By Barie Fez-Barringten
bariefezbarringten@gmail.com
Abstract
“Architecture:the making of metaphors” quotes from my
monograph of paradigms and axioms about architectural education based on (Ortony,A)Metaphor and Thought. In each of the
below cases I have fist paraphrased the scientist's conclusions based on a
notable commonality to architecture where space allowed described an
architectural process or product in the terms of each finding. Out these
comparisons there came topoi (Zaretsky,D (2005) (A traditional theme or motif; a literary
convention.) which we can use to describe architecture and aesthetics, all
below sections and paragraphs reference Metaphor and Thought by A. Ortony. (Ortony,A)
Background
Early monographs justifying architecture: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 [1] is the making of metaphors
- Architecture is an art[1]
- Therefore architecture: the making of
metaphors.
Till now we did nothing to reason why art [1] is neither 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 information 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 claims and
implications.
In argumentation (Zarefsky,D
(2005) notes that in induction there is no new information added. In both methods the metaphor is at their root and as
such the basis of aesthetics and as such essential to understand the stasis to
what makes all arts the making of metaphors and how that Wilson’s statement is
true for everything as most are metaphorical s as well. The matter then is one
of standards, social rightness and the ability any one or another work has an
explanation of its form.
Architecture: the
making of metaphors not only is the stasis to why architecture is art but
also explains the formation of architectural aesthetic vocabulary.
The below is predominantly developed from a study of
“Metaphors and Thought” by Andrew Ortony, and, is in addition to over forty
years of my work about “architecture as the making of metaphors. It is my hope
that this monograph will introduce to aesthetics an architectural vocabulary to
further the appreciation of works of architecture.
Some contemporary aesthetic theory
differs with how best to define the term
“art”, What should we judge when we judge art?, What should art be like?, The value of art, things of
value which define humanity itself; contrasted to Raymond Williams who argues that there is
no unique aesthetic object but a continuum of cultural forms from ordinary
speech to experiences that are signaled as art by a frame, institution or
special event. Conversations about aesthetics, metaphors and architecture
reassess current and traditional issues by providing a scientific analysis for
the way metaphors work in architecture.
As stasis, “architecture:the
making of metaphors” enables the center of the dispute to be argued with
common purpose. So this is a stasis in definition which concedes conjecture. With all the controversy around
"knowing"; how do we know we know and the inaccuracy of language and
dubious nature of scientific conclusions I have written over fifteen monographs
about “architecture:the making of metaphors” This is the first with the
sciences of linguistic, psychology and cognition definitions of the metaphor and there fore a set of third party
facts by which to base our comparison. It was my hope that these commonalities
provided substantive reasons to allow the metaphor linking architecture to
metaphors as my theorem (stasis): "architecture is the making of
metaphors”. “If art is the making of metaphors and architecture is an art then
it too must make metaphors. But until now aside form this formal logic we have
not shown the informal logic, argument and evidence of this proposition.
The generative metaphor is the name for a process of
symptoms of a particular kind of seeing-as, the “meta-pherein” or “carrying
–over” of frames or perspectives from one domain of experience to another.
This process he calls generative which many years earlier Gordon called the
Metaphoric Way of Knowing (Gordon, W.J.J.) and Weiss (Weiss,P) called “associations”.
In this sense both in enterprise architecture, interior
design and traditional architecture after assimilating the program the very
first step in the design process is to develop a “parte’ (An ex parte presentation is a
communication directed to the merits or outcome of a proceeding …it’s the
resolution of the argument consisting of claims, inferences, evidence and
warrants to the inference). It is a “top-down” ( Plyshen, Z.) approach later
followed by designs which meet the parte. The parte may follow the design
process and be presented to sell the product.
The landscape is replete with an infinite number of inane replicas which render readers
dull, passive and disinterested (How many times will you read the same
book?) Mass housing, commercial office
buildings and highways are the main offenders leaving the owner designed and
built residence, office, factory, fire station, pump house, as unique and
delightful relief’s in an otherwise homogenized context. The reader stops
reading because it is the same as before. Not reading the copy yet seeing the
copy and the collective of copies focuses rather on the collective as the
metaphor as the overall project which also may be “dead”. In its time,
Levittown’s uniqueness and the sub-structures sameness were its’ metaphor. It
was alive and today still lives as new residents remodel upgrade and exhume
their “dead” to become a “living” metaphor.
Revitalization teams of revivalist have discovered there is
more than turf and proprietorship, peculiarization, personalization and
authentication are required for a metaphor to live. In this is the art of
making metaphors for the architect of public works. In this is the aesthetic of
public works and culturally pervasive urban design.
An example of novel images and image metaphors is Andre
Breton’s “My wife……whose waist is an hourglass” explains…..”By mapping the
structure of one domain onto the structure of another”, (Lakoff,G) . “This is a superimposition of the image of an
hour glass onto the image of a woman’s waist by virtue of their common shape.
As before the metaphor is conceptual; it is not the works themselves, but the
metal images. Here, we have the mental image of an hour glass and of a woman
and we map the middle of the hourglass into the waist of the woman. The words
are prompts for us to map from one conventional image to another”. Lakoff concludes that “ all metaphors are
invariant with respect to their cognitive topology, that is, each metaphorical
mapping preserves image-schema structure:” Likewise when we look at the
geometrical formal parts of an architectural metaphor we note those common
elements where fit, coupling and joints occur. We remember that which
exemplified the analogous match. (Lakoff,G)
This observation of the metaphor finds that the commonality,
commonplace and similarity are the chief focus of the metaphor. As Frank Lloyd
Wright designed his Prairie architecture with dominant horizontal axis thrust
to his structure as common to the horizontal axis of the land upon which the
building sits. Thus the two horizontal axes, the land and then the building
were wed by their commonality of horizontality.
According to Lakoff plausible accounts rather than
scientific results is why we have conventional metaphors and why conceptual
systems contain one set of metaphorical mappings than another.
An architectural
work establishes its own vocabulary which once comprehended become the
way in which we experience the work, finding its discrepancies and fits and
seeking the first and all the other similar elements. We do judge the work
as to have Consistency, integrity and aesthetics. Buildings which do not have
these characteristics do not work as metaphors. ((Lakoff,G))
The relevance of studying architecture:the making of
metaphors is to provide practitioners, owners, and mainly those that shape the
built environment that they have a somber and serious responsibility to fill
our world with meaning and significance, That what they do matters as in this
first of Layoff’s results (Please note the application of Layoff’s vocabulary,
definitions and descriptions related to linguistics metaphorically applied to
architecture).
Metaphor is the main mechanism through which we
comprehend abstract concepts and perform abstract reasoning. For example, as this is so for linguistics
(spoken or written), then I infer that it must be true for non-linguistics, and
I give as evidence the built habitats and their architectural antecedents,
being as how what is built is first thought and conceived separately from
building as thinking and conceiving is separate from the outward expression,
whether it is one or thousands, public cultures is influenced, bound and
authenticated by its’ metaphors. Not withstanding “idolatry”, the metaphors are
the contexts of life’s dramas. As our physical bodies are read by our
neighbors, finding evidence for inferences about social, political and
philosophical claims about our culture and its place in the universe is a
metaphorical act.
Subject matter, from the most mundane to the most
abstruse scientific theories, can only be comprehended via metaphor. ((Lakoff,G)) Much subject matter, from
the most mundane to the most abstruse scientific theories, can only be
comprehended via metaphor where metaphor is fundamentally conceptual, not
linguistic, in nature ((Lakoff,G) Metaphorical language is a surface
manifestation of conceptual metaphor.
((Lakoff,G)) As language is to
speech so are buildings to architecture where each has a content and inner
meaning of the hole as well as each of its parts. As each word, each
attachment, plain, material, structure had first been conceived to achieve some
purpose and fill some need. Hidden from the reader is the inner psychology,
social background, etc of the man when speaking and the programming deign and
contacting process from the reader of a building metaphor. As in completing an
argument the reader perceives the inferences with its warrants and connects the
evidence of the seen to the claims to make the resolution of the whole, all of
which are surmised from the surface.
Through much of our conceptual system is metaphorical; a
significant part of it is non-metaphorical. Metaphorical understanding is
grounded in non-metaphorical understanding. ((Lakoff,G)) The science of the strength of materials,
mathematics, structures, indeterminate beams, truss design, mechanical systems,
electricity, lighting, etc. are each understood metaphorically and there
precepts applied metaphorically but often random selections, trails and
feasibility are random and rather in search of the metaphor with out knowing it
is or not a metaphor and fit to be part of the metaphor at hand. On the other
hand we may select on or another based on non-metaphorical, empirical test and
descriptions of properties. We then try to understand the metaphor in the
selection, its commonality, how it contributes to the new application, how its has properties
within itself which are alone strange and unrelated yet when couple with the
whole or part of the created metaphor contribute to metaphor. Aesthetic
judgments are affected by sense we have of both the technical and conceptual
aspects of the metaphor.
Before the public ever sees the
constructed metaphor Building Officials, manufactures, city planners, owners,
estimators, general contractors, specialty contractors, environmentalist,
neighbors and community organization frost read the drawings and map their
observations to their issues to form a slanted version of the reality.
Their mappings are based on the
warrants which are their licensed to perform. Each warrant will support a
different mapping (inference) and result in its own metaphor. In effect each
will see a kind of reality of the proposed in the perspective of their peculiar
warrant, where license is permission from authority to do something.
It is assumed if one gets permission it has met the
conditions, operations, ideal and goals of the proposed metaphor.
Like a landscape artist who gathers for the chaos of the
nature into select5ed items to organize into the canvas so that the viewers
will find what he saw and reconstruct so the architect and the user map their
reality into a metaphor. In this way the conception of the map is the metaphor
and what is made by the cartographer is a "graphic" to simplify the
chaos to find the commonality. Sifting
through the program the architect seeks the “commonality” between the reality
and experience to make the metaphor. Mapping is only possible when we know the
“commonplace”, the commonality, the characteristic common to both, the terms
that both the source and the target have in common that the mapping takes
place.
As the architect structures his program, design and
specifications he simultaneously structures the metaphor of his work of
architecture. Architecture consists of program specifics where the conditions,
operations, goals and ideals are from heretofore unrelated and distant contexts
but are themselves metaphors “mapped across conceptual domains”.
As the architectural program the mappings are asymmetric and
partial. The only regular pattern is their irregularity, and, like a person can be read and
understood, once one is familiar with
the personality and character, vocabulary and references, and of course the
context and situation of the work the
work can also be read and understood. .
The regularity with which different languages employ the
same metaphors, which often appear to be perceptually based, has led to the
hypothesis that the mapping between conceptual domains corresponds to neural
mappings in the brain.
Schemas [((Lakoff,G)) are the realms in which the mappings takes
place much the same as the inferences in arguments have warrants and link
evidence to claims so do these schemas, architects carry-over their experiences
with materials, physics, art, culture, building codes, structures, plasticity,
etc. to form metaphor..
Aesthetically, humans also interact with their environments
based on their sensory capabilities. ((Lakoff,G)) The importance of the senses is discussed
by Arnold Berlant in the fields of human
perception systems, but like perceptual psychology and cognitive psychology, are not exact
sciences, because human information processing is not a purely physical act,
and because perception is affected by cultural factors, personal preferences,
experiences, and expectations, so human scale in architecture can also describe
buildings with sightlines, acoustic properties, task lighting, ambient
lighting, and spatial grammar that fit well with human senses. However, one
important caveat is that human perceptions are always going to be less
predictable and less measurable than physical dimensions.
However, the scale of habitable metaphors is the intrinsic
relation between the human figure and his surroundings as measured,
proportioned and sensed. ((Lakoff,G))
It is dramatically represented by Da Vinci's Vitruvian Man (see below
illustration) is based on the
correlations of ideal human proportions with geometry described by the ancient
Roman architect Vitruvius,
representation of the human figure encircled by both a circumference
encapsulating its’ feet to its outstretched fingertips where part is then
encased in a square.
This scale is
read in elevations, sections, plans, and whole and based realized in the
limited and bound architectural space. These spaces and their variations of
scale are where the reader perceives the architectural metaphors of
compression, smallness, grandeur, pomposity, equipoise, balance, rest,
dynamics, direction, static ness, etc. In his Glass House, Phillip Johnson
extended that space to the surrounding nature, making the walls the grass and
surrounding trees, St. Peter’s interiors is a Piranesi space.
(The Prisons
Carceri d'invenzione or
'Imaginary Prisons'), is a series of 16 prints produced in first and second
states that show enormous subterranean vaults with stairs and mighty machines.
Piranesi vision takes on a Kafkaesque and Escher-like distortion, seemingly erecting fantastic
labyrinthian structures, epic in volume, but empty of purpose and human scale
in this work and often human scale in architecture is deliberately violated ((Lakoff,G))
for monumental effect. Buildings, statues, and memorials are constructed in a
scale larger than life as a social/cultural signal that the subject matter is
also larger than life. An extreme example is the Statue of Liberty, the
Washington Monument, etc.It is not hard to experience a built metaphor as it is
an ordinary fixture on the landscape of our visual vocabulary. It has
predictable, albeit peculiar and indigenous characteristics where the generic
nature of the cues are anticipated.
A conceptual system contains thousands of conventional
metaphorical mappings which form a highly structured subsystem of the
conceptual system. ((Lakoff,G)) Over
the year’s society, cultures, families and individuals experience and store a
plethora of mapping routines which are part of our mapping vocabulary.
Our system of conventional metaphor is “alive” in the same
sense that our system of grammatical and phonological (distribution and
patterning of speech sounds in a language and of the tacit rules governing
pronunciation.) rules is alive; namely it is constantly in use, automatically,
and below the level of consciousness and Our metaphor system is central to our
understanding of experience and to the way we act on that understanding. ((Lakoff,G))
Elegant
architectural metaphors are those in which the big idea and the smallest of
details echo and reinforce one another. (Sternberg, R. J).; Contemporary
architects wrapping their parte in “green”, “myths” and eclectic images” are no
less guilty than was their predecessors of the Bauhaus exuding asymmetry,
tension and dissonance as were the classics and renaissance insisting on unity,
symmetry and balance.
So while architecture is the making of metaphors and
architects are making metaphors their works, though metaphoric, are not
themselves the metaphors but the shadow of the metaphor which exists elsewhere
in the minds of both the creator and the user (Sternberg, R. J). Architects would not be known as artist
nor should their works be known as works of art. Both their works are the
“deep” while the readers deal with the “surface”; the true architectural artisan has deep and
underlying metaphors predicated two and three dimensional space analysis,
history, culture, class, anthropology, geography etc. They all are often
underlying the surface of the choices of lighting, material, claddings, etc.
Vigorous aesthetic analysis would consider all of these axioms to realize the
full enjoyment of the information contained in the work. Spatial representation in which local
subspaces can be mapped into points of higher-order hyper-spaces and vice versa
and that is possible because they have a common set of dimensions. (Sternberg,
R. J).; In
these hyper-spaces many
architectural elements are fitted and combine to make a unity. It can be argued
that the seen is not at al the metaphor but the transfers, bridges and
connections being made apart from the building. In filling in the terms of the
analogy lies the metaphor.
Metaphor is used, understood, misused and misunderstood
due to the inconsistencies, lack of derivatives and many unexplained changes in
linguistics (Sadock, J. M)
Likewise, the street talk that permeated my childhood was a
string of “sayings, clichés, proverbs and European linguistic slang. This was
contrasted by the poetry of songs and medieval literature. The architecture was
the only source of my identity having consistency, reputation and allusions
toward science, logic and consequence.
I just know there was something out side of this circus.
Although I could not derive what I saw I could document and retain the types
and details of each type.
However, Sadock’s examples and apologies only remind me that
my work to derive the phenomenon of architecture as the making of metaphors is
in its’ infancy, beginning to develop a vocabulary and understanding for the
architectural profession and its’ allies.
Difference between the indirect uses of metaphor versed
the direct use of language to explain the world. (Sadock, J. M) In some circles this is referred to
tangential thinking, that approaching a subject from its edges without getting
to the point. Users can accept works which are vague, inane, and non-descript,
evasive, and disorienting. Public housing, “ticky-tack” subdivisions, anonymous
canyons of plain vanilla towers with countless nameless windows, offices with a
sea of desks, nameless workstations and the daunting boredom of straight
highways on a desert plain. This too
applies to works of architecture which assembles a minimum and constructs the
minimum in a stoic fashion considering the least needed to produce a work that
fills the minimum economy of its commission. As such many architectural works
escape the many and various realities settling for a minimum of expression of
and otherwise prolific potential. There is a distinction and relationships
between micro and macro metaphors and the way they can inform one another as
the form of design may refer to its program, or a connector may reflect the
concept of articulation as a design concept. (Sadock, J. M).
“Whenever we talk about the metaphorical meaning of a
word, expression, or sentence, we are talking about what a speaker might utter
it to mean, in a way it that departs from what the word, expression or sentence
actually means”. (Searle, John R).;
A” problem of the metaphor
concerns the relations between the word and sentence meaning, on the one hand,
and speaker’s meaning or utterance meaning, on the other”
With the exception of major corporate brands, churches,
specialty building in architecture the examples is in infinite as most works
designed are with no intended message, meaning or referent. Many are in the
class of others of its types and generally convey their class while others are
replicas and based on a model. Furthermore most architects have a design
vocabulary which is foreign to the user. Conversely, in public buildings, the
user’s expectations, use and expectations are foreign to the architect. At its
best the architect may connect the vocabulary of his design to some exotic
design theory which, results I a very beatiful and appealing building to which
the user finds beautiful but has no idea about the intended making of the whole
or its parts. But some how it works!
After formulating a program of building requirements and
getting agreement that the words and diagrams are approved by the client. If
the architect built-work can meet this program and come to be the building the
client intended is such an example of the work of architecture as a metaphor
and metaphorical work. (They carry-over, bridge, and are each others
advocate)
Limited to meeting the program and the fulfilling the design
contract says nothing about the unintended consequences of the building on the
context and the way the metaphor outcome impacts for users, community and the
general public. In some ways this is the job of municipal Departments of
Community Services, town fathers, zoning boards and building departments and
their building codes.
All contribute to honing the metaphors and their outcomes
which is this relationship of intended words to spoken words and the chasm
between the two.
We are told to think before we speak, picture what you are
going to say then speak, still whatever we speak, in tone, emphasis, timing(meter)
and pitch can carry its own meanings; this was also one of the final fields of
investigation for my late mentor, Dr. Paul Weiss. Without apparent rhyme of
reason metaphors of all arts have a way of recalling other metaphors of other
times and places. In my mind I recall Brooklyn brick warehouses on Atlantic
Ave. with turn of the century Ford trucks and men adorned in vests, white
shirts and bow ties loading packages from those loading docks under large green
metal canopies. The streets are cobble stones.
In the case of building metaphors it is the familiarity with
not only the building- type, materials, context and convention but the architects, contactor’s and owner’s personas
which increase the understanding of the metaphor. In the case of Dubai and
other such contexts it is the lack of such familiarity and tolerance for the
strange that makes the metaphor acceptable on face value. The metaphor is
accepted yet not understood. As many beautiful things they are awesome,
forbidding, and indicative of some greater condition as being a stranger in
one’s own context. Buildings are perceived as cars manufactured by some idioms
indicative of their species with little conscious relevance to the user’s
context. It is very strange. Building designed for people who before (and even
current) this generation found tents to be their habitat metaphor.
Human cognition is fundamentally shaped by various
processes of figuration”. “The ease with which many figurative utterances are
comprehended are has often been attributed
to the constraining influence of the context” ………..Including “the common ground
of knowledge, beliefs, and attitudes recognized as being shared by speakers and listeners (architects and
users(clients, public) ( Gibbs,
Jr., R.W.) As it is with speakers
architects, designers and makers “can’t help but employ tropes in every day conversation (design) because they
conceptualize (design) much of their experience through the figurative schemes
of metaphor (design). Explaining tropes
(turn, twist, conceptual guises, and figurations). It explains the standard and traditional
building types found in various contexts as the chalet in the Alps and the
specific style of each found in each of the Alp’s counties and villages,
etc. Psychological processes in metaphor
comprehension and memory by Alan Paivio and Mary Walsh say that Susanne Langer
writes that:” Metaphor is our most striking evidence of abstract seeing, of the
power the human mind to use presentational symbols”. (Gibbs, Jr., R.W.)
.
In psychology “appreciation” (Herbert (1898)) was a
general term for those mental process whereby an attached experience is brought
into relation with an already acquired and familiar conceptual system.
(Encoding, mapping, categorizing, inference, assimilation and accommodation,
attribution, etc). (Miller, G A). Likewise aesthetics’ view of beauty is not based on innate qualities, but rather on cultural
specifics and individual interpretations. Miller explains how reading metaphors build an image in the mind.
That is to say we “appreciate” what we already know. I have always contended
that we do not learn anything we already do not know. We learn in terms of
already established knowledge and concepts. We converse reiterating what we
presume the other knows, otherwise the other party would not understand. The
other party understands only because he already knows.
The architect who assembles thousands of bits of information , resifts and converts form words to graphics and
specification documents communicates the new proposed (the strange new thing)
in terms of the known and familiar. The first recipients are the owner,
building officials; contractors must read seeking confirmations of known and
confirm its adherence to expectations. After its construction the users read
familiar signs, apparatus, spaces, volumes, shapes and forms. The bridge
carries over from one to another what is already known .Even the strange that
becomes familiar are both known but not in the current relationship. For
example when we apply a technology used on ships to a building or a room which
is commonly associated with tombs as a bank, etc. Both are generally known but
not in that specific context. We could not appreciate it if it were not known
.It is what Weiss calls commonalities and is the selection between commonalities
and differences that makes a metaphor. About understanding and discerning
between what is” true in fact” and “true in the model” Miller says: Metaphors
are, on a literal interpretation, incongruous, if not actually false-a robust
sense of what is germane to the context and what is “true in fact” is necessary
for the recognition of a metaphor, and hence general knowledge must be
available to the reader (user, public).
“We try to make the world that the author is asking us to
imagine resemble the real world (as we know it) in as many respects as
possible. Offices, bedrooms, lobbies, toilets, kitchens are such models which
are built to specific situations in images of yet some other context. We know
one from the other from the perception of the smallest detail to the overall
layout.
By analogy what Miller distinguishes between what the
architect designed and what he thought are different. The architects of the
Renaissance tried to resurrect the grandeur of the classic building they
discovered and resurrected. The contemporary architect faces a vernacular of
design principles which are reified in to conventional building types. The
convention is the model whiles the specific application in the strange. Often
new buildings are likened to the first model or the prototype. The reader knows the building type and is
able to recognize the new version. (Miller, G A)
Architectural making of metaphors is a matter of mapping,
diagramming and combining to conclude the validity of combining and matching
unlike materials, shapes, & systems. In this way any one of the metaphors
and the whole system of bridging and carrying over is metaphoric. (Gentner, D) If one maps a rectangle
and circle to a third you get a part square part circular odd shape. Map cold
and hot and you get warm; map hotel, office, residential and shops and you get
mixed use. (Gentner, D) The alchemists describe a system of
triangulation I taught and applied at Pratt Institute which is as: “Metals were
often held to consist of two components: mercury, which was fiery, active and
male, and sulphur, which was watery, passive and female. Thus the combination
of the two metals could be viewed as a marriage. Metals and other minerals were
often compared with heavenly bodies and their properties triangulated to
produce a third. Not to let this arbitrary characterizations blemish the
structure of this system it is valid to triangulate and in fact produce a
metaphor where you find the property they both share.
Renaissance European cities beguile their metaphor with such
combinations known by their scale, cladding, décor, and entrees. Particularly
charming are the German “guest houses ("gast hofs"), English family
pubs, etc. New Towns and contemporary town centers are mixed use, multi zoned
urban cores. It isn’t the referent where one is the other but where there is a
similarity between like features of two things, on which a comparison may be
based: the analogy between the heart and a pump. The
commonality is apparent. They both share a similar characteristic. The hotel, residence , office and shop are
joined by their convenience to that
provide service to clients and their use of rooms, and a core of service,
mountainous and housekeeping and supply. A small staff can support these
businesses and there customers are compatible (Gentner, D)They
all have a front of the house and back-of-the -house function (garbage, deliveries,
maintenance, etc) in many citers lacks zoning regulations have alo9owed such
mixed uses zones to still exist to day. Seeing these metaphors is a part of the
fabric and character of neighborhoods. (Gentner, D)
Metaphor is reasoning using
abstract characters whereas reason by analogy is a straight forward extension
of its use in commonplace reasoning. (Gentner, D)All this to say and as if
there was a choice that architects
have a choice where to make a new building by analogy or by metaphor. Analogies
may be the ticky-tacks, office
building, church, school building, fire station analogies to a first model
verses an abstraction of a program into a new prototype. Is the analogy any
less a work of architecture? Or do we
only mean that works of architecture are works of art when they make
abstractions? (Boyd, R). .Aesthetic judgments bridge
some principle or prior experience to a secondary subject. Architects design by translating concepts
into two dimensional graphics that which ultimately imply a multidimensional
future reality. She tests the horizontal and vertical space finding
accommodation and commonality of adjacency, connectivity and inclusiveness. (Boyd, R).
Metaphors simply impart their commonplace not necessity
to their similarity or analogous. (Boyd, R). This kind of metaphor
simply adds information to the hearer which was not otherwise available which
explains the built metaphor that is neither analogous not abstractly common but
works, is unique and serves a purpose. (Boyd, R). We absorb new knowledge on the shoulders of
old experiences. [(Pylyshyn, Z W). about Cognition to justify Socrates “learning as recollecting” Consider
new concepts as being characterized in terms of old ones (plus logical
conjunctives)” As William J. Gordon [7]
points out we make the strange familiar by talking about one thing in
terms of another. Pylyshyn: "On the other hand, if it were possible to
observe and to acquire new “knowledge” without the benefit of these concepts
(conceptual schemata (an underlying organizational pattern or structure;
conceptual framework) which are the medium of thought), then such (Pylyshyn, Z W).
The art implicitly has gathered the information and
organized it in way that given the right apriori vocabulary, codes definitions
and signal and sign cognitions one can read the message in one way or another
depending on the individual and the variety of individual perceptions.
Buildings, artifacts, products with embedded (encrypted) workings can be read,
learned, assimilated, connected and either by epiphany or Pavolivain stimulus
–response known. Climbing the stairs of a pyramid in Mexico City or a fire
stair in a high rise is essentially the same except for the impact of its
context and what the stair connects (create and base) and the object on which
the stair ascends and descends. The conditions, ideals and goals are very
different while most of the operation is the same. In this way you can say that
non-architecture can be identified as teaching nothing. (Pylyshyn, Z W).
Pulling from three dimensional and two dimensional means and methods, from asymmetrical and
symmetrical, and from spatial and volumetric design principles the architect
assembles metaphor metaphorically by associating and carrying-over these
principles applying to the program at hand to lift and stretch the ideas into
space and across the range of disassociated ideas and concepts making a new and
very strange metaphor unlike anything ever created yet filled with thousands of
familiar signs and elements that make it work . (Pylyshyn, Z W). Just
as practice makes perfect for the concert pianist, opera singer, ballerina, etc
so is it for the architect and in aesthetics for the critique and the
reader. However, having said this reader
is at imitate disadvantage except for the natives of a particular location.
Little old ladies in the tiniest Italian village can tell in the minutest
detail all about every building, street and area. She has learned and passed on
the “knowledge” from her ancestors and is as trained as its creators but in a
totally different way. Hers is the act of perception and reader who must
recreate and challenge her memory and recollections. She does not have to work
at design but at reliving and imagining the design process to find the details
and the whole of the building and its social, political and chronological
context. Her explanations will include great joy, violent emotions, dis-tastes
and rejections of the owners and authors. Her experience of the metaphor will
be different from that of the creators both about the same work. (Pylyshyn, Z W).
“The difference between literal and metaphorical
description lies primarily in such pragmatic consideration as (1) the
stability, referential specificity, and general acceptance of terms: and (2)
the perception, shared by those who use the terms, that the resulting
description characterizes the world as it really is, rather than being a
convenient way of talking about it, or a way of capturing superficial
resemblances”. (Pylyshyn, Z W). Pylyshyn asks:” What
distinguishes a metaphor from its complete explication”? (In the case of
architecture the entire set of contract documents, program, etc).” Pylyshyn
answers: “In this ways of all the arts, architecture is the
most profound in that it combines and confirms the secular (of this time), “how
things really are” with the gestalt of personal, social, community and private
importance. If art is the making of metaphors and it has no real use then how
significant is architecture with both “reality” and fantasy/ imagination
combined and confirmed by its very existence. The very real existence of a
work of art that bespeaks of life and
times, exists and is accessible and in our contexts is itself a metaphor of
great significance and satisfaction; where I a building it would look like this
metaphor. The metaphor expresses a value common to both; both are both real and
ideas at the same time.
The metaphor is the bridge and confirmation of art in the
world, life in the flesh and flesh become ideas. Architecture is an extreme
reification from notion in both creator and reader of materials and idea. “Metaphor
induces a (partial) equivalence between two known phenomenons; a literal
account describes the phenomenon in authentic terms in which it is seen”. (Pylyshyn, Z W). Socially speaking,
worldly people that work in offices, dress, and then behave the way they do,
for example, if they reported to work in a manufacturing warehouse? Their
scenario of the behavior and the metaphor would not correspond. (Pylyshyn, Z W).
“Radically new knowledge results from a change in modes
of representation of knowledge, whereas a comparative metaphor occurs within
the existing representations which serve to render the comparison sensible. The
comparative level of metaphor might allow for extensions of already existing
knowledge, but would not provide a new form of understanding. (Oshlag, Ra
S)When visiting new cities in another country one is immediately confronted
with metaphors which create similarities as interactive and comparative as we
seek to find similarities and differences with what we already known in our
home context. Visiting, sketching and writing about over
seventy European cities I noted the character and ambiance of each and the
differences between one and another. I drew so many vignettes of buildings and
cityscapes noting the metaphor of each. The visitor (this is my word) may “well be
acquiring one of the constitutive or residual metaphors of the place (this is
my word) at the same time; same metaphor, different experiences. (Oshlag, Ra
S)
Metaphors have a way of extending our capacities for
communications. ( Sticht T.G.)
As most artists their language is beyond speech and to the
peculiar craft of their art of which their practice and exercise develops new
capacity and opportunity to teach and express thought outside of the
linguistics but is nevertheless perhaps as valuable and worthy. “The mnemonic (intended to assist the
memory) function of metaphor as
expressed by Ortony’s vividness thesis also points to the value of metaphor as
a tool for producing durable learning from unenduiring speech” ( Sticht
T.G.)
Architects both compose the program and reify its contents
from words to diagrams and diagrams to two dimensional graphics and three
dimensional models to reify and bring- out (educate) the user’s mind and
fulfillment of unspoken and hidden needs. Needs which may or may not have been
programmed and intended; the metaphor is the final resolution until it is built
and used.
Then it is subject to further tests of time, audience,
markets, trends, fashions, social politics, demographic shifts, economics, and
cultural changes. The aesthetics of the process and the product are both
metaphoric and a metaphor.
Works Cited
- Boyd, Richard; Metaphor
and theory change: What is” metaphor” a metaphor for?
- Conrad, Ulrich; In Programs and
Manifestos on 20th-Century Architecture about Glasarchitektur Ulrich
Conrad'
- Fraser, Bruce; Interpretation
of novel metaphors
- Gentner, Dedre The shift from
metaphor to analogy in Western science
- Gibbs,
Jr., Raymond W.; Process and products in making sense of tropes
- Glucksberg,
Sam;. How metaphors work by Sam Glucksberg and Boaz Keysar
- Gordon,
W.J.J. Metaphorical way of
knowing: Gordon began formulating the Synectics method in
1944 with a series ... 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
on architecture:the making of metaphors..
- Jeziorski, Michael; The shift
from metaphor to analogy in Western science
- Kuhn, Thomas S.; Metaphor
in science by Thomas S. Kuhn
- Keysar,
Boaz;
- Lakoff,
George; The contemporary theory of metaphor by George Lakoff
- Mayer,
Richard E.; The instructive metaphor: Metaphoric aids to students’
understanding of science by Richard E. Mayer
- Miller,
George A.; Images and models, similes and metaphors by George A.
Miller
- Nigro,
Georgia; Metaphor, induction, and social policy: The convergence of
macroscopic and microscopic views by Robert J. Sternberg, Roger Tourangeau,
and Georgia Nigro
- Ortony,Andrew;Metaphor and
Thought: Second Edition
- Edited
by Andrew Ortony: School of Education and social Sciences and
- Institute
for the learning Sciences: North Western University
- Published
by Cambridge University Press
- First
pub: 1979
- Second
pub: 1993
- Oshlag,
Rebecca S.; Metaphor and learning
- Petrie,
Hugh G; Metaphor and learning
- Pylyshyn, Zeon W.; Metaphorical
imprecision and the “top down” research strategy Is Board of Governors Professor of
Cognitive Science at Rutgers Center for Cognitive Science. He is the
author of Seeing and Visualizing:
It's Not what You Think (2003) and Computation and Cognition: toward a Foundation for Cognitive
Science (1984), both published by The MIT Press, as well as over a
hundred scientific papers on perception, attention, and the computational
theory of mind.
- Reddy.
Michael JThe conduit metaphor: A case of frame conflict in our language
about language: by Michael J. Reddy.
- Rumelhart, David E.;. Some
problems with the emotion of literal meanings
- Sadock, Jerrold M.;. Figurative
speech and linguistics by Jerrold M. Sadock
- Schon, Donald A. ; Generative
metaphor: A perspective on problem-setting in social policy: by Donald A.
Schon
- Searle, John R.; Metaphor by
John R. Searle
- Sternberg,
Robert J.;. Metaphor, induction, and social policy: The convergence of
macroscopic and microscopic views by Robert J. Sternberg, Roger
Tourangeau, and Georgia Nigro
- Thomas
G. Sticht; Educational uses of metaphor
- Tourangeau,
Roger; Metaphor, induction, and social policy: The convergence of
macroscopic and microscopic views by Robert J. Sternberg, Roger
Tourangeau, and Georgia Nigro
- Weiss,Paul; Paul Weiss: Born in
1901, Being and Other Realities (1995) ; Emphatics, (2000);
Surrogates," published by Indiana University Press.
- Zarefsky,David 5. Argumentation: The Study of Effective
Reasoning, 2nd Edition; by Professor Dr. David Zarefsky of Northwestern
University and published by The Teaching Company, 2005 of Chantilly,
Virginia
Endnotes:
1. 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.
2. The first lectures "Architecture as the Making of
Metaphors" were organized and conducted by Barie Fez-Barringten 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.
3. American painter Irving Kriesberg was born in 1919. He
studied painting in America at The Art Institute of Chicago and the University
of Chicago from 1938-1941 and later in Mexico from 1942-1946. Kriesberg began
his interest in art as a cartoonist in high school in Chicago. In the 1930's he
spent many days sketching the work of the great masters Titian & Rembrandt
when visiting The Art Institute of Chicago. In the late 1930's he came under
the influence of modern art via School of Paris exhibitions prominently
exhibited in the museums in Chicago.
4. Main Currents in
Modern Thought/Center for Integrative Education Sep.-Oct. 1971, Vol. 28 No.1,
New Rochelle, New York
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 uponTyne
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.Explainging 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:
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