were not process-driven. The beauty of their architecture is built on the decades of building experience and experimentation ("process") which preceded it. Much of Corb's most significant work is variation on a theme derived from the maison domino. Same can be said of Mies and classically-proportioned steel and glass. Both architects were essentially learning how to design and construct in completely new systems and materials. If that is not process, I don't know what is.
you can't really teach 'end product.' 'process' in school is how the professor communicates with you, to help lead you in a direction where you can think critically and do a better job of guiding your thoughts towards where they ought to be if you're going to be a better designer.
school is practice (as is practice of course). where you put you efforts is where you will get better. having a good project at the end is not as important as spending your time in school practicing and learning things you need to practice and learn.
that probably made more sense in my head than in a forum post.
If you're going to teach process in architecture the least you could do is include some construction process. Or is architecture just a theoretical exercise with no practical applications in reality?
professors without practical experience can't really teach practical applications can they? they have to fill time with something, and they can't very well fill that time with waiting to see your end product then telling you did it wrong.
they apparently do a good job of teaching people to work free overtime without expecting any benefit from it. i'm beginning to think that's the real time saver with revit - the apparently endless free overtime.
Those who can't do, teach. Those who can't teach, teach gym. Those who can't teach gym, teach architecture.
@tint and thoomp: I have a proposed process for the vision approach
1. Meditation
2. Collage
3. Reverse Engineer
4. [Neuro]Phenomenology
1. Meditation is the way I design - apparently. I've only really become aware of this now at 36, after 6 years of school and 12 years of working, of which teaching was 3 years (overlapping). Learned the most about the mind and design teaching, by watching students develop their designs through various processes. I taught the skills, not the process, so I spent lots of time translating desired processes into presentation moves. Problem with meditation as an architect, especially as a student, it's hard to stay awake when you get there.
2. Collage
the late Lebbeus Woods blog on RAIMUND ABRAHAM’S DREAM
and another blog by Lebbeus inspired me to attempt to model my dreams in 3D. I even made CAD plans of the spaces. Dream 20120114
I wrote about why studying dreams could be useful and made up a job - Mindscaper, which was actually published...who'd of thunk.
After modeling the dreams I realized the dreams were collages of memories, juxtaposed imagery in strange sequences and arrangements. Dream 20130615
3. Reverse Engineer
Reverse Engineer is obvious, you build the vision virtually and then detail how to build it via craft of architecture.
4. [Neuro]phenomenology
Tint I put down Mind in Life by Evan Thompson, a rigorous philosophical work for an easier read by him Waking, Dreaming, Being
*"Neurophenomenology combines the careful study of experience from within with investigations of the brain and behavior from without. It uses descriptions of direct experience to guide the study of the brain processes relevant to consciousness" p. 28
Abhidharma philosophers agree with Western Philosophers (Edumund Husserl) "...that all consciousness is consciousness of something in one way or another." (intentionality) p36
Heidegger towards the end is very similar to Eastern Philosophy...
Neuroscientists and Buddhists Monks meeting to discuss the mind.
Conclusion:
By modeling your visions and studying them through architectural processes: craft, while studying your own mind - you are developing a process that not only documents the poetic, but you are also creating a method for design that is more rigorous and scientific than the current accepted conceptual process by incorporating Neuroscience.
oh NullPointer, i gave you bait, you didn't take it because you probably couldn't recognize it, since you have not actually read anything I referenced.....I made a false statement - Deleuze is animal when it comes to philosophy, not platonic, which also puts a hole in your argument - The Black Swan cutting through Deleuze's bullshit..
Chris, on recording architectural dreams... I love it... that is exactly what I am talking about.
Thanks for the links, I think you have pointed me towards the Mind in Life book before and I see why, looks great. Thank you. I help run a learning clinic with a psychologist (my partner) and I have been working with and studying the sensory-cognitive processes for almost 5 years, fascinating stuff. We teach basic skills like mental imagery and verbalization, two cognitive skills I think could be taught to arch students.
Actually, I just chose to ignore you. I dislike e-fights. Hopefully this doesn't devolve into one.
Deleuze gets close to reality, but he still gets close with words. The platonic narrative remains and no matter how close he gets to reality, he is still limited by the narrative. This is extremely apparent on his notion of ethics and individuality/power. I'm not saying it's not useful, but I am saying it's limited (and potentially irrelevant in the face of science, ie: in a deterministic reality).
Anyways, carry on.
I read Taleb's The Black Swan, I don't remember enjoying it. He says the same thing over and over again and that is what you don't know is gonna get ya! Mmmm, k.
The latest archinect podcast is relevant to this thread.
@Chris the modeling of dreams sounds quite interesting, although my problem would be i rarely remember mine...
A review of the hits from a look at Ngram suggest that "process" really began being used in the context of writing about architecture or design, in the way you mean, around the late 1960s/1970s at least in english...
Some of that definitely went over my head but thanks, Chris! I will definitely try that out. I have had some very vivid architectural dreams - mostly a long time ago, but I can still remember them quite well. I never thought to analyze them or put them down on paper before though.
Oh man, thanks Nam. That's really interesting, didn't know such a tool existed. I wonder why that is the case, though. Perhaps related to post-modernism, or maybe the other sorts of reaction to modernism?
Also, thanks tint, and the others as well, definitely some interesting replies here... guess I should have been more patient.
Chris Teeter
Do you actually talk this way to clients? I always enjoyed arch theory in school but I couldn't imagine applying most of it in real practice. I suppose their are the rare exceptions but most clients would think you were a nut or worse if you started talking this way. I always found theory to be architects entertaining each other I couldn't imagine what a commoner would think of the silly archispeak in most theory books.
I think that "process" as contemporary architects have come to understand it is actually a outgrowth of Modernist movements in the arts, and as such is relatively recent in conception.
The École de Beaux Arts was mentioned earlier, and the concept of the "parti". The parti was a direct result of what they called the "Esquisse", or "sketch". This was a quick drawing done, usually on a single sheet of paper, which captured the idea and essence of a project. At the École, students would be given a design assignment, usually many weeks in duration, and initially they would be given a few days to visit the site, do research for precedent, and then in an hour or two, generate the esquisse. They would have a studio crit right after that, for immediate feedback, and then from that point were required to develop their project based upon that idea. This is similar to the way FLW worked, and to some extent visionary architects like Gehry. His famous sketch for Bilbao is essentially an esquisse in the Beaux Arts tradition. The story of Wright designing Fallingwater, in a flurry of drawing with colored pencils, while the client was in transit to Taliesin is famous example
The notion of carefully following a detailed process, sort of like an assembly line, where you take raw data, apply the process, and out pops a unique solution at the end of the process, is a modern one. I think it is part of the modernist art tradition of the artist as neutral conduit for external forces. "The solution is inevitable. I took the facts of the case, applied the process, and look what resulted". It is a pseudoscientific approach.
For those of you who have read William Hubbard's "Complicity and Conviction", the modernist approach attempts to convince us that much of architecture belongs in the realm of the "inevitable", i.e. things we accept because we have no choice but to do so. The Beaux Arts approach maintains that architectural design largely resides within the realm of the "conventional", or things that we understand could have been otherwise, but that we accept because we want them to be the way they are.
says the guy who still follows vitruvius's system. talk about assembly line...
Creative inspiration is driven by many things - from critical analysis, experience and intuition to a pending meeting with a client for which one is wholly unprepared.
Inevitable architecture is simply a reflection of money culture.
Here's a quote from Hubbard, from "Complicity and Conviction":
"If there is one characteristic that links the diverse art movements of the modernist period, it is perhaps the hyperawareness of the fact that one's personal sensibility could have been otherwise. A modernist artist is so deeply aware of this possibility of otherwise-ness that he feels a deep unease about simply accepting his own sensibility. He feels a need for some reason that will convince him that he ought to feel one way and not another. So he searches for such a reason. He tries to open himself to conditions that are not conventional, but inevitable, to conditions that exist apart from him and his arbitrary likes and dislikes, to forces at work in the world that produce inevitable effects, effects therefore undistorted by arbitrary preferences. His goal becomes to attain a sensibility such that he will prefer what he finds when he thus opens himself, and his sensibility will replicate the action of those forces at work. He will become as a conduit of those forces to "work their will."
If you think that classicism is an assembly line, you clearly haven't the least understanding of it.
is this person who is talking about 'modernists' a modernist? or is it a person making up a bunch of BS because there is something he doesn't like, and he doesn't have mental facility to understand why he doesn't like it without inventing a boogeyman?
don't create an enemy because you can't figure out how to make your ideology stand on it's own. rather, just be confident in your ideology without trying to tear others down.
if you think i don't have the least understanding of classicism, then i would suggest you have no understanding of assembly lines.
that book was written in 1982. you can keep the 80's. the whole decade. it brought nothing but greed and selfishness anyway.
Well..that's a rational critique.
Hubbard isn't trying to create enemies, or to tear anyone down. However, he's identifying a real difference between the modernist approach to art, and the pre-modernist approach to art. That was the OP's question... when did "process" become a focus for architects? I'm saying that, in the sense that most contemporary architects think of "process", it began in the 20th century.
and i'm saying that "process" predates your notion of 'modernism' with vitruvius's written descriptions of the materials and methods common in his day, which of course was written as a guide to caesar augustus for building and restoration projects going on at the time it was written. vitruvius was explaining a process for design and construction was he not?
what i see wrong with your attribution of "contemporary process" stemming from the "modernist movement" is that you're not a modernist and you don't understand anything about what any particular sect of modernism might believe in. you certainly don't understand my process, or what design sensibilities i might prefer. nor do you understand mies or venturi or rem or any other so-called 'modernist.' you just invent a bunch of bullshit to try make your narrow ideology sound rational, which it clearly isn't. you should not be speaking for such a large group of people you don't understand. what kind of ego and self-delusions would be required for you to speak for so many people, especially when you don't consider yourself an adherent of their philosophy?
whenever you speak of 'modernism,' it's in a negative connotation. that's what 'modernism' is to you. stop doing that. if your design philosophy has any redeeming qualities, then talk about them. think of positive things to say about the things you believe in, not the negative things in those things you don't believe in.
your take on 'modernism' is essentially someone looking at a light bulb and saying 'i don't understand how this glows, so i will attribute it to god.' in that analogy, you don't know anything about light bulbs or god. of course that doesn't detract from your belief system at all. however, the opinion expressed in this analogy is not rational or sound. the person saying 'i will attribute it to god' should not be telling public internet forums 'god did it.' rather, they should be asking how light bulbs work, so they don't stay mired in their ignorance.
I went to a modernist school, was trained a modernist, and have probably designed and built many more modernist buildings than you have.
Should I just go away now, Curt?
Does one have to be an adherent of a philosophy to offer an opinion on it? That's certainly never stopped you.
what i would like to see, rather than seeing you go away, is for you to speak positively about the things you believe in. you just don't do well when you try to speak for all modernists.
your credentials for modernism don't serve you well. if you really went to a modernist school, and were trained as a modernist, and designed and built more modernist buildings than me, then you've obviously fallen far short of successful, what with your adherence to non-modernist philosophies and your inability to present a cohesive modernist belief of your own. i would prefer you talk about what you're good at, not what you aren't good at.
was your modernist education filled with people telling you that you should be modernist because of all the things 'traditional' or whatever did wrong? i fell sorry for you if so, as that would essentially be the opposite of an education.
i don't speak for 'traditionalists' the way you speak for 'modernists.' i don't tell you what 'tradionalists' believe. i don't tell you what 'modernists' believe either, since i don't think the modernist movement revolves around me. that would be a dumb and selfish thing for me to do. i can only tell you what i believe, which is that you don't speak for modernists.
I have done that many, many times here, including this long thread:
http://archinect.com/forum/thread/42448155/response-to-donna-re-traditional-architecture
Just to be clear, I wasn't speaking for modernists. I would never presume to do that, since I no longer consider myself to be one, although I once did.
I was speaking about modernism. There is a big difference.
And besides that, what I noted about modernist movements in art and architecture was not necessarily a value judgement. I was simply pointing out that there is a difference in the philosophies, and in the design approaches that result from them. I'll leave it up to you, and everyone else here to decide if one point-of-view is preferable to the other.
Modernism comes out of the "progressive modernism" movement in the late 19th century and early 20th century and the values.
It doesn't divorce all the notions of its precedence but differs on certain priorities.
As for the 1980s being all about greed and selfishness, that statement is total bullshit. The selfishness and greed comes out of the "rise of the baby boomers" into the social-economic circles. Lets remember that many of baby boomers in the 1960s were often children and teens and had no influence on how business anf government is ran. Then the 1970s came and they were becoming adults but they didn't get into positions of power and influence over how corporate, political, governmental operations ran until the 1970s and 1980s.
1980s marked a period of transitions from a stark values difference. But you need to look back to why the baby boomers have this sort of culture described by some as selfish and greedy. It maybe because they were spoiled but lets remember the Baby Boomer's parents generation whom were children and teens during the Great Depression. Their personal frugality but also growing up and serving in World War II. WW II has certainly had an effect on their appreciation of their fellow bretherens. Thanking their lucky stars to be alive after the worst horror that this world has ever seen in 1000 years. So yes, with nearly every able man was serving during WW II to stop a world class A-hole's quest for world dominaton.
Now, the baby boomer generations.... they have a division within its own generation. Those that went to Vietnam and served there and those that didn't. When the ones that returned from Vietnam came back, they were spitted at, ridiculed, called "Baby Killers" and other horrible deriding and utter disrespect. Suprisingly, most of that came from their fellow baby boomers that didn't go but frankly put, this disrespect had a profound effect on them. They certain developed a "Fuck You then" perspective. At least for awhile because why would they want to be nice, compassionate and giving to those who gave them the middle finger so if there is selfishness and greed in these folks, they developed that out of being disrespected to the most extreme degree possible by their fellow citizens.
But funy thing is, greed and selfishness isn't unique to any generation. Certainly, certain events and actions caused some to turn away from others and become more selft-centered because they get disrespected by everything from an uncompassionate bureaucracy system to a derision by fellow citizens in some of the most horrible ways possible that can be done towards those who have put their life and limb for this country.
Then you have a corporate culture which has been selfish and greedy as they always have been for decades. But in a time of cultural value shifts (times of transitions), you get a bit of back stabbing and conflict. We can call the 80's a period of selfishness and greed but that is bullshit because the 1980s brought about the Video Game consoles, Video cassette (home movie entertainment, the personal computers (Commodore 64, Apple II, Mac, Amiga, PC, etc.), Computer Aided Designing (which can be anything from CAD like Autocad, BIM, 3d modeling, but also graphic programs for bitmap graphics which evolved to programs like Photoshop, GIMP, etc.), Computerized Word Processors, Database, Networking, etc.
80s is marked as the beginning of the technology era in our lives. Technically starting in the mid-1970s but it really got "public" in the 1980s. It was this last quarter of the 20th century and the 1980s really broke the ice on computers, home video game consoles and home entertainment and major movement into the technology driven lifestyle that we have today. The 80s set the foundation for the 1990s and 2000s and the 2010s. It brought about changes in our lifestyle.
So to say it only brough selfishness and greed is a limited negative-only perspective.
Curtkram, your narrow view on the 80s fails to understand what the 80s was about and what it brought. After all, if it wasn't for VHS, you wouldn't have DVD or Bluray. If it wasn't for audiocassette, you woudn't have Music CDs. It brought alot. Is it all about selfishness and greed... no. It was a big part of CONSUMERISM which can be viewed from all sorts of perspective. Would you want to live without that computer on your desk. Would you want to go back to mechanical typewriter, slide rule and drafting & modeling by hand because the 1990s, and 2000s and 2010s are largely just an extension of the 1980s but with evolving generations of technologies but it is the technology driven culture that we live in.
789 words about the 80s?
4 words:
i want my mtv
LOL!
You actually spent time to count the words?
If there is one characteristic that links the diverse art movements of the modernist period, it is perhaps the hyperawareness of the fact that one's personal sensibility could have been otherwise. A modernist artist is so deeply aware of this possibility of otherwise-ness that he feels a deep unease about simply accepting his own sensibility.
This is the basis for some kind of argument - that one's perceptions could be different than what they are? Egad. Such has been the way of all artists and thinkers throughout history. This is the very essence of innovation and new ideas.
If anything modernism died in the 20th century when architecture became even more commoditized and styles developed from the egalitarian ideals of the Bauhaus were poorly copied without understanding either their philosophical foundation or purpose. The movements that followed - largely stylistic exercises rejecting the failed copies of modernist style - have for the most part been empty of real content, existing only as competing styles supported on foundations of pseudo-intellectual garbage like that quoted above.
It's far from pseudo-intellectual garbage, although the nuance of the argument is a bit hard to grasp in a quote without context. If you haven't read the book, Miles, you should.
One of the interesting things about being a craftsman is a heightened sense of smell that makes the odor of bullshit instantly detectable. This probably comes from working in the physical world with tools and materials that can be incredibly unforgiving, leaving nowhere to hide. Words are meaningless here, except perhaps for oops or Doh!
The work also establishes a clear hierarchy with other workers. A true craftsman's goal is achieving the respect of their peers and masters, who inevitably are the only ones with the experience and knowledge necessary to fully appreciate the work.
The work doesn't lie. Ever.
Harry Frankfurt alludes to this in a beautiful little poem in his book, which I must now go find. I'm hoping my daughter didn't take it with her to school.
You PM me your address, and I will send you a copy of Hubbard's book, and you read pages. Then you look me in the eye and tell me it's bullshit. Fair enough?
In the elder days of art
Builders wrought with greatest care
Each minute and unseen part,
For the Gods are everywhere.
Longfellow, via Ludwig Wittgenstein, via Harry Frankfurt (On Bullshit).
tint - your work sounds really interesting, would love to see it. Rotondi bringing up Damasio was awesome, unfortunately Damasio is sitting on my bookshelf still unread...
null pointer - a bit disappointing, given your response is more valid than your first. the way you formulate your response coincides with what I was trying to suggest via [neuro]phenomenology - i.e. reality once conceptualized isn't reality, and to be deterministic it must be conceptualized...similar to Miles qouting Heisenberg earlier - you need to be conscious to observe your consciousness, but at no point will you be able to determine what is making you conscious...
robbmc - no I don't talk like this to clients, for the most part I do very technical legal and practical stuff that never makes it into a 'portfolio', often for other designers. I'm not here talking to clients, am I? Old boss said it's like dating - listen and build the conversation around their interests...but if a client wanted to talk about what I'm interested in outside the usual, that would be great.
Nam - you sure find the best resources.
Thwoomp and Nam - it's either B6 or B12 that will help enhance the vivid (lucid) dream effect. I only realized this after I became immune to Red Bull (which I don't drink anymore) and was having seriously lucid dreams, barely knew I was dreaming sometimes...best thing though is to not to focus and let it roll.
EKE - "The École de Beaux Arts was mentioned earlier, and the concept of the "parti". The parti was a direct result of what they called the "Esquisse", or "sketch". This was a quick drawing done, usually on a single sheet of paper, which captured the idea and essence of a project. At the École, students would be given a design assignment, usually many weeks in duration, and initially they would be given a few days to visit the site, do research for precedent, and then in an hour or two, generate the esquisse. They would have a studio crit right after that, for immediate feedback, and then from that point were required to develop their project based upon that idea. This is similar to the way FLW worked, and to some extent visionary architects like Gehry. His famous sketch for Bilbao is essentially an esquisse in the Beaux Arts tradition. The story of Wright designing Fallingwater, in a flurry of drawing with colored pencils, while the client was in transit to Taliesin is famous example"
esquisse....sounds like meditating on the site and project, collage, reverse engineer
^Yes, the process driven approach of which is the topic of this thread is not from the Beaux Arts, but a movement away from it. Sound right? Wonder why? Nobody is answering this yet.
One of the founding principles of Beaux-Arts was practicing professionals teaching. That seems to be a small minority now - I'd guess economics has something to do with it.
I think it is because of behaviorism, the movement of which focusing on internal mental states such as one does during meditation was discouraged.
tint - I think that's the result, not the cause.
Very well, economics, or the love of money -> behaviorism, or the lack of acknowledgement of the unphysical -> design process dogma.
Olaf would tell you money really isn't physical either, or at least how it is valued, but in a low capacity to focus culture no one appears to know the difference between myth, matter, and the mind. In my opinion I think the move away from what EKE described so well started with Modernism via Abstraction with intent on conforming to industry - a good place to dump and increase ones capital. Once Architecture became organized into Abstractions that had monetary value inherently attached to them such as land values, zoning ordinances, and square foot construction costs, Architecture then found its home in spreadsheets like nearly everything else. Internal ideas are less important when everyone can see what the spreadsheet says, right? ....... Rem Koolhaas realized this before anyone else I think and the only person who think got the Venice Bienele joke was Sanford Kwinter (I think) as expressed in logs recent issue, noting the toilet was center and critical thought convention was where the toilets would be at an expo. But somehow whether Koolhaas has been mocking capitalism the whole time or not, his very shitty way of explaining everything in data in SMXXL format is now process, the dogma. Fakes science
@thwomp and to EKE's point of this (ie: process) being an outgrowth of Modernist movement and also to OP's question, awhile back Javier Arbona penned a critique of Design as Research. He focused more on the rise of DaR in opposition to theory. But the focus on research i think ties closely with the last decade or two push in this process driven direction...
EKE - any reading recommendations on esquisse.
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