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| All photos of beached dows on Tarut Island by Barie Fez-Barringten |
By Barie Fez-Barringten
www.bariefez-barringten.com
Published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing in the book “ Architecture: the
making of metaphors” by Barie Fez-Barringten.
“Framing the art vs. architecture argument”; Originally written for University (West London); BST: Vol. 9 no. 1: Body, Space & Technology Journal:
Perspectives Section
What’s
the argument; who’s arguing; and, how does resolving that architecture is
the making of metaphors settle the argument?
8,935 words on 25
pages
Abstract:
What’s the
argument; who’s arguing? ; and, how does resolving that architecture is the
making of metaphors settle the argument? Through analogies, similes and evidence I present arguments supporting the resolutions
surrounding the way architects and urban designers make metaphors. This is done
by presenting the thinking on making both natural and synthetic cities as well
the design of buildings and neighborhoods. Cited throughout are linguistic,
cognitive, psychological and philosophical mechanisms of the metaphor and their
applicability. All of this to reify the stasis of architecture as an art by the
inference that, as art [A] , it too, makes metaphors.
This argument is relevant to communicate between unlike
peoples, disciplines and roles [C] in
the creative process. The relevance of this monograph provides the authoritative
evidence defining the architects, planners, and designers scope of services and
owners conceptual basis for considering
projects. For cognitive, linguists and other scientist this monograph provides
the evidence for application and of theory.
Key words:
Metaphors, Analogies, Dubbing, Stasis, Arguments,
Architecture, Art, Society, Public, Social, Contextual, Cultural Perspectives, Paradigms, Affluence,
Information Technology, Communications, Bee, Structure, Imagination, Reality,
Roman, Greek, Mies Van Der Rohe, Wright, Strange,
Familiar, New Urbanism, Cell, Procreation, Sustenance, Unified Language,
Conceptual Base, Concerns, Considering One Thing In Terms Of Another,
Transferring, Bridging, Carrying-Over, Sharing, Macro Values, Mini Issues, Banality, Apathy, Built Environment, Inductive
Uncertainty, Deductive Certainty, New Towns, New Cities, Kingdoms, Created,
Dynasty, Iconic Buildings, New Towns,
Planned Unit Developments, Commercial, Industrial Developments,
Identity, Signs, and Signals,Art [A],
Argue
Biographical note: (88 words)
Columbia
University coursework in behavioral psychology under Ralph Hefferline and voice
in Linguistics, Bachelor’s of Fine Arts from Pratt Institute and Master of
Architecture from Yale University where I was mentored in metaphors and
metaphysics by Dr. Paul Weiss. For research I founded the New York City
not-for–profit corporation called Laboratories for Metaphoric Environments. .
In addition to authoring over fifteen published monographs by learned journals
I have spent 20 years in Saudi Arabia and have written a book with pen and ink
drawings on perceptions of 72 European cities.
Affiliations:
Global University, Gulf Coast Writers
Association, American Institute of Architects, National Council of
Architectural Registration Boards, Florida licensed architect, Lee County
Hispanic Affairs Advisory Board and trustee of Yale Alumni Association of South
west Florida
Empirically, the
title of the essay posing the tensional relationship between art and
architecture depends on who and where you are and are you apathetic or a
connoisseur when it comes to your surroundings. On the other hand the title may
express an ideal irrespective of time and place to a transcendental definition
about the inherent qualities of all creation, use and perception of the material
world (and man’s longing to covet that world) . At the end of the day the title
and the inner working of the creation have pragmatic results from science. Whether architecture is an art [A] or not is argued amongst
practicing professionals, owners architects, engineers and artist,, scholars
and contractors and to a much greater degree between members of society as
manifest in literature, mass media and academia. It is the general public,
users, real-estate markets, real estate agents, appraisers, and possibly
financiers who dicker about such unpractical mater. After all, what you call
something and how you may define it does not really limit practice, use and
market. Government officials,
practitioners, owners would never want their desc enters to be what it is that
art has come to signify: irresponsible, ambiguous, and unreliable.
Rather design,
engineering and science should be predictable, manageable and efficient, all
virtues seemingly antithetical to art and admittedly to artist. Most artists
like being artist enjoying their well known characteristics, objectivity,
sanctification and perspective. On the other hand there are many architects
whose practice reject the mundane, banal and mediocrity of plane vanilla, hack
and under funded projects only seeking and accepting commissions which seek an”
artistic”, creative and inventive solution, creation and work. The architects
will often propose their portfolio filled with colorful renderings, models and
photographs emphasizing the art of architecture, exotic forms, and brilliant
design.
These portfolios
raise the level of excellence, accomplishments and creativity to new heights
hoping to compete against other like-minded architects.
In these cases they freely bandy
the “art”[A] word balancing it with other
more responsible adherence to budgets, functions, and corporate identity. Underlying the social argument is a matter of
rightness, social identity and the iconic value of resources, especially
material matter, including precious stones, metals, antiques, cloths, etc.
Social values and the ability man-made goods identify a culture, society,
families, groups, companies and individuals is the heart of the argument. No
one will argue about art of architecture in general but they will about the art
of specific buildings.
Who was the
architect and was he considered and artist? Have other people valued the
building and has it been traded and valued over time. Does it have unique
patterns, forms, shapes, colors and what is its relative cost? Is it more
expensive or in a class of expensive buildings.
The issues and questions are endless but the underlying motive is the
same, values are at stake. These arguments care little about the science,
axioms, and reasoning of metaphors but are about metaphor’s essence, that it is
a man-made artifact of value, made by an artist, craftsman, and manufactures
resulting in a valued property. Whether real or liquid property the product is
a referent which refers connects transfers and likens one thing to another.
In the case of
buildings the argument of the art of the building may involve its price,
quality, origins, uses, location and history of ownership. In any case the
opponents would not delve to find the metaphors, concepts, ideas but appraise
the value based on the market and comparable for similar buildings.
Metaphors would
only be considered when the seller or the buyer, maker or user, owner or the
public had to originate their valuation. As soon as that happens the parties to
the work need a vocabulary aside from public opinion to create, evaluate, and
judge the work. While architects make a combination of conceptual and technical
metaphors they do so metaphorically and by attending to scientific, material
and factual matters. Yet in so doing ,
no mater to what degree of technical or
conceptual the very process of any work translating requirements from wishes to
design to construction to occupation involves metaphors, symbols and
representations which carry-over and describe on thing in terms of another.
How does claiming that architecture is the making of metaphors
settle the argument?
Architecture is the making of metaphors [B] establishing the stasis between art
and architecture focus attention on the commonplace between all arts and also
architecture and with supporting topoi, evidence, axioms, and issues warrant
the ways and means that the architect, while attending to the practical,
scientific, banal and mundane, makes metaphors. Irregardless of which one of
the arguments we choose so long as the stasis has no value amongst society,
scholars and the profession there cannot be a
real world dispute. As any argument, it needs two parties who agree to
disagree, where success ultimately depends on the assent of an audience and who
both agree on the focal point (stasis) of the argument. Architecture as the
making of metaphors cannot be used to teach or affect the practice architecture
unless educators and parishioners agree to the vocabulary, the premises and
practicality. So long as society does not acknowledge the degree of art in
science, art in architecture and art in engineering metaphors and art in the
argument where absolutes, liability and certainty are normative. So while
architecture is the making of metaphor’s the truth which would easily settle disputes it is
marginalized by both sides of the argument that are looking to metaphors of
social, cultural and context.
They expand their
differences beyond agreeable intersections to such a large degree that they can
only unreasonably agree or disagree. However, it is in this way that the
metaphors are very effective as a base of both inductive and deductive
reasoning as the metaphor clarifies the relationships and makes them part of
the argument.
In their
unreasonable non-arguments they toss around superficial but socially accepted
metaphors. In our argument we have
claimed that art is the making of …………;
not that architecture is art but that architecture is an art [A],
meaning that architecture is one of the arts and has its’ (arts) characteristics. It is different than saying
that it is art [A]. This
means that all of the characteristics that distinguish any of the arts or any other field still are their unique
distinctives but that some of the non arts do have artistic characteristics and
in particular one which is the dominant, most prevalent and common. Common because it is in all
concepts of art’s [A] technical and
conceptual dimensions.
That is to say
that even the technical of art [A] has a both a technique and concept of the
technique both common to all the arts and yet unique to its own medium. At the heart of these arguments is often the
inability to define either art or architecture so that arguments do not have a
stasis and arguments are never resolved.
The arguments (and resolutions)
about architecture and metaphors [1]
The reasons
supporting my claim affecting policy and procedures of real estate development,
housing and urban development, professional practice affecting cities,
projects, buildings and single family residences.
Resolutions:
- That architecture is the making of metaphors [[B] and
- Architecture is the making of metaphors is the stasis of why architecture is an art [A] [3];
- Why art is the making of metaphors[4], and
- Why the architect is responsible for both the technical and conceptual architectural metaphors; and
- Why architects like all the other arts is responsible for presenting society with public, social, contextual and cultural perspectives.
1. The Six Ways in Which Architecture Works as a Metaphor [5] (in this monograph)
2
Five principles of architecture
[6] included in the Technical and Conceptual Metaphors [7], and
3. 28 axioms and many sub-axioms [8]
in my Metaphor’s Architectural Axioms [9].
The three can be cross referenced
to provide a comprehensive, coordinated and complete picture of the workings of
architectural metaphors all inferences from scientific evidence where these
axioms also warrant the claims.
Introduction:
Early monographs
justifying architecture as the making of metaphors were steeped in deductive
reasoning since we could not find new information pertaining to metaphors. Many
of my monographs included analyzing and explaining the syllogism:
- Art [A] is the making of metaphors
- Architecture is
an art
- Therefore
architecture is the making of metaphors.
Till now we did
nothing to reason why art is the
making of metaphors nor why architecture is an art. Since 1967 I proceeded to
analyze the presumptions and find its many applications. This new evidence in
Metaphor and Thought by Andrew Ortony first published in 1979, provides
evidence to support inductive reasoning and to this end each axiom is its own
warrant to the inferences of the above syllogism and the answer to questions of
why metaphor is the stasis to any of the syllogism’s conclusion.
As with many
investigative studies mine is not different as it was prompted by a personal
dilemma affecting my intellectual, professional and artistic career.
Unannounced and discouraged, as a child, before dawn, I’d take to the Bronx
streets examining cellars, fire escapes, sewers, gutters, sidewalks, buildings,
fences, grilles and gratings. I’d build huts on empty lots, dig and inhabit
holes in the ground and build covered sheltered rooms in our sun parlor.
I’d build
miniature stage settings out of tissue boxes and light them for various
effects. It wasn’t until I married a sculptress who, like my self, believed
that building and sculpture should have common concern above and beyond Kent
Bloomers [16] observation that skyscrapers and sculpture problem to engage the
ground are similar. My wife and I looked to the positive and negative spaces,
shapes and forms, the top and bottoms and then contextualization that come for
my interior design experience designing places with the peculiar characteristic of the people and places.
In this regard we
discussed metaphors and their use in design and programming so that when we
heard Irving Kriesberg’s [17] announce that art
was the making of metaphors we immediately recalled our experience of the
art of architecture and found the
reason. This was back at Yale in 1967 and the rest is history.
The argument for Architectural Urbanism as the Making of Metaphors:
Urban design,
urban planning and Real Estate Development maker of metaphors. Newtown ,malls, city centers, urban
renewal, alternate use, and green building designs have already shifted design
from limited building, site and project design to include theme, marketing,
Internet , life style maintenance and holistic wellness living, recreation and
entertainment, t hey already use interdisciplinary vocabulary.
The built environment is being
synthesized and controlled and new professionals, design tools and evolving
teams. Both architectural practice and use of its
outcomes are incomplete because while it is a metaphor it is not known nor
understood.
To be complete the
practice and use of the built environment must be consciously designed and
known as a metaphor; in this way it will be complete and relate to its use and
purpose. At the moment there is a
"disconnect"(disparity) between the creative and user community. It may explain why
there is a profusion of banality and apathy toward the built environment. On the other hand there is another maker of
metaphors which has eve loved to engulf and expand built metaphors and as the
other design professionals so does this need to be translated from reality to
the classroom to prepare the next generation of makers of metaphors. Conceptual tools beyond each profession are
needed to conceive of the collaborative mega projects and at the other end of
the economic spectrum the revitalization of deteriorated urban cores, including
retrofitting and changing uses of building types. While a work of urban design may be
intrinsically metaphoric, momentarily metaphoric and metaphoric to its owner
and general public it may be mistaken, fallacious, accidental, and irrelevant.
By a process of making, understanding and reifying metaphors of building parts
and whole; and town parts and whole the project is made relevant.
The resolution to the arguments for contemporary urban design:
1.1 Is to discover the conceptual basis of
the shift in design profession’s paradigm ushered by the potential to interact
electronically and exchange information and input from end users, builders and
manufactures? Not a unified language
but a conceptual base of concerns, ways of considering one thing in terms of
another, transferring, bridging, carrying over, sharing, macro values with mini
issues.
1.2 To identify how design
professionals currently carry out the design process and what additional tools
are needed to expand practice to include metaphors and metaphorical ways.
Architects typically plod through six phases of programming planning,
schematics, preliminary final design, working drawings and bidding; and
possibly supervision. Most other services are optional as additional services.
1.3 To acknowledge that at the
moment building codes and state statues include registered architects, interior
designers and engineers as responsible.
Planners, poets, writers, artists are not included. Each has an
association which promulgated policies and procedures and each teach their
respective discipline in universities.
1.4
As without a vision a nation perishes so with out metaphors the
resulting works are irrelevant and discarded. In this regard the metaphor means
that the thing has value and is valued and has a grasp not only of the moment
and the present context but of the future, and its relationship to other
contexts. The interdisciplinary urban design and development team would benefit
from such an overview, linkage and commonality.
Informal Reasoning [2]
Since architecture
is the making of metaphors follows from the formal deductive claim that since art[A]
is the making of metaphors and architecture is
an art [A]
therefore
it too makes metaphors. This formal logic which achieves deductive
certainty is that it has limited relevance to everyday affairs. Design
professionals realize that there is a world of concerns outside of their
professional practice which is now being absorbed by others or disregarded. .
Introducing metaphors into the process widens the conversation and inclusion of
other concerns. Inductive uncertainty in
concerns of building and using habit ed places are making the built environment
reflective of the public users where the design and outcome are the intended metaphor.
Making the right metaphors and then optimally using their final product is one
of the contemporary social issues.
Urban planners,
designers, real estate developers, Architects and interior designers are well
aware of this as witnessed by the surge in synthetic urban design, new urbanism,
and green buildings and green building products. This example shows that there is already so
much agreement in and amongst the building industry and its information
technology supports. They all agree on that architecture and all that makes up
the environment is indeed related and cohesive. Yet they are each separate and
sovereign disciples with there on vocabulary and budgets, codes and ordinance,
engineering, etc. The reasoning that is not sponsored is the age old unifying
language which will bridge and tie them so that what they produce is a cohesive
work of art. Already Real Estate developers of new towns, new cities have
already achieved all of this but without an exegesis to explain what is they
are doing.
The argument [2] for Architecture as the Making of Metaphors [B]
Evidence of crisis:
The public is
apathetic about their environment because it is irrelevant. People are lonely
in big cities because their buildings have no individuality, identity and are
impersonal. They wander the streets in search of the illusive place.
Ticky tack suburbs
they are likewise lost and disenchanted. Builders and real estate developers
fill the gap where the design professionals leave of providing the romance,
images and story of the built environment. Disney, Las Vegas, Hilton, etc.
provide the story and enclose it with buildings and artifacts. Whether we make
them or not architecture is a metaphor (bland or romantic) and if architects
don’t make them others are. Planning, design and building professional need a new
paradigm. Both architectural practice
and use of its outcomes are incomplete because while it is a metaphor it is not
known nor understood. To be complete the
practice and use of the built environment must be consciously designed and
known as a metaphor; in this way it will be complete and relate to its use and
purpose. At the moment there is a "disconnect"(disparity) between the
creative and user community. It may explain why there is a profusion of banality and apathy toward
the built environment.
Metaphors that
define and fill the environment stand as icons reflecting their presence or
absence of relevant information despite designer’s willful intention or
disregard. Seeing the built environment, buildings, parks, etc as metaphors by
placing this conversation at the center of the planning, programming and
building program will return the city back to its inhabitants and engender
their care and concern for its up-keep.
People like Jane Jacobs, Lewis Mumford realized some of this but they
focused on particular functional solutions. To begin with my claim that architecture, as
art, is too the making of metaphors took place with the academic audience in
mind, in particular architectural scholars. To this day it is only this
audience which has published my monographs and entertains this argument.
Knowing this may be the case my former mentor Dr. Paul Weiss guided me to first
define the metaphor, link it to architecture as he so well did in our Yale
lecture series.
Weiss then advised
that I proceed to come up with evidence and relevant examples. To this end the
lecture series presented prominent design professionals who gave examples which
suggested that the claims being advanced was not universal truth but subject to
the acceptance of the actual listeners. In fact most of the warrants I have
listed below are derived either directly or indirectly from Dr. Paul
Weiss. Since the original lecture series
in 1967 and many learned journals publications no counter argument has been put
forth that architecture is not the making of metaphors.
The closest
counterclaim has been to prefer a world where architecture would not be
metaphorical but something direct, instinctive and void of references; as a
kind of mindless psychic impulse of creativity coupled with a likewise similar
mindless non-empirical perception of the final work. These counter arguments
are fallacious because whether intended, perceived or not work architecture is
a metaphor, the process by which it is created is metaphorical and the elements
from which it is composed are each metaphors. Like a sheet of music, poem, a
manuscript, painting, sculpture which is in a warehouse and not seen does not
make these works of art nay less metaphorical because they are not perceived. They are also not any less metaphorical
because their creators did not intend them to be metaphors. As art is the
making of metaphors and has intrinsic value and relationships with it self so
is a work of architecture. In this
sense you might say that that any thing crafted, manufactured or synthesized by
man demands it is composed by process analogous to the way an artist creates a
work and the way a work is perceived.
In the first
place we are using the term in a metaphorical a figure of speech in which a
term or phrase is applied to something to which it is not literally applicable
in order to suggest a resemblance.[3]
A metaphor is something used, or regarded as being used, to represent
something else; emblem; symbol. This transference
defines a process in literature which we claim is true for art and by
extrapolation for architecture. We
metaphorically transfer the definition of the nature of metaphor by a metaphor
to the making works of art and from works of art to works of architecture.
In the second place without respect to the inner working of the
metaphor, all forms of art,
architecture and landscape and environmental works are claimed to be metaphors
of man’s identify, achievements, value and stature. [4]
They are sometimes called monuments,
historical preservation landmarks or just ordinary homes, building and public
utilities. These are all read by the public and sewn into the cultural and
value vocabulary of society. These are the ways in which metaphors are most
often identifies other than the literary ones.
However, despite the plethora of historical and contemporary
evidence we still need to explain the
experiential personal evidence that can only be experienced, and described by
the result of the both the creative and users experience of the work as the arguments
witness of the work of the metaphor.
So for any one
work are there two metaphors about the same work? One for the seen and another
for the unseen; that’s absurd, so that must be that it is the same work which
is the same metaphor which we engage on different levels, intensities and
perspectives. Technicians will find the hidden while the general public the
superficial. With education some will appreciate the wok’s historical methods
while others its technical metaphoric vocabulary. The original conclusion
was that if art was the making of metaphors and architecture is an art then it
follows that architecture is too the making of metaphors. However this conclusion contains no
new information not already in the premises and thus to add new information one
must turn to informal reasoning.
The resolution
[2] that needs to be reasoned is to show
that art and architecture are an art because they work in the same way. To do
so we need to explain how art works and how architecture works and that they
both work in the same way. Despite that some arts are applied while others are
fine is not necessary to prove at this point. That one is habitable and the
others are for not utilitarian is irrelevant for this argument.
While these may be
the very things that scholars may disagree they do not enter into this
argument. Another may be created. It would argue that a utilitarian product
cannot be a work as works of art are only for perception and enjoyment and any
utility would only detract from the products scientific, engineering, and
manufacturing (construction) needs and necessities. I cannot discount this
argument as it may explain why after over forty years of promulgating this
hypothesis the “professionals” , “business” and “building law” has ignored and
sidestepped the resolution and its apartment truth. While the resolution has
gained in importance in theoretical design language and information technology
it has not had popular reception.
As a practicing
professional I can only attribute this to yet another commonplace that while
these who market to consumers and users overlay build works with artistic
rhetoric the societies of the creators consisting of manufacturers, builders,
engineers, contractors pride themselves on being scientific, controlling cost, schedule
and quality they do not want to let the uncertainty implied in art be part of
their modus operendi. To the extent that architects are regarded as artist
government, corporate, business , and non-architectural and interior design
professionals regard architects a
service which must be managed and limited despite and because
architecture is too an art.
The business
community is faced with the dilemma of both wanting the highest quality ,
imaginative and beauty that results for art while holding in disdain the
persons and process which brings about the desired results. It is for this reason that in 1896 the
American Institute of Architects created AIA 210 the Standard form of the
General Conditions for construction contract which mainly puts the architect
between the owner and the contactor. So this argument [2] is not about the preeminence between design
professionals and the others in the overall project participants as that
argument is settled elsewhere and through other instruments. Our aim is to elevate
the architect’s creative process above technique, construction and even formal
art to include social, psychological, political and economic considerations all
of which are included in users decision to create a work of architecture and
should therefore be included in its creation. If architecture is the making of
metaphors and it is an art than it must also be the sum and summation of all
that it selects for reality to include in its product. It is not only to elevate but to widen the
scope of practice beyond current limits.
Other than the
controversies I have just stated there is no active controversy as whether
architects make or do not make metaphors. What is at odds is whether a building
not made by an architect going through the metaphoric process is a metaphor and
if so what kind? Or is there a
metaphoric knowledge necessary to further add onto the education and practice
of architecture? The reason architects
are not taught that they are making metaphors is that it seems too complex and
uncontrollable. It is for this reason that non-architects are taking control of
the process because architects refuse to include making metaphors into their
process.
So the argument is
with the profession of architecture. To regain your rightful place in the creation
of the built environment you must include what is at the end; metaphor. To do
so you must both know what the metaphor is at the end and then know how to
build it into the making of the work of architecture. Architecture the making of metaphors introduces
a paradigm for the creation of habitable metaphors including:
One that serves as
a pattern or model. A set or list of all the inflectional forms of a word or of
one of its grammatical categories: the paradigm of an irregular verb. A
set of assumptions, concepts, values, and practices that constitutes a way of
viewing reality for the community that shares them, especially in an
intellectual discipline.
A paradigm is one
that serves as a pattern or model; a set of assumptions, concepts,
values, and practices that constitutes a way of viewing reality for the
community that shares them, especially in an intellectual discipline. Architecture as the making of metaphors [B] is
that inclusive set shared by both creator and user. The new paradigm of shapers
of built metaphors includes people like Donald Trump, Rockefellers, Astor,
Emirs, princes, and kings, with wealth, influence and power not unlike the
royalty of old Europe.
No one dispute the
claim that architecture is the making of metaphors [B] but there is an essence
of illumination, description and detailed evidence as to why this is so. This
is a claim of definition which requires interpretation. As such it needs to
place concepts into categories and provide perspective; and, the interpretation
is important because definitions are not neutral. In a simple argument the
warrant is the proof of the authenticity or truth of the inference which links
the evidence to the claim.
The metaphor carries over from one to another proves
that the building’s steel structure and curtain wall are metaphoric in that
they make the metaphor of the high-rise office building. Remove either one ant the metaphor would no
longer exist. Another warrant is that they transfer and the curtain wall
depends on the structure while the structure supports the curtain wall they
each tell something about each other. They are both linked by bolts and clips
which are attached to each other. The connection is itself a metaphor
transferring structure to curtain-wall and vice versa. By analogy the metaphor
of each building connector, hardware, structure and cladding is a metaphor for
the next and is similarly warranted and to make the inference between evidence
and claim.
“It is important
to understand the components of an argument, in addition to the claim” A
warrant [2] may need a separate
argument to back it up.
The claim that architecture is
making of metaphors and that buildings are therefore metaphors and the makers
are therefore responsible for making the metaphor should be believed and
followed by action.
The opinions and
agreements about historical and contemporary works are the evidence which
represents the grounds for making the claim. What is not believed and acted is
the inference between the metaphor and the claim and the warrants of the
inference are necessary to argue the claim.
The 10 warrants [2] to the inference are:
1. Metaphors allow us to express
two truths at the same time about two times, the past and future; the past can
illuminate the future or the future the past. They are interactive. Both ideas
converge on the idea of some activity, vision, or idea. The metaphor points
beyond each of its members to the reality then diversity express, articulating
a power common to both, telling us that both have an intrinsic nature. In the
case of certain building types the original prototype or model may illuminate
the proposed and the proposed the original model.
2. Metaphors make the strange
familiar and talk about one thing in terms of another expressing a truth common
to both.
3. The metaphor contains our
identity, signs and signals.
4. Architecture blends certain
programmatic specifics with concerns implicit to its own medium.
5. Metaphor is a literary term
which means "carrying-over"; it associates meanings, emotions, things,
times and places which otherwise would not have been related. It is a two
way process where the metaphor points
beyond each of its members to the reality they diversely express, articulating
a characteristic common to both, telling us that they both have an intrinsic
nature. Weiss uses such metaphors as Richard the Lion Hearted as an example.
6. Strictly speaking, a metaphor
involves the carrying over of material ordinarily employed in a rather
well-defined context into a wholly different situation. If there is not initial
separation between the two elements, there is no metaphor.
The metaphor involves the intrusion
not of neighbors but of aliens. It brings together what seems to be radically
different in nature. This is the heart and secret of great art, and of great
architecture.
7. The metaphor brings together
components which heretofore have characterized other uses, operations and
goals; it expresses the physical, social, intellectual and spiritual requirements of human beings; it is an organic
whole, wherein each element with the work explains the existence and meaning of
the others; it is a catalyst which fuses memories, experiences and other modes
of existence; it embodies within its own distinctiveness certain universal
symbols and concepts common to mankind and to a specific culture, context and
social, political and geographic environment (urban, suburban & rural).
8. Metametaphorically times and
places (or any essence thereof) known to have a preferential, specific or
localized use in one context are explicitly employed in another. One familiar
and one strange term are usually composed into a single form where one term
normally used in one context is brought over into another with the object of
illuminating; making more evident something in the second domain which
otherwise remains obscure.
9. The design of a work of
architecture may be constant but is only part of the conception. It is the user
who will ultimately perceive and experience the personalized ideas of the
designer. Habitable, structural, volumetric, usable metaphors like music are
composed, assembled, and conjured. Reified and created by technique from
experiences with the elements of the metaphor. The designer has experienced the
metamorphosis of the elements. The
designer has "seen" the commonalities, the differences and the
essence common to both. In any case the building's is a variable in the
experience of the metaphor and depending on his choices, decisions, faith,
discipline, conditioning, skill, and commitment and language skills will he
participate. But he is part of the metaphor.
10. Architecture is not only the
making of metaphors and is a metaphor but architecture is a symphony of dominant, subdominant and
tertiary metaphors. Each differently conceived and perceived by different
players, creators, users, buyers, owners, etc. There is the overall building,
its different systems and subsystems and its various elements.
Test for a metaphor:
A. Does the work make the strange familiar?
a) What are the commonalities?
b) What are their differences?
B. Are the elements apparently unrelated?
C. What kind of metaphor is it?
a) Analogies
b) Symbols
If inference [2]
is the main proof-line leading from evidence to claim then architecture is the
making of metaphors is an inference. If evidence represent the grounds for
making a claim it must be accepted by the audience, or a separate argument will
be required to establish its truth. Not if it is accepted as new evidence is
found and inference with warrants. Building types, building components, design
tools, and a variety of user types can be sited as evidence to prove that
architecture is the making of metaphors.
That is it brings
together components which heretofore have characterized other uses, operations
and goals while it expresses the physical, social, intellectual and spiritual
requirements of human beings. Even building types with less historical,
apparent and obvious public acclaim are evidence as hospitals, police stations,
public toilets, subway stations, bus terminals, garages, parking structures,
etc. Each has an overall image,
disassociated materials and building systems, shapes and forms from one or
another context, spaces, volumes and styles formerly associated with other contexts,
a context and users, owners and creators for a variety of associated and
disparate contexts.
In a complex
argument, the resolution is a statement capturing the substance of the
controversy. Both architectural practice
and use of its outcomes are incomplete because while it is a metaphor it is not
known nor understood. To be complete the
practice and use of the built environment must be consciously designed and
known as a metaphor; in this way it will be complete and relate to its use and
purpose. At the moment there is a disconnect between the creative and user
community.
It is a simple as the question:” if a tree
falls in the forest and there is no one there to hear it does it still make a
sound?” (Technically, if the energy
vibrations that would cause sound never reach the 'organs of hearing', then no-
it does not make a sound). Yet, if a
metaphor exists and there is no one there to perceive it is it still metaphor.
In the matter of
arguments the evidence is presented to support the claim but may not justify
the claim and therefore warrants are provided for the inference from the claim.
The warrants are licenses to make the inference.
The warrant [2]
that a metaphor talks about on thing in terms of another supports the claim
that the evidence of whole cities, estates, buildings, rooms, building systems,
materials, forms, and styles supports architecture as the making of metaphors.
A New York City sky scraper shows that by shear height, volume and shape a
building can be a sign of New York’s preeminence in its location, for the city
and the state the building is not only habitable and utilitarian but its size
magnifies the size and numbers of the city it represents. We are many and many
are great. We are the tallest and therefore the strongest we even scrape the
sky. As the tower of Babel, we and our
city are “deity-like “and this is the symbol of our accomplishment.
This particular
claim merely uses only one of the ten warrants I have cited and does not at all
deal with the many sub dominant and tertiary metaphors with analogous warrants
for the same building but of its various parts and there relationships. Since architecture is the making of metaphors
follows from the formal deductive claim that since art is the making of metaphors and architecture is an art therefore it
too makes metaphors. This formal logic which achieves deductive certainty
is that it has limited relevance to everyday affairs.
Inductive
uncertainty in concerns of building and using inhabited places are making the
built environment reflective of the public users where the design and outcome
are the intended metaphor. Making the right metaphors and then optimally using
their final product is one contemporary social issue. Urban planners,
designers, real estate developers, architects and interior designers are well aware
of this as witnessed by the surge in synthetic urban design, new urbanism, and
green buildings and green building products. This example shows that there is
already so much agreement in and amongst the building industry and its
information technology supports.
They all agree on
that architecture and all that makes up the environment transfers,
carries-over, bridges and is in whole or part reminiscent of another. Yet the various members of the design,
manufacturing and building team are each separate and sovereign disciplines
with their own vocabulary, contract documents, budgets, codes and ordinance,
engineering, etc. This reasoning is not
the age-old unifying language which will bridge and tie them so that what they
produce is a cohesive work of art.
At the mega scale
Real Estate Developers of new towns, new cities have already achieved this
entire but without an exegesis to explain what it is they are doing. Synthetic cities, town centers, new towns,
shopping centers, malls, etc are good examples of built-metaphors expanding on
making metaphors. When we use a building
we don't immediately correlate it to the linguistic metaphor of its structure
yet we might relate the condition of the building and inference that if the
building is dilapidated, old and falling apart it must have been poorly built
and maintained which is like one's life and the value of every thing else
associated with one's life. The building
tells us something about ourselves as we relate our selves to the building.
On the other hand
if we visit a glamorous public building we exhume its identify and covet it to
our own identity and we are better than the place we live identifying what the
public building as a reflection of our society and our place in that society.
Buildings are more than symbols but objects of identity as we perceive our
environment.
The
difference between architecture and non-architect construction is architect is
the combination of many thought s while non-architect is a construction by
copy, engineering or tradition or manufacture. It the thought that makes it
metaphoric.
The Six Ways in Which Architecture Works as a Metaphor
Six Ways in Which Architecture
Works as a Metaphor is evidence to prove how architecture is a
metaphor.
Why a work of architecture
is a metaphor is yet another subject.
What architecture is and
what are architects are two other subjects.
What is a metaphor and what
makes a metaphor work is also another subject.
The 6 examples described below are
not meant to be exhaustive but to typify the nature of how Architecture Works
as a Metaphor
6 Examples Outline:
1. between the parts of itself
2. between it and its users
3. between it and its creator(s)
4. between it and other metaphors
5. between it and the world
6. between its design documents
Descriptions of 6 Examples:
The characteristics of the
applicable warrants are that:
a.
They are interactive. Both ideas converge on the idea of some activity, vision,
or idea. No one element can act independent of the other.
They are interactive.
b.
The metaphor points beyond each of its members to the reality then diversity
express, articulating a power common to both, telling us that both have an
intrinsic nature.
c.
Architecture blends certain programmatic specifics with concerns implicit to
its own medium.
d.
Metaphor involves the carrying over of material ordinarily employed in a rather
well-defined context into a wholly different situation
e.
The metaphor brings together components which heretofore have characterized
other uses, operations and goals
Examples:
1.0 Between the parts of itself:
1.1
Structural components transfer stress, loads and are tied together with
connectors common to both. These connectors share the burden to load imposed by
the elements and transfer them from the roof to the ground. The beam does not
become a column nor the column a beam but they both have a commonality and they
both are supports and they both form the building’s support structure. In
Classical architecture they were called the “post and lintel”, etc.
1.2
Circulation system and areas for people, materials and vehicles reify the
described operations from descriptions to flow diagrams to be limited and bound
by walls and allowable areas.
1.3
The work’s conditions , operations, ideals and goals are both independently
identifies and correlated as well as matched and made to work with the other.
For example a building code about circulation and egress is related to the
areas, circulation and construction materials.
1.4
The selection of materials, systems, products is often not identified with one
or another building type and has to be adapted for use
2.0 Between it and its users
2.1
The work becomes an icon, sign and symbol of the person’s values as a persons
dwelling is converted from a mere shelter to becoming home. Where an ambulatory
is faced with shops, uses and attractions filling the walk with social,
cultural and commercial activity.
2.2
Because of their size, volume, scale, decoration, location public building
types such as church, theatre, commercial shops, malls, stadiums, etc allows
the persons solitary identify to be associated with a social collective and
shared use. The individuals sense of rightness, belonging and identity with
something out side of self and private dwelling. The private dwelling and the
public place interact and take of the characteristic of the context. This is
why developments, cities, towns and villages town centers offset the often
banal dwelling.
2.3
User looks to the metaphor for clues about his own authenticity judging the
reality of the habitat to be a reflection of his true self and the belief that
the habitat is what he would build were he its' creator. The building reflects
the user in its scale, openings, protective roof and supporting floor and the
limits and bounds that afford privacy and limit the area and overall space.
2.4
The user perceives the building types as part of his vocabulary of conventions
separating cultural and societal functions as residential, industrial, and
commercial, government, utility etc. The commonalities and differences manifest
in its contents, finishes, cladding, scale and service systems. Hospital,
police stations and fire stations are all public service building with roofs,
floors and walls but with an array of special and unique performance areas and
equipment. The best fire station exhibits its hose tower, giant garage doors to
the street while the hospital has a complex set of specialty performance areas,
pedestrian circulation (patient, staff, and visitors) entrances and access, etc.
3. between it and its creator(s)
The applicable warrants:
Reified and created by technique
from experiences with the elements of the metaphor. The designer has
experienced the metamorphosis of the elements. He has "seen" the
commonalities, the differences and the essence common to both. In any case the
building's is a variable in the experience of the metaphor and depending on his
choices, decisions, faith, discipline, conditioning, skill, and commitment and
language skills will he participate. But he is part of the metaphor.
3.1 Through out the design process
the choices , analysis, conclusions and
program and design are all a reflection of the designer(s) , teams, equipment,
experience and history they each and collectively bring to the process.
3.2 The product tells something
about its designer and the designer is reelected in the product. Both are
separate but they share common ideas, experiences, knowledge selections, etc.
{Four and five are not included }
6. Between its’ design documents
a. The metaphor points
beyond each of its members to the reality then diversity express, articulating
a power common to both, telling us that both have an intrinsic nature
b. Metaphors make the strange
familiar and talk about one thing in terms of another expressing a truth common
to both.
6.1
Two dimensional (drawings and specifications) and multidimensional design tools
(models)
6.1.1
Drawings; plans, sections and elevations: What is imagined from these documents
is the multidimensional future reality. The plan is a horizontal slice through
the elevations and section while the section a vertical slices through the
plan. The elevation is the outer edge of
the all the possible horizontal slices where all intersect and share the common
imagination of the multidimensional reality.
6.1.2
Models
61.13
Specifications of materials, building systems and conditions of the contract.
Citations listed alphabetically:
Boyd, Richard; 1.14.0
Conrad, Ulrich; 1.3
Fraser, Bruce; 1.10.0
Gentner, Dedre ;
1.13.0
Gibbs,
Jr., Raymond W.; 1.9.0
Glucksberg,
Sam; 1.12.0
Jeziorski, Michael; 1.13.0
Kuhn, Thomas S.; 1.15.0
Keysar,
Boaz; 1.12.0
Lakoff, George;
1.4
Mayer,
Richard E.; 1.17.0
Miller,
George A.; 1.11.0
Nigro, Georgia;
1.5.0
Ortony,Andrew;1.0
Oshlag,
Rebecca S.; 1.18.0
Petrie,
Hugh G; 1.18.0
Pylyshyn, Zeon W.; 1.16.0
Reddy.
Michael J.; 1.2
Rumelhart, David E.; 1.7.0
Sadock, Jerrold M.; 1.6.0
Schon, Donald A. ; 1.1
Searle, John R.; 1.8.0
Sternberg,
Robert J.; 1.5.0
Thomas
G. Sticht; 1.19.0
Tourangeau,
Roger; 1.5.0
Weiss,Paul; 1.4.11
Footnotes:
1. Metaphor and Thought by Andrew Ortony
2. The form of the argument is
based on Northwestern University’s Professor David Zarefsky’s course on Argumentation: The Study of Effective
Reasoning published by the ‘The teaching company”.
3. . "Teaching
the Techniques of Making Architectural Metaphors in the Twenty-First
Century." Journal of King
Abdul Aziz University Engg...Sciences; Jeddah: Code: BAR/223/0615:OCT.2.1421 H.
12TH EDITION; VOL.I
4. . "Multi-dimensional
metaphoric thinking" Open House, September 1997: Vol. 22;
No. 3, United Kingdom: Newcastle
uponTyne
5. . From Caves to
Co-Ops”: Evolution of the House: by Stephen Gardner MacMillan Publishing
Co. New York, 1974; my review was published in the Jackson Sun in 1974
6. . Metaphorical way
of knowing by William J.J Gordon: William J.J. Gordon
began formulating the Synectics method in 1944 with a series ... William J. J.
Gordon, The Metaphorical Way of Learning and Knowing (Cambridge, ...
William J.J. Gordon in his book The Metaphorical Way of Learning and Knowing,
Synectics asks participants to solve problems by thinking in analogies--to
identify ways in which one pattern or situation is like or similar to another
totally unrelated pattern or situation. Synectics uses comparisons such as
analogies and metaphors to stimulate associations. Developed by George M.
Prince. Gordon was one of the original speakers at the Yale lecture series.
Referneces:
A. Art is the intentional and skillful act and/or product applying a technique and differs
from natural but pleasing behaviors and useful or decorative products in their
intent and application of a developed technique and skill with that technique.
Art is not limited to fields, persons or institutions as science, government,
security, architecture, engineering, administration, construction, design,
decorating, sports, etc. On the other hand in each there are both natural and
artistic where metaphors (conceptual and/technical) make the difference, art is something
perfected and well done in that field. For example, the difference between an
artistic copy and the original is the art of originality and authorship in that
it documents a creative process lacking in the copy.
B. The first lectures
"Architecture as the Making of Metaphors" [3] were organized and
conducted near the Art and Architecture building at the Museum of Fine Arts
Yale University 11/02/67 until 12/04/67. The guest speakers were: Paul Weiss,
William J. Gordon, Christopher Tunnard, Vincent Scully, Turan Onat, Kent Bloomer,
Peter Millard, Robert Venturi, Charles Moore, Forrest Wilson, and John Cage.
Three
major questions confront both the student and the practitioner of architecture:
First, what is architecture? Second, why is architecture an art? Third, what
are the architecture's organizing principles? Many answers to these questions
have been provided by scholars and professionals, but seldom with enough rigors
to satisfy close scrutiny. Nor have the questions been attached to proven and
workable forms, so that the art could be developed beyond the limits of
personal feelings.
In 1967, a group of master students
gathered to discuss the issuance of Perspecta 12, Yale's architectural journal
- a discussion which summarized the sad state of the profession as well as the
major environmental problems society was generating and failing to solve. The
group had already been exposed to studies on the creative process, on
contradictions of form, on the comprehension of relevant facts of an existing
life style, on planning systems, in educational theories, and in building
methodologies, yet it seemed that fundamental question inherent in the
profession were being skirted rather than directly attacked.
During the series of colloquia at
Yale on art, Irving Kriesberg [4] had
spoken about the characteristics of painting as a metaphor. It seemed at once
that this observation was applicable to architecture, to design of occupiable
forms. An appeal to Paul Weiss drew from him the suggestion that we turn to
English language and literature in order to develop a comprehensive, specific,
and therefore usable definition of metaphor. But it soon became evident that
the term was being defined through examples without explaining the phenomenon
of the metaphor; for our purposes it would be essential to have evidence of the
practical utility of the idea embodies in the metaphor as well as obvious
physical examples. Out of this concern grew the proposal for a lecture series
wherein professional and scholars would not only bring forward the uses of metaphor
but would also produce arguments against its use.
Thus developed the symposium, which
was presented by the Department of Architecture at Yale in the same year. 1967,
with the intent "to illuminate, in order to refine and develop, the idea
because it makes metaphors; that a work of architecture is a metaphor because
it too blends certain programmatic specifics with concerns implicit to its own
medium
C. Argument’s
contextual forms
Three levels of axioms matching
three levels of disciplines:
- Multidiscipline: Macro most general where the metaphors and axioms and metaphors used by the widest and diverse disciplines, users and societies. All of society, crossing culture, disciplines, professions, industrialist arts and fields as mathematics and interdisciplinary vocabulary.
- Interdisciplinary axioms are between fields of art [A] whereas metaphors in general inhabit all these axioms drive a wide variety and aid in associations, interdisciplinary contributions and conversations about board fields not necessary involved with a particular project but if about a project about all context including city plan, land use, institutions, culture and site selection, site planning and potential neighborhood and institutional involvement.
- Micro Discipline: Between architects all involved in making the built environment particularly on single projects in voting relevant arts[A], crafts, manufactures, engineers, sub-con tractors and contractors. As well as owners, users, neighbors, governments agencies, planning boards and town councils.
D. Chronology of my
latest 2009 monographs:
I. Before the above three I began
with the detailed review and derived general
axioms [] from Andrew Ortony’s Metaphor and Thought [1].
II. This was followed by the
science supporting the stasis to architecture being an art []:”architecture is
the making of metaphors” in which have fist paraphrased the scientist's conclusions which I later called
architectural axioms.
III. Then I wrote Metaphor’s
Architectural Axioms [] with axioms about metaphor’s work in architecture [],
IV. Then I wrote Metaphors and
Architecture [] for a general application of
Ortony’s [] work to define
architecture and metaphors.
E. Researched Publications: Refereed and
Peer-reviewed Journals: "monographs":
Barie Fez-Barringten; Associate professor Global University
1. "Architecture the making of metaphors"
Main Currents in Modern Thought/Center for
Integrative Education; Sep.-Oct. 1971, Vol. 28 No.1, New Rochelle, New York.
2."Schools and metaphors"
Main Currents in Modern Thought/Center for
Integrative Education Sep.-Oct. 1971, Vol. 28 No.1, New Rochelle, New York.
3."User's metametaphoric phenomena of
architecture and Music":
“METU” (Middle East Technical
University: Ankara, Turkey): May 1995"
Journal of the
Faculty of Architecture
4."Metametaphors and Mondrian:
Neo-plasticism and its' influences
in architecture" 1993 Available on Academia.edu since 2008
5. "The Metametaphor of architectural education",
North Cypress, Turkish University. December, 1997
6."Mosques and metaphors" Unpublished,1993
7."The basis of the metaphor of
Arabia" Unpublished,
1994
8."The conditions of Arabia in
metaphor" Unpublished, 1994
9. "The metametaphor theorem"
Architectural
Scientific Journal, Vol. No. 8; 1994 Beirut Arab University.
10. "Arabia’s metaphoric images" Unpublished, 1995
11."The context of Arabia in metaphor" Unpublished, 1995
12. "A partial metaphoric vocabulary of Arabia"
“Architecture: University of Technology
in Datutop; February 1995 Finland
13."The Aesthetics of the Arab architectural
metaphor"
“International Journal for Housing
Science and its applications” Coral Gables, Florida.1993
14."Multi-dimensional metaphoric
thinking"
Open House, September 1997: Vol. 22;
No. 3, United Kingdom: Newcastle
15."Teaching the techniques of making
architectural metaphors in the twenty-first century.” Journal of King Abdul Aziz University Engg...Sciences; Jeddah: Code:
BAR/223/0615:OCT.2.1421 H. 12TH
EDITION; VOL. I and
“Transactions” of
Cardiff University, UK. April 2010
16. “Word Gram #9” Permafrost: Vol.31 Summer 2009 University of Alaska Fairbanks;
ISSN: 0740-7890; page 197
17. "Metaphors
and Architecture." ArchNet.org. October, 2009.at MIT
18. “Metaphor as an
inference from sign”; University of Syracuse
Journal of Enterprise
Architecture; November 2009: and nomnated architect of the year in speical
issue of Journal of Enterprise Architecture explaining the unique
relationship between enterprise and classic building architecture.
19. “Framing the art
vs. architecture argument”; Brunel University (West London); BST: Vol. 9
no. 1: Body, Space & Technology Journal:
Perspectives Section
20. “Urban Passion”:
October 2010; Reconstruction & “Creation”;
June 2010; by C. Fez-Barringten;
http://reconstruction.eserver.org/;
21. “An architectural
history of metaphors”: AI & Society: (Journal of human-centered and
machine intelligence) Journal of Knowledge, Culture and Communication: Pub:
Springer; London; AI & Society located in University of Brighton, UK;
AI &
Society. ISSN (Print) 1435-5655
- ISSN (Online) 0951-5666 : Published by
Springer-Verlag;; 6 May 2010 http://www.springerlink.com/content/j2632623064r5ljk/
Paper copy: AIS Vol. 26.1. Feb. 2011; Online ISSN 1435-5655; Print ISSN
0951-5666;
DOI 10.1007/s00146-010-0280-8; :
Volume 26, Issue 1 (2011), Page
103.
22. “Does
Architecture Create Metaphors?; G.Malek; Cambridge; August 8,2009
Pgs 3-12 (4/24/2010)
23. “Imagery or
Imagination”:the role of metaphor in architecture:Ami Ran (based on
Architecture:the making of metaphors); :and Illustration:”A Metaphor of
Passion”:Architecture oif Israel 82.AI;August2010pgs.83-87.
24. “The soverign
built metaphor”: monograph converted to Power Point for presentation to
Southwest Florida Chapter of the American Institute of Architects. 2011
25.“Architecture:the
making of metaphors”:The Book;
Contract to publish: 2011
Cambridge
Scholars Publishing
12 Back Chapman Street
Newcastle upon Tyne
NE6 2XX
United Kingdom
12 Back Chapman Street
Newcastle upon Tyne
NE6 2XX
United Kingdom
Edited
by
Edward Richard Hart,
0/2 249 Bearsden Road
Glasgow
G13 1DH
UK
Lecture:
http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2433463466927232250#editor/target=post;postID=616527066950633358
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