can anyone shed some light on what this is all about for me? i've been given 2 separate readings this week already that seem to be grounded in it (one is bachelard's "poetics of space"). went to my prof to get a bit of assistance cracking the bachelard book and he told me to dig into phenomenology. he suggested that our school and others are starting to approach arch from a phenomenological angle.
a web search turns up this gem:
"Phenomenology is the study of essences," says Merleau-Ponty. This means that phenomenology always asks the question of what is the nature or meaning of something."
or
"Phenomenology is the study of phenomena, the way things appear to us in experience or consciousness."
yeah, well, doesn't that just about describe all philosophy? ...hell, all scientific or artistic inquiry?
Merleau-Ponty's is likely the one that Bachelard is referring to, and a common theme in several architects arsenal (even ones as diverse as Kahn, Fehn, and Moneo)...
why is it that phenomenology is only brought into the realm of architecture now? is this not a universal type of thinking about architecture where experience is always instilled in the architectural object. no? yes? i don't understand the direction that the term is pointing towards and how it enlightens architectural thinking today... someone teach me...
constitutive (i.e philosophically canonic) phenomenology happens all the time..regardless of intention, design or whatever..all that which is around you is Evidenz...architecture,art,science..these are all irrelevant in the first insitant of phenomenology...where matter has to declare itself as matter..
this other brand of phenomenology (realistic phenomenology) sees itself as delving into and dwelling on the inherents of law, ethics, architecture, music...
(Perhaps Bachelard thought that ever expanding (horizontally and vertically) habitational density was going to resolve itself in a privilidged old world Eurocentric formula of making babies that grow up in basements and cellars. I personally prefer apartments with big balconies or roof terraced houses)
Ever since I stopped worrying about my pubes and deepening voice, I have found much to be unnerved by in phenomenology (and by extention preprozac existentialism). I become rashful whenever there is any hint of 'interiority'. or essentialism, or inherents, or reminders of 'our shared humanity', or Being, or geometries and matter that have something-to-declare. I prefer an escapist autumnal facism of collapsing and ever-engendering constructs, conventions, systems...rather than the flaming facism of phenomenology and its pathetic desperation to prove theres something 'in-there'...
I also have a severe disliking of Buddhism, meditation, group love & peace marches.
Whoa! the world alone takes me back to school. Norburg-schulz, the concept of dwelling, good stuff in my view. I never found it to be too flakey especially if you could relate it real life stuff, things, places, experience. Many old school masters including Kahn talked about revealing the essential quality of the thing. ie what makes a school... a school, a boat... a boat, etc. distilled down to its primal quality.
I always found it to be a decent way to get into a project in a more philosophical way. Tough to get it unless you been in a place or seen something where that concept resonates. Once you have though it'll hit you like a 2x4, and the hair on your arm stands up. Like I say, good stuff! way better than drugs.
proto- Steven Holl's St. Ignatius Chapel in Seattle is a lovely example of experiencing light in a profound way, possibly spiritual way.
uneDITed- WHAT EVUUR DOOD! phenomenological ideas needn't be airy-fairy ...the same goes for meditation and Buddhism, (obviously your exposure to the last two has been limited to the more crude and commercial hyping), but I do think that experiential (phenomenological)qualities, are best left to resonate in one's own observance of them, the same goes for meditation. It cannot be explained or sold, just experienced.
The artist Robert Irwin has some interesting quotes about perception, and the phenomenological. His biography "Seeing is Forgetting the Name of What One Sees" (I think that is the title) sheds a little light on his thinking around the subject. Anisk Kopoor's work has explored things from a phenomenological basis as well.
This stuff goes back to L. Sullivan and even to Ruskin. Go find Kindergarten Chats by Sullivan or The Poetry of Architecture by Narcisco Menocal/Robert Twombly. The Phenomenological is in polar opposite to the Ethereal.
Basically, phenomenological arch is trying to express worldly concepts -- ie anthropomorphisim.
my reactions to this topic are my self-sufficient own; your punitive non-repartee seems more of an attempt to convince yourself that you have hooked yourself an underwater beast.
"...meditation and Buddhism, (obviously your exposure to the last two has been limited to the more crude and commercial hyping)..."
there is a story of an Ass who thought all other beings were in His Image...
phenomenology was a response to more rigid theories and ways of "doing" architecture, that dismissed the "fuzziness" inherent in everyday experience and the different spiritual & emotional aspects of, for an example, dwelling.
As a theory amongst theories, phenomenology plays the part of the soft sience, because it deals with inmeasurable qualities and escapes mathematical classifications. That explains the "Feng Shui"-comments.
Phenomenology does not make architects forget about architecture. Architects tend to search for theories that relieve them of responsibility or theories that in themselves are more interesting than architecture. Theory as a generator of form can become almost mathematical, a machine that makes decisions for you. Phenomenology is to "soft" to create this machine. Therefore I think phenomenology is a good source of inspiration for architects, but as philosophy its a bit weak.
Many of the ideas and concerns raised by P and people associated with it are quite attractive today, possibly presenting some "fresh" ground for projects. I have the feeling that "softcore" arch. might be doing a comeback sometime soon...
Phenomenology in itself is not backward-looking, or even trying-to-be-archaic, but a broad analysis of ways of being and living and using this as a base for architecture. It can be progressive in some ways.
before applying tp architecture, you need to be grounded on the theory: start by reading Hegel, then Heidegger's Being and Time, then some of his essays on art, then a few essays by Nietzche, then some Kierkegaard, then some Derrida for fun, and then go on to Henri Bergson, Merleau-Ponty, et al... you might actually want to get a grounding in metaphysics by starting with the works of Kant.
"Theory as a generator of form can become almost mathematical, a machine that makes decisions for you"...
I'm not sure if this should belong in a brand new trailing of posts...but I don't get what you mean by "theory".
But really!
..I'm not sure whether I should be annoyed with myself...because I don't see such a unity that could qualify as belonging within such an easily-discussed-dismissed/paraded category...or at your remark.
For example...someone's reference to material production in contradistinction to 'theory' is a connoted-refutation of 'material production' as a theory..But through elevating 'material production' to the stature of verbose reflection (the pro's-the underlying aesthetics of the practice-..)...a manifesto-agenda that combines thought and process...
and so...material production as 'theory'.
I think koolhaas refers to your 'theory' as a 'semiotic nightmare'..but his retroactive architecture is equally semiotic....the difference is that his semiotics is clothed in paranoid saturated indexicality of capitalism (programme, price/meter, data-mappings...) . His too are theories..the factors differ is all.
Simplistically phrased: When you're in the depth of design thought...you are churning 'material production' whatever your take on architecture is...but the options that you favor, the fabricated pieces of architecture and their assembly, and those that you exclude will be informed by your architectural position(i.e "theory")...as well as other factors.
If I choose to hide a window sill within the thickness of the wall, I am aware of the constructional acrobatics to achieve it..I am aware of the effect that it will achieve and I am aware of how it belongs within a rhetoric of style (minimalist vocabulary) and a rhetoric of phenomenal significations: transparency/opaqueness...I will then determine where the glass plae should be within the wall-thickness span so as to further focus on the effect..blah blah...all this is 'material production'& results in the 'experiential'&'semiotic'.
1-You can't reject the cloud and ,in the same instant, accept the rain.
2-Even machines (that make decisions for you) have been constructed with an intention and ideology in mind..The decisions they make for you (and that includes artificial intelligence and decision-making) are a result of your highlights, your choices, your mistakes..The data-graphs that are drawn to initiate a measure of objectivity in design process and product , as is the case in some en-vogue architectural circles, are an indicator of what has been interprated as being important; their raison d'etre is itself a 'subjective' reading...be it rather idiosynchratic (calorie-burning: the building as a sort of treadmill) or a culturally conventional-near unanimous one (maximizing profit&efficiency...even that efficiency is then one that needs interpretation...what is the accepted efficiency in relation to user comfort and safety)
I have strayed far away from this esoteric 'phenomenology' stuff...
theory = airy fairy stuff you read in books (by no means derogatory)
admittedly a limited if not stupid definition but beeing lazy I tend to use language simplisticly assuming a shallow consensus on meaning.
"Even machines (that make decisions for you) have been constructed with an intention and ideology in mind..The decisions they make for you (and that includes artificial intelligence and decision-making) are a result of your highlights, your choices, your mistakes"
(unedited)
Absolutely, but architects seem to try to bury this as deep as possible hiding it from themselves and others. Thus theory can function as an alibi protecting the person making the decisions.
we have strayed...
Jun 28, 04 11:51 am ·
·
Yeah, and I can't wait to see all the great architecture that comes out of all this. Our planets gonna be a whole lot nicer, isn't it? I just hope there's enough time for my own beauty rest.
some good points and some bad points. . .haven't jumped into the new Archinect yet until this post sparked a rumbling in my stomach. . .is it hunger or gas?
the intial post that schools are now beginning to approach architecture through phenomenology might be a sign that your program and the other schools suggested by your professor is a little behind in the current debates on architecture. phenomenology has been in use and a foundation for many practices since the early 70's. many names mentioned in the post reflect that.
phenomenology is a very good starting point for understanding architecture and its implications, but can then be a framework to hold one back in the development of ideas. if you begin by predicating all your design work with the concepts of ephemera and sensorium, you may be then reflecting upon all those experiences that predate you. . .therein you use reference points. . . .and become the sole qualifier to evaluate your own work. . . .someone, then, looking for others to justify your particular multiplicity of experience.
now if you take a more analytical standpoint, one that is not predicated on any sensorium, you have the chance, be it a small one to develop ideas that are creative, not in the solipsistic, but in the general. it is in this dialogue with the greater realm of design that you can then begin making substantial leaps in how you find forms and design in a world of frenetic change.
my suggestion is to create a dialogue with the many sources you may acquire throughtout your education and keep them handy. phenomenology is one perspective, as suggested above, and a very good one, but one that may not serve you well consistently. . .it does have, however, a salient point: its ability to graft into discourse when the discussion returns to the subjective and the experiential, how we feel and think about a space and may - then - get you out of problems of solely formalistic gestures.
mobileKPM: nicely put. thank you very much for that thoughtfully-crafted reply to my initial question. without a doubt, the school i'm at is behind the times. they're currently unaccredited (but have applied) by the AIA(?) or whatever board does that, and as such i think they're getting their ducks in a row re: a cohesive approach in their teaching. is it possible this is an easy foothold into that for them in the same way that it's an easy foothold into understanding arch as you stated?
If phenomenology is about 'experience', does the tradition of phenomenology suppose that there are essential ways of 'being' in the world?
It seems to me a bit of a paradox that alot of the 'poetic' architects who talk about experience have such a strong sense of what a 'poetic' experience is all about... It's almost as though talking about the 'poetics' of your own design assumes a kind of universal human nature-- a moralism... I'm not saying that there is anything wrong with that, and it can be interesting stuff... But of course, experience of space is relative from person to person, from time to time, and is influenced by cultural and social perspective.
I'm not saying that there is no such a thing as poetic architecture, or that architects like Holl or Ando do not produce interesting work... But They're certainly designers interested in experience and who use philosophies about experience to inspire their design decisions.
But of course, you don't need to study the work of 'poetic' architects to be is student of experience... Experience can be understood through your everyday activities, taking a walk, etc. probably more than by going to see Ando's Church of Light, etc... Why not simply EXPERIENCE your surroundings yourself, and develop your own theory of experience? People find poetry in all kinds of different things...
who you daddy bitch, im a fuckingo, king of my own making
sounds like some of you lol i wander howd you keep yourself from going nuts nutcraking the ephemeral
i think the only reasonable thing i heard bush said is to be sure in whatever you do to choose your friends carefully in a graduation ceremony. so be sure to choose your therories carefully for you''ll be living with them till you die, or if youre one of the fortunate few till youre skull is discovered by aliens when they invade our land.
we/you have no f***ing idea what we/you are talking about so w00t & *yawn* & lol & such.
No more monkeys jumping on the bed. thats what i say. machines that tell us what to do. hm. mildly intereresting but very erm. lecorbusinervousbreakdown? I say NO. Go juump in a the hudson and build arbitrary things out of garbage cans. this very moment I may get up and make sweet love to X or X or not. And Coolhouse was all like and I was like w/e and he was like pft. and yea. theres was this bug in my cereal this morning beggin begging to be given sweet endless endless nothingness from legs that pull and push and pull against the pain of the irrelevance of his blurry fear and pleasure for an endless eternity of waiting for the the sweet crunch of your scull out the windsheild and against the pavement your brain and nothing smeared about I-95 before melting in the rain and and seeping into the toilet and the bugs and the cerial and little gooey pieces of meat moving lips to say "phenomenology" & "ephemeral" & w00t and and spitting and shitting and making sweet everything from garbagecans along the hudson. and as the prostitutes choke on penises and sweet leafy palms turn to the rain & the ghorboalazonox shurobokdon et venoholodut gerapo nevano bitabalalnoo. Sweet lord yess I feel your hand on my crotch, yes, yess I do.
"For an Architecture of Reality" by Michael Benedikt
A very sweet and simple essay about phenomenology in architecture. I don't recall that the term "phenomenology" is ever used, but it's there in through and under the entire essay, because he's speaking about the theory in a phenomenological way. The book is much easier to follow and understand than my last sentence.
Highly, highly recommended reading for all architects, regardless.
Jul 2, 04 3:31 pm ·
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phenomenology?
can anyone shed some light on what this is all about for me? i've been given 2 separate readings this week already that seem to be grounded in it (one is bachelard's "poetics of space"). went to my prof to get a bit of assistance cracking the bachelard book and he told me to dig into phenomenology. he suggested that our school and others are starting to approach arch from a phenomenological angle.
a web search turns up this gem:
"Phenomenology is the study of essences," says Merleau-Ponty. This means that phenomenology always asks the question of what is the nature or meaning of something."
or
"Phenomenology is the study of phenomena, the way things appear to us in experience or consciousness."
yeah, well, doesn't that just about describe all philosophy? ...hell, all scientific or artistic inquiry?
read some juhani pallasma...easy essays that i think help explain
a bit more.
all you have to do to learn about phenomenology is take some drugs
Merleau-Ponty's is likely the one that Bachelard is referring to, and a common theme in several architects arsenal (even ones as diverse as Kahn, Fehn, and Moneo)...
phenomenology distilled to one word: Experience
Is phenomenology independent of, a subset to, or the same as existentialism? How do they differ? Discuss.
try some henry bergson.....poetics of space is one of my favorite books....listen to moda.
why is it that phenomenology is only brought into the realm of architecture now? is this not a universal type of thinking about architecture where experience is always instilled in the architectural object. no? yes? i don't understand the direction that the term is pointing towards and how it enlightens architectural thinking today... someone teach me...
mr crazywilly,
constitutive (i.e philosophically canonic) phenomenology happens all the time..regardless of intention, design or whatever..all that which is around you is Evidenz...architecture,art,science..these are all irrelevant in the first insitant of phenomenology...where matter has to declare itself as matter..
this other brand of phenomenology (realistic phenomenology) sees itself as delving into and dwelling on the inherents of law, ethics, architecture, music...
(Perhaps Bachelard thought that ever expanding (horizontally and vertically) habitational density was going to resolve itself in a privilidged old world Eurocentric formula of making babies that grow up in basements and cellars. I personally prefer apartments with big balconies or roof terraced houses)
Ever since I stopped worrying about my pubes and deepening voice, I have found much to be unnerved by in phenomenology (and by extention preprozac existentialism). I become rashful whenever there is any hint of 'interiority'. or essentialism, or inherents, or reminders of 'our shared humanity', or Being, or geometries and matter that have something-to-declare. I prefer an escapist autumnal facism of collapsing and ever-engendering constructs, conventions, systems...rather than the flaming facism of phenomenology and its pathetic desperation to prove theres something 'in-there'...
I also have a severe disliking of Buddhism, meditation, group love & peace marches.
'Emotional landscapes, they puzzle me. Confuse.'
Whoa! the world alone takes me back to school. Norburg-schulz, the concept of dwelling, good stuff in my view. I never found it to be too flakey especially if you could relate it real life stuff, things, places, experience. Many old school masters including Kahn talked about revealing the essential quality of the thing. ie what makes a school... a school, a boat... a boat, etc. distilled down to its primal quality.
I always found it to be a decent way to get into a project in a more philosophical way. Tough to get it unless you been in a place or seen something where that concept resonates. Once you have though it'll hit you like a 2x4, and the hair on your arm stands up. Like I say, good stuff! way better than drugs.
for another one liner
it is the philosophy behind a certain experience
just make buildings that feel good
look at steven holl's books, specifically the light models of projects
his version of phenomenological study is to capture the feeling of light spaces
It was the Feng Shui of the 70's and 80's.
mdler- amen brotha.
proto- Steven Holl's St. Ignatius Chapel in Seattle is a lovely example of experiencing light in a profound way, possibly spiritual way.
uneDITed- WHAT EVUUR DOOD! phenomenological ideas needn't be airy-fairy ...the same goes for meditation and Buddhism, (obviously your exposure to the last two has been limited to the more crude and commercial hyping), but I do think that experiential (phenomenological)qualities, are best left to resonate in one's own observance of them, the same goes for meditation. It cannot be explained or sold, just experienced.
The artist Robert Irwin has some interesting quotes about perception, and the phenomenological. His biography "Seeing is Forgetting the Name of What One Sees" (I think that is the title) sheds a little light on his thinking around the subject. Anisk Kopoor's work has explored things from a phenomenological basis as well.
Anish Kapoor
*brought this up months ago*,.. where were you?
where indeed? is it possible to search old threads still?
This stuff goes back to L. Sullivan and even to Ruskin. Go find Kindergarten Chats by Sullivan or The Poetry of Architecture by Narcisco Menocal/Robert Twombly. The Phenomenological is in polar opposite to the Ethereal.
Basically, phenomenological arch is trying to express worldly concepts -- ie anthropomorphisim.
A+U:Questions of Perception- Phenomenology of Architecture
by Steven Holl, Juhani Pallasmaa and Alberto Pérez-Gómez
Simple and beautiful essays.
A good intro and less wordy than Merleau Ponty's Phenomenology of Perception.. and thinner, too!
mr. tektrix,
my reactions to this topic are my self-sufficient own; your punitive non-repartee seems more of an attempt to convince yourself that you have hooked yourself an underwater beast.
"...meditation and Buddhism, (obviously your exposure to the last two has been limited to the more crude and commercial hyping)..."
there is a story of an Ass who thought all other beings were in His Image...
>all you have to do to learn about phenomenology is take some drugs
bloodclot: i DID do that for a few years and now i'm a 34 y/o freshman all over again. :-)
"Blicks von Moravia"
43 views beginning at http://www.quondam.com/11/1019.htm
phenomenal
phenomenology was a response to more rigid theories and ways of "doing" architecture, that dismissed the "fuzziness" inherent in everyday experience and the different spiritual & emotional aspects of, for an example, dwelling.
As a theory amongst theories, phenomenology plays the part of the soft sience, because it deals with inmeasurable qualities and escapes mathematical classifications. That explains the "Feng Shui"-comments.
Phenomenology does not make architects forget about architecture. Architects tend to search for theories that relieve them of responsibility or theories that in themselves are more interesting than architecture. Theory as a generator of form can become almost mathematical, a machine that makes decisions for you. Phenomenology is to "soft" to create this machine. Therefore I think phenomenology is a good source of inspiration for architects, but as philosophy its a bit weak.
Many of the ideas and concerns raised by P and people associated with it are quite attractive today, possibly presenting some "fresh" ground for projects. I have the feeling that "softcore" arch. might be doing a comeback sometime soon...
Phenomenology in itself is not backward-looking, or even trying-to-be-archaic, but a broad analysis of ways of being and living and using this as a base for architecture. It can be progressive in some ways.
before applying tp architecture, you need to be grounded on the theory: start by reading Hegel, then Heidegger's Being and Time, then some of his essays on art, then a few essays by Nietzche, then some Kierkegaard, then some Derrida for fun, and then go on to Henri Bergson, Merleau-Ponty, et al... you might actually want to get a grounding in metaphysics by starting with the works of Kant.
"Theory as a generator of form can become almost mathematical, a machine that makes decisions for you"...
I'm not sure if this should belong in a brand new trailing of posts...but I don't get what you mean by "theory".
But really!
..I'm not sure whether I should be annoyed with myself...because I don't see such a unity that could qualify as belonging within such an easily-discussed-dismissed/paraded category...or at your remark.
For example...someone's reference to material production in contradistinction to 'theory' is a connoted-refutation of 'material production' as a theory..But through elevating 'material production' to the stature of verbose reflection (the pro's-the underlying aesthetics of the practice-..)...a manifesto-agenda that combines thought and process...
and so...material production as 'theory'.
I think koolhaas refers to your 'theory' as a 'semiotic nightmare'..but his retroactive architecture is equally semiotic....the difference is that his semiotics is clothed in paranoid saturated indexicality of capitalism (programme, price/meter, data-mappings...) . His too are theories..the factors differ is all.
Simplistically phrased: When you're in the depth of design thought...you are churning 'material production' whatever your take on architecture is...but the options that you favor, the fabricated pieces of architecture and their assembly, and those that you exclude will be informed by your architectural position(i.e "theory")...as well as other factors.
If I choose to hide a window sill within the thickness of the wall, I am aware of the constructional acrobatics to achieve it..I am aware of the effect that it will achieve and I am aware of how it belongs within a rhetoric of style (minimalist vocabulary) and a rhetoric of phenomenal significations: transparency/opaqueness...I will then determine where the glass plae should be within the wall-thickness span so as to further focus on the effect..blah blah...all this is 'material production'& results in the 'experiential'&'semiotic'.
1-You can't reject the cloud and ,in the same instant, accept the rain.
2-Even machines (that make decisions for you) have been constructed with an intention and ideology in mind..The decisions they make for you (and that includes artificial intelligence and decision-making) are a result of your highlights, your choices, your mistakes..The data-graphs that are drawn to initiate a measure of objectivity in design process and product , as is the case in some en-vogue architectural circles, are an indicator of what has been interprated as being important; their raison d'etre is itself a 'subjective' reading...be it rather idiosynchratic (calorie-burning: the building as a sort of treadmill) or a culturally conventional-near unanimous one (maximizing profit&efficiency...even that efficiency is then one that needs interpretation...what is the accepted efficiency in relation to user comfort and safety)
I have strayed far away from this esoteric 'phenomenology' stuff...
oh dear..this one was extra-cluttered..
it goes with(out) saying..hence unedited
theory = airy fairy stuff you read in books (by no means derogatory)
admittedly a limited if not stupid definition but beeing lazy I tend to use language simplisticly assuming a shallow consensus on meaning.
"Even machines (that make decisions for you) have been constructed with an intention and ideology in mind..The decisions they make for you (and that includes artificial intelligence and decision-making) are a result of your highlights, your choices, your mistakes"
(unedited)
Absolutely, but architects seem to try to bury this as deep as possible hiding it from themselves and others. Thus theory can function as an alibi protecting the person making the decisions.
we have strayed...
Yeah, and I can't wait to see all the great architecture that comes out of all this. Our planets gonna be a whole lot nicer, isn't it? I just hope there's enough time for my own beauty rest.
dear...we're all going to die. Whoever said things were going to be nicer...
"Rita Novel
Total Entries: 0
Total Comments: 35" ..oh you nihilist you *yawn*
Well, then maybe things are at least going to get more phenomenal?
That is the point of all this isn't it?
[You say "we're all going to die" and "Whoever said things were going to get better" and you're calling me the nihilist?!?]
I mean, isn't it logical that for architects to study phenomenology that there should then at least follow lots of phenomenal architecture?
All the phenomenal architecture I've seen so far in my life was indeed nice.
[btw, I snore, especially during the beauty rests.]
oh cummon, don't tell me you're not dragging yourself somewhere you didn't want to go..don't tell me
'That is the point of all this isn't it?'
better pad it out with a solipsistic quondam
can a nihilist actually be solipsistic????
'solipsistic quondam' -- that's an oxymoron, right?
I love phenomenal architecture! no matter when it is.
[I threw away all my philosophical drag.]
put it back on.
some good points and some bad points. . .haven't jumped into the new Archinect yet until this post sparked a rumbling in my stomach. . .is it hunger or gas?
the intial post that schools are now beginning to approach architecture through phenomenology might be a sign that your program and the other schools suggested by your professor is a little behind in the current debates on architecture. phenomenology has been in use and a foundation for many practices since the early 70's. many names mentioned in the post reflect that.
phenomenology is a very good starting point for understanding architecture and its implications, but can then be a framework to hold one back in the development of ideas. if you begin by predicating all your design work with the concepts of ephemera and sensorium, you may be then reflecting upon all those experiences that predate you. . .therein you use reference points. . . .and become the sole qualifier to evaluate your own work. . . .someone, then, looking for others to justify your particular multiplicity of experience.
now if you take a more analytical standpoint, one that is not predicated on any sensorium, you have the chance, be it a small one to develop ideas that are creative, not in the solipsistic, but in the general. it is in this dialogue with the greater realm of design that you can then begin making substantial leaps in how you find forms and design in a world of frenetic change.
my suggestion is to create a dialogue with the many sources you may acquire throughtout your education and keep them handy. phenomenology is one perspective, as suggested above, and a very good one, but one that may not serve you well consistently. . .it does have, however, a salient point: its ability to graft into discourse when the discussion returns to the subjective and the experiential, how we feel and think about a space and may - then - get you out of problems of solely formalistic gestures.
mobileKPM: nicely put. thank you very much for that thoughtfully-crafted reply to my initial question. without a doubt, the school i'm at is behind the times. they're currently unaccredited (but have applied) by the AIA(?) or whatever board does that, and as such i think they're getting their ducks in a row re: a cohesive approach in their teaching. is it possible this is an easy foothold into that for them in the same way that it's an easy foothold into understanding arch as you stated?
Nicly put mobileKPM. The 'dialogue with the many source' is great advice for any student.
Question:
If phenomenology is about 'experience', does the tradition of phenomenology suppose that there are essential ways of 'being' in the world?
It seems to me a bit of a paradox that alot of the 'poetic' architects who talk about experience have such a strong sense of what a 'poetic' experience is all about... It's almost as though talking about the 'poetics' of your own design assumes a kind of universal human nature-- a moralism... I'm not saying that there is anything wrong with that, and it can be interesting stuff... But of course, experience of space is relative from person to person, from time to time, and is influenced by cultural and social perspective.
I'm not saying that there is no such a thing as poetic architecture, or that architects like Holl or Ando do not produce interesting work... But They're certainly designers interested in experience and who use philosophies about experience to inspire their design decisions.
But of course, you don't need to study the work of 'poetic' architects to be is student of experience... Experience can be understood through your everyday activities, taking a walk, etc. probably more than by going to see Ando's Church of Light, etc... Why not simply EXPERIENCE your surroundings yourself, and develop your own theory of experience? People find poetry in all kinds of different things...
I like bulletholes in concrete walls.
I currently hate a 'cross of light' drawn into..or out of..a concrete wall.
The former is much much more 'poetic'...the latter is so ... overplanned..
I like climbing up ruined, bombed half-buildings...I really can't stand being in a garden. I find the British facination with gardens utterly morbid.
Phenomenologically (<= yuk) Speaking
who you daddy bitch, im a fuckingo, king of my own making
sounds like some of you lol i wander howd you keep yourself from going nuts nutcraking the ephemeral
i think the only reasonable thing i heard bush said is to be sure in whatever you do to choose your friends carefully in a graduation ceremony. so be sure to choose your therories carefully for you''ll be living with them till you die, or if youre one of the fortunate few till youre skull is discovered by aliens when they invade our land.
thatd be considered phenomenology so there you go, retroactively speaking
we/you have no f***ing idea what we/you are talking about so w00t & *yawn* & lol & such.
No more monkeys jumping on the bed. thats what i say. machines that tell us what to do. hm. mildly intereresting but very erm. lecorbusinervousbreakdown? I say NO. Go juump in a the hudson and build arbitrary things out of garbage cans. this very moment I may get up and make sweet love to X or X or not. And Coolhouse was all like and I was like w/e and he was like pft. and yea. theres was this bug in my cereal this morning beggin begging to be given sweet endless endless nothingness from legs that pull and push and pull against the pain of the irrelevance of his blurry fear and pleasure for an endless eternity of waiting for the the sweet crunch of your scull out the windsheild and against the pavement your brain and nothing smeared about I-95 before melting in the rain and and seeping into the toilet and the bugs and the cerial and little gooey pieces of meat moving lips to say "phenomenology" & "ephemeral" & w00t and and spitting and shitting and making sweet everything from garbagecans along the hudson. and as the prostitutes choke on penises and sweet leafy palms turn to the rain & the ghorboalazonox shurobokdon et venoholodut gerapo nevano bitabalalnoo. Sweet lord yess I feel your hand on my crotch, yes, yess I do.
we/you have good jurisdiction on your part, man i cant wait for my kids to see that sure-go-in the brain-vaguely phrased caveat.
away with circular reasoning. state your cause
alors, cela est le probleme avec monisme!
cercles, cercles,cerclescerclescercles........
Peter Zumthor
This book:
http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/biblio?inkey=65-0930829050-2
"For an Architecture of Reality" by Michael Benedikt
A very sweet and simple essay about phenomenology in architecture. I don't recall that the term "phenomenology" is ever used, but it's there in through and under the entire essay, because he's speaking about the theory in a phenomenological way. The book is much easier to follow and understand than my last sentence.
Highly, highly recommended reading for all architects, regardless.
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