Edwin’s piece ‘Intellectual Disaster Tourism‘ is featured over on Archined, where he casts the architect as contemporary urban archaeologist, continually seeking the ‘perverse pleasure’ of studying the next city in decline. With Detroit as his example, hollowed out by mass unemployment leading to urban decay, Edwin cites a ‘reversal of roles’, whereby

‘the affluent west receives intellectual development aid; the second and third worlds supply the apparently over-developed, trouble-free Europe with challenging cases for education and research. Young academics are scarcely aroused or stirred by problems within the borders of their own country any more. They’ve got to be more spectacular, more exotic, more extreme.’

Similarly, Rory and Todd Reisz have written of ‘The Architect as a City Critic’ over on the Huffington Post, as part of a new weekly blog looking at all things Al Manakh. Here, the recent emphasis on ‘research’ as a precondition to building is exposed as a competition of one-upmanship, with architects travelling further and further into ‘unexplored’ territory to stake their claim and expose the strange spatial experiments to the world. Focusing specifically on the Gulf region of the Middle East, it nevertheless emphasises the importance of understanding the rapid urbanisation of Dubai, Abu Dhabi or Riyadh, too often dismissed as unsustainable folly.

What both posts agree upon is that, whatever the motive, architects must immerse themselves in and interpret the wider world in order to design for it.

Although delivered simply as an amusing anecdote, when taken out of context, this crude piece of wisdom from the elder statesman Peter Corrigan seemed to capture the essence of ‘extra/ordinary’. This was a conference about engaged practitioners; engaged in the ‘ordinary’ messy reality while still managing to scratch out something ‘extra’. Architects presented innovative (and often idealistic) approaches to complex problems, while not afraid to go beyond the discipline to engage with the pragmatics of financing, policy or public engagement in order to see them executed.

Creative director Mel Dodd’s vision for the conference included the words ‘contingency’, ‘compromise’, ‘complexity’, ‘concession’, ‘collaboration’ and ‘constraint’ – a clear endorsement for tentative conclusions and grappling with the real as opposed to the confident presentations of crisp and complete buildings by architectural stars as we have seen at past conferences. This is at once a reflection of our ‘no frills’ economic times – an end to the age of excess – but also a statement of urgency for the profession. If we continue to hitch our future on offering rarefied aesthetics instead of participation in the complex mechanisms of the city, our days are surely numbered.

However, these words of vision came back to haunt the organisers, who were forced to make compromises, contingencies and concessions as Iceland’s volcano left five of the eight international speakers grounded in European airspace. This served to highlight Australia’s location on the other side of the world, far away from the global centers of discourse. Although most were able to present via satellite with few technical hiccups, as is the cliché of conferences generally – it’s not what is presented that matters, but what is said in the bar afterward – a layer that was unfortunately missed.

One of those who did make it was Alejandro Aravena of the Chilean practice Elemental, who presented a number of community housing projects which challenge established methods of financing and delivery to produce a more equitable and quality end product. For the Quinta Monroy housing in Iquique, Elemental worked within the government subsidy for housing provision of around $10,000 per house, which is only enough to build a tiny 40m2 house. Instead of accepting this limitation and perpetuating sub-standard outcomes, they instead reframed the problem, to build as Aravena describes, ‘half of a good house’. This is done in a way that encourages infill and extension in the future when the family can afford the materials themselves. A genuinely innovative and demonstrably beneficial built project.

Elemental’s Quinta Monroy housing in Iquique, Chile.

This ethically-motivated project contrasted sharply with the other projects Aravena presented which were planned for Switzerland, Germany and the United States. Despite claiming that the practice tries ‘to approach design problems in the same way in developing countries as in the developed world … to achieve the same limit of irreducibility’, with a seat on the Pritzker jury, and a building in construction on the Vitra campus adjacent to the fire station by Zaha Hadid, Aravena makes no secret of his ambition to join the A-list.

This seeming contradiction is highlighted further by the fact that Elemental is supported by the Chilean oil company Copec, who donate to the practice as part of their philanthropic investments. Although many assume this relationship to be sinister, could this instead signal an innovative practice model for the support of research into social projects? Just as Aravena upended the subsidy system in order to provide a full house with only half the budget, so his practice is also supported through an unlikely partnership. Both require vision beyond the ordinary.

Also flying the flag for the socially-engaged, research-driven approach was architect Teddy Cruz, who gave an express version of his excellent ‘Radicalizing the Local’ lecture via satellite. From a shocking analysis of the extreme disparities in wealth and opportunity that span the US–Mexico border, Cruz projected an architecture that could begin to address these social, economic and policy-related issues through built form.

Despite the obvious similarities in terms of territories and concerns, Aravena didn’t take kindly to my comparison of his work with that of Cruz, simply stating ‘I wouldn’t like to compare myself with him, because I haven’t seen any built work.’ I also have to admit, that while being incredibly impressed when I first came across the work of Cruz, by the third viewing I left feeling disappointed that his exceptional analysis and proposals have yet to be tested in reality. Of course, this need not be the responsibility of the urban researcher, but perhaps there are other architects who could adopt this thinking and deploy it as a case study? Without it, this incredible research is unlikely to make a difference where it is needed most.

Teddy Cruz, presenting via satellite.

In contrast to the earnestness of Cruz and Aravena, the inclusion of Sam Jacob (replacing his partner Sean Griffiths) from the UK firm FAT seemed a curious choice for a conference decidedly focused on the ‘ordinary’. But of course, this is precisely the territory FAT revel in, mining the language and peculiarities of ‘common’ taste – a kind of urban vernacular that dispenses with sober sincerity in lieu of humour and irony. We were treated to the chequered brick patterns of the Islington Square social housing development – supposedly derived from a dandy’s socks – and the digital mash up of a Gothic source book for the Sint Lucas school in Boxtel, Netherlands.

FAT’s Sint Lucas School, Boxtel, 2006

Not everyone supported this approach – again, Aravena showed his teeth (when I provoked him), claiming that ‘I don’t buy from that presentation that that is the taste of the people, it was extremely exaggerated, a bit ironic, and I don’t think you can play with these kinds of issues, [social housing] is a serious thing.’ This comment – and other backchat from delegates to the same effect – seemed to capture a major rift in the reception of the ideas presented; namely that social ambitions ought to be expressed with a corresponding language of earnestness. Has our Modernist training led us architects to measure authenticity and honesty by image not impact?

The doubters must have missed Jacob’s excellent potted history of half-timbering, where he traced the source of this so-called ‘authentic’ British style – revered by architectural conservatives such as Prince Charles – as one imported from Saxony, and originally built in England to remind these German invaders of home. Far from being vernacular, half-timbering in England is therefore nostalgic and referential at its very core. FAT pursue this superficial heritage to its extreme conclusion by creating a half-timbered font – pure communication – and use it to write nothing less than ‘Kill the Modernist Within’.

Indeed, hidden behind FAT’s fancy façades are buildings that are making a real difference in improving communities, a point reinforced in the presentation by Tom Bloxham of Urban Splash, the developer of the Islington Square project. FAT’s work brought much needed humour (and critical rigour) to a conference line-up bordering on high-horsery, and a reminder not to confuse the image of ethics or honesty with the actual social impact on the ground.

These speakers – and the many others I’ve overlooked here – represent a renewal of architecture’s instrumentality in dealing with social concerns. Our heritage and training in a spatial and aesthetic discipline is being augmented by a need to engage simultaneously on social, environmental and political levels. Our marriage to the market of past decades is being tempered by a broader responsibility for the city, and an ambition to take into account those needs beyond the commissioning client’s. It’s time we all learned how to fly.

Extra/ordinary conference site
Interviews with Sam Jacob and Alejandro Aravena for The Architects

From my archive, an essay I wrote in 2006, which is relevant to the theme of this blog. The essay deals with the discrepancies between theory and practice , and the role of criticality in this relation. Two of the main source texts which functioned as the point of departure for The Projective Landscape conference are analyzed and compared in respect to these themes.

Revising Practice;
Strategies and attitudes for architecture in the next century.

Stan Allen’s endeavor in reformulating architectural practice and theory in his book “Practice, Architecture, Technique and Representation”[1] is not a solo undertaking. In recent years a lot of academics in the field of architecture have done the same. All trying to define a new way of practicing architecture and theory, all slightly different but with many similarities in the direction where the look for answers. This search for the definition of contemporary and future architectural practice is part of a bigger debate. A debate in the United States around notions such as ‘post-critical’[2] and ‘projective practice’ . The American debate however seems to be extremely geared towards a reaction against the architecture and theory of Peter Eisenman. Although the debate is colored with this sort of motives it persists to be a very interesting developments and appears to be putting forward a fruitful strategy for architectural practice for the 21st century.

In this essay I would like to put Stan Allen’s “Introduction, Practice vs, Project” from the book “Practice, Architecture, Technique and Representation” [3] in context of this debate, mainly through the article “Notes around the Doppler Effect and other Moods of Modernism” [4]. This article is much more specifically taking position against the a generation embodied by the work of Peter Eisenman and K. Michael Hays and has a lot of overlaps in formulating the alternative that the new generation (here personified by Stan Allen, Robert Somol and Sarah Whiting) is proposing to counter the dominant model so far (I have to note that this debate and generation conflict is mostly taking place within the American academia). But both writings leave one question unanswered: “What about architectural critique?” The issue of critique was very central in the work of Eisenman and Hays and an entire group of architects and writers of their generation. All taking ‘a’ critical stance towards society, capitalism and other societal structures. But how will this notion of critique be part of the formulation of architectural practice for the next century.

One of the issues that stands at the root of this debate is the troublesome relationship between architectural practice and theory. Allen does a very good job explaining how these entities are positioned towards one and other and why they cause a problem.

“Theory and practice are (…) equally rule-bound: theory devoted to the production of rules, practice relegated to the implementation of those same rules (…) Theory’s promise is to make up for what practice lacks: to confer unity on the disparate procedures of design and construction.”[5] These quotes summarize the situation as is predominantly seen and already gives us a clue about what the problem is. “In this view, theory tends to envelope and protect practice, while practice excuses theory from the obligation to engage reality. Design is reduced to the implementation of rules set down elsewhere.(…) Theory imposes regulated ideological criteria over the undisciplined heterogeneity of the real, while the unstated assumptions of conventional practice enforce known solutions and safe repetitions. In both cases, small differences accumulate, but never add up to make a difference.”[6]
Theory and practice are captured by one and other and in this situation both incapable of engaging reality, this is a sad and dumb situation according to Allen. This does not mean; let’s get rid of one of them to liberate the other. Allen proposes a revision of both definitions. So he reformulates practice as well as theory as ‘material practice’ and ‘hermeneutic practice’. Two practices that work more closely together in engaging reality. Hermeneutic practice understands the present through analyzing the past and material practice analyses the present “in order to project transformations into the future” [7]. In this new relationship, architecture is not the object of theory and architecture does not need theory as legitimation for defining the form in which it manifests itself. “What is proposed instead is a notion of practice flexible enough to engage the complexity of the real, yet sufficiently secure in its own technical and conceptual bases to go beyond the simple reflection of the real as given” [8]

To understand what exactly is meant by these terms hermeneutic and material practice it is perhaps more interesting if we compare them with a third term ‘projective practice’ which aims at a very similar redefinition of practice and places these ‘redefinitions’ in the context of the current debate described earlier. The term ‘projective’ is put forward in the article ‘Notes around the Doppler Effect and other Moods of Modernism’ by Robert Somol and Sarah Whiting. When Somol & Whiting introduce the term ‘projective’. They also address the problem of the theory-practice distinction but in a far more indirect way, in their argument these are still very much intertwined. The article starts off with the heading “from critical to projective”. This needs some further explanation. The notion of ‘critical’ to which is referred in this article originates from how K. Michael Hays uses it in his article “Critical Architecture: Between Culture and Form”. In this article Hays uses the architecture of Mies van der Rohe as a paradigm to explain how through dialectics architecture can occupy a in between status between two contradicting positions. Architecture can do this through using its autonomy, detaching itself from reality but at the same time reflecting it. “For Hays, Mies’ architecture situates itself ‘between the efficient representation of preexisting cultural values and the wholly detached autonomy of an abstract formal system.’ [9] This status of being in the world yet resistant to it is attained by the way the architectural object materially reflects its specific temporal and spatial context, as well as the way it serves as trace of its productive systems.” [10] In this way ,Hays explains, Mies’ architecture can be critical, because it has positioned itself at the necessary distance to be critical through architectural means of its materiality through which it can reflect on contemporary reality. Even though architecture is produced by reality and the way a building is built is a trace of that reality, autonomy is a form of resistance to this reality. This piece of theory and the formulation of ‘critical architecture’ had such an influence that “What for Hays was then an exceptional practice, has now been rendered an everyday fact of life.” [11] This is the role of theory which Allen is referring to: “The enlightened discourse of theory (scientific, and generaliazable) is contrasted to the mechanical techniques of practice. Today this view persists in the form of a mandate for ‘critical’ practices that would hold the individual instances of practice accountable to ideological criteria.” [12] Practice held prisoner by criteria of a theory that refuses to fully engage reality and instead detaches itself from reality through retreating into formalistic autonomy, an almost autistic architecture.

Both Somol & Whiting as Allen are not content with this state of affairs. And propose a more open, flexible approach to reality through an architectural practice that is confident in its own modes of operation and intrinsic disciplinary knowledge. In contrast to architectural autonomy, Somol & Whiting state: “If critical dialectics established architecture’s autonomy as a means of defining architecture’s field of discipline, a Doppler architecture acknowledges the adaptive synthesis of architecture’s many contingencies. Rather than isolating a singular autonomy, the Doppler focuses upon the effect and exchanges of architecture’s inherent multiplicities: material, program, writing, atmosphere, form, technologies, economics, etc.” [13] With the ‘Doppler effect’ notion Somol & Whiting want to counter the rigid position of architecture positioned ‘in between’ the two oppositions (culture and form) that constitute a dialectical framework. In the Doppler situation the (op)positions are constantly moving and changing with a relative velocity to one and other. This reflects a much more flexible and larger space for architecture to maneuver in and to choose it’s own position at any instance. “More significantly, practice is not a static construct, but is defined precisely by its movements and trajectories. There is no theory, there is no practice. There are only practices, which consist in action and agency. They unfold in time, and their repetitions are never identical. It is for this reason that the ‘know-how’ of practice (whether of writing or design) is a continual source of innovation and change.” [14] The hard distinction between a theory that instructs how a practice should operate have disappeared in this formulation, they are now equally important practices, existing next to each other and informing each other. “Ironically, practice (usually assumed unproblematically identified with reality) will discover new uses for theory only as it moves closer to the complex and problematic character of the real itself.” [15]

The definition of architectural practice might now seem to be one with a very vague outline. But Allen and Somol & Whiting also sketch a new perimeter for architectural practice. “Architecture’s limits are understood pragmatically –as resource and an opportunity- and not a defining boundary. The practitioner looks for performative multiplicities in the interplay between an open catalog of procedures and a stubbornly indifferent reality.” [16] “A projective architecture does not make a claim for expertise outside the field of architecture nor does it limit its field of expertise to an absolute definition of architecture. Design is what keeps architecture from slipping into a cloud of heterogeneity. It delineates the fluctuating borders of architecture’s disciplinarity and expertise. So when architects engage topics that are seemingly outside of architecture’s historically-defined scope –questions of economics or civic politics, for example- they don’t engage those topics as experts on economics or civic politics but, rather as experts on design and how design may affect economics or politics. They engage these other fields as experts on design’s relationship to those other disciplines, rather than as critics.” [17] The limits of architecture are not clearly defined in both quotes, but what is very clear is that the practice and field of architecture is defined from within the discipline itself. From a ‘historically-defined’ body of knowledge and an ‘open catalog of procedures’ new knowledge and procedures will emerge, when architectural practice is confronted with the real. But what is overseen here is that the real imposes limits on architecture as well. Liberating architectural discourse of Marxists rhetorics and the architecture as an a priori critical practice is one thing. But shaping this ‘new’ practice from the inherent knowledge of the discipline is something else, and a paramount question. The argument of returning to the body of knowledge intrinsic to the architectural discipline can be interpreted in two very different ways. One is a revaluation of the craft of making buildings and spaces, the effects of materiality , tactility and spatial atmospheres. The other is regarding the operations in architectural practice abstractly, in ways of architectural thinking, design tools and strategies. These operation can be applied on any problem and the product of the process can be anything, so not necessary a building or a spatial design. Architectural or design thinking as a body of knowledge and a set of tools and operation which can address a multitude of issues. But history teaches us that the nuance of both paradigms existing next to each other under the flag of ‘architecture’ is unlikely.

But what about critique? Critique on architecture’s position society and how it should or should not operate in this relationship? The ‘critical practices’ very specifically addressed the problems of the relations and structures in contemporary society. With the negating autonomy of Eisenman as prime example of the American version of ‘Critical’. How would a projective or material practice address these issues of societal criticism? Somol & Whiting leave this question open ended with their closing statement : “Setting out this projective program does not necessarily entail a capitulation to market forces, but actually respects or reorganizes multiple economies, ecologies, information systems, and social groups.” [18] Respecting reality seems like a very sensible thing to do, and a lot less naïve then believing in the critical strategies rendered capable of refusing or changing society. But the problem remains, if architecture doesn’t take a certain distance, how can it be critical. How can you be truly critical of the systems of which you yourself are dependent on. Allen has maybe a more fruitful strategy to address this problem. In this arguments he uses the example of ‘the walker in the city’ used by De Certeau to illustrate his story how one can improvise with a present system, just like the geometric spaces of the city can not dictate the trajectory of the walker. “De Certeau describes a series of ‘tricky and stubborn procedures that elude discipline without being outside the field in which it is exercised.’ [19] He has confidence that there will always exist fissures and cracks that provide openings for tactical reworkings. Making opportunistic use of these footholds, the creativity of everyday practice can often outwit the rigid structures of imposed order, or out-maneuver the weighty apparatus of institutional control” [20] Allen describes with the use of De Certeau how one can outwit the structures in which one is embedded. The strategy proposed could be characterized as embedded critique, but it has to be said that this is a very different position and less credible to state critique from. But the Marxist critical position is not feasible either from within architectural practice. The main problem with critique in our contemporary society is that it is largely internalized within our societal systems. Marxism always poses a critique on how the whole of capitalist society is organized, there are very few positions from where you can pose a credible critique like that and it has to be a position without any appearance of conflicting interests. The academic world has always been a haven for critical thinking like this. But architectural practice is deeply intertwined with all kinds of interests, and its even one the architect’s many capacities to work with them in a smart way. Architecture is also a business, so practice as a vocation of academic critical thinking won’t get any bread on the table, and even if it could your critique can never entirely credible, because your client pays for it. Critique in the Marxist sense as part of any business practice is problematic. But this doesn’t directly mean that you capitulate to all market force. Everywhere in business there are ideals, principles and societal criticisms which drive enterprises. But this form of idealism which also has to be pragmatic and has to be commercially viable is aimed at concrete results and not at reflection on mankinds existential condition in our post-industrial globalized society.

This brings us back to the academia, the school for architecture. Where theoretical discourse has its real influence on practice by training the next generation of architects. In this sense the school is critical in how architects think about what architects and architecture should do and its meaning in society at large.
Here I would like to make a point. Architectural theory as teached in schools in general generates the image that architecture should be employed to intellectually reflect on the existential conditions of contemporary mankind, heavily drawing on ideas from philosophy. This together with the dogma of architects being artists creates the climate on architecture schools that the ideal architecture should be a high-cultural-intellectual-practice, with the architect as central author/artist or guru. Here I am missing a nuance in a way thinking which can engage reality more directly, instead of through intellectual culture production. The paradox of the architecture school is that is doesn’t demystifies architectural design, but actually mystifies architectural design. The idea that architects are also entrepreneurs, which in my opinion is the most fruitful way to constitute new forms of practice and reinvent what architecture can do in engaging reality, seems to be an idea which is unable to enter the academic world and become an integral part in the thinking about architecture. In other words you could describe this again as problematic relation between the sphere of theory (being the school) and that of practice (being the office).
Nevertheless I think both texts of Allen and Somol & Whiting are signals that support the idea that theory and practice should work more closely as two equal but not similar practices. Theory and practice should formulate what architectures operations, tools are and together plot out a strategy to conquer new territories where ‘architecture’ can be applied by architects which see themselves as thinkers, designers and entrepreneurs.

___

1 Stan Allen, Practice: architecture, technique and representation, (London: Routledge, 2000)
2 ‘post critical’ was one of the buzzwords at ‘The State of Architecture at the Beginning of the 21st Century’ Conference held at Columbia University on the 28-19th of March 2003. Bernard Tschumi, Irene Cheng (editors), The State of Architecture at the Beginning of the 21st Century, (New York, The Monacelli Press, 2003)
3 Stan Allen, Practice: architecture, technique and representation, (London: Routledge, 2000), pp.13-25
4 Robert Somol & Sarah Whiting, “Notes around the Doppler Effect and other Moods of Modernism”, Perspecta 33, The Yale architectural Journal, (Cambridge, MIT Press, 2002), pp.72-77
5 Stan Allen, Practice: architecture, technique and representation, (London: Routledge, 2000), pp.15
6 Ibid.,pp.16
7 Ibid.,pp.18
8 Ibid.,pp.16
9 K. Michael Hays, “Critical Architecure: Between Culture and Form”, Perspecta 21, The Yale architectural Journal, (Cambridge, MIT Press, 1984), pp.15
10 Robert Somol & Sarah Whiting, “Notes around the Doppler Effect and other Moods of Modernism”, Perspecta 33, The Yale architectural Journal, (Cambridge, MIT Press, 2002), pp.74
11 Ibid.,pp.73
12 Stan Allen, Practice: architecture, technique and representation, (London: Routledge, 2000), pp.15
13 Robert Somol & Sarah Whiting, “Notes around the Doppler Effect and other Moods of Modernism”, Perspecta 33,
The Yale architectural Journal, (Cambridge, MIT Press, 2002), pp.75
14 Stan Allen, Practice: architecture, technique and representation, (London: Routledge, 2000), pp.17
15 Ibid., pp.17
16 Ibid., pp.18
17 Robert Somol & Sarah Whiting, “Notes around the Doppler Effect and other Moods of Modernism”, Perspecta 33,
The Yale architectural Journal, (Cambridge, MIT Press, 2002), pp.75
18 Ibid., pp.77
19 Michel de Certau, The Practices of Everyday Life, trans. Steven F. Rendall (Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1988), pp.96
20 Stan Allen, Practice: architecture, technique and representation, (London: Routledge, 2000), pp.23

[images: Drawings from SITELESS: 1001 Building Forms, The MIT Press, 2008 François Blanciak]

In The Architectural Cognition Laboratory, research is done on one of the most remarkable professional tribes known to man: architects. A team of neurobiologists, psychologists, ethnographers and an odd-ball theorist are interested in this tribe’s social and cultural practices, most importantly to reveal how the architect thinks. In the lab, an architectural studio has been recreated containing a group of architects working under the regime of a design competition. The Big Brother house for architects have eagerly surrendered themselves to the familiar practice of competition; the reward is vague but suggests the celebration of genius for those who win. All the ingredients are there to keep the architects entangled in the dynamics of their game. With regular intervals the subjects are taken apart so a researcher can interview him or her. 15 is called to come to the completely white room. 15 sits down at a table and hears a researcher’s voice over the speaker.

“15, I would like to ask you a question” the researchers voice said calmly “Can you tell me what your thoughts are made of?” “Hahaha. You expect me to just tell you this?” 15 said surprisingly. “Why not? Have you never wondered about how you think, what it is you think with?”, “Well no, not really, I never consciously thought about my own thinking that much. Isn’t it your job to find out?” “Yes, but I don’t have your brain. So you’ll have to help me out a bit here” “But how? I hardly understand what sort of answer you’re expecting. What do you mean when you talk about what ‘it’ is that you think with?” “Let’s say that when you’re designing, what then are the things you are manipulating?” “I guess I manipulate drawings, images, sketches, foam, 3D models, diagrams; those sort of things, but they are outside my brain” “Is their a difference, if it’s in or outside your brain?” “I think so” “What can you do in your brain that you cannot do on paper?” “Well I can imagine in my mind what a space should be like. Or I have a shape or organization in mind, but I can only go so far in the mind. It’s like a universe of half-formed thoughts, impressions, memories, shapes, patterns and structures that seem disparate” “good, go on” “ok, errr but I can only make sense of all these disparate thoughts when I start drawing, modeling, trying to get my premature associations and connections between these thought out of my brain into the world as a sketch or something. Then I have it before my eyes. Then I can progress. It’s kind of like, as if the paper and my pen are an external memory drive, like external RAM, outsourced working memory. Ha! Never thought about it like that” “Very good 15, tell me more about how this process of progression works” ” I guess that when I have something on paper it makes room for new thoughts. My head is like a hotel that can only hold so many thoughts at a time” The fluorescent light in the room flickered; a buzz slowly intensified and the lights popped. The researcher laughed “divine intervention … , we’re getting too close to the truth.”

Albena Yaneva (knowingly or not) took up Reyner Banham’s challenge as formulated 20 years ago in his Black Box essay; to venture into what architects actually ‘do’ and to do this through psychological and anthropological research into the messy reality of the office and observing the banal and mundane processes of design. This is what Albena Yaneva did and 010 publishers recently published her ethnographic research (which she did from 2002 till 2004) on the office life and design practice of OMA: Made by the Office for Metropolitan Architecture: An Ethnography of Design [buy]. Unlike the more traditional sociological research in architectural practice such as Dana Cuff’s Architecture: The Story of a Practice [buy], Yaneva has based her understanding of the social on Bruno Latour’s Actor-Network Theory (ANT).

“ANT maps relations that are simultaneously material (between things) and “semiotic” (between concepts). It assumes that many relations are both material and “semiotic”. For example, the interactions in a bank involve both people, their ideas, and technologies.

Together these form a single network.
Actor-network theory tries to explain how material–semiotic networks come together to act as a whole (for example, a bank is both a network and an actor that hangs together, and for certain purposes acts as a single entity). As a part of this it may look at explicit strategies for relating different elements together into a network so that they form an apparently coherent whole.
According to actor-network theory, such actor-networks are potentially transient, existing in a constant making and re-making [1]. This means that relations need to be repeatedly “performed” or the network will dissolve. (The bank clerks need to come to work each day, and the computers need to keep on running.) They also assume that networks of relations are not intrinsically coherent, and may indeed contain conflicts (there may be poor labor relations, or computer software may be incompatible).” - Wikipdia (28-3-2010)

She has chosen to report on her research object, the office life and design practice at OMA , in the format of short stories composed of anecdotes, interviews and office stories. So, no academic language and heavy referencing, but staying close to the language, operations and materials on the office floor. Yaneva makes this deliberate choice based on a distinction she makes between meta- and infra-reflexive discourse, a distinction developed by Latour. “Meta-reflexivity is based on the idea that the most deleterious effect of a text is to be naively believed by the reader as in some way relating to a referent out there. Reflexivity is supposed to counteract this effect by rendering the text unfit for normal consumption  (which often means unreadable). This accepts as given that the readers are naïve believers, that there is such a thing as a normal consumption, that people easily believe what they read, and finally that believing is always to relate an account to some referent ‘out there.’ This is a very naïve set of beliefs in the naïve beliefs of readers.”( Bruno Latour in The Politics of Explanation: an Alternative [pdf]) “I prefer to follow an infra-reflexive approach that goes against this common belief by asking no privilege for the account at hand. This exercise in infra-reflexive writing can be seen as a test of the short story genre in design studies. In the accounts presented here, architects and their models are free and active anthropological projects, full of life, and ready to take part in an intriguing story; design process appears as a reflexive and responsive event.” - Yaneva Albena

What follows are accessible stories about office life, the trajectory of design objects through the office space, with simple illustrative examples, experiences of individual designers. The drawback of Yaneva’s approach is that the there is a lot of repetition in the text, the importance of the foam-model environment is stressed over and over again. Nonetheless, the book contains many revealing anecdotes and insightful interviews, also the restraint from academic referencing is a nice experience and makes it a quick and accessible read.

For me personally Yaneva’s work is special, because she really did the research I at one point in my graduation project at TU Delft had in mind. That is, to do a more or less ethnographic research in an architecture office based on a grounded theory method (which has some affinity with ANT). I eventually did a comparative literature research and wrote a theory [pdf]. One of my main inspirations was Donald Schön, as was Yaneva’s, since Schön was most interested in the perspective and experience of the designer him/herself, and thus also in working on a theory which would fit that experience. A theory that would be recognizable to architects, and not exclusively for one specific type of practice, or from only one point of view. So I’m very happy with Yaneva’s work! She writes:

“The common feature of all stories is that they all account for the nature of design invention; the latter is not reduced here to an abstract concept of creation or construction. Instead, I tackle it as something that revolves into concrete actions and practices: in collective rituals, techniques, habits and skills ingrained by training and daily repetition, in reuse of materials and recycling of historical knowledge and foam chunks. It is also a very fragile process - when a building is in the making and as long as it exists as a scale model, its existence is very tentative, very frail. At any moment in design process it can live or it can die, it can merge into something else, it can be reused, recollected. That is, a view of design as constituted from the inside; it stems from the experience of making.” - Yaneva Albena

What I found in Yaneva’s stories are illustrations and elaborations on many of my own theoretical ideas. In a series of posts that will follow I will elaborate on this. To be expected are posts on C.S.Peirce’s Diagrammatic Reasoning, illustrated by some of Yaneva’s anecdotes and observations, as well as an elaboration on the rhetoric behind the Seattle Central Library into which Yaneva provides some different angles on how this supposedly ’super-logical’ building came to be.

Banham would be pleased to read Yaneva’s ethnographic account of the ‘tribe’ of architects housed in their ‘tribal longhouse’ on the Heer Bokkelweg, especially when he would read about Olga’s dance.

“Watch Olga as she is seized by something unexpected: she starts straying in the office with the new NATO model in her hands. Is there a design idea that precedes the shape we see as we follow Olga in her excited dance through the office, showing the model that holds the idea to tell the architects from other project bubbles? No, no one can claim there is an abstract idea that first appears in the creator’s mind, and is later embedded, incorporated, materialized in a shape. The idea emerges as inseparable from sensible matter; it has an objective locus.” - Yaneva Albena

Something of the likes of a ritual almost happens in the office, Olga is exited by a ‘discovery’ and wants to share her excitement. Also it happens to her, it’s not a preconceived concept in the mind that just needs to be drawn or made. If there is anything of a mystical nature happening in architectural design it happens to the designer, and is not done by the designer. The locus of ideas is to a large extent outside the architects brain, and heavily influenced by the possibilities and limits of the tools and materials architects use in their studio. Models are never thrown away, architectural inventions (remember the patents in Content?) are cherished and constitute the laboratory architects works in. All these ideas, patterns, devices, parti or concepts materialized either as models, drawings or pixels, in other words this is the external hard-drive of the architectural brain, this is the stuff architect think with.

A review of Yaneva’s book at Archined (March 15 2010) : Blue Foam

Albena Yaneva, Made by the Office for Metropolitan Architecture: An Ethnography of Design, o10 publishers 2009, p. 128, € 19,50, ISBN 987 90 6450 714 4

Late last year we launched the latest issue of VOLUME, simply titled The Guide. As the blurb states, it ‘presents a diverse collection of guides and attempts to guide […] the guide is understood as not simply a service or selling point, but as an exploratory tool, a generator for a proactive engagement with the city.’

Despite this pluralist approach to what a guide might be, the question remains as to what is actually guiding us as architects or designers. So, in an effort to expand the debate beyond the deadline for the printer, and beyond our office, we thought we would crack open this question once more by simply asking what guides you? What are your conceptual reference points? Who are your intellectual leaders? Are you driven by your tools, your working media? Larger ethical concerns such as sustainability? Or are you limited by the demands of the market? What do you feed your architectural black box?

Of the issue, Michael Kubo’s contribution Publishing Practices – which presents the findings of a survey of architects on their most influential books - is the most explicitly directed to revealing the reference points of architects today. The peaks in Michael’s graph are startlingly clear, Vers Une Architecture (1923), Complexity and Contradiction (1967), Delirious New York (1978) and by far the largest spike, SMLXL (1995). Since Koolhaas’ massive tome, Zumthor, Moneo, Evans and Moussavi each stick their heads up above the crowd, but a singularly defining work is nowhere to be seen. Could this doorstop be the final bookend on the canonical architecture text?

This question of defining books bubbled up on Twitter in a big way recently, spurred by the list-making fervour of the end of the decade. Captured by the hashtag #endofarchitecturetexts, the death of the canonical architecture book seemed to be accepted by the crowd (@loudpaper, @willprince, @javierest, @serial_consign, @ enriqueramirez and of course @microkubo) without dispute. While potential candidates were suggested, based on surveys of his students @kazys penned the 160 character tombstone: “there is no defining text for the 00s, that’s the defining text.”

Or – as Edwin argues in the previous post, Architecture left to it’s own devices – has theory simply lost its relevance to practice? By no longer being interested in the ‘dirtiness, the messiness and opportunism of practice’, are critics and practitioners simply ‘living on different planets’? In which case are we looking in the wrong places? Are the most instructive texts for the practitioner coming out of neurology, such as Jeff Hawkin’s On Intelligence, as Edwin proposes?

Perhaps it is too close to call, with the significance of particular text only becoming clear in retrospect. Or is it a broader symptom of contemporary practice’s marriage to the market, with our ‘leaders’ too busy building to consider publications? Importantly, Kubo’s survey and the Twitter discussion sought to determine which books are most influential, generating a compelling distillation of references, but leaving the larger question of ‘what guides you?’ wide open.

Have we simply turned to the internet? Will BLDG BLOG, Archinect, Mammoth, Pruned, City of Sound or Fantastic Journal emerge as having best captured the thinking (and attention) of architects today? But as Michael notes (without naming names) why do blogs aim to turn into books? Does this medium retain the exclusive rights to legitimacy and legacy? Can you only enter the canon when you are literally ‘in print’?

Of course, we want to believe Kazys, that there just isn’t a defining source of the past 15 years, that architects have their own interests beyond the canon and don’t merely follow unquestionably the latest manifesto/monograph of the day. We may no longer be the most irritating dinner party guests, leaving behind the constant quoting of Le Corbusier and Koolhaas while trying desperately to think up our own witty twist on ‘less is more’.

It would also be easy to dismiss the idea of the canon as something to be preferably jettisoned; the end of the insular discussions and autonomy of architecture, a first step toward re-joining society. But as Michael states, ‘the fact of having and naming an identifiable canon – of being able to label works as canonical – is central to the idea of architecture as a distinct discipline.’ He goes even further to state ‘the canon is the discipline’, which leads to the inverse question, without the canon, do we still have a discipline? Do we lose it all when we no longer have the same reference points – the ‘shared currency’ – to talk about? Will our established and broadly understood ‘body of knowledge’ dissolve into promiscuous pluralism – with sources coming from everywhere (and nowhere) leading – most shockingly – to the end of styles? In this case, the sensationally abbreviated Twitter hashtag #endofarchitecture may actually live up to its claim.

Who or what is steering this thing called architecture anyway?

(as published in Volume #22 The Guide but with some aditional links)

Michael Kubo’s Publishing Practices project shows a beautiful overview of where the architectural discipline looks for guidance. The presented collection of canonical publications function as guidebooks for the discipline, books that instruct how to practice, aid our understanding of reality, and show us the way towards a makeable future. But alas, now that ‘history has ended’ and all the grand narratives that offered us a set of principles to live by and utopia’s to hope for have muted, the books we are left with to guide us are those that help us get a grip on reality – to not get crushed by its forces, but to surf its waves (S,M,L,XL). Instead of manuals for the future or anchors in the past, all that is left are coping mechanisms for the now.

There was a time when practice was guided by a sense of legitimacy, as opposed to pragmatism, and acted in accordance to a moral truth instead of mining contradictions of reality. Legitimization in architecture was acted out through rituals in which the sacred rules of an ancient craft were transmitted from master to apprentice. The professional truth was determined by the guilds and later by elaborate catalogues containing precedents and style-rules that function as the holy scripture of architecture. Then came the manifesto; architecture went from being legitimized by the traditions of the craft, to being legitimized by novel ideologies.

In the late twentieth century, these ideological premises shifted from a 5-point manifesto to the import of -isms such as deconstructivism, structuralism, and rationalism. These -isms evolved from the domains of post-modern philosophy into ideals that legitimized architectural practice and form. Paper architects brought theory and practice together in the arena of art galleries and lecture halls, but this convergence ended when the market regained momentum and building commenced once again. Consequently, theory remained in academia while practice followed the money. Now we’re left with an academic discourse that produces ideologically (anti-capitalist) charged theory for a practice operating in hyper-capitalist conditions. While practice is driven by market opportunism, all theory can suggest is for practice to negate the market. This is not to say we shouldn’t be involved in criticizing capitalist society – though criticism is a branch of theory, some have mistaken critique for instruction – but buildings themselves cannot be instruments of criticism. Besides, not all theory should be critique because critique is predisposed; it operates from a moral high ground. The problem is that this creates vast blind spots before the theorizing even begins.

Here we arrive at the problem concerning the relationship between theory and practice, which I’d like to introduce with an anecdote. In March 2006, I was involved in the organization of a conference entitled Projective Landscape, which aimed to deal with the landscape of ideas that was bubbling in architectural discourse around the term projective. Thus we invited theorists from all over the world, and several practitioners. We had hoped for more, but most practicing architects seem to be hesitant to join these highly intellectual circuses. At the closing forum, Willem-Jan Neutelings (architect) asked of the theorists, ‘When I get to my office again Monday morning, what can I take from today’s conference and put into practice?’ The room remained silent; the theorists had no answers for Neutelings. With this simple question, Neutelings laid bare the troubled relation between the theory and practice of architecture. Theorists and practitioners seem to live on different planets, because even when the architecture theorist is asked directly by the architect, ‘What should I do?’ the theorist can provide the architect with little guidance. Apparently those who think about architecture cannot guide those who make it. When the theory and practice exponents of a discipline doesn’t make sense to each other, there is a problem. It begs the question: are these actually exponents of one and the same discipline? Is there even a common ground where they can meet?

TOWARDS A THEORY OF PRACTICE
From Legitimating to Understanding Practice

If the conclusion is that thinking cannot guide doing anymore, that theory doesn’t guide practice, what does? Human intelligence is based on two operations; abstracting knowledge from the world, generally known as learning, and projecting knowledge we have already obtained back on the world (this argument is elaborated by Jeff Hawkins in On Intelligence as the foundation of intelligence). Thus, ‘theorizing and practicing’ is synonymous with ‘constructing knowledge and applying knowledge’. Most bodies of knowledge are organized along these lines. Theorists are housed in academic institutions where the accumulation of knowledge is cherished and where it is disseminated among the students of the trade. Practitioners reside in the office, where one executes the trade. While knowledge may accumulate in the office, it often remains intangible and ephemeral because it travels in heads, not in books. In the office it’s all about applying knowledge. Where academia judges knowledge on originality, rigor, argumentation and referencing, practice is only interested in knowledge’s effects. Where the aim of knowledge in theory is truth, or let’s say ‘deeper understanding’, the aim of knowledge in the pragmatic world of practice is ‘usefulness’; it is only true and applicable if it works. Truth in pragmatism is not a moral construct where the virtuous ways to act exist isolated from reality in a metaphysical universe, the pragmatist truth is deeply intertwined with reality, its only touchstone. The abstract can only be true if it proves effective in dealing with reality.

Contemporary architecture theory doesn’t seem sincerely interested in the dirtiness, the messiness and opportunism of practice, or in what it is that architects actually ‘do’ (as investigated in Reyner Banham’s ‘Black Box’ essay, see below). Theory has the responsibility to make explicit what is implicit, to surface what is la tent. Theory should hold up a mirror to practice, making practitioners see more clearly what it is they actually do. Insight into one’s own private processes of design and activities of architectural conception is a prerequisite to progressing practice itself. Banham argued for the need to bring anthropological and sociological investigation into architectural culture.

The branch of theory that I would like to promote in architecture is the theory that seeks to understand phenomena, theories that are judged by their explanatory power. I’m interested in theory that pursues what is known in philosophy of science as verisimilitude, as popularized by Karl Popper. The informative and predictive power of theory is what counts, and this is how competing theories should be judged. To be clear, by no means do I want to suggest that we should convert architectural design to a science, or a science based discipline. Design is not a science, and it never will be, as there will always contradictory and ambiguous operations involved in its process.

Besides renewing the relationship between theory and practice for the reason of making theory relevant again for practice (and vice versa), there is also a necessity to taking this path. Before the ideological legitimations of practice that came with modernism, theory had a much more intimate relation with practice. The theories associated with the craft of architecture were deeply involved with production. They provided precedents, typology and proportion systems, but also explanations of how to carve stones and how to make wooden joints. I am not promoting a conservative argument for a return to some sort of rendering of a premodernist architectural craft, but rather a contemporary craft that has less to do with the ‘art of building’ and much more with the ‘design of building’. It has little to do with mastering the stylebook and the drafting table, but all the more with mastering the diagram and the computer (something which becomes quite evident when watching this). While the tools are not the same, and the ideas of the profession have shifted, architects are still extremely intimate with their tools, their processes, their thoughts, and how they turn them into reality.

There are so many very specific processes in architectural practice, and the hands-on experience in the studio is of the utmost importance. Especially now, when legitimation through grand narratives has evap orated, there is room to reconstitute confidence in practice by drafting a theory which is instrumental in obtaining a deeper understanding of practice, one that can provide architects with insight in their actions. When architects start building a deeper understanding of what it is that they’re doing, they can progress the architectural process, and with it architectural thinking. It could provide a solid ground from which architecture would engage and collaborate with other fields and disciplines more confidently, without becoming pseudo-professionals of those disciplines.

Ultimately, understanding informs doing. (Schön talks about our ‘repertoire’ that informs how we see and act in situations.) Architecture needs a theory of what it is that architects actually do, a theory that provides the architect with more insight into their practice and that creates a common ground on which practice and theory can interact productively.

A PRELIMINARY GUIDE TO WHAT ARCHITECTS ACTUALLY ‘DO’

Step 1: A Black Box: the Secret Profession of Architecture (1990) – Reyner Banham

In his last essay, Reyner Banham argues for an investigation into the ‘black box’ that produces architecture, stating we can’t find definitive answers about what architecture actually is by only studying its products. Banham argues that sociological and anthropological research into the black box’s content is needed to understand how architecture could be a discipline in its own right, different from the humanities and the sciences, and that we must articulate how the architectural mode is different from other modes of design or manufacturing.

Step 2: The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think in Action (1983) – Donald Schön

In The Reflective Practitioner, Donald Schön, a design researcher trained as philosopher, observed practicing architects and succeeds in describing ‘how designers think’ in a way that designers can actually recognize. Schön’s work is interesting because of the kind of categories he introduces, which are at once open and adaptable, and yet defined enough to have explanatory power for the entire design discipline. His theory, ‘reflection-in-action’ describes how professionals ’see’ and ‘do’ in certain situations similarly, not the same, as in situations in their ‘repertoire’. Consequently the ’situation’ and ‘talk back’ is re-framed accordingly; this process is then iterated. The differences in repertoire largely influence the differences in design process and output. Schön positions his theory in opposition to practice being, guided by a theory of technological rationality.

Step 3: On Intelligence (2004) – Jeff Hawkins

Jeff Hawkins, a computer architect turned neurologist, is interested in making truly intelligent machines, but believes one can only do so when we understand how the brain produces intelligence. He states that in the cognitive sciences, intelligence is judged by the wrong parameter: behavior. To Hawkins, behavior is simply a manifestation of what intelligence really is, and puts forward a theory that intelligence is determined by prediction. According to him, the brain makes continuous predictions about the world it sees through its senses. It makes these predictions by analogy to the past, what is already stored in our memory. Hawkins’ theory shows many parallels with Schön’s ‘reflection-in-action’, which give Schön’s observations of practice additional grounding. Hawkins’ theory also opens up other avenues for theoretical research of practice.

! - These are mostly ‘my’ first steps (which you’ve probably seen before when you follow this blog). Books that I’ve experienced as very useful in discovering what architects actually ‘do’. I’m curious what you would add to this list, which books, movies, lectures, posts, … have been useful in providing you insight in what you ‘do’ as architect.

When I read this quote I think “Ah, this describes what designers do! This is a description of design thinking, This is an important facet of a designerly way of looking at the world, this is a tenet of architectural intelligence” The only thing that is defined from the outset of an architectural project is a site, a program, a budget and a client - this is the case from which the architect has to abstract the arguments for his/her actions. One can draw parallels from this description to how Donald Schön explains how the practitioner deals with a situation; the architect has to construct an argument, the design of architectural form, which takes advantage of a set of perceived and carefully selected features found in the situation, things that are there from the outset.

* - The quote above doesn’t come from a design researcher, it Aristotle’s who describes the art of rhetoric 350 BC. According to Aristotle the rhetoric faculty consists of sharp observation of a situation and perceiving what can be useful in constructing an argument, and the invention of the argument itself, in what way to deliver it, communicate it. To this date his Ars Rhetorica is the authoritive work on rhetoric. Rhetorica consists of ethos, phatos and logos.

(1) the speaker’s power of evincing a personal character which will make his speech credible (ethos );
(2) his power of stirring the emotions of his hearers (pathos );
(3) his power of proving a truth, or an apparent truth, by means of persuasive arguments (logos )

! - Note that the goal of rhetoric is persuasion, not truth, when the audience is convinced the rhetoric has reached is goal. Rhetoric itself is morally neutral and can be wielded by good as well as evil.

Since architecture cannot be ‘true’ or ‘false’ but more or less persuasive, rhetorical reasoning is akin to reasoning in architecture.
There are two basic kinds of argument one can make in Rhetoric, I would like to illustrate with an architectural example. One is the ‘Enthymeme’ which is the rhetorical version of deduction. The other the argument by `Example’ which is the rhetorical version of induction. The example has two varieties “one consisting on the mention of actual facts, the other in the invention of facts by the speaker” All examples consist of drawing analogies between real or invented situations and the situation in the point one wants to make. “all you require is the power of thinking out your analogy, a power developed by intellectual training”

The Hokusai Wave / The Example

An architectural illustration of the example, the rhetorical induction, would be Alejandro Zaera-Polo’s tale of the Hokusai Wave, which occurred to him when working on the Yokohama International Port Terminal.

Katsushika Hokusai, The Great wave at Kanagawa (from a series of thirty-six views of Mount Fuji)

Yokohama International Port Terminal designed by Alejandro Zaera-Polo’s office FOA

“It started, actually, ten years ago in one of those episodes that radically change one’s perception of reality. Faced with a full press conference in the Yokohama City Hall, circa February 1995, we had to explain what it was we were trying to do in our newly awarded Yokohama Competition project. Faithful to our doctrine, fine tuned through years of academic practice, we proceeded to explain the circulation diagrams, the geometric transformations, and the con- struction technologies that were involved in the project, hoping that the audience would have enough patience to wait for the emergence of the project. Halfway through the presentation, we started to notice the blank expression of the public in the room – a clear indicator that the message was not coming across (this was to become a very common experience during our evolutionldots). After a few minutes of cold sweat, an image that was carefully edited from the project’s discourse but still floating somewhere in the back of our minds came suddenly to our rescue. It was the Hokusai Wave, a drawing from a local painter that we had been toying with while we indulged in geometric manipulations and construction hypotheses during the design phase of the competition entry. In a sudden – and risky – burst of inspiration, we terminated the factual process narrative to conclude that what really inspired us was the image of Hokusai’s Wave (see Figure ref{hokusai} ed.). The room exploded in an exclamation of sincere relief: `Aaaahhhldots!’ and we left the room, still sweating and grateful for that moment of lucidity, and with the clear realization that something wasn’t quite working in our carefully crafted discourse.”
- Zaera-Polo, Volume #3, 2005

When Zaera-Polo explains that the design ‘is like’ the Hokusai Wave he strikes a chord with his audience. The example allows his audience to suddenly read the design in a for them familiar context. Zeara-Polo discovers something that Aristotle already wrote about: “It is this simplicity that makes the uneducated more effective than the educated when addressing popular audiences — makes them, as the poets tell us, `charm the crowd’s ears more finely.’ Educated men lay down broad general principles; uneducated men argue from common knowledge and draw obvious conclusions.” Beside the persuasive use of the Hokusai Wave, the example was not completely invented, as they ‘had been toying with it while they indulged in geometric manipulations and construction hypotheses during the design phase’ so it was also part of the design process itself (well for the sake of the argument let’s take Zaera-Polo’s word for it).

After the discovery of the `Hokusai Wave principle’ as useful in more ways than just `toying’ with it in the design process, Zaera-Polo explains that they more consciously started to work with this phenomena, which he later calls ‘form with a double agenda’:

“Paradoxically, this strategy, originally devised to respond to commercial demands, became the foundation of a series of commissions for local authorities, most of them in Spain. Short-circuiting our conventional arsenal of diagrams and constructive solutions with locally resonant iconographies became a very effective technique to territorialize our constructed foreignness and connect with local agents. Local iconographies became a perfect excuse to naturalize materials and geometries that would have been otherwise vulnerable to budget cuts or political uncertainty. Moreover, iconography helped us accelerate the identification of traits from our usually hypertrophied site and program analysis in order to provide a formal argument for the projects. Iconographies did not precede the material investigation but rather emerged as viable figures from our immersion in each project’s analysis. We would collect general material about local customs and iconographies and keep that information on the table while we did site analysis and programmatic diagrams. We knew that a project was structured when a formal correlation started resonating between them.”
- Zaera-Polo, Volume #3, 2005

I would read ‘Short-circuiting our conventional arsenal of diagrams and constructive solutions with locally resonant iconographies became a very effective technique to territorialize our constructed foreignness and connect with local agents’ as an academic way of saying ‘ We discovered that integrating local images is a successful rhetorical move in persuading the local public’.

Seattle Central Library / The Enthymeme

The Enthymeme is as Aristotle calls it, a rhetorical syllogism. A syllogism is a kind of logical argument in which one proposition (the conclusion) is inferred from two others (the premises), the syllogism lies at the core of deductive reasoning. The rhetorical syllogism known as: “The enthymeme must consist of few propositions, fewer often than those which make up the normal syllogism. For if any of these propositions is a familiar fact, there is no need even to mention it; the hearer adds it himself.”(Aristotle) Deductive reasoning in rhetoric is a performative form of reasoning, aimed at effect, and tailored to an audience. An architect will explain his project differently in a pitch to a client than he will to his peers on a conference. Depending on the audience one can leave out steps and propositions in the line of argument, since the concern is if the point gets made with a specific audience. The facts that are at the architects’ disposal are the site, the briefing and an assessment of the complete situation (politically, economically, etc) in which his design endeavour has to take place. To these external facts he adds propositions of his own and constructs arguments, why his design should be one way or the other. The propositions used to make an enthymeme, have a special character, for they are not necessarily true, but they are generally true, commonplace or accepted truths for a specific audience. These kinds of propositions are ‘Maxims’. “It is a statement; not a particular fact, (…) but of a general kind; nor is it about any and every subject.”

As an example:

There is no man in all things prosperous,

and

There is no man among us all is free,

are maxims; but the latter, taken with what follows it, is an Enthymeme

For all are slaves of money or of chance

(Aristotle)

An architectural illustration of the enthymeme is beautifully given by Joshua Prince-Ramus in a lecture in 2006 at TED. Joshua Prince-Ramus worked as the U.S partner of O.M.A on the Seattle Central Library (and now has his own firm, REX). What follows is an edited transcription from the lecture where he lays down the argument for the design of the Seattle Central Library (SCL).

Joshua Prince-Ramus:

“I’m gonna build up the SCL before your eyes in five or six diagrams, and I truly mean this is the design process that you’ll see.”

source: (OMA,1999)

“Books have to share attention with other media of potent performance and attraction”

“This diagram was our position piece about the book, and our position was: ‘books are technology’, that is something people forget. It’s a form of technology that will have to share it’s dominance with any other form of truly potent technology or media.”

source: (OMA,1999)

“The Library has been transformed from a space to read into a social center with multiple responsibilities”

“The second premise, and this was something that was very difficult of convincing the librarians of at first, that libraries since the inception of the Carnegie library tradition in America, have a second responsibility and that is for social roles. Something about which the librarians at first said: `this isn’t our mandate, our mandate is media and particularly the book’.”

From this transcription we can take the first maxim that: Books are a form of technology that will have to share it’s dominance with any other form of truly potent technology or media.

The second maxim is that: Libraries have the responsibility to take on social roles.

“Flexibility in recent libraries - San Francisco, Denver, Phoenix - has been conceived as the creation of floors on which almost any library activity can happen. Programs are not separated, rooms or individual spaces not given unique character. In practice, it means that the bookshelves define generous reading areas at the opening, then expand inexorably to encroach on public space. Ultimately, in this form of flexibility, the Library strangles its own attractions.”

source: (OMA,1999)

“A more plausible strategy divides the building into spatial compartments dedicated to and equipped for specific duties. Flexibility can exist within each section, but not at the expense of any of the other compartments… Change is possible by deliberately redefining use, rededicating compartments to new programs. (Cf. the LA Library, where the main reading room was successfully transformed into a children’ s library.)”

source: (OMA,1999)

The diagrams demonstrating the ‘high-modernist flexibitlity’ vs. ‘compartmentalised flexibility’ argument (a refutative enthymeme supported by examples)

“The upper diagram is what we’ve seen in whole host of contemporary libraries that used high-modernist flexibility, so any activity could happen anywhere. The high modernist would say: ‘we don’t know the future of the library, we don’t know the future of the book, so we’ll use this approach,’ and what we saw were building that were very generic, and worse not only did the reading room look like the copy room, look like the magazine area. It meant that whatever issue was troubling the library at that moment was starting to engulf any other activity happening in it, and what was getting engulfed by the expansion of the book, were these social responsibilities.”

“So we propose what is at the lower diagram, a `very dumb’ approach, simply compartmentalise. Put those things what evolution we could predict -and I don’t mean that we’ll say what will actually happen in the future, but we have some certainty of the spectrum of what would happen in the future- put those in boxes designed specifically for it, and put the things we can’t predict on their roof tops. So that was the core idea.”

What happens here is that two lines of argument are contrasted to make one stand out as the right proposition or solution. This is what Aristotle calls a refutative enthymeme which is formed by the conjunction of two incompatible propositions. What is done here is that the proposed solution, `compartmentalized flexibility’ stands out as in favor of protecting ‘the responsibilities for social roles for the library’ in contrast with the high-modernist proposition.

But the librarians weren’t convinced yet in the first place, that these `social roles’ were part of their mandate.

Joshua Prince-Ramus continues:

source: (OMA,1999)
The first step (left) the redigestion of the program showing that a third of the program is for books (the blue area). The second step (right): “combining like with like, we have identified five platforms”

“Now we had to convince the library, that social roles were equally important to media in order to get them to accept this. What you’re seeing here is actually their program on the left, that is as it was given to us in all its clarity and glory (see left in figure ed.). Our first operation was to re-digest it and show it to them and say: ‘we haven’t touched it, but only one third of your own program is dedicated to media and books, two-thirds of it is already dedicated -that is the white band below- that what you said isn’t important, is already dedicated to social functions (see second bar from the left in figure ref{bars} ed.). Once we had presented that back to them they agreed that this core concept could work. We got the right to go back to first principles, the third diagram, that re-combined everything. (see thrid bar from the left in figure ed.) Then we started making new decisions, what you see is the design of the library (see on far right in figure ed.), specifically in the terms of square-footage, on the right of that diagram, you’ll see a series of five platforms, combed collective programs, and on the right the more indeterminate spaces, things like reading rooms, who’s evolution in 20, 30, 40 years we can’t predict. So that literally was the design of the building. We came back a week later and presented them this.”

source: (OMA,1999)
One of the proposal models of SCL

source: (OMA,1999)
Schematic section indicating programmatic entities as a ‘figure-ground reversal’

This is the general argument for the overall scheme. Prince-Ramus continues to explain more about why other manipulations in the form, the facade, floorplans, etc. have been done, but I won’t dwell on that further. The architectural illustration of the enthymeme in this case is more that sufficient.

Both in Zaera-Polo and Prince-Ramus’ case they are involved in a public presentation, they have to explain to an audience or they are negotiating with their clients. While in their respective stories the arguments are clear, we have to be careful in seeing these stories as direct representations of the design process. What we can say is that they both are consciously working towards making the rhetorical argument for their design proposals as strong as possible and as Zaera-Polo explains well in his piece, the consciousness of these rhetoric effects start to have their repercussions on the design process itself, so working towards a rhetorically strong design that performs well in front of different audiences. Prince-Ramus talks about “A hyper-rational process. It’s a process that takes rationality to almost an absurd level, it transcends all the baggage that normally comes with what people sort of would call a rational conclusion to something. It concludes in something that you see here (shows a photograph of SCL ed.), that you wouldn’t normally expect as the result of rationality.” While the argument as Prince-Ramus unfolds it is clear, one can be very critical about the conclusion.

The conclusion could still result in a building other than the one they proposed. That the combed program diagram literally translates into the boxes with program on their rooftops seems obvious, but this is very much dependent on the chosen modes of representation that are used with building up the argument.

If one had represented the program as a bubble diagram or a pie-chart would the building than be a huge bubble composition or a giant pie? And even if we stick with the combed bar diagram, why would one read it as section, and not as a plan, since the bar surface represents square footage floor surface, not volume or wall-surface. While rhetorically this works quite well, it is by no means a logical consequence of the premises Prince-Ramus states.

The crux in this situation is that there are images involved to represent ideas, propositions and objective data. This is where the magic happens as Prince-Ramus cleverly demonstrates. Because while a certain image maybe perfectly able to convey a point, the choice of a certain image also `secretly’ or implicitly determines the direction of the `argument’ towards a certain design scheme. The choice for a certain image to represent a certain idea or data isn’t based on a rational argument in the first place, how images are used is influenced by conventions, habits, cultural notions, but not by strict rules. Just like picking a certain way to represent something, that same representation is open to interpretation and manipulation, independently from the intentions of certain representation (if you could even speak of representations ‘having intentions of themselves’). These manipulations practically always remain below the radar and are unconsciously accepted as logical by the audience, this is why the use of manipulation and the use of images can be so powerful when used consciously and intelligently.

This arena, that of reasoning with images, is where a specific architectural mode of reasoning comes into play. C.S.Pierce refers to this way of reasoning as diagrammatic reasoning. I’ll make a more elaborate post on this later, but to give a super short cut explanation; Pierce’s defines the diagram as an ‘image’ (he talks of an icon) on top of a system of representation. For example the written English language. Letters and words are images, these images can only be understood if you have internalized the system of representation of English, in other words the English syntax, grammar, etc. Having internalized a system of representation allows us to read words, maps, make calculations. For architects have internalized the systems of representation of reading plan, section, elevation, construction drawings. I can’t read Chinese, because I never internalized (i.e. learned) its system, but I can see the image, and read a character as the plan of a building. So while images and systems of representation belong to each other, these relations can be manipulated by the mind. This is a move often done by architects, they choose to read one image with the system of representation of another. This is also exactly what happens when the program bar diagram is manipulated and read as the section of Seattle Central Library building, it is an instance of finding something new through diagrammatic reasoning.

More on Pierce’s Diagrammatic Reasoning next time!

A new book, The Fall of the Studio: Artists at Work, examines through a collection of essays the changing role of the artists’ studio as sacred space of creative genesis. Edited by Wouter Davidts and Kim Paice, psychedelic-ly designed by Metahaven, and published by the new imprint of Valiz called ‘antennae’, which seeks to “pinpoint certain phenomena or new lines of thought in art, photography, architecture or design.”

A highlight here is the contribution focussed on the Danish artist Olafur Eliasson by Philip Ursprung, whose controversial and critical position is boldly announced by the title ‘Narcissistic Studio’.

Eliasson is probably my favourite contemporary artist, measured both by his prolific and wide-ranging exhibited output, the particular subjects of his exploration (optics, geometry, perception), but mainly because of the mythical qualities of the studio that produced them.

I had heard from friends in Berlin that he hired lots of architects, that they were generously given space and time to conduct their own research and experimentation, and that the studio itself functioned more like a community than a place of work; with a chef cooking lunches, and regular internal seminars to stimulate ideas. As an architect exhausted by the monotony and stress of office life, this sounded like somewhere I could even enjoy. More than this, being an artists’ studio, it appeared to offer a greater connection to the world of making, as the various artefacts are literally constructed by the studio, and not simply described in drawings to be handed off to builders.

And Ursprung’s essay largely confirms this. We are told that in addition to artists and architects, Studio Olafur Eliasson includes blacksmiths, carpenters, furniture builders, geometricians, electrical engineers, graphic designers, model makers and historians; making it a genuinely cross-disciplinary workshop and laboratory for ideas. Although Ursprung likens the studio to a medium-sized architect’s office, managerially it is importantly different, as “Eliasson does not act as his collaborators’ superior, but rather as a kind of ‘client’ who approaches them with ideas for projects and asks how they might be realized.” This offers them “more freedom to carry out their own investigations and experiments than they would have, by contrast, in an architect’s studio.”

This image is further reinforced by the self-published and freely downloadable publication Take Your Time, a booklet of 100 images of the studio and all its diverse creative production. We see people welding small geodesic spheres, screen-grabs of complex geometric structures, serious machinery for all sorts of material manipulation, staff enjoying informal debates (and of course lunch), process images and full-scale prototypes of various sculptures in development, and people seated at computers, like that of a more traditional design office. In the background, we frequently see the master, watching, contemplating, instructing and directing. Eliasson is presented not as a controlling authoritative figure, assigning tasks to his employ, but as an equal participant in the collective cultural endeavour he has brought into being.

But it would seem that all is not rosy in this creative utopia.

As a subtle prelude to the analytical section of the essay, Ursprung hints at an intrinsic conflict within Eliasson’s studio, by stating that he “has been employing between fifteen to fifty collaborators.” OK, hold on a minute, you don’t employ collaborators. You work with collaborators on equal terms. You employ staff. This is a critical distinction in the hierarchical structure of the office with direct implications on issues of authorship and financial incentive. Collaborators share in both the risk and reward of any undertaking, both financially and in terms of associated reputation, good or bad. Staff, in contrast, trade this possibility of reward for security and insulation from personal criticism. If an Eliasson show bombs, he is the one who has to face the music, not those who made the work.

It is at these contradictions in the so-called ‘collaborative’, ‘community’ and ‘cross-disciplinary’ structure that Ursprung levels his aim. To quote him at length:

“The artist intends to overcome the separation of practices that is typical of today’s economy and, by consequence, of today’s realm of art, art history, design and architecture. But the studio is not an organic research community, in truth. Notwithstanding the rhetoric of teamwork and its participatory and collaborative structures, and despite the fact that some publications merely bear the imprint of Studio Olafur Eliasson, it remains clear that Eliasson is the sole author. The collaborators are paid employees whose job it is to produce surplus value. […] Eliasson successfully exploits the key rule of any bureaucratic power structure, whether it be the Roman Empire or today’s globalised economy: Divide et impera, divide and rule. As long as every practice is limited to its spatiality and absorbed in its self reflection, it can be easily controlled and manipulated.”

(Aside: It is important here to note Ursprung’s intimate relationship with the Eliasson enterprise. As author of the Taschen-published Studio Olafur Eliasson: An Encyclopedia, the most comprehensive and monumental tome dedicated to the work of the artist, Ursprung is far from being a detached observer. And that’s perhaps what makes his critique all the more interesting. Is he biting the hand that feeds? Or has he finally seen through the rouse?)

This ‘manipulation’ occurs not only on the level of the staff, but also in the mechanisms for controlling the studio’s perception from the outside. One example of this is the ‘Life in Space 3’ symposium, featuring guests and studio members invited into the space to investigate “the relation between models and reality” in a day long programme.

Speakers included Mark Wigley, Daniel Birnbaum, Felicity Scott, Einar Thorsteinn, Bart Lootsma among others, speaking on topics as diverse as the ‘moral perception of the colour orange’ and ‘fivefold symmetry’. The published guestlist included superstars of art, architecture and theory: Beatriz Colomina, Thomas Demand, Juan Herreros, Sanford Kwinter, Detlef Mertins, Ilka and Andreas Ruby, and Lars Müller. Videos and a publication with transcriptions of all the presentations are available on the artists’ website, creating a fantastic archive of ideas and discussion.

However, it is also fairly easy to be sceptical of this endeavour as nothing more than an ego-fest of attention on Eliasson himself. In the introductory video he states his aim to focus on the studio as subject of discussion: “what we are trying to achieve is not talking about something which is not here” (read: ‘lets just talk about me’.) Indeed, the seminar and the views produced in it, are conceived as an artistic artefact itself, a “co-productive act of the artists’ studio.” By including these international figures in this production, and encouraging them to discuss the work of the office in the space it is created, they are deprived of their analytical distance, and inevitably lean toward praise. In addition, as the seminar, publication and videos are a product of the Eliasson studio, it allows the studio to selectively edit the message, and rigorously control how it is presented.

While Eliasson projects himself as a democratic enabler, he may conversely be closer to an autocratic dictator. This gaping void between these two Eliassons is sharply articulated by Ursprung:

“Diametrically opposed to the image of Eliasson as a quasi-romantic artist, with deep roots in the Scandinavian welfare state and the ideology of community and participation, stands the image of Eliasson as the smart research manager and artistic entrepreneur embedded in the networks of globalised economy, who is eager to expand his influence. The studio, I would argue, is the vital tool with which Eliasson successfully balances those divergent images and succeeds in pleasing almost everyone.”

Where I hope to expand on Ursprung’s argument, is to suggest that this rigorous control of the perception of the man and the studio is a key characteristic of Eliasson’s artistic production and research themes. Eliasson’s entire practice is about perception. He is foremost interested in how the eye and the brain interpret information – like light, colour, shape, texture and scale – and more specifically, the gaps between what is real and what is perceived.

A trademark piece in this regard is the ‘Afterimage’ series. An afterimage is a universal optical phenomena produced by focusing upon a projection of a particular colour for a number of seconds, allowing the viewer’s eye to adjust, at which point the projection is switched off, leaving the complimentary colour imprinted on the retina of the viewer. You see the opposite colour, something which is not really there, and nor has it ever existed.

This phenomenological sleight-of-hand is a useful metaphor for the dual realities of the projected image that is Eliasson and his studio. What exists is a “research manager and entrepreneur”, yet what we see is the “quasi-romantic artist”. The studio itself, conceived as a creative artefact of the Eliasson brand, could easily form part of his ‘Afterimage’ series. We have been tricked into seeing something which is not really there. The question is, how long can he keep up the illusion? When will our eyes adjust, and see this studio for what it really is?

This isn’t about whether ‘collaborative is good’ or ‘hierarchical is bad’, but the slippery notion of honesty. Is it a problem that the Eliasson studio and its organisational structure purports to be something it is not? There is clearly no problem with the work; in fact, the incredibly prolific output of the studio may only be possible under this strict managerial regime. Could the studio be better if they acknowledged this autocratic reality? Probably not. But what if they engaged in genuine collaboration, with the associated shared responsibility and reward? Possibly, although it could also be argued that the art world requires and demands a singular author/brand to attach to these projects and exhibitions. Despite the massive teams of staff and assistants that actually create the works of any contemporary artist of Eliasson’s stature, the concept of a factory or production house is thought to perhaps tarnish the impression that each work is a personal creation direct from the masters’ hand. We as the collective audience of consumers regard this as simpler and more palatable than dealing with the complex notions of distributed authorship or the grubby engagement with the market economy.

While it’s easier to believe the illusion, as Eliasson himself admits, “it’s quite liberating to understand reality as a construction.”

All images of the studio from the Take Your Time pdf.

Although one has to acknowledge a certain naivety behind this idea, it is non the less very appealing, especially for a designer, or well … an architect like myself. Thinking about design as a universal problem solving method radically enlarges the arena for design and provides the design discipline with a sense of authority. It provides a credibility to the discipline that is instrumental in getting designer involved in projects at a point where the fundamental decisions are made, instead of calling designers in to only deal with the cosmetics of a project. One has to read the efforts of IDEO and Bruce Nussbaum in this light, as advocating for a design discipline that is more involved at the moments and places where it matters and where it can make a significant impact. Beside propagating design thinking to businesses, selling the design way of thinking as universally applicable, provides design with a legitimization for engaging with fields that are normally well beyond their reach, beyond the confines of the design discipline. This is something also propagated in the Volume’s opening issue (#1) under the term ‘Architectural Intelligence’ and there is also some of this attitude present in the “Office for Unsolicited Architecture” issue (#14). I think these ideas bear fruit, but suffer from overestimation, but that’s what usally happens when one advocates something, it quickly turns into a one dimensional argument.

I would like to point out a few problems I have with the current discourse around design thinking:

Design as problem-solving
The underlying paradigm of what “design” actually is in the “Design Thinking” school, is that it is synonymous with problem-solving. This is a limited view of design, and a problematic one. First of all what does it mean to solve a problem? In design there is not one possible answer to a certain question, there are a lot, see the architectural competition as example. Also one can always question whether any problem is permanently solvable, especially when its problems have a socio-economical dimension, these are known as wicked problems. (see Rittel, Webber - “Dilemmas in a General Theory of Planning”) The term problem solving sounds too absolutist. How many solutions from 50 years ago are regarded as the root of today’s problems? The more design becomes technical and a from engineering in which the criteria are technical as well, where the margins of error are so small that solutions can be measured in absolute dimensions, in this sense there is a relation between problem and solution that becomes traceable. Design has a huge cultural component, often the problem is artificial, or invented by the designer themselves and is connected more to a cultural zeitgeist than anything else. In what way can we talk about the brief for a project in terms of a problem? A problem is something undesired that needs to be resolved, but the brief is defined as a wish-list not a problem definition. The brief inspires a projection of the future, and over the course of a design process there surely is problem-solving going on, but it’s mainly a problem-solving cycle that deals with ones own invented or perceived problems, which is legitimate, but one has to acknowledge that problems are not absolute. Design is a discipline but not a scientific one!

Design as innovation
Another paradigm underlying “design” in design thinking is the one of progress, that design is instrumental in improving our lives, society and the whole world basically. The term “innovation” embodies the believe that the new is better, that technology will improve our lives, its propelled by the assumptions that science, rationality and efficiency will move the world to a better place. It’s a very technocratic conception of design, one that fits perfectly in our capitalist society. Innovation and problem-solving are two branches that grow from the same tree.

Design thinking doesn’t tell us much about thinking.
The “thinking” in design thinking, doesn’t really deal with explaining the thinking in design, it only scratches the surface of what design thinking is really about. Design thinking as propagated by IDEO and Nussbaum is mostly deals with methodology, process, ‘how-to,’ it doesn’t deal with how design thinking actually works. Usually cases are brought forward of how a typical design approach has been successful in tackling a problem, but from this we don’t learn how thoughts unfold in the design process, how thinking unfolds. Thus design thinking currently deals with describing behavior, symptoms, the consequence of thoughts but not what design thinking consists of itself. It is much like how the Turning Test for testing if a machine is intelligent or not doesn’t tell us anything about what intelligence itself actually is, it only shows that a machine can behave as a human does! But this tells us nothing about the nature of intelligence itself (John Searle’s ‘Chinese Room‘ thought experiment effectively exposes this flaw of the Turing Test)

Especially this last part intrigues me, i’m interested in how designer have their own rationality, how a design can have its own rationality. Just like a mathematician can say this equation is false, an architects can say, this detail doesn’t make sense in the overall concept of the building. Apparently design choices can be more or less right or wrong, within the network of choices made during the design process, while at the same time all most of the choices are more or less arbitrary! intriguing isn’t it!? What is this kind of logic that is operative in design? What is this intelligence that seems irrational but gives enough foundation for making a choice? What mode of reasoning is at work here?

I researched these questions in my graduation work, which consisted of a comparative literature research of three perspective on “reasoning in architecture“, although the findings are relevant to all design disciplines> The three perspectives come from three authors, from three different fields:

Donald A. Schön (1930-1997) a design researcher, but trained as philosopher who succeeded in describing ‘how designers think’ in a way that designers actually recognize themselves. Shön’s work is interesting because of the categories he introduces. These are fundamental descriptions of how a designer engages in the design activity. His categories are open but still defined enough for designers to recognise the fundamental process they are involved in. It describes an iterative process, but does not specify tasks, design phases or steps from beginning to end. It’s not a method for how-to think, it’s provides insight in how thinking works in design. Schön theory is presented in his book The Reflective Practitioner (1983)

Jeff Hawkins (1957) is a computer architect turned neurologist. He is interested in making truly intelligent machines, but believes one can only do so when we understand how the brain produces intelligence. He states that in the cognitive sciences intelligence is judged by the wrong parameter: behaviour. According to Hawkins this is only a manifestation of what intelligence really is, behaviour is but the surface. Hawkins puts forward a theory that intelligence is determined by prediction. According to him the brain makes continuous predictions about the world it ’sees’ through its senses. It makes this predictions by analogy to the past, to what is already stored in our memory. Hawkins theory in presented in his book On Intelligence (2004) You can watch a lecture by Hawkins on TED and here if you want to get in a bit deeper.

Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914) was a philosopher, logician and mathematician. Peirce was interested in where new ideas came from, how the mind was able to put forward fruitful ideas, and in that way it was instrumental in the development of knowledge. Peirce believed that deductive and inductive reasoning were not adequate in describing how this worked, thus Peirce developed a third mode of reasoning, abduction, with which he tried to clarify processes of invention and discovery. Another theory of Peirce is also of importance more specifically for the work of architects, that of diagrammatic reasoning. He developed the concept of diagrammatic reasoning in the context of explaining creativity in mathematics, but it also gives us a deeper insight in how architects reason through making drawings and models. Because like mathematics also architectural design is mediated activity. Peirce’s theories were developed over his entire career, publishing many papers and articles. For this research the explanation of Peirce’s theories is based on the readings of Michael H. G. Hoffmann and Sami Paavola.

Besides these main protagonists, Aristotle’s Rhetoric plays a significant role in describing the nature of reasoning in architectural design.

What all these authors have in common is that they deal with developing a framework for the fundamental elements and processes of creative thought, by naming them, formalizing and theorizing these they open up a possibility of discourse on these ideas. I’ll elaborate the theories these men have put forward later, for now I’ll leave you with a quote:

“. . . in speaking of logic, we do not need to be concerned with processes of inference at all. While it is true that a great deal of what is generally understood to be logic is concerned with deduction, logic in the widest sense, refers to something far more general. It is concerned with the form of abstract structures, and is involved the moment we make pictures of reality and then seek to manipulate these pictures so that we may look further into the reality itself. It is the business of logic to invent purely artificial structures of elements and relations.” (Christopher Alexander, Notes on the Synthesis of Form, 1964)