Showing posts with label theory. Show all posts
Showing posts with label theory. Show all posts
NAMING ARCHITECTURE
introduction
Blur Building. Blossom House. The Gherkin. Names greet, introduce, define and differentiate architectural works. This literature review locates a discussion on the connection between building name and building meaning in relation to established knowledge. In this paper, name refers to the title given to a building by the architect or a title which becomes common to social discourse, and which does not refer solely to the ownership of the building. To ensure that the name remains embedded in its larger context of signification I conceptualise a relationship between myth (narratives that supply frameworks of meaning) and symbol (visual abbreviations of those narratives) in conjunction with which name can be defined as a visual metaphor in which meaning can reside. Literature is sourced from linguistics, semiology and architectural theory. The paper identifies and critically reviews relevant literature surrounding major architectural concepts of language, representation, sign, and metaphor in order to determine a position for future comment on the act of naming buildings, and to suggest a framework for theorising the name.
on the language-architecture foundation
The theoretic development of the built environment has often considered architecture as language. (Summerson 7) Engagement with this paradigm from the divergent post-critical paradigm we are currently situated in requires a tentative return to a moment in history when architecture still had philosophical ambitions and held language up to itself as a mirror. Fundamentally, the language-architecture association examines how architecture meets and knows itself. The literary gaze of architecture traces two pathways. The first aims to understand language’s laws of operation as a scientific system and guide architectural production. It is exemplified by Derrida’s Grammatology. (Derrida, On Grammatology 27) The second explores the premise that all social practice can be understood as meanings, significations, and systems of exchange between objects and is manifest in architectural evaluation. (Coward and Ellis 1)
IDEAL CRITICISM
Post-critical theory suggests that THEORY IS DEAD. I propose to address post-critical theory through a combination of two primary themes: the capacity of architectural criticism to function as critical method, and the development of architectural criticism towards spatial practice.
Drawing in particular on the work of Jane Rendell and John Hejduk on the question of criticism as spatial practice, I will inquire into the status of the architectural object as a site for criticism beyond post-critical thinking.
Two models of architecture-space-writing-criticism which will underly and guide this discussion are:
Henri Lefebrve's triptych of spatial practice, representations of space and spaces of representation and Derrida's parallel triptych of space of writing, space as writing and space as the distance of representation.
It is postulated that the implict idealism of criticism springs from the ambiguity of languge itself. By allowing a slipping of architecture towards critical practice, and criticism into spatial practice, can we 'prevent it [the language of criticism] from becoming the instrument of a sacred rite?' - Manfredo Tafuri
And if so, we find a new way to critique the death of theory as post-critical theory defines it.
Drawing in particular on the work of Jane Rendell and John Hejduk on the question of criticism as spatial practice, I will inquire into the status of the architectural object as a site for criticism beyond post-critical thinking.
Two models of architecture-space-writing-criticism which will underly and guide this discussion are:
Henri Lefebrve's triptych of spatial practice, representations of space and spaces of representation and Derrida's parallel triptych of space of writing, space as writing and space as the distance of representation.
It is postulated that the implict idealism of criticism springs from the ambiguity of languge itself. By allowing a slipping of architecture towards critical practice, and criticism into spatial practice, can we 'prevent it [the language of criticism] from becoming the instrument of a sacred rite?' - Manfredo Tafuri
And if so, we find a new way to critique the death of theory as post-critical theory defines it.
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