So this discussion has turned into a referendum on "theory."

Look every profession, art and discipline has its theory. Music has theory, law has theory, physics has theory ... and if you talked to the theorists from any of those fields you would would have a hard time following them. Why? Because every field forms its own vocubulary for internal discussions.

Even if you do work from intuition (a dangerous proposition in my opinion) you still need to find a way to put you intuition into vocabulary and communicate it, just as you need to find a way to turn you intuition into lines and materials. So disparaging words seems to be not a great idea. Numbers are important too, but that's another discussion.

Beyond that, architecture plays a cultural role that is beyond the physical "fact" of it being a building. Every architect should be able to say what the role their work should play in our culture.

Hmm... "Architectural theory" is not what we work with when dealing with architecture in real life. I would argue, that in many cases "theory" is self-referential and masturbatory (there's a fancy word). And, even if it may seem like dangerous, the fact is, that much of architecture that gets built or drawn relies on intuitive choices (we try to mask that as best we can, often fooling ourself in the process) - I agree that the important thing is to understand and give value to these choices - and, of course, this must be done by words. But this "understanding of architecture through discourse" has rarely anything to do with "theory" - which often seems to focus on the general state of the art or on things of no importance whatsoever (except for self indulgent slef-pleasers).

For me, what I enjoy reading, is stuff like Colomina, Robin Evans and the like - good writing on good subjects, easily accessible and inciting discussion.

This thread was started on a foundation of pretension - using an approach devised solely to set the originator apart, and above, all others. Its aim is not to communicate seriously about the subject at hand, but to demonstrate the supposed intellectual superiority of the writer and to subtly put down those whose normal mode of communication involves clarity. It's total bs and in a public forum of this nature it's appropriate to call it such. If you don't want to be exposed for what you are, invite a few like-minded friends over to your living room and spew away there - not here.

I have zero patience with pretension of this sort as I think it damaging to our profession. I'm not hostile to either intellectual pursuit or creative thought. But, as one poster above observed, this is little more than a public wank.

theory is extremely important, but when it fails to inform the built form (directly of indirectly), then whats the point?

its useless if it remains words on paper.

I am happy not to be an architect --- if I had spend that year more and socialised with the right academic , some who acturly invited. But then I would have become an architect and everything would soon end in scandal -- as I do not spell english perfect, so I could not become an architect, becaurse architecture depend on perfect english spelling, and no one with a bad english language shal ever think as himself as an architect Basta.

I just want to point out, that tallent or ability to think outside the box, do not qualify -- what I learned in these discussions , is that great visions or new idears count nothing , correct english spelling do.

this discussion needs booze and there ain't no booze dispenser button on archinect...

But this is not a discussion about architecture, -- , even the box is as square it can be, architecture just in detail make it even more square for each day.
Blame english spelling and theories for that.

"is that great visions or new idears count nothing , correct english spelling do."

Well, without knowing what you are talking about how would one even know what your vision is? In theory, more than anywhere else, language matters. Semantics can make all the difference. If one is not willing to be specific and clear, then I would argue that their ideas are not worth the effort of discussion.

Great visions and new idears is what we need to deliver. Beauty and a new architecture to replace the houses of the dead end. Diagrams will not make that, theories or words only come after not before.

"in many cases "theory" is self-referential and masturbatory"

so what's so bad about masturbation? One of the terms for philosophizing is "navel gazing". That particular part of the anatomy is very close to the one used for masturbation. Philosophizing and thinking about anything involves inward, solitary action, and is not about making anything but thought itself. There can be a philosophy of anything, including architecture, and it doesn't need to lead to anything built. Kant did not write "Critique of Pure Reason" in order to build highways.

"architecture is never made from words"

not but thoughts about architecture can be made from words, and what exactly is wrong with that?

that is "no, but thoughts about architecture can be made from words, and what exactly is wrong with that?"

well, calling it bullshit is then calling all of Western (and Eastern, and Middle, and what have you) thought and philosophy just a bunch of "bullshit". Again, thoughts about things - architecture, being, clouds, mailboxes) is not the thing itself....doesn't make it bullshit.

Ok, AB, a specific use of "bullshit". Not sure about the science part, though. SMIB, above, illustrated a perfect example where confirmation of a scientific truth then instituted a shift in consciousness (and notice the quoted source involved the navel). But your requirement that any thought about a thing then be eventually made true by science is not always possible.

When thinking about something like beauty, which Kant deemed to be based on feelings, and particularly on the feelings of pleasure and displeasure, what "science" can be brought to bear (other than perceptual biology, which really doesn't explain it) which would prove a thing beautiful beyond any doubt? As you stated above about the Wexner center, "was it good, was it bad? that's just your opinion". Yes, opinion, but as Kant demonstrated, eloquent thoughts can be spun from such "opinion". So when you say "architectural theory is hardly science", my response would be "why does it have to be?"

My responses above were more directed to the posters here who profess that any intricate thought about architecture is nonsense and masturbation because it does not make architecture, is not the act of MAKING architecture, and it is not architecture: but that's as it should be.

Understood on the science part.

"words and bullshit really do make architecture,, perhaps indirectly, but they do"

sometimes even directly: I could imagine it possible that some architects have read Loos' and Venturi's words and have made architecture from those without even looking at their designs.

but to follow Kant's reasoning to it's fullest conclusion (and I'm just using Kant as a convenient example) you should more correctly say "eisenman is well, worthless...to me."

i'd be interested in reading what the "truth" in this image is?

I don't know, but it gives me a feeling of pleasure...I mean, look at the way the guy painted the human body!

it occurs to me - in getting back to the original subject - that for all the talk of his b.s. and being more talker than maker, eisenman wouldn't be known if all he did was talk.

in fact, he's consistently developed and pursued architectural making (drawing and modeling, if not always building) that has been uniquely his and uniquely tied to his words.

cctv might never have happened without peter and his 'weak form' lectures of the late 80s.

blobs may never have happened if he hadn't been willing to make an architecture dependent on the plotting of points in space instead of simple dimensions and angles.

he's disparaged because he's often obtuse and because he's a showman, but we owe him a lot.

might be true. could go both ways, though i expect eisenman would be more likely to admit it than gehry.

see - based on the last few posts, we actually can discuss these matters in simple and clear language!

We don't need a high priest to tell us what it all means, after all.

We forget that blobs and points in space come from the realm of manufacturing - vaccum forming has been around 60 years now. The complex curve of the back of a plastic lawn chair from walmart is inherently more complex than eiseman. It has survived the scrutiny of accountants, 2 or 3 langauges among shippers and manufactures as well as plastic pigment suppliers. It is a friggn wonder we can purchase this complex piece of geometry at so low a cost. Yet we take 60 years to replicate the folds in structural steel frame triangulated to allow a flasely torqued surface? This is enlightened? My friends we are playing catch up. Architectural theory should be encouraged and discussed. It should however be about the making of buildings agreed? i think that IKEA comercial is spot on - "you want to cry for the lamp? whats wrong with you its just a lamp"

Lauf, interesting how you note the duality, the male and female, good and evil, and yet Eve is on the side of God, and the partaker of the apple and the one responsible for Original Sin. At the same time does not Adam's body language - and God's for that matter - suggest something else going on? In Adam there is this almost casual nature, an almost apathetic casualness in his "reaching" out to God. In God there are two very deliberate, almost desperate gestures, to "reach" out to Adam, and in the "gripping" of Eve. In that moment, I can see that God never touches Adam's finger, Adam never really reaches out to God. The space between their digits always expressed to me, the "space of doubt." The space in which the contemplation of the existence of God is permitted to take place? It always occurred to me that Catholicism allowed for this "space" to happen.

Doubt

(Latin dubium, Greek aporí, French doute, German Zweifel).

A state in which the mind is suspended between two contradictory propositions and unable to assent to either of them. Any number of alternative propositions on the same subject may be indoubt at the same time; but, strictly speaking, the doubt is attached separately to each one, as between the proposition and its contradictory, i.e. each proposition may or may not be true. Doubt is opposed to certitude, or the adhesion of the mind to a proposition without misgiving as to its truth; and again to opinion, or a mental adhesion to a proposition together with such a misgiving. Doubt is either positive or negative. In the former case, the evidence for and against is so equally balanced as to render decision impossible; in the latter, the doubt arises from the absence of sufficient evidence on either side. It is thus possible that a doubt may be positive on the one side and negative on the other (positivo-negative or negativo-positive), i.e. in cases where evidence on one side only is attainable and does not, of itself, amount to absolute demonstration, as, for instance, in circumstantial evidence. Again, doubt may be either theoretical or practical. The former is concerned with abstract truth and error; the latter with questions of duty, or of the licitness of actions, or of mere expediency. A further distinction is made between doubt concerning the existence of a particular fact (dubium facti) and doubt in regard to a precept of law (dubium juris). Prudent doubts are distinguished from imprudent, according to the reasonableness or unresonableness of the considerations on which the doubt is based. It should be observed that doubt is a purely subjective condition; i.e. it belongs only to the mind which has to judge of facts, and has no application to the facts themselves. A proposition or theory which is commonly called doubtful is, therefore, one as to which sufficient evidence to determine assent is not forthcoming; in itself it must be either true or false. Theories which have at one time been regarded as doubtful for want of sufficient evidence, frequently become certainly true or false by reason of the discovery of fresh evidence.

As certitude may be produced either by reason (which deals with evidence) or by faith (which rests on authority), it follows that theoretical doubt may be in like manner concerned with the subject-matter of either reason or faith, that is to say, with philosophy or with religion. Practical doubt is concerned with conduct; and since conduct must be guided by principles afforded by reason or by faith, or by both conjointly, doubt concerning it regards the application of principles already accepted under one or other of the foregoing heads. The resolution ofdoubt of this kind is the province of moral theology, in regard to questions of right and wrong and in regard to those of mere practical expediency, recourse must be had to the scientific or other principles which properly belong to the subject-matter of the doubt. Thus, for example, doubt as to the actual occurrence of an historical event can only be resolved by consideration of the evidence; doubt as to the doctrine of the sacraments, by ascertaining what is of faith on the subject; doubt as to the morality of a commercial transaction, by the application of the authoritative decisions of moral theology; while the question of the wisdom or the reverse of the transaction in regard to profit and loss must be determined by commercial knowledge and experience. The legitimacy, or the reverse, of doubt in regard to matters of fact is made evident by the forms of logic (induction and deduction), which, whatever may be the extent of their function as a means of acquiring knowledge, are indispensably necessary as a test of the correctness of conclusions or hypotheses already formed.

Catholic Doubt

I have thought about this before, yet have not fully flushed out any research, so it remains a curiosity.



The Caravaggio The Incredulity of Saint Thomas painting above also holds me. Look at Thomas, his finger probes, Christ and the apostles are the only figures examining the probing of Thomas' finger, Thomas' eyes are averted, in some sense of disbelief - still blind, refusing to see = doubt.

I love these two paintings.

I don't doubt that Mr. Lauf will have much - or little - to correct me, given how little I have assembled, but my misreading here almost compels me to dig or probe deeper. Hopefully I can prove my own thoughts wrong...

zing!

Shock,

Perhaps one of the best posts of the whole thread.!!!

im glad you agree shocker -

Also I must say, re: this whole discussion of theory and practice.
Coming from the social sciences wherein theory is heavily overused at the graduate level, these sorts of debates are not common only to architecture or art.
Obviously theory is important as a framework for internal debate within a profession and even more importantly for it's ability to serve as a analytical and dialogical aspect in helping a student and practitioner to formulate their own approach and intellectual construct.

Finally,although i haven't visited any of Eisenman's actual buildings (even though he doesn't have that many) the only project of his that actually excites me is his upcoming City of Culture in Galicia. It may not be successful once completed. However, i so far like the way he has tried to incorporate the buildings into the landscape. This approach of mixing built form and scape is the most interesting to me of the "theoretical" approaches he has taken with regards to the built form......

Thanks - it nice to be agreed with

even if you hate every last thing that eisenman ever did and said, the effect of his work has been huge: the people he has taught, the wide reception his writings have had, and his inclusion in almost every history of twentieth-century practice.

doesn't mean he's right about anything, of course.

gehry's effect, while considerable, is not yet as significant as eisenman's effect, imho. I think Stephen's observation that Gehry has exerted an influence on Eisenman is right on, and something I haven't considered before.

the fingers of both God and Adam are in classically freemasonic arrangement (the ring and middle finger brought together, the second and pinky stretched out to form an M). Where god has obvious masculine features, his hips, his protruding breasts suggest feminine sexual characteristics. His lower body pose, closed composed legs contrast with adam's more masculiney suggestive open spread legs. god is centred between adam and eve(or Lilith), acting as a bridge between the male and the female. he is more earnest than mad, as pointed above by betadineligatures, not due to doubt (which would be more in tune with the spectrum of mainstream catholic thought) but rather because he is the master imparting knowledge to adam. joining a freemasonic order implies an awakening, a re-creating. note that, although the painting is called "creation of adam", we see adam as already physically complete. this so-called-creation is not the literal biblical account, but rather the creation of adam as one who knows knows god through himself.

it has also been suggested that the god figure was michelangeo himself, stretching out to paint adam. where some might read duality into this painting, given mainstream christian belief, it might be more relevant to michelangelo's possible beliefs to read not only conventional duality (which is but the superficially obvious) but also gnostic unity, the belief that god's creations are an overflow of his divinity (also neoplatonic theme) into pluralities and the containment of the female principle within the male and vice versa.
It is also a gnostic belief that "duality" is an evil illusion, and knowledge can overcome this duality. i read this painting as the creation of adam through the knowledge of divine unity of all things, male and female and the divine as the bridge between all things.

corrections: more earnest than adam...:) ...and not due to adam's doubt...

gehry's influence is recognized, material and tectonic. however, unlike rem and eisenman, gehry's architecture is, in the history of how architects view architecture, much less significant. where his practice is, tectonically, very conscious , it is also, on par, largely unreflexive (it only attained a degree of reflexivity through usage of impromtu materials at one stage of his development). where eisenman's hyper awareness of architecture is the realization of modernist fetish (and this is in itself an acheivement...lauf terms it stillborn, i term it a creative autism/myopia) and where rem's is, in counterbalance, hypermetropic..dismissing the architectural object for the urban field... gehry's sight is absolutely conventional. he is a practicing architect par excellence, but, one step removed from the actual architecture (which is some people's concern here and not specifically mine...bite me you baboon), he is not that interesting.

as for the higher education bit, well...thats only relevant if obe's audience is specifically anti-higher-ed-people (and i don't see why one has to be either pro or con to make a statement akin to higher ed's (or rather, the idea one might have of higher ed people).

obe = one

noct, interesting thoughts, i've been interested, and have considered that Adam and God exist at the same time, and how could this be possible. my sense of this is what i mean about doubt and what you have noted above, the doubt i refer to is not about our existence, but about God's role in our existence - hence the reason their fingers never really touch...but the more i read about gnostic systems, the more i understand your position.

eschew obfuscation, espouse elucidation!

...not to mention the rampart sesquipedalianism!!!

then perhaps it would have been more accurately called "a moment before the creation of adam" especially that adam still looks like an air-head hotty. that aside, were small polite penises "in" at the time? or, had god been painted naked, he would have been endowed with a larger penis thus clearly establishing a renaissance freemasonic equivalent (which i have no doubt existed) of the erastes and his eromenos?

i haven't seen the original, but i somehow feel ...that the quite earnest god might very well have an erection. in which case, given the seemingly flaccid adam and erect god ... we have yet another parallel reversal of gender: adam's top half..his limp wrist and his dreamy stare...connote femininity in relation to god's posture relative to adam. adam's body posture therefore, like god's, exhibits adrogyny..or more correctly (because adrogyny is a thorough admixture rather than an identifiable sum of parts) a collage of the male and the female.


the least significant of the three is not special enough to be endowed with this adrigyny. perhaps the sexism of the age..although treasuring the feminine on the male...still could not equally treasure the feminine in the femal

feminine in the female...no spell check, must run, evilbaboon will be glad to know i don't make money out of this

perhaps Adam is just a victim of the times, and a Mannerist penis is the one he was given?

beta, Eve is still on the side of God in that painting because she is still an "idea" in the mind of God which he is "holding back": first he has to give the spark of life to Adam, then force Eve from his ribs...so she can't be on the other side yet.

I intentionally gave a non-answer to your "truth" question to see what others would respond. Based on what you have read now, were you given the "truth" of that painting, or many "truths" as people see it, subjectively?

Which goes back to my point of the impossibility of any scientific "truth" in matters of aesthetics (Kant), which I brought up as an argument to calling complex ideations such as the one that nocti gave in the title post "bullshit"...bullshit to who?