language and metaphor: conversations of language...
TRANSCRIPT
LANGUAGE AND METAPHOR: CONVERSATIONS OF LANGUAGE AND MEANING IN ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN
By
JOHN LEVI WIEGAND
A THESIS PRESENTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT
OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF SCIENCE ARCHITECTURAL STUDIES
UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA
2018
© 2018 John Levi Wiegand
To ABW and RGW
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Special thanks to thesis chairs Dr. Hui Zou and Nina Hofer. Your time and
patience has helped me to find a voice. The verdict is still out if it is mine. In addition, I
thank the University of Florida, School of Architecture. The support, recognition, and
preparation given to the Pedagogy Program is felt throughout the school. Lastly, I would
like to thank my fellow pedagogy students. You are the best of the best. It is a privilege
to learn from you.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS page
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS .................................................................................................. 4
LIST OF FIGURES .......................................................................................................... 7
ABSTRACT ..................................................................................................................... 8
CHAPTER
1 INTRODUCTION TO LANGUAGE AND ARCHITECTURE .................................... 10
Foreword ................................................................................................................. 10 Four Categories of Normative Language in Architecture ........................................ 11
Precision ........................................................................................................... 12 Narrative ........................................................................................................... 15 Program ............................................................................................................ 18 Critique ............................................................................................................. 20
2 ARCHITECTURE BEGETS LANGUAGE AND LANGUAGE BEGETS ARCHITECTURE .................................................................................................... 23
Narration 1 .............................................................................................................. 23 Overlapping Morphologies in the Development of Architecture and Language ...... 25
The House and Conversation ........................................................................... 27 The Well and Poetry ......................................................................................... 29 The Wall, Philosophy and Debate: ................................................................... 31 The Tower and Perspective .............................................................................. 34 The Road and Law ........................................................................................... 36 The Theater and Conclusion ............................................................................ 38
3 MEANING, METONYMY, AND METAPHOR .......................................................... 39
Narration 2 .............................................................................................................. 39 Addressing Architectural Meaning as a Study of Figural Language ........................ 42
Metonymy ......................................................................................................... 46 Metaphors in Architecture ................................................................................. 48
4 LANGUAGE AS THE COLONIZER OF DESIGN STUDIO ..................................... 54
Narration 3 .............................................................................................................. 54 The Application of Language in Design Pedagogy ................................................. 57
Naming ............................................................................................................. 60 Reframing ......................................................................................................... 61 Mapping ............................................................................................................ 62 Escaping ........................................................................................................... 63
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Daydreams and Consequences of Broken Language in Design ...................... 65 Conclusions ...................................................................................................... 69
APPENDIX FIGURES ................................................................................................... 71
LIST OF REFERENCES ............................................................................................... 81
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH ............................................................................................ 84
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LIST OF FIGURES
Figure page A-1 Typical Door Schedule ....................................................................................... 71
A-2 Iterative Project ................................................................................................... 71
A-3 UF SOA “matrix” project ..................................................................................... 72
A-4 Narrative Project ................................................................................................. 73
A-5 Sequential Language Application and Spatial Morphologies .............................. 73
A-6 Naming ............................................................................................................... 74
A-7 Reframing ........................................................................................................... 75
A-8 Mapping .............................................................................................................. 76
A-9 Escaping ............................................................................................................. 77
A-10 Dysphasia ........................................................................................................... 78
A-11 Dysarthria ........................................................................................................... 79
A-12 Stuttering ............................................................................................................ 79
A-13 Disfluency ........................................................................................................... 80
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Abstract of Thesis Presented to the Graduate School of the University of Florida in Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree of Master of Science in Architectural Studies
LANGUAGE AND METAPHOR: CONVERSATIONS OF LANGUAGE AND MEANING IN ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN
By
John Levi Wiegand May 2018
Chair: Hui Zou Major: Architecture
Within the current architectural environments of philosophy, theory, instruction,
and practice, designers tend to neglect language as a design technique. The neglect is
not resultant from lack of use, but rather from unexplored possibilities and habitual
patterns of normative use. Designers are aware of the poetic potential and the
pragmatic function but focus on the two as equal; rather than contextual. This research
seeks to reflect on the task of language as a descriptor, prompter, and qualifier of
design. By collecting conversations with a speech-language pathologist and using them
to encourage discourse on language attributes and their metaphorical associations with
architecture, this thesis pinpoints the most fertile opportunities for language to affect
design and design pedagogy.
Through better understanding of language sciences and language components,
the designer is able to make new bridges between discipline, practice, and client.
Design becomes research by investigating language character through content, form,
and use. Theoretical conclusions from thinkers like Jacques Derrida, Paul Ricouer,
Ferdinand de Saussure, and Maurice Merleau-Ponty help stitch together the language -
architecture narrative.
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The coupling of language and architecture returns the creative act to its origins
and brings new meaning to the creative intent of language through design. In addition,
the study of the language used in design studio circumscribes the semantic context of
design and points us toward a deeper linguistic reading of the intersubjective intentions
of design, building, and human dwelling.
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CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION TO LANGUAGE AND ARCHITECTURE
Foreword
Before diving into the nest of language and architecture, I want to take a moment
to describe the context from which the writing stems. I am an architectural graduate
student, designer, and suffer from a chronic need to find the meaning or supply a
framework to every situation of architectural design. My wife is a writer and a speech-
language pathologist. Almost nightly we have conversations which turn to words: their
meaning, how to communicate, and “how to pinpoint the words and convey the intent as
well as the action?” These conversations are layered in my design dialogue and her
professional jargon. Through these conversations we find similarities. Teaching
individuals to make sounds and architectural students to make spaces are not so
different. The acquisition of language mirrors the development of spatial-thought
awareness. Together we overlap into a new mindset, combining the vocabularies of the
linguist and the designer.
Bounded with culture, context, and profession, language is the great unifier of our
modes to communicate and live. It is a link between systems of thought and expertise.
The thesis is not intended to summarize Jacques Derrida, Paul Ricoeur or others’
philosophical theories on language, but rather presents a series of conversations on the
theoretical framework of language and design in architectural pedagogy. It is a
collection of ideas, growing from the real context and experience of architectural studio
pedagogy. It is an attempt to put into words those things that we share in architectural
studio culture. The thesis attempts to build a bridge and reveal a theoretical depth for
those outside the design profession to have discourse with those inside the profession,
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especially for those within to challenge the normative use of language by applying
thought-language to experience of the built environment; to name and to use language
in design process.
Each subsequent chapter begins with a narrated event. These narratives exist as
translations of real dialogue, real events, and real conversations from my own collection
of experience. Abstracted or transformed, they become the prompts for drawing
conclusion and limiting the scope of the chapter. While these do represent real
conversations, I have taken liberties to obscure identities and exaggerated where
needed to more quickly drive toward a point. The character and voice of the players and
the context of the situation are maintained. The body of the text draws from a broad
sampling of sources. Both professional and academic examples are used
interchangeably. Theoretical, philosophical, and linguistic thinkers are quoted and
referenced to draw conceptual intentions of the conversation. I rarely draw a conclusion
about what ought to be done with the discussion. Rather, my intent is to broaden
awareness and add maturity to language users. Perhaps I am seeking accountability
and conversation by targeting myself most of all.
Four Categories of Normative Language in Architecture
Architecture language is simultaneously playful and rigid. It is definitive and
metaphorical. It is layered in meaning, but irreverent to definition. Architectural language
is unique. A designer will apply language for strategies of representation, design,
communication, translation and more. The scale and application of these uses are
subject to the needs of the project and quantity of lexemes understood by the audience.
Potential audiences for architecture language include, but are not limited to, other
professionals, clients/critics, occupants, academics, and contractor/builders. Within the
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potential user and audience roles there is a constant push and pull between technical
and poetic language. The slide between poetic and technical is based on the intended
level of specificity and resonance for the given subject. English author and critic,
George Orwell notes, “language should be the joint creation of poets and manual
workers.”1 Nowhere is this more true than in architecture. The technical language of
designers demands specificity, while the poetic language seeks to tell the story.
Somewhere between these two ends of language, the designer ascribes function and
the value. Four potential categorical descriptions of this language application are
precision, narrative, program, and critique. There may be more and additional sub-
categories. The selection of normative use is intended to yield greater clarity in the way
language is used by designers.
Precision
Precision originates from architect Alberto Gregotti’s critique of modernist
tendencies. In the Part 2 of Inside Architecture, “On Precision,” Gregotti gives a series
of qualifying statements regarding the role of precision in architecture. “Precision means
the ability to describe nuance with exactitude, … to know and weigh the value… of the
relationship between architectural objects as well as their individual forms.”2 Precision is
an infinite measure of detail and resolution which is only bracketed by the audience and
intention. Precision may be compounding in specificity: in this city, on this street, within
1 Gordon B., Beadle. "The Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters of George Orwell. Volume I, An Age like This, 1920-1940; Volume II, My Country Right or Left, 1940-1943; Volume III, As I Please, 1943-1945; Volume IV, In Front of Your Nose, 1945-1950 Sonia Orwell Ian Angus." The American Historical Review no. 2 (1969): 500. Page 29
2 Gregotti, Vittorio. Inside architecture. n.p.: Chicago, Ill. : Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts ; Cambridge, Mass. : MIT Press, c1996., 1996. Page 49.
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this house, in this room, in this chair. Precision may also be general: this state, in this
country, on this planet, within this galaxy. Often it is not a precision of definition, but a
precision of intent. To quote Gregotti again: “This precise description of memories… is
actually a precise construction. It is the apparent impossibility of an absolute complete
and persuasive expression that launches a movement towards precision, the
constitution of a work of architecture.”3 The more precisely one can describe the
architecture, the more of it is constructed in the mind and memory. The more it is
constructed in the mind, the less complex the system of signifiers needs to be. The
more complex the signifiers4 the less precise the overall intent becomes.
The practice of language precision can be seen in the design execution of a
door. Door is a precise term with a precise definition. But there are an infinite number of
functions, structures, and images of a door. If speaking to the client, the designer may
call the entry threshold a “door.” Through general specification, memory and
understanding conclude that it is not a window and that it is the front entry to a home.
This is sufficient. To the builder, the designer might signify same threshold as “Door
101.” This signification has no meaning without the addition of a new language, in the
form of a schedule. The schedule5 suggests that of all the possible doors in the world,
these doors, with these signifiers belong to this location, at this time. Difference is
defined by placement, description of traits, and requirement for use: fire rating, hinge,
3 ibid. Page 47.
4 More on Signifiers in Chapter 3
5 See A-1
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material, frame type, and locking mechanism. Each added piece of information resolves
the precision of the door, in context of its intended audience.
Within each mode of language there is a level of information held. Not one
language can hold the essence of the door. The builder gives primacy to the component
over the whole. The client gives importance to the function. It is the designer’s job to
speak all the languages and accurately translate between them for the given audience
and function. This skill is practiced and learned in design school, by finding
metaphorical and synoptic definitions of the door. Examples include portal, threshold,
gate, division, and link. The result is both contradictory and relational, because of the
levels of meaning and precision found within each term.
In design studio, pedagogy asks the students to commit to precision in their
designs by constructing a project’s assembly in a particular or unique way. This type of
precision defines the value of an assembly by the level of craft and resolution of
component parts in reference to the whole. Just like in terminology, the first effort at
specifying the nature of the assembly is insufficient. The student, through iterative effort,
continues to compound specification to the desired design. In many cases, the project
begins with a graphic two-dimensional exercise, intending to capture information,
gesture, poetics, and compose them into a diagram. This exercise is full of nodes and
fields of precision but has not been distilled into a spatial architecture. The next iteration
begins to ask the students to apply function and depth to the diagram. The project
grows into something more resembling a building, but still is not precise enough to be
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understood. There may be many iterations6 of this before the student arrives at the
appropriately architectural and precise construction at the conclusion of the project.
In addition to iterative levels of resolution, the studios at the University of Florida,
School of Architecture (UFSOA) explores the implication and multiplicity of applied
precision through the matrix7 project. In this project the student is asked to construe and
develop the potentials of infinite scales of understanding and functions. Marco Frascari
in his essay, the “The Tell-the Tale Detail” describes this infinite scaling of value as a
“fertile detail.” He goes on to reference language by saying,
“The range of those architectural functions goes from the immediate to the mediate understanding of the meaning of the detail. This creative use of details in design is fully in accordance with [Ludwig] Wittgenstein’s understanding of a creative use of language. The ‘exact’ meaning, that is, the function of words, would only become known by a later use. A function of detail in a design becomes clear by re-presentation, that is, by re-use.”8
The matrix never attempts to achieve the exact meaning by resolving the object.
Instead the project seeks to provide the meaning in the context of its presentation and
representation. It seeks to be useful in reference to the relationships of the parts to the
whole. Matrix teaches the students how to consider nodal and field implications of
precision and apply them to spatial constructs.
Narrative
Narrative as a concept or theoretical approach, is used less often to describe the
design. Instead, it is primarily used to characterize the occupant and a scenario of
6 See A-2
7 See A-3
8 Frascari Marco. (1983) The Tell-the-Tale Detail. In: Deely J.N., Lenhart M.D. (eds) Semiotics 1981. Springer, Boston, MA Page 5
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experience. In novels and client descriptions alike, there is a predisposition to define
context as a way of revealing traits about the character. A clear cultural example occurs
in J.R.R. Tolkien’s, The Hobbit. The story commences with:
“In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.”9
Tolkien successfully transcribes a fantastical architecture and transfers it to the
reader through narrative. The character of his design and the quality of the occupation
are accomplished through juxtaposition. The term “hole” suggests one kind of place, but
the author informs the reader that it is the opposite kind of place. It is a home. This
primary introduction of place reveals the architecture as fundamental to understanding
the character. The telling of the story populates the architecture within the mind.
In pedagogical efforts the narrative provides character to the space. This
question of character acts to give justification for value judgements and animating the
connstruction. The process of storytelling allows for a pseudo-occupation on a
perceptual level. This mode of language use typically occurs when the user is trying to
persuade value to himself/herself or to a client. The narrative component is constructed
through language to stand independent of the constructed object.
In the profession of architecture, clients and designers will imagine an occupant
to define the space; These image occupants are often called avatars. Examples include:
a single family with young children, educated professionals. The descriptions of the
occupants and the type of people intended to occupy the space make a fundamental
9 Tolkien, J. R. R. 1966. The Hobbit; or, There and back again. n.p.: New York, Ballantine Books [1966], 1966.Page 2
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difference to the type of space being designed. In the example, the demands of the
space change with the occupants. Going further, the occupant may not be human, the
poetic narrative may ask for a house for books, or collection of artifacts. The layers of
narrative develop the quality of the space in the mind and distinguish its difference from
others.
In a pedagogical document, former School of Architecture instructor, Mikael Kruel
summarizes the role of narrative in design studio.
“Like language, these generative objects (communicative practices) have vocabulary, syntax, matrix, style and are loaded with primary information and secondary or possible unintended tertiary information. The primary objective remains to inform and further the design process. These efforts in manifested abstractions, investigations and design representations of ideas, will remain in their synthetic, representational, partial and reflective mode. They will occasionally and sporadically spring into form of joyful being, and then only in the representations they create in the mind.”10
The exploration of this mode of representation can be seen in a studio
assignment in the second year of the University of Florida School of Architecture. This
project asks the students to use a cultural artifact as a generative object and construct
an abstracted interpretation of the narrative. One example comes from a student11 using
the escape from the nursery, in the children’s story Peter Pan, created by J.M. Barrie.
Through the narrative, the spaces are divided into a beginning, destination, and
threshold (a transition). The beginning concept is made poetic by creating a “room of
shadows.” The threshold or transition space is named “through the window frame.” And
10 Kruel, Mikael. “On the Use and Abuse of the Generative Object.” In Constructions, edited by Martin
Gundersen and Nina Hofer, 4-9. Gainesville: University of Florida Department of Architecture, 1993. Page 34.
11 See A-4.
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the destination is described as a “field of dreaming.” The student borrows from the
narrative to distinguish the types of assemblies, the arrangement of the spaces, and the
mode of occupation. Within the project, the student proposes that the perceived
occupant moves along a bridge above the ground as a resonant understanding of flying.
Another example can be seen in the type of assemblies made. The orthogonal and rigid
structuring of the framework hints at ideas of window panes. Lastly the role of shadows
characterizes the impact of light on the space. In this example, the internal provocation
of narrative is transferred to others through the act of storytelling and space-making.
Program
The third selection of normative use of language is program or descriptions of the
building and space functions. The application the language processes of narrative and
precision often help to resolve the program definition. This is also the area where the
designer stretches the normative application of language the most. Standard program
names include “bank,” “kitchen,” “hallway,” and “bedroom.” Quickly designers try to
make language more useful by defining program in terms of function, such as naming
program as a “place to sleep” and “place to cook.” In practice this often includes the
grouping and associating of relative functions. Students are taught through analysis to
recognize the potentials of program as a generative tool.
In a slide between the poetic and technical the architect realizes the limiting
preconceptions when using “off the shelf” terminology. This is seen in studio. If a
student is asked to build a house, unless instructed, the student undoubtedly designs a
house from personally held memories. By disassociating the signifier of house, the
number of potential potent answers is multiplied. In language studies this is called
cueing whereby the expresser relies on memory and cultural understanding to prompt in
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a specific and new direction. Without a limiting frame of reference, the cueing may lead
to unexpected conclusions. This form of language use relies on the audience’s ability to
understand where associations are being made.
This strategy of defining program is learned in an architect’s effort towards
precision. Often the terminology is not precise enough. For example, a place for cooking
is named a kitchen. The power of language is to build up meaning and relationships by
running the same exercise in reverse. There is a kitchen. It is understood kitchen is a
place. It is a unique place used for cooking, but also food storage and preparation. It is
also a place of conversation, gathering, and full of different meaning dependent on the
audience. It may be an industrial space for feeding hundreds, or a cozy place for a
family home. The potentials of the program move past function and begin to attach
themselves to the narrative of the occupants, building a deeper subjective meaning of
the suggested space through the application of language.
The depth of meaning is expanded by creating metaphorical program
descriptors. The designer or student will pick a specific program term and use to frame
the idealized conclusions. House is a term preloaded with poetic potential and equated
with thoughts of dwelling and scale. As explored in Heidegger’s famous essay “Building
Dwelling Thinking;”12 and Gaston Bachelard’s “Poetics of Space,” Architects have and
will continue to explore the house to expand the potentials of this program definition.
Former Director of the School of Architecture, Robert Mcarter, explains that in the
process of design the “program” arrives after the space. This is in opposition to the
12 Heidegger, Martin. Basic writings from Being and time (1927) to The task of thinking (1964). n.p.: New York : Harper & Row, c1977., 1977. Page 343-364
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common axiom attributed to Mies Van der Rohe “Form follows function.” Mcarter
continues to elaborate this in his essay “With obstinate Rigor”. He uses Louis Kahn’s
concept of space as inductive to a project, stating that the aim of the UF curriculum is to
use program(function) as a mode of space making and not conclusion.
“ ‘The space induces the project.’ If you have space, something happens, the program then starts. It does not start until you make the ‘space.’ It is surprising that this proposition of Kahn’s has not been more widely noticed and discussed in the profession or in schools of architecture, for it implies a reversal of the usual design process, wherein the program is written and the construction materials selected before the spaces are conceived. In the statement, Kahn proposes the opposite - that one should begin with an idea about space, as a place of experience, and that this spatial conception then gives direction and meaning to the development of program and construction.”13
This is seen in action, when a student is charged to design a house for “time, the
horizon, and measure.” Some students develop a narrative and personify each of the
prompts. However, one student applies the program of a sun clock. The metaphorical
weight of a dwelling for time and measure becomes a clock and the application of
horizon as sun. The program explains the intent of language application as an effort to
bridge the poetic and technical. The proposition of house, reveals how familiar language
is used as a platform to explore the unfamiliar.
Critique
The final normative use of language in architecture is critique. Critics and clients,
as well as designers place value judgments on the idea and the physical made object.
Within the context of design studio, early design studios are weighted to value the intent
13 Mcarter, Robert, “With Obstinate Rigor.” In Constructions, edited by Martin
Gundersen and Nina Hofer, 4-9. Gainesville: University of Florida Department of Architecture, 1993. Page 24.
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over the execution. Execution is expected to grow with time and practice; the use of
iterative application of design and making to continue to develop a keen and expert eye
of design quality and more. The understanding of value and merit is deeply tied with the
meaning of architecture and language. By practicing the critique of a constructed object,
the critic begins to suggest intrinsic qualities about themselves.
The critic’s appraisal speaks to the level and number of associations found in the
work and uses language as a medium independent of the object to describe the object.
This is perhaps the most important relationship of audience and user; the critic bridging
the maker and the made to the larger public. The resultant language associations
develop into a critical vocabulary necessary for the growth of design. As a result of
globalization and the internet there is very little time for a new piece to exist before it
has been judged. In some ways, the “critical vocabulary travels fast and easily, often
more rapidly than knowledge of the works about which it has spoken.”14 Much
successful architecture is won or lost at conception. The weathering and success of the
building as a used and lived entity is rarely allowed to run its course.
Consider the effect of this type of criticism by thinking of Le Corbusier’s
Ronchamp. If it were constructed today, would the realities of Instagram and the likes of
architecture daily (an online journal) ascribe the value and success as the building
received in 1954? Judgment by the masses corrupts the value of the critic. The critic is
meant to teach others how to look at a project. Once taught, it is up to personal
experience of the structure to supply judgment. It has been said “to the hungry: food
14 Forty, Adrian. Words and Buildings: A Vocabulary of Modern Architecture. London: Thames & Hudson, 2013. Page 15
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will appear and what will appear is food.” In other words, context defines value. In
design studio the student is criticized daily by peers and instructors. The intent of this is
not to degrade the value of the ideas of the proposal. The critique is meant to equip the
designer to know how to look at a project and how to evaluate its merit. It is
collaborative. The forcibility of this critique is a product of location. In descending
strength from final reviews, studio, gallery, and amongst peers, the outside reading of
success of failure grows into an internal sensibility of value and judgment. This can only
be learned through example and practice. As the proficiency of the designer improves,
they are given greater freedom and responsibility to critique themselves and others. The
intent is to move the rigor and quality of design forward, through an open, critical, and
productive conversation.
By looking at architecture language in context of the audience it is intended for,
one can easily conclude the normative use of language in design is based on efficacy
and context. In Architecture, multiplicities build upon one another as the designer
translates the thought into language, language into object, objects into construction. For
designers, language is a profound means of representation and provokes design
expression. For builders, it is the mode to transfer intent toward construction. Architects
use language to describe, communicate with clients, share ideas, converse with
builders, and prompt associations and memory relationships. Moments in time and
place where these language applications bridge one another possess the greatest
potential. One might imagine places where the technical specification may become a
powerful poetic description. These moments where language can transcend the limits of
its audience and function are the moments where there is the most architecture.
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CHAPTER 2 ARCHITECTURE BEGETS LANGUAGE AND LANGUAGE BEGETS ARCHITECTURE
Narration 1
I am sitting at a kitchen table. My close friends, their five-and-a half month-old
son and my wife are with me. Like a little puppy they are showing me his tricks and
fawning over their progeny in love and encouragement. One of his newest skills is the
mastery of the word “bye.” They try to cue him by saying “hello” or waving and saying
“bye.” He is obstinate and does not show his abilities. My wife then suggests we go to
the front door. She walks a few steps out the door and waves. He immediately
screeches out a gurgled “bye.” The little voice is sweet and we all laugh.
Linguistic research suggests vocabulary is learned more quickly in association to
location than it is learned by frequency of repetition.1 This is incredibly interesting to an
architect who considers “life” as an entity in association to space. A researcher at MIT
has filmed the entire acquisition of language of his son and is using it as evidence for
modes of language analytics. 2 One finding in this research, is the development of a
simple sound utterance. The infant is able to recognize its use as signifier and continue
to develop the signifier into the socially correct word. The researcher caught the entire
evolution of water: from “ga,” a simple utterance, to “gaga,” to “wawa,” to “awter”, to
“water.” This becomes extremely important once we began looking at the acquisition of
the individual parts. The infant’s comprehension and ability to signify, grows with the
combination of learned parts. The contextual use provides understanding of intonation
1 Horst, J. S. Context and repetition in word learning. Frontiers in Psychology, 4, 149. (2013). http://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00149. Accessed February 22, 2018
2 Roy, David. http://dkroy.media.mit.edu/. See also TED Talk the Birth of a Word. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RE4ce4mexrU&t=98s. accessed February 20, 2018
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and intent. Finally, the child is able to use the correct term in the correct manner. It then
becomes more interesting when considering this is happening with dozens of other
words in the child’s first year.
Like any skill, language is learned in series. Skills and proficiency build with
practice. The uniqueness of language is that it is both a mental and physical acquisition.
The brain must develop the necessary connections to comprehend language
relationships. The body must gather the muscular strength and breath control needed
for utterance or penmanship. This is how an infant’s “coo,” can grow into intellectual
“cues” of discussion and critical thought.
This series of compounding complexity is paralleled in the creation of societal
language norms and communication patterns. Linguists believe all languages stem from
a common language spoken roughly 3000 years ago.3 The oldest words in the English
language include4 I, we, he, she, mother, old, black, fire, ash, this, and numerals. The
grouping of these indicate the need to identify self and community, and to document
change; night to day, fire to ash. Numerals discuss quantity and hierarchy of one object
independent of others. As society developed and as experiences broadened, language
and architecture grew from a single sound to full systems of communication.
If we postulate this acquisition occurring at a multiple of scales, then a hypothesis
of patterns emerges. The language patterns include: sounds beget words, words beget
sentence; sentence begets meaning; and meaning begets communication. The
structural pattern of: phonetics begets morphology; morphology begets syntax; syntax
3 “Oldest Languages.” Lingui list: https://linguistlist.org/ask-ling/oldest.cfm. Accessed February 16, 2018.
4“Oldest Words.” Dictionary: http://www.dictionary.com/e/s/oldest-english-words/#in-the-beginning accessed February 16, 2018.
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begets semantics; and semantics begets pragmatics. The meaning develops as:
conversation begets poetry; poetry begets philosophy; philosophy begets debate;
debate begets perspective; and perspective begets law. These patterns then might be
asked to consider the development of the built environment. The aim is once again to
target the intersubjective reading to categorically apply language as a spatial construct.
The justification is to question how language might apply to space and how space might
apply to language.
Overlapping Morphologies in the Development of Architecture and Language
If the application of language is necessary to the making and thinking of
architecture, the problem is understanding the relationship of language to architecture.
Principally, is architecture a language5 or do architects use language? In 1977, New
York based architect and theorist Bernard Tcshumi appeared to count architecture and
language as interchangeable by saying, “There are numerous ways to equate language
and architecture.”6 He later continued to qualify this statement by saying, “when
equated one can only be read as a series of fragments that make up an architecture
reality.”7 Suggests that components of architecture are composed like language. In his
understanding, language and architecture are equal. The German philosopher, Martin
Heidegger, disagrees. “Man acts as though he were the shaper and master (architect)
5 For further documentation on this thesis reference: Fisher, Saul, "Philosophy of Architecture", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2016 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = <https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2016/entries/architecture/>. Accessed February 22, 2018.
6 Tschumi, Bernard. 1994. Architecture and Disjunction. n.p.: Cambridge, Mass. : MIT Press, c1994., 1994. Page 95.
7 Ibid Page 96.
26
of language, while in fact language remains the master of man.”8 For Heidegger, man
essentially lives in language rather than uses and controls language as a taken for
granted external tool.
The Architecture as a Language thesis began with writings of ancient Roman
architectural theorist Vitruvius Polio and later renaissance humanist architects such as
Battista Alberti. The proposition of architecture as language insists that architecture has
a set of rules to its assembly. These are indicative of a grammar of construction. As
such, a completed work of architecture acts as a communicable idea, giving meaning to
object and making a language-based statement. This theory offers as its justification the
similitude of relationships. Just as language has an accepted set of rules in the form of
grammar, architecture has a set of rules in the form of orders and physics. Just as there
are sematic and syntactical understanding of words, architecture is given meaning by its
place, context, and use. Language has internal differences and accents, so too does
architecture in its regional and programmatic concerns. Modern theory, reinforced by
Tschumi’s quote earlier, would prefer a looser reading of this concept, suggesting
architecture begins with the conception of an idea and should exist in fragments. Rarely
should architecture be considered as a completed and secular object. This line of
thought has deep theoretical and historical ties as thinkers attempt to “languisize”
fragments of architecture. However, there is very little effort to “architecturalize”
language. Looking at the fragments and compounding meaning of the built environment
in contexts of language as a branch of architecture, it is possible to suggest that
8 Heidegger, Martin. Poetry, Language, Thought. n.p.: New York : Perennical Classics, c2001., 2001. Page 215.
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language might propose an architecture of unknown realities which follow the
morphological growth of language. The following investigation suggest the archetypes
of house, well, wall, tower, and road as analogous to their language counter parts.
The House and Conversation
In his Ten Books on Architecture (De Architectura, 1st century BC), Vitruvius described
the origins of the dwelling hut:
“The men of old were born like the wild beasts, in woods, caves, and groves, and lived on savage fare. As time went on, the thickly crowded trees … caught fire, and so the inhabitants of the place were put to flight, being terrified by the furious flame. After it subsided, they drew near, and observing they were very comfortable standing before the warm fire, they put on logs and, while thus keeping it alive, brought up other people to it, showing them by signs how much comfort they got from it. In gathering of men, at a time when utterance of sound was purely individual, from daily habits they fixed upon articulate words just as these had happened to come; then, from indicating by name things in common use, the result was in this chance way they began to talk, and thus originated conversation with one another.
Therefore, it was the discovery of fire originally gave rise to the coming together of men, to the deliberative assembly, and to social intercourse. And so, as they kept coming together in greater numbers into one place, finding themselves naturally gifted beyond the other animals in not being obliged to walk with faces to the ground, but upright and gazing upon the splendor of the starry firmament, and also in being able to do with ease whatever they chose with their hands and fingers, they began in first assembly to construct shelters. Some made them of green boughs, others dug caves on mountain sides, and some, in imitation of the nests of swallows and the way they built, made places of refuge out of mud and twigs. Next, by observing the shelters of others and adding new details to their own inceptions, they constructed better and better kinds of huts as time went on.”9
Despite the brevity of the narrative in Vitruvius’s De Architectura, the repeated
study of the incidence has romanticized the story into a larger mythos. The myth is now
9 Vitruvius, Pollio, Michael Dewar, Thomas Noble Howe, and Ingrid D. Rowland. 1999. Vitruvius : ten books of architecture. n.p.: New York : Cambridge University Press, 1999., 1999. Page 8.
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primary to the ontological study of architecture, and bridges between the profession and
the study of linguistics, early culture, philosophy, and social mechanics. From this
narrative the house is named as a primary unit of architecture. Language and
architecture are linked together as both simultaneously “teckne” and “arte.” These two
terms are based on Greek principles of philosophy and episteme which suggest the
connection between the craft of making, the science of making, and the artistic value of
the made thing. The dwelling and language are given function and form, resulting from
the origin of a social fire.
Filling in the narrative gaps, it is possible to construe additional conclusions and
analogies between language and architecture Unlike in Greek myths, mankind did not
steal fire from the gods, or have the skill taught to them by Olympians. Instead, it is a
humanist context which drives the narrative. The ancients use found materials, find
skills they had not perceived, learn from one another, and turn sound into utterance,
utterance into culture. The found material is the context for creation and the
maintenance of the fire is the function. An infant does not inherently have names for the
world around them. Instead they begin by finding single syllable utterances and cooing
to signify wants or needs. It is the social structure of the family unit which eventually
defines the correct terms to signify their world. The primitive language of the infant is a
medium to communicate wants. Similarly, studio environment, culture, or pragmatics
define a field of relationships within which to design and communicate. Within this field
the individual gains control over the developing “sounds,” transforming them into
“words.” Architectural words become architectural sentences, which are given meaning
and a vector as they are put to use. Similarly, man beginning with found limbs and
29
branches, begins to repeatedly build up complexity and meaning in design. Language
and communication, structure and design, are repeatedly tested and improved through
iteration and application.
Language and architecture gather like capillary action. A good story or a
profound space have a gravitational pull, collecting people. Culture and context shape
the views of space and the understanding of spatial movement. Designers learn by
looking at an example and drawing personal applications. Language is learned by
listening to language users. Architecture is learned by using, making, and projecting
space. The hut is not architecture. Architecture occurs at the translation of dwelling into
a constructed space. The infinite layers of relationships, scale, and material become
available once a language system is added. Architecture is always a creative act.
The Well and Poetry
French philosopher Gaston Bachelar once wrote about water:
“Thus, little by little, in the course of ever more profound contemplation, water becomes an element of materializing imagination. In other words, playful poetics live like water …”10
“… the language of the waters is a direct poetic reality; streams and rivers provide the sound for mute country landscapes, and do it with a strange fidelity; murmuring waters teach birds and men to sing, speak, recount; and there is, in short, a continuity between the speech of water and the speech of man. Conversely, I shall stress the little noted fact , organically, human language has a liquid quality, a flow in its overall effect, water in its consonants. I shall show this liquidity causes a special psychic excitement , in itself, evokes images of water. Thus, water will appear to us as a being body, soul, and voice. Perhaps more than any other element, a complete essence.”11
10 Bachelard, Gaston. Water and Dreams : an Essay on the Imagination of Matter. n.p.: Dallas : Pegasus Foundation, c1983., 1983. Page 6
11 Ibid. Page 15
30
Once shelter is achieved, man begins to root himself, filling in the definitions of
dwelling by building foundations into the ground. The first task of creative work is to
excavate the potentials of the field. As the ancients excavated their own language,
intuition, and designs they found water and poetics. The well, the cistern, and the
aqueduct are all constructions intent on moving and holding water. They are the vessel
for meaning. The well is considered one of mans’ oldest constructions with some
believed to be constructed as early as 10’000 BC.12 In the Vitruvian narrative,
architecture grew from a hut of trees and twigs to a dwelling of stone and brick. The
history of the well follows the same trajectory, growing from a hole in the ground into a
construct for moving and holding water. The well becomes another node within the
contextual field for gathering.
In addition to the life-giving necessity of water sources, springs and wells are
perpetuated through ancient cultures. The Oracle of Delphi is considered the source of
poetry by Greco tradition. The well becomes the place to share languages between
family units. Habits of communicating are learned and with them come pragmatics and
social behaviors. As architecture grows so does the impact of natural forces like water,
wind, sun, and gravity. As the complexities of language and architecture develop so
does potential meaning. Water and language are now recognized as a resource and
value is given to feelings and motivations, not solely tangible articles. The well is a place
of peace, provision, and poetry. Even as the animals gather together at the oasis, so
too does mankind. Around the source of water there is peace, because every man
12 Haasteren, Martin, and Maaike Groot. "The Biography of Wells: A Functional and Ritual Life History." Journal of Archeology in the Low Countries, March 1, 2013, 25-52. doi:http://jalc.nl/cgi/t/text/text-idx7c37.html.
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needs water. This peace is reflected as a unity. “A poetics of water, despite the variety
of ways in which it is presented to us, is bound to having unity. Water should suggest to
the poet a new obligation: the unity of the element.”13 This desire for unity and proximity
to water resonates with designers throughout generations. The well may be the first
architecture not for man, but for the elements.
Multitudes of peoples come to the well. The gathering results in a new burst of
creation. Water based cultures have exponentially more terms than landlocked
civilizations. The compounding of experience beyond the original unit grows language
and design. Peoples begin to recognize the value of others’ knowledge and the ability to
understand it for themselves. Encouragement and critique happen at the well. The old
teaches the young and the well lasts beyond a single lifetime, becoming a memory
device and monument to the past and for future. The Judaic, Aramaic, Muslim and
Arabic traditions acknowledge the well of Abraham, Jacob, and the fathers. These
excavations serve as spatial reminders of ancestors and act as a deep pylon for cultural
readings of palimpsest, boundary, and consequence.
The Wall, Philosophy and Debate:
In Progressive Architecture Magazine, John Hedjuk wrote:
“Life has to do with walls; were continuously going in and out, back and forth, and through them. A wall is the quickest, thinnest, the element we are always transgressing.”
The 1990s Deconstructivist architect Peter Eisenman once talked about the
architectural wall:
“In Miesian language, the wall is reduced to the forceity of its material. For instance, Mies' treatment of marble does not correspond to any denotative
13 Ibid Page 8.
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meaning which the material might have obtained in the history of modern architecture. By losing its ontological connection with earth, the wall in Mies' architecture represents "the empty wall, ... the pure wall," or "the silent wall, citing Wassily Kandinsky as the last word in a chain of attributions… In this regard we might assert Mies' major intention was to dissociate the wall from all its figurative and connotative dimensions until the wall would signify just a wall.”
The peaceful transference and addition of meaning to language is broken with
the wall. As an archetype the wall defines projection, edge, boundary, enclosure, and
field. Regardless of the scale of wall it is about a division. The walls of Jericho,
Jerusalem, Hadrian’s wall, The Great Wall, the Berlin Wall, Wall Street; these walls
establish rhythm and scale. They put the occupant in perspective and suggest certain
edge conditions of enclosure, boundary and understanding. Posture affects language
creating a predisposition towards defensive, conclusive, pedestrian, or elite conditions.
Edges define architecture.
The history of Rome’s wall tells of Romulus pulling a plough around the Palatine
Hill, the trough marking the perimeters of the city’s future wall. At each gate he lifted the
plough, breaking the line. As he worked his twin brother Remus insulted him. He
jumped over the edge line, disrespecting the meaning. Romulus out of anger murdered
his brother. This is said to foreshadow the fate of anyone else who might try to jump a
Roman wall.14
Language, like a wall, is either inclusive, (those within the walls,) or exclusive,
(those without.) Alberti notes “a row of columns ... (is) indeed nothing else but a wall
open and discontinued in several places ..." He adds ... a column is a certain strong
14 Refer to: Rykwert, Joseph. The idea of a town : the anthropology of urban form in Rome, Italy and the ancient world. n.p.: Cambridge, Mass. : MIT Press, 1988., 1988.
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continued part of the wall ..."15 Alberti's understanding of column and wall is they have
the potential to be identical and yet individual. This understanding is found in their
structural function and also because of their understanding in the metaphorical sense of
the body as spine and muscle. So too does language transform. Divisions within
sentences come in the form of periods, then paragraphs, and then chapters. Edges
need not be constructed ones. Division and rhythm emerge as a rest and breath or in
the way a phrase or thought come to end.
The continuation of this thought is to suggest more important than the wall is the
space at either side of the wall. To appreciate the difference between sides, there must
be an opening. Like Romulus lifting his plow, threshold comes as gate, door,
handshake, and a greeting it permits the ability to juxtapose and find identity between
one side and another. Thereby, confirming the values and meaning of each side. In
society it is a place of invitation. In defense it a place of protected access. Ritual and
structure are enforced to maintain the integrity of the wall. In conversation it is the
handshake or greeting. The ritual is used to exchange the continuity of the boundary
from both approaches. In architecture it is the landing or porch which define itinerary
and reminds the occupant of intention of an edge.
This begins a new line. The space, existing between the two sides of the wall, is
the origin of debate. This space causes questions of ownership and significance. It is a
gray area. Clarity is achieved through difference. Clarity is lost in the transitional
moment where space continues between opposing sides. The attempt to stop the flow
of space between sides is philosophy. Philosophy is the ritual of closing the gate. All the
15 Ibid Page 23
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lessons learned at the well are lost if they are permitted to escape. Looking for a system
outside of the constructed environment, designers turn to language as a mediator
between opposing conditions. Language is not a unifier. Only by ritual of debate is the
sacredness of the line maintained. The power of language is to knock down the wall.
The sounding of trumpets at Jericho or President Reagan’s words to Mr. Gorbechev’s,
attest to language’s power to break mortar. It appears language must either conquer or
reveal new perspectives if the wall is to persist.
The Tower and Perspective
Theorist and architect Rem Koolhaus describes the first tower to arrive on the
island of Manhattan, NY.
“a tower on the other side of 42nd Street: the Latting Observatory, 350 feet high. ‘If we except the Tower of Babel, this may perhaps be called the World's first Skyscraper....’
“For the first time, Manhattan's inhabitants can inspect their domain. To have a sense of the Island as a whole is also to be aware of its limitations, the irrevocability of its containment. If this new consciousness limits the field of their ambition, it can only increase its intensity. Such inspections from above become a recurrent theme under Manhattanism; the geographical self-consciousness they generate is translated into spurts of collective energy, shared megalomaniac goals.”16
Having dwelt on the surface, scored the face of the ground and built edges,
mankind desires to reclaim the horizon. The tower elevates and projects itself from the
context. In the forum the speaker stands on a box to lecture. The elevation of height and
the perspective outward gives authority and is a subconscious spatial reading of value.
Like the capitol letter or bold print exclamations of greater volume and even profanity,
16 Koolhaas, Rem. Delirious New York : a retroactive manifesto for Manhattan. n.p.: New York : Monacelli Press, 1994., 1994. Page 25.
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these nodal points act as points of convergence or divergence. Bell towers toll to
communicate an invitation. Lighthouses project a warning to stay away. In speech
height is achieved through intonation. It asks a question or demands attention. The
Eiffel tower, leaning tower, watch tower, skyscraper, and obelisk suggest a new plane of
existence. No longer does language or man exist at the surface, he is now free to have
perspective and to control the boundaries of the field. Forgetting the lessons at the well
and the initial reasons for making walls, mankind builds ever higher. It is at the peak of
mankind’s effort that another ontological event occurs. This is the breaking of language
and the splintering of society. Another archetype of architecture comes in the narrative
of the tower of Babel.
“Now the whole earth had one language and the same words. And as they migrated from the east, they came upon a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there. And they said to one another, “Come, let us make bricks, and burn them thoroughly.” And they had brick for stone, and bitumen for mortar. Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves; otherwise we shall be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.” The LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which mortals had built. And the LORD said, “Look, they are one people, and they have all one language; and this is only the beginning of what they will do; nothing they propose to do will now be impossible for them. Come, let us go down, and confuse their language there, so they will not understand one another's speech.” So the LORD scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city. Therefore, it was called Babel, because there the LORD confused the language of all the earth; and from there the LORD scattered them abroad over the face of all the earth.”17
The narrative reveals language and architecture are still tied despite leaving the
community fire. Mankind was united by language and intent. Toiling to build a tower to
17 The Holy Bible: New International Version Containing the Old Testament and the New Testament. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2009. Genesis 11:1-9
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heaven, the builders sought to elevate themselves to God’s likeness. God humbles the
people by breaking language. Brothers no longer communicate. In this way, language
when it leaves the rooting of the well and meaning, is broken. Language is not for the
sky, the place of birds and machines. The tower can climb too high and too close to the
sun. Language learns to hold onto its poetry. Like Icarus, all the machinations of
salvation were tethered to the space between the ground and the sky. It is a pull
between optimism and reality. The tower teaches mankind its limits, but projects a
future without limits.
The Road and Law
“Even so have we been making our way along the winding roads. Roads avoid the barren lands, the rocks, the sands. They shape themselves to man's needs and run from stream to stream. They lead the farmer from his barns to his wheat-fields, receive at the thresholds of stables the sleepy cattle and pour them forth at dawn into meadows of alfalfa. They join village to village, for between villages marriages are made.
And even when a road hazards its way over the desert, you will see it make a thousand detours to take its pleasure at the oases. Thus, led astray by the divagations of roads, as by other indulgent fictions, having in the course of our travels skirted so many well-watered lands, so many orchards, so many meadows, we have from the beginning of time embellished the picture of our prison. We have elected to believe that our planet was merciful and fruitful.”18
The fall of the tower initiates a new archetype of language, with newfound
perspective and in light of the realization of boundaries beyond the constructed edges.
Man elects to live within the rule of law. The Law of motion, law of gravity, natural law,
law of creation assumes there is truth. It is no longer assumed that mankind has the
same intent or the answers lie within a limited contextual understanding. Trade begins.
18 Saint-Exupéry Antoine, De. Wind, Sand, Stars. New York, NY: Reynal and Hitchock, 1939. PDF. Page 28.
37
Trading experiences, knowledge and objects, along the Silk Road, the Roman Road,
the Trade Road, across the ocean and across land begins a system of exchange and
conquest. Languages colonize one another pushing back towards the single language
remembered at the tower.
The road is a place of danger, a place of thieves. They come to harm or to break
the law. Harm happens when they fail to use language, when the complacent and the
craven fold to the “other.” However, architects are no strangers to the law. They choose
when and where to break it and thus resist the colonizer. They introduce their own
language and charge the language of experience with newness. Architect and
landscaper Dimitri Pikionis “stole” the language of the ancients and transcribed it for
modern use making roads to the Acropolis. In a different way Route 66, a road, became
a cultural well creating in its wake a new series of icons and symbols.
The road also represents permeance of communication, but not of existence.
The Tabula Peutingeriana is believed to be the last surviving map of Rome’s state-run
road network. Road are about relationships and borrowing, and by this route the Latin
and Germanic tongues were exchanged. The words borrowed from one another at the
well now have function in the context of roads, because the intercommunication web is
expanded exponentially. Remembering the hope of the tower, language tries to return to
one, this time by law. However, it forgets the lesson of Babel. Language lets itself be
bound. All language is colonial in it is giving up its specificity and identity in relation to
another system. In Derrida’s mind, language is forgetting itself and its meaning.19
19Derrida, Jacques. Monolingualism of the Other, Or, The Prosthesis of Origin. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1998. Pages 33-45
38
Language has aphasia and as an aphasiac it is unable to fully interpret, it morphs and
molds resulting in an impossibility of true translation. Homo-hegemony or one language,
one dialect, is the result of compounds of trade and exchange and is a constant slide
between the signifier and signified. Architecture becomes the language, space makes
place, and the phenomena of experience is the universal language.20
The Theater and Conclusion
The road carried language and architecture away from its origins and brought
new icons. Reflecting on the past, it is now architectures turn to make a house for
language. The theater becomes the vessel to reclaim the creative process. Architectural
historian Alberto Perez-Gomez writes:
“The introduction of the theater poignantly represents the profound epistemological transformation signaled by the advent of philosophy. This becomes a place for seeing where a distant contemplation of the epiphany would have the same cathartic effect on the observer as was accomplished previously through active embodied participation in the ritual. This distance is of course akin to the theoretical distance introduced by the philosophers which enables the participation in the wholeness of the universe through rational understanding.”21
It is in this way a theater gives citizenship to explore the universe in architecture
and to reclaim the idiom. The new frontier permits language to beget new architecture
and architecture to beget new language. This is what is meant by creating space for
design. Each project is a new conception and with each new conception there is a new
vocabulary necessary to describe the new conditions.
20 See A-5
21 Holl, Steven, Juhani Pallasmaa, and Alberto Pérez Gómez. 2006. Questions of perception : phenomenology of architecture. n.p.: San Francisco, CA : William Stout Publishers, ©2006., 2006. Page 17
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CHAPTER 3 MEANING, METONYMY, AND METAPHOR
Narration 2
I sit in the middle seat on an international flight. I am amidst a cloud of
languages, odors, coughs, and other signs of confinement. I can recognize East-Asian,
German, as well as Spanish and Italian languages. In symmetry to the ambient clutter, I
am reading Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass. It is my first time down this
rabbit hole or more accurately through this mirror. I stop and realize the irony of
Humpty-Dumpty’s gibberish in juxtaposition to languages which I do not speak but are
continually intermingling in my mind.
“The Jabberwocky: Twas brillig, and the slithy toves Did gyre and gimble in the wabe; All mimsy were the borogoves, And the mome raths outgrabe.”
“That’s enough to begin with,” Humpty Dumpty interrupted: “There are plenty of hard words there. ‘brillig’ means four o’clock in the afternoon— the time when you begin ‘broiling’ things for dinner.”
“ll do very well,” said Alice: and “’slithy’?”
“Well, ‘slithy’ means ‘lithe and slimy.’ ‘Lithe’ is the same as ‘active.’ You see it’s like a portmanteau— there are two meanings packed up into one word.”1
Immediately, I am confronted with the perceived-arbitrary approach of definition
in our own language and the potential substitutionary process of words and word
meanings. Unlike metaphors, Carrol’s substitutions are operational. Rather than
conveying a deeper meaning they are signifying composite meaning. I consider the din
1 Through the Looking-Glass. [electronic resource] : And What Alice Found There: by Lewis Carroll. n.p.: [S.l.] : [s.n.], 1893., 1893. UF Catalog, EBSCOhost (accessed March 1, 2018).Page 31
40
hanging above me and imagine the context of those conversations. Despite my effort to
the contrary, the conversations overlap in my mind, making new sentences of
composite languages. My mind is floating in gibberish.
I note Lewis Carol’s gibberish still follows the rules of grammar. Humpty’s
translation affirms “brillig” to be a time and “slithy” to be descriptive. Likewise, the
habitual process of sentence structure within my mind, is combining word units without
meaning, into sentences, of unknown profanity. I comprehend the distinction of verb and
subject despite the alien signifiers of spoken utterance. Somewhere, in the deep
subconscious, I imagine I can understand some level of the foreign communication at
least its intent. This conversation is about family, this conversation is about the movie in
the headrest, and is a children’s story.
The meaning isn’t clear but some of the focus is. How am I able to make these
connections? What does gibberish mean in-terms of appropriate language use? Could I
speak gibberish and justify myself despite your lack of comprehension, it doesn’t mean I
am wrong? We would all just carry around decoder rings.
I ask a Speech and Language Pathologist about the origin of languages and
word meanings. While she is not an expert in etymology or the history of dictionaries
she can speak to generalizations. Language meaning is defined by context, definition,
and associations. Context is typically found in the form of semantics which refers to the
use of the word within the confines of the sentence or thought. It is the reference and its
relation to those words adjacent. Definition comes from habitual use and a socialization
of a term. Dictionaries and lexicons are catalogues of meanings but do not represent
the full understood potentials of a word only its accepted-use meaning. Associations
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may be in the form of metaphor, personification and other language strategies.
Associations also key off the cues from things seen, remembered, and juxtaposed.
Sequential language learning, refers to learning a language after you speak one
already. I believe this is what happens as an individual learns language as it applies to
architecture. The individual is proficient in one language and then begins to acquire the
second language. There are two ways the brain maps associated meanings. The first
mode of associated meaning-mapping occurs as an objective translation whereby one
sees the cue, thinks of the identifier in the parent language, and then translates to the
new term before speaking in the acquired language. This form does not represent a
fluency because of the time lapse to select the correct term and replace your primary
identifier. The second form is categorical replacement. In this mode the individual sees
the cue, categorizes its function and reference, speaks in the second language and
comprehends in the parent language.
Metaphor is a way to create categorical translations within the parent language.
The meaning is held in the associations and the minds ability to replace the parent
identifier with the newly cued identifier. If this is a natural function of the brain, to replace
identifiers and retain the subjective meaning. I began to consider the potentials of
replacing the identifiers in design studio. This would use language to open up space for
greater design potential. More than this, I began to ask which words had been replaced,
categorized, or translated without my knowledge? The first day of design studio I was
given a list of vocabulary and told to use them when discussing design. The first day I
taught design studio, I gave a list of my own to each of the students. I instructed them to
not think of measure as a ruler or in inches, but to think of measure as a rhythm. I asked
42
them not to talk about the size of objects, but to rather discuss the scale and proportion
of pieces. I forced a translation on them and encouraged them to find new meanings of
their own. With this ambiguity, how is it that the value of language and the construction
remains?
Addressing Architectural Meaning as a Study of Figural Language
“I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said in a rather scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less.’
‘The questions is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many things.’”2
Meaning as a hermeneutical study and meaning as a lexical catalogue are well
documented and vast beyond the contents of this paper. In a phenomenological reading
of design, poetic and image-based experience is mediated by language. In Questions of
Perception, Alberto Pérez Gómez begins by noting
“if architecture can be said to have a poetic meaning we must recognize what it says is not independent of what it is. Architecture is not an experience, which translates later. Like the poem itself, it is its “figure” as presence which constitutes the means and end of the experience.”3
Experience is an active condition and a complex summation of time, place, emotion,
and association. It is never repeatable, only approximated. It exists as a myth. Grasping
at fragments of the experience, it is simultaneously translated into language to share a
conditional truth with others.
Borrowing from Perez-Gomez, quoted above, the translation is in the form of
“figure” language whose association, definition, and context give rise to “figurative”
conscious reality. Perhaps even exploring the additional lemma of “figuring” language
2 Ibid Page 24
3 Ibid Page 34
43
and “figural” language. This is the language of the alchemist that can conjure vespers of
fantasy and transform them into reality. This is the language that strengthens an
understanding of self. This is the language that can charge the imagination and fill it
with potentialities of ethical and ontological pursuit. This is the language of the designer.
Meaning in language and architecture takes two forms. The first is the meaning
of the object as it stands and the other the meaning of the object as it is experienced.
Meaning here refers to the values we associate with the object or the experience. In
ontological philosophy the ascription of value is the only true measure of existence.
Aristotle introduced the two readings of meanings as levels of existence: The first and
top is the descriptive and functional meaning. The second being the figurative and
poetic meaning.4 Thinking of a locket, the first reading of meaning is its construction,
filigree, and value at a shop. This reading is held in the definition of locket. But the
second reading occurs when this becomes grandmother’s locket. There is a sentimental
attachment, it has a memory of its own tied up in the associations of memories of
grandmother. Add to this the contextual information of grandmother’s passing. It is now
priceless. The object has taken on a figurative existence tied to the phenomenological
experience of the object and not just its name or matter.
Paul Ricoeur’s Rule of Metaphor, defines this phenomena as a dialectically
driven process (language action) which creates a new “object domain and a new
category of being.” 5 The application of this process is how Ricoeur superimposes the
4 Gasparri, Luca and Marconi, Diego, "Word Meaning", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2016 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = <https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2016/entries/word-meaning/>.
5 Ricoeur, Paul. Rule of Metaphor: The Creation of Meaning in Language. Place of Publication Not Identified: Routledge, 2015.
44
second level of poetic reference onto the first-functional level. Through this thought-
language the individual is able to create a new field of reflective meaning and redefine
the value of the object in another’s conscious.
George Lakoff and Mark Johnsen speak to the proximity of position as an
indication of the importance or relative strength of the new meaning.
“If the meaning of form A affects the meaning of form B, then, the CLOSER form A is to form B, the STRONGER will be the EFFECT of the meaning of A on the meaning of B.”6
In architecture, this is seen in the grouping of programs and ideas. A new reflective field
is created by the juxtapositions of spatial experiences, the tightness of the joints, and
the development of the details. Additionally, the objects category of existence is able to
transcend the material in which it was constructed. The categorical existence persists in
the reflective meaning of the experience. Some of the most profound examples of this
type of space are made by architect Peter Zumthor. In his chapel spaces, Bruder Klaus
and St. Benedict, the material experience is equal to the spatial experience. Unlike in
other constructions the spatial experience of Zumthor’s spaces are compounded by the
phenomena of light, water, and horizon and given metaphorical significance by the use
of material. The occupant is asked to compare the physical material to the immaterial
and construct a myth.
Architecture and language exist only as comparative forms. They can only show
difference. This is the principal key to linguistic studies but also to the education of an
architect. Ferdinand de Saussure was a preeminent linguist and founder of semiology at
6 Lakoff, George, and Mark Johnson. Metaphors We Live by. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 2011.
45
the turn of the 19th century. In his work titled Theory of Sign7 he develops the
relationship of the “signifier” and the “signified” suggesting the signifier is the
accusation, name, or pointed figure. The signified is the manifest thought, object, or
concept to which the signifier’s meaning refers. This is most clearly shown by analogy.
In his text he explores a signifier of the 8:30 in regard to the train. The 8:30 train may in
fact be the same physical train as the 9:30 train, but it is different as signified by its time.
This concept is again explored by another semiotician and theorist Jacques Derrida. In
an essay titled Differance,8 he unpacks the role of distinguishing difference by
syntactical, semantic, and semiotic arguments. Jacque Derrida used the semantic
argument of the train to criticize the simplicity of signifiers. Suggesting every term is
capable of referring beyond itself and therefore breaking the signifier-signified
relationship. Therefore, suggesting that no signifier is able to convey meaning. He then
postulates the strategy of “differance” to discuss the inherent and supposed difference
of identifiers. This is closely tied with Martin Heidegger’s work on Being and Time, to
suggest the need for a word transcends the being and time and speaks to essence.
With this theoretical and linguistic background, it becomes clear in order for a
signifier to remain true, one must pair it with another signifier. The desired distinction is
given through difference and juxtaposition, or in Derrida’s conclusion this new
7 Saussure, Ferdinand De, Charles BALLY, Wade Baskin, Albert REIDLINGER, and Albert SECHEHAYE. Course in General Linguistics ... Edited by Charles Bally and Albert Sechehaye, in Collaboration with Albert Reidlinger. Translated ... by Wade Baskin. Pp. Xvi. 240. Peter Owen: London; Printed in U.S.A., 1960.
8 Wood, D., & Bernasconi, R., eds. Derrida and Différance, Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1988. Page 255-278
46
relationship is differance.9 The 8:30 train is not the 9:30 train. His terminology of
differance is meant to give excuse for the level of differentiation achieved by
juxtaposition, but also by the distinction found in the engagement of the signifying term.
Juhani Pallasmaa discusses this phenomena by saying,
“true artistic meaning always fuses opposites. Such as observation and imagination, outsideness and insideness, material and mental. An artistic image strikes us because it is simultaneously alien and familiar, clear and obscure, novel and ancient.”10
In design, there is no large without small or compression without expression.
Juxtaposition of opposites gives meaning.
Metonymy
Metonymy occurs where a word for a part refers to a whole or where a whole
refers to a part. “Part to whole” suggests the term and form of “figuring” language which
is described by Derrida’s argument. Despite the meaning given through difference,
there is still more to be construed.
“Such is the question of the marriage between Speech and Being in the word, (signifier name) in the final and proper name. (Of a thing) Such is the question that enters into affirmations, put into play by difference. The question bears upon each word in this sentence. ‘Being/speaks/through every language/everywhere/ always.’”11 (Quoting Heideggar)
Each term must bear upon itself the question of its Being. The infinite slide between
term and its relationship is only halted by the context of its present existence.
9 Ibid Page 255-278
10 Pallasmaa, Juhani. In Vorkurs:Making, edited by Elizabeth Cronin and Zachary Wignall, 36-47. Gainesville: University of Florida School of Architecture, 2017).
11 Ibid Page 276
47
Metonymy, while principally employed as a referential signifier allows the
substitution of one entity for another. The practice is particular for the type of entity
chosen for substitution. For example, the part for the whole relationship is dependent
upon the aspect of the part selected. In Metaphors We Live By, Lakoff succinctly ties
this together saying,
When we say we need some good heads on the project, we are using "good heads" to refer to "intelligent people." The point is not just to use a part (head) to stand for a whole (person) but rather to pick out a particular characteristic of the person, namely, intelligence, which is associated with the head”12
Part to whole relationships are a canon of architectural design intent in both structuralist
and phenomenalist approaches. The origins occur in linguistic theory. Semantics
introduces the study of the word as it applies to the whole sentence and completed
thought. This is similar to the term “wall.” Which may refer to a single wall, or a system
of labyrinth, or the units composing the wall assembly.
In this form of figuring language, the receiver is actively pursuing definition as
given by the context. Is it not a chief aim of architecture to give meaning to dwelling?
“Poetically man dwells.”13 Meaningful moments are conveyed by meaningful language.
Derrida points, not only to the multiplicities of definitions, but also to the need for
signifiers to be experienced. Difference and Differance are homophones. Drawing on
contextual use, sight, and sound the prerequisite engagement of multiple senses is how
and why differance contains such potency.14
12 Ibid Page 124
13 Axiom attributed to Martin Heidegger
14 See A-6
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Metaphors in Architecture
The figural and figurative language begin as categories of metaphors and
transpose meaning by the ability to exchange between systems of thought and
understanding. This falls within the Aristotelean substitution model using “like” or “as.” In
this case the subjects are exchanged for play or attribution of qualities, but these new
associations are never considered new content. They are limited to the rhetorical rules
and assumed similarities between the subject and new object. The growth in
philosophical inquiry, specifically, Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, providing a measured
study of experience opens the role of metaphor to include the potentialities of new
resonance and poetics found in comparison.
The definition of architecture including both referring to ancient Greek concepts
of arte and teckne allows new levels of connection and sources of meaning. “The joy of
art lies in its showing of how something takes on meaning, not by referring to already
established and acquired ideas.” 15 Architectural theorist Adrian Forty uses the
ambiguity of architecture as both art and science to claim architectural metaphors
originate from either science or language. As resultant and in conjunction with the
contemporative mood of the era, design language has taken from these domains to
populate a resonance of understanding. Examples like “circulation,” exemplify how
science-based terminology is mediated through metaphor. The mediation is used to
describe the logic of the way an individual or group itinerary works within a structure. In
addition, terms like “character” and “measure” are terms with linguistic origins. Terms
are translated into the personification of space and the understanding of scale and
15 Ibid Page 105
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spatial temporal experience within a construct. Some metaphors strike deeper than
others.
To further explore the potential of metaphor, one might review applications of
metaphor by association in the last century. One of the most prolific metaphors of
design language is the house. Taking its cues from the Vitruvian model and an epoch of
house explorations the phenomenologist has latched on the idea of the dwelling as a
transmutable metaphor for existence. Through the Paper Architecture of the 1950s
through the 1970s and the exploration of the case study houses, Eisenman’s house
projects, and others show the repeated exploration of the house concept. Even before
the modern era of house exploration, phenomenologist Gaston Bachelard, in his book
the Poetics of Space dedicates a chapter to “the House and the Universe.”16 This
profound reading of the scale and understanding of the role of house is worth unpacking
in a conversation about figurative language.
In the chapter titled the “House and the Universe,” Bachelard unpacks a series of
houses found in literary precedents. For each house, imagination and the filling-in of
perceived detail and character give nature and character to the spaces described. The
reader’s mind is placed within the space of another's imagination. Lost in a world of
daydream the experience of "the house" defines the “the universe.” Without the
phenomenological parameter of house - place to dwell/Vitruvian hut – it is impossible to
occupy the proposed place. Later in the same book in a chapter titled “Intimate
Immensity,” Bachelard postulates a world is neither big or small unless named so. With
each experience, the reading of space and existential place increases. Individuals are
16 Bachelard, Gaston, and M. Jolas. The Poetics of Space. NY, NY: Penguin Books, 2014. Page 211-232
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enlarged by gained understanding through experiences. It is by shared experiences that
metaphor is able to propose meaning and design experience within existential space.
The reading of intimate/poetic meanings within immense experience is a deeply
personal phenomenon. Naming of object, subject, and relation, gives a frame through
which one may reflect.17
A second and equally potent metaphor is the machine. Le Corbusier is credited
with calling the “house a machine for living in” Architect and artist, Douglas Darden
explored the machine as a generative narrative in his unbuilt-architectural drawings.
Machine metaphors have been in fashion since the advent of the locomotive and the
relative fascination of machinery during the industrial revolution. It was believed the
development of technology would solve social ills and restore the hopes of a utopian
society. To attach the machine with architecture was to attach architecture with the
solution to every ailment. In his modernist architectural aesthetic manifesto, Towards a
New Architecture, Le Corbusier states,
“the lesson of the airplanes lies in the logic that governed the enunciation of the problem and which led to its successful realization. When a problem is properly stated, in our epoch, it inevitably finds a solution.”18
Additionally, the machine became personified as a mode to separate the sticky
rhetoric of ethics and to exist as an entity independent of judgement of right and wrong.
This gave designers great freedom to explore the potentials of culturally neutered
construction. The birth of avant-garde and internationalism is proof of its propensity.
This fascination and optimism tied to the machine was propagated throughout society
17 See A-7.
18 Ibid Page 110r
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up until the first world war. Suddenly this dream in technology as a harbinger of hope
became the harbinger of death and an explicative of the horror man could make.
Ownership returned to the machine and instead of an independent and functional entity
the machine again became mastered by man. This new evolution brought on the
infatuation of process-based work. Like the great gears of industry, the process gave
justification rather than the attachment to the universe. Today machine has translated
into the role of technology in design. Scripts and other explorations into permutated and
data-based modeling suggest a continued fascination with the role of cause and effect,
simultaneously authored and independent of authority, masking intentions while
revealing unforeseen conclusions. Like the winding of a clock, machine-based
metaphors allow an initial motive force and then are allowed to tick until silent. Looking
at the resultant and rationalizing its value is accomplished through a respect of process,
not arbitrary design decisions. The imagination is allowed to fill in holes and the project
has a soul of machinations.
Phenomenological theorist and designer Juhani Pallasmaa writes regarding the
metaphorical image;
“Imagination aspires for expressions that are capable of mediating the entire human existential experience in one image. In this way it keeps repeating – this is how it feels to be human in this world… neither does architecture project significations or construct symbolic structures; it expands the reality of human life into the realm of dream and imagination.” 19
Study of his meaning of image and the role of image in architecture is an entirely
separate metaphor. But from the quote it is possible to define the components of design
19 Ibid Page 102
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metaphor. These are a mediation between transference of object domains, repetition
until resonance is achieved, and expanded reality to include the realm of imagination.
Metaphors simultaneously mask and reveal. It is this hiding but sharing,
transforming but solidifying; giving metaphor authority over realities. Merleau-Ponty,
Jacques Derrida, and Paul Ricouer would agree metaphor and figurative language act
as the true measures of reality. The layers of thought - language, experience -
language, and perceptive – language, are only limited by the breadth of shared
memory, and the depth of vocabulary. The resulting coupling and comparisons of terms
found in metaphor create a more personal understanding; stronger than the first level
and more valuable than the Heideggarian essence. This points to the reason for the
ongoing philosophical discourse on the centrality of metaphor in phenomenological
understanding. As Ricouer says, “Metaphor has the extraordinary power of re-
describing reality.”20
“When we study human language, we are approaching what some might call the
‘human essence,’ the distinctive qualities of mind that are, so far as we know, unique to
man.”21 Adding to this: architecture and metaphors are essences unique to man. Perez-
Gomez concludes this thought most succinctly.
“Traditional architecture signified for all (society and users) the order of the cosmos. The understanding, if taken at face value in terms of an uncritical linguistic analogy, seems to condemn the architecture of modernity as meaningless or to a relativistic self-referentiality… today the significate of architecture… is that of the poetic discourse, the gap between the two terms of a metaphor.”22
20 Ibid Page 5
21 Chomsky, Noam. Language and Mind. New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1972.
22 Ibid Page 35
53
This “gap” is what makes design language. It is the space for language to figure into the
designer’s conscience and allow resonance to emerge. It is simultaneously the
categorical replacement and the objective translation. Metaphor is the bridge, the
temple, and the truest architecture of language.
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CHAPTER 4 LANGUAGE AS THE COLONIZER OF DESIGN STUDIO
Narration 3
It is the end of the semester and time for final reviews. As an instructor, I am
sitting in a studio space with line drawings on vellum and process work of scale lumber
and Bristol paper scattered about. Much of the class is nodding towards sleep behind
me and a nineteen-year-old in his first year of design, stands in front of me. He has thick
rim glasses and slim fitting pants tucked into his chelsea boots. The student begins to
explain the rationale for his design. He is confident and well spoken. Somewhere in his
narrative of “this space is about this and this stick is about,” he professes a particular
space to be a “didactic plenum”.
There should be a query here. Or perhaps a slight rustle in the room. I smirk. And
he plows on belligerently. There is not a pause or question. The phrase, “didactic
plenum,” is normal language for design presentation. It is now the responsibility of each
of us in room to construe his meaning for our own interpretation. I struggle to divine his
intent. I begin with the noun. The term plenum is an architectural term; referring to an
assembly of spaces constructed for the heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC
systems). Think of a drop ceiling in a meeting hall space. Above the ceiling and below
the roof, there exists a space for the mechanical pieces to be gathered together and
hidden away. This is an abstract construction. He is not referring to HVAC systems. The
volume he is pointing to is larger and centrally located. Didactic refers to a place of right
and wrong or perhaps condensing. If he means a space of assembling and condensing
it is a redundant description. If he is implying a place of gathering that acts as the
measure or datum from which all other spaces are arranged; it becomes appropriate but
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superfluous. The intention of the student is unclear, but he assumes I and the audience
understand his meaning.
The student’s presentation of his work goes on for another few moments
describing hierarchy, juxtaposition, and systematic logics of materials, before
concluding. This fuzzy lipped student has surmounted his Everest and claimed his flag
at its summit. The presentation is done. The reviewers talk about system and how to
organize spaces. But no one talks about the language used or asks for clarification.
While I am pleased for the young stag, I do not think the descriptive language
was helpful. I reflect on my role as an instructor. I look at the source of this language. Is
it the student’s own pride, granting him permission to speak in this way? Is it the
character of the designer he is trying to emulate? Or have the societal contexts of studio
given him permission to use this type of description? I brought this situation and series
of inquiries before a speech-language pathologist. She gave me a much deeper
linguistic reading of the situation, which I will try to summarize.
Almost every form of language is composed of three components; content, form,
and use. Content refers to the actual substance of the language. This is the information
being either expressed or received. Form refers to the strategy of language. Audio,
verbal, written, pictorial, and many others including the rules of the language such as
grammar, fit into this component. Use refers to the application intent of the language. Is
it to describe, critique, inspire, or signify? Within each component exist the domains of
language: phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics. These domains
build upon one another to define the components.
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In this event, we concluded it is the pragmatics of the studio environment which
establish the level of “content” and permits language use in this way. The audience and
the location encourage a design language system. One could imagine the same
situation with a room full of grandmother’s and the use of a different language and
response. Within a language system, users will learn and develop the system to fit their
needs in their time, taking cues from language teachers until such time they can initiate
language on their own.
In addition, the presentation format of verbally expressing physical conditions
within the model defines the “form” of communication. The pairing of physical and verbal
cues allows multiple sensorial inputs for understanding. The “use” is therefore, to
convey abstracted ideas. Within these components the student is relying on the domain
of semantics to give meaning. By pairing an architecturally accepted word “plenum,”
with a descriptive term “didactic” he is trying to establish the desired metaphorical
interpretation. He may be unaware of his own meaning and intent, relying on the
education and conception of the audience to fill in the gaps of his own thinking. He gilds
simple clarity of intent with obtuse language. In any other context, his words sound
heady and excessive. To the studio of designers, his words sound poetic and fertile.
They insinuate the design is not complete and this is a space with potential.
If we explore the accepted use of architecture language, particularly the
description of architectural objects and concepts, there emerges a habitual pattern of
strategies which mask as much as they reveal. I recognize examples in my own
language. It is therefore important to find awareness of the capabilities of the audience
and to use language in ways which are effective for the context. Investigation into the
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normative use of architectural language reveals the audience is second to the intended
function. I propose applications particular to the audience increase the value of
architectural discourse. “Didactic Plenum” is not normal language. As designers, we
must be masters of language and tailor our communication to the targeted audience.
The Application of Language in Design Pedagogy
A definitive application of language in design conception is a relatively
unexplored and potentially charged avenue for deeper readings of intention in design
and building. Many of the implications of this mode of thinking are already presented in
the method-teaching exemplified in University of Florida’s School of Architecture design
studios. However, the qualification of these methods remains relatively loose. The
following conclusion seeks to define, categorize, and exemplify the design potential of
coupling language and architecture in pedagogical pursuit.
Language theory since the post-war era has accepted language as both an
infinite and open system. The standardization of rules and grammar within the context
of language-use gives language-users authority to manipulate and transform the
system. This results in the evolution of language as a communicator in conjunction with
its needs. Experience shows a language independent of other languages, is proficient at
questioning, but not to resolving. Therefore, it takes a compounding of language to
reach precision. Within design problems, there are moments and places where the
system must close. The sentence must end as the effort of making transforms thought
to language. Transformation from thought to reality is defined as metaphor. The space
between the two terms is where the truest architecture resides. The unique environment
of a design studio removes the constraint of place allowing architecture to persist as
open and spacious until the prescribed moment of closure. In this way design studio
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opens both the space and the definition of architecture and language to new and
unexpected realities.
Designers and critics alike maintain the primary modes of representation of
architectural ideas occur as either a visual art or a three-dimensional study. Pedagogy
teaches representation of architectural ideas are also equal part language and memory.
But the role of language and memory does not stop at the representation of
architecture. It is within, defining, establishing the grammar, critiquing, and framing the
whole of the process of making. The strength of language is its ability to uniquely impact
audience and designer. The degree of variety is dependent upon the type and amount
of space within the given prompt. This is key. One cannot design until one has the
space to do so. This is the ultimate aim of applying language strategies to design, to
open up potentials within the boundaries of curricular intentions.
Architecture by contrast, is not an open system. Despite arguments of infinite
potentials and technological advancement in representation and materials, Architecture
is confined. It is tethered to time, space, and gravity. A single project wrestles with the
constraints of money, program, function, occupant and more. The only boundaries to
language are self-imposed by language. Therefore, language acts as an escape clause
from the banalities of realism. Building, making, crafting, and dwelling are beautiful
endeavors. Each project is unique. However, in a global society the ability for judgment,
copyright, and publication is removed from the professional and placed in the hands of
the public. A designer can no longer rely on the subjective reading of context to validate
the physical construct or the intent. Instead, designers must rely on language, the
universal context, to ascribe meaning and integrity to a design. Pedagogical
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appropriation occurs as instructors and the curriculum colonize studios with a labyrinth
of language. Efforts of renaming, reframing, and remapping the cultural milieu of the
students grows the potential of a studio. Language becomes the threshold, opening the
projects boundaries.
At the University of Florida, a design project begins with space. Space refers to
an ineffable and abstract thought construct of occupiable experiences. In pedagogy,
space is not limited to a static, cubic volume, but rather refers to an absence or void
giving the student permission to create. This space is then charged by the addition of
language in the form of program, narrative, research, and supposition. Within these
prompts the student brings their own interpretations of analogous thought. Translating
the assignment and objective for themselves generates new language unique to each
student.
In design studio, program is defined as a project brief. It is a prescribed list of
deliverables, constraints, or other requirements. These establish the initial dimensions
of the field. “The work of the studios at the University of Florida constitutes an ongoing
investigation of design as the making of spaces that bind tectonic form to human
action.”1 Narrative asks the student to develop a story, character, itinerary, or sequence
of events. These charades are meant to populate the interpretations with other
potentials. In essence, it is the embodied experience of a thing that is not yet made. The
narrative is then repeatedly tested by physical and pictorial constructs, and verbal
descriptions. There is a distrust that exists between the spoken narrative and the
conceptual constructions. This conflict is what charges the project and moves it forward.
1 Ibid Page 4
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In research the student is encouraged to ask questions and define those answers for
themselves. Personality plays a significant role in the way a student translates the task
of research. Do they see it as a question-answer relationship, a process driven answer,
or a question within another question? The continuity of questioning is most helpful for
opening up the potential in the project prompt. In supposition, the student is given an
uncertainty and asked to resolve it to their own belief system through making. This is
not challenging a personally held belief structure but rather challenging the immediate
gut-reactions of design solutions. If a designer can hold off an answer, for a moment,
there may arrive at another more profound and elegant solution.
After the project is underway there are a multitude of moments when the
instructor challenges the design. In addition to layering the initial prompts (narrative on
program, program within research) the student and instructor add additional language
strategies to clarify the design by defining its qualities. In other cases, it is a course
correction, to correct proportional or other errors in arrangement. And still other times,
language is added to charge the project. If the student and the project are flat and
uninspired, the instructor turns up the volume and provides a jolt to provoke momentum
and rigor. These charges come in the form of Naming, Reframing, and Mapping.
Naming
Naming is an internal translation of the design’s essence based on personal
presuppositions. It is tied with Heidegger’s “thingness,” Merleau-Ponty’s “joint
ownership,” and Husserl’s “living present.” Naming is unique to language. In many of
the creation narratives, the creator God brings his creation before man. Man is asked to
name the animals before him. With the authority to name the creatures man gains
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authority over them. Naming is not limited to noun form. It includes operational terms,
metaphorical values, and both given and inherited names.
In architecture studio localize languages develop. The terminologies of applied
naming begin to replicate throughout semesters and cohorts. Within the vernacular of
the school a series of descriptors help to convey the idea of spatial intent. Words like
fragment, gesture, local and global grids, module and unit, echo, and more, propagate
the studio environments. As a result of the frequency and the consequence of their use
students and those who use the same terminology. Slang begins to generate.
Reframing
Reframing is an external interpretation of importance. Reframing is about
bracketing and point of view. In the case of bracketing the focus is either inward or
outward. It is in this way that problems in architecture are given resolution. Additionally,
reframing comes in the form of a crop. Just like cropping a picture one may reframe the
problem or the design to increase the potency of specific moments. Often the crux of
the project lies within a specific gesture or node and thus is more effective in part than
in whole. Additionally, reframing includes the exploration of precedent studies. By
looking for answers in a project through the frame or lens of another project one may
discern what is effective and what isn’t. Sometimes reframing is as simple as changing
the orientation, flipping a model or changing the site. Lastly, changing the material
palette or scale is intentional form of reframing. In each of these instances the instructor
is asking the student to reevaluate where and how the project resolves. This is similar to
conversation and writing. It is like telling a story to a different audience, or inserting a
new vocabulary, changing the syntax of the sentence, (eats shoots and leaves)
Reframing is not about breaking apart. Instead it is about adding a point of view which
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then defines a new series of boundary objects out along the horizon. The reframing is
meant to take thought to boundary and allow recollection before moving further still.
Mapping
Mapping, while an active process of image making, is also a task of language
and memory. It is difficult to draw the line between physically mapping and the language
map. As a linguistic process, mapping is the act of drawing connections, it is how one is
aware of the right term to use in naming, and the apparatus by which one reframes.
James Corner in Agency of Mapping2 defines mapping as
“Instead the map is first employed as a means of finding and then founding new projects, effectively reworking what already existed. Thus the process of mapping, together with their varied informational and semantic scope, are valued for both their revelatory and productive potential.” To continue James Corner’s thoughts on mapping he lists: “thus we can identify three essential operations of mapping: first the creation of a field, the setting of rules and the establishment of the system.”
This is the determination of localized language and grammar set of given
language. “second the extraction, isolation or ‘de-territorializing’ of parts and data”. This
is akin to the removal of meanings from context or the ascription of new
meanings/readings to a given set. Examples of this are seen in Derrida’s
deconstructionism and the exploration of the fragment. “third, the plotting and drawing-
out, the setting up of relationships, or the re-territorialization of the parts.” This is the
reconstruction of the given vocabulary set into new orders with new potential. This is
why a sentence will have a multiplicity of meaning dependent on word order. The goal
2 Corner, James, and Alison Bick Hirsch. The Landscape Imagination: Collected Essays of James Corner, 1990-2010.Agency of Mapping. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2014.
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of mapping is to attach enough language to a design that the language builds the space
within the frames of memory and communication.
Escaping
But language is also a villain. In Derrida’s Monolingualism of the Other or The
Prosthesis of Origin Language Derrida describes language as a colonizer. In his
personification of language he portrays it as possessive, taking over the mind, and
being used against the individual in favor of the mass. He speaks specifically of the
mother language the one from which all other languages pull inspiration and default
back to. In his closing he speaks of the “aphasiac”. He says that this individual, in spite
of the impairment, is the only one who might escape this colonization. The instructor
seeks to colonize the studio environment with content, meaning, and stratagem.
However, if language truly is singular, all the efforts of naming, reframing, mapping
exercises will only bring the design back to where it began; With narrative and program
and pragmatics of place.
“I can do it only by opening up an impossible path, leaving the road, escaping, giving myself the slip, inventing a language different enough to disallow its own reappropriation within the norms, the body, and the law of the given language - or by all the normative schemas constituted by programs of a grammar, a lexicon, a semantics, a rhetoric, speech genres or literary forms, stereotypes or cultural cliches (the most authoritarian of which remain mechanisms of avant-gardist reproducibility, and the indefatigable regeneration of the literary superego). The improvisation of some inaugurality is, without the shadow of a doubt, the impossible itself. Reappropriation always takes place. As it remains inevitable, the aporia involves a language that is impossible, unreadable, and inadmissible. An untranslatable translation. At the same time, this untranslatable translation, this new idiom makes things happen [fait arriver] , this signature brought forth [fait arrivee] , produces events in the given language, the given language to which things must still be given,
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sometimes unverifiable events: illegible events. Events that are always promised rather than given.”3
These events are the type that happen within space and make a language capable of
design.
Suddenly it is imperative to find other language impairments that might give
purchase in the realm of preconceptions, design, and the imagined. Language cannot
afford to be an afterthought. The project cannot be complete and then have language
applied, like a coat of new paint. The language cannot exist as descriptive of program,
or as a posthumous critique it must be challenged. Derrida’s deconstruction is a
premise that says truth is impossible: so make truth approximations in as many ways as
possible. This theory translated in architecture with post-modernist ideas of doubling
and into definitions of the part to whole. Saying the parts were approximations of the
whole, to break the whole was to find the initial truth. Truth upon truth can only be
achieved by the manifest break-down of scale.
Breakdowns result in space within. No matter how small, a broken vase, a
broken limb, a homonym, a morphism, chemical bonds, all take the addition of energy to
break the connection. This is the goal of language in design. To make spaces to
construe and provide the energy to fill the gap. Finding spaces within language
continues the creation of affiliations. By breaking the bonds of preconception, definition,
and function new ports open up. The new energy, pulls its charge from the latent
understanding of designs intent and the role of the signified.
3 Ibid Page 73
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Daydreams and Consequences of Broken Language in Design
Like machines the mechanics of speech and language have the potential to
break down. Many of these language breakdowns are resultant from traumatic brain
injury, mental illness, and mental deficiencies. The desire is not to negate others’
hardship or marginalize realities. Rather the effects of language strategies exist and are
already felt within design pedagogy. The aim is to explore what other affects may be
hidden within other known language conditions. With an understanding of consequence,
and action, one may daydream about the creative intent of design through language
strategies.
“Dysphasia” refers to a language breakdown of the mind, where the affected
recognizes the name but cannot comprehend its application of the object.4 A dysphasia
is not illiterate, but they are nonapplicant. As a result, a dysphasic designer might
superimpose the priority of the space instead of making a bedroom they might make a
room for a bed, a very specific bed, and perhaps a bed not for persons. The designer
may redefine terminology as needed speaking in Carroll’s gibberish as a way to hide or
reveal traits of memory and association. Actions of collage, layering, and transparency
where the object is recognized but repurposed would be favorite stratagem’s. Lastly the
dysphasic might separate the object from its context and reapply context to a removed
object. The conditions of site non-site might propose new institutions of play.5
4 Ibid ASHA
5 See A-8
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“Anomia”6 refers to the alternate type of Aphasia, where the affected can
recognize the function of the object but does not know its name. A – without, nomia –
name, results in a crisis of identity. So much of studio is spent naming and defining the
particularities of a project or intent. The anomic would find hierarchy not in name but in
purpose. Purpose perhaps not of program but rather of ways of organizing space and
tectonics. Perhaps providing their own disassociated terminology as a poetic notion
regarding the perceived function. Machines of mysterious origin, but with clear intent
and machinations of memory play a key role in the application of this type of
breakdown. They give an apparatus for the separation of idea, function, structure, and
more.7
“Apraxia” is a physical impairment defines the inability to create sound patterns
necessary for spoken language.8 Impairments may come in the form of stuttering,
dysarthria, or fluency. “Stuttering”9 is the repetition of specific sounds or combination
within the context of a thought. It is a stop gap between the thought and the utterance.
“Dysarthria”10 refers to the lack of muscle control to make sounds. This is common in
the acquisition of any skill for example as an infant you lack the muscle control
necessary to walk. It takes the meditative practice of attempted trials to gain control.
“Fluency”11 refers to any error or gap in the rhythm of a language.
6 Ibid ASHA
7 See also A-8
8 Ibid ASHA
9 Ibid ASHA
10 Ibid ASHA
11 Ibid ASHA
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The application of stuttering is hinted in the tactic of iterative making. The
stutterer might be assigned fifteen models. They could construct seven and then be
stuck on a specific point stuttering through an additional five before making it past the
block and finishing the remaining. But this is just the beginning, the interjection of blocks
to the normal momentum of a design could present themselves as obdurate materials or
a discordant note. The stutterer would make series and collections compounding clarity
by the repetition and acumination of partis, gestures, joints, and the like.12
Dysarthria is a muscle condition where the muscles exist, but they are not
precise enough or controlled by the designer. I would imagine the dysarthric to be
friends with a tourette. Both lack the dexterity to fully manifest their acuity or disconcert
would propagate their itineraries. In other readings the dysarthric might fully
comprehend the design and its potency but intentionally portray it as weak. A dystrophy
or delicateness to the primary gestures would suggest subtleties within the design
building up meaning from layers of light, phenomena, and brushes with experience
rather than the hard accusation of line.13
Fluency may refer to lack of control of a language is not your own. Or it may refer
to gaps in rhythm. Fluents would love rhythm, their designs would be prolific in their
rigor of module and staccato. They must be otherwise we would miss the moments that
are disfluent and break the rhythm. Fluency will always be juxtaposed. The
12 See A-9
13 See A-10
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deconstructionist and the modernist could both be fluents. Finding either the pleasure
from a cohesive object or the breaks within a system.14
Localized language within the studio occurs as a result of the synergistic struggle
to wrestle with the charges. The instructor intentionally targets the colonization of the
studio with potent and productive language. However, a targeted approach which
includes the failures of language as well as its successes will provide new charges
previously not found in pedagogy.
Language grows naturally. Through supposition, acquisition, appropriation, use,
and an infinite number of other operations new languages emerge. These new
languages are critical to the efficacy of architecture. Language and Architecture are
given voice by the depth of experience they seek to convey and the quality of events
they hope to capture. They may be verbal, constructed, metaphorical, or exist only in
thought. Architecture only grows through failure. By coupling architecture and language,
the growth of language, in some way, may be able to carry on the growth of
architecture. New tectonics of assemblies become languages of holding edges and
moving space within the built pieces. Graphics create their own cartographic collections
of symbology’s. In studio, spaces, narratives, programs, and assemblies explore
definitions of language in the context of designs. With each iteration, either a language
is broken, or a new language is conceived. Broken languages become new moments
for the iterative process of meaning, conception, representation, and construction to
cycle through. With each cycle the connections between language and architecture
become deeper. A stronger tie of architecture to language furthers the poetic and
14 See A-11
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technical aims of design. The poetic interpretations may become technical definition and
meaning, and essence may be found in technical specification.
The relevance of language, architecture, normative forms, breakdowns, and
other strategies points towards a deeper reading of the application of language as a
method of making. In the practice of design pedagogy, it becomes increasingly apparent
that the instructor does not instruct in architecture. Rather the instructor provides,
methods, skills, poetics, technologies, and vectors. The student’s prerogative then
transforms the language prompts into architecture. Therefore it is difficult to draw
conclusions about the nature of relationships between pedagogical language and the
teaching of design. The study of language provides new avenues of pedagogical pursuit
as the designer chases the essence and the linguist chases meaning. The power of
language is to question and share. Architecture gives a mode to move questioning and
expression beyond the limits of time
Conclusions
Fully committing to any of the theoretical questions encouraged by this research
results in two extremes. Either everything is a language, or nothing is, in the same way
everything is an architecture, or nothing is architecture. The beauty of pedagogy and the
use of design-language is an escape from either ultimatum. The pursuit of relativistic
levels of precision grant open systems, to discover the linguistic nature of a process and
the architectural function of an object. As proficiency in design and in language use
increase, the students and their instructors find new poetic meaning for normative
practices thus, strengthening the bond of language and architecture.
Suddenly architecture may have a voice of its own and language can rely on
structure to convey its intent. In design pedagogy it becomes apparent that architectural
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programs that lend themselves more effectively to joining architecture and language,
are inherently more profound. Programs include memorials and memory as well as
programs which deal with documentation or recording like museums and libraries. Being
aware off this allows for a greater reading in places where there is not a linguistic
connection. Conditions like factories, towers, and urban can be challenged by the
intentional application of linguistic strategies. Additionally, questions of the effect of
adding or removing language from the program can change the outcome of the project.
In narrative applications, the language process of story-telling unites language and
architecture. The new awareness of spatial architypes and their linguistic functions,
creates a spatial dimension to the story previously left unsaid. Deeper understanding of
the role of figural language also aids in the communicative ability of creating thought
architecture within the audience. Likewise, the meaning and understanding of the types
of connections made through various linguistic and metaphorical connections increase
the potency of a details potential.
In design studio the student operates under these premises without knowing their
origin or intent. The habits learned are then translated into the professional environment
and personal lives. The question becomes how accountable the curriculum is, in
propagating the normative use of language? Ultimately, architects use language as a
method of translating ideas into matter. In design pedagogy, language is uses to
colonize the learning environment, helping to imbue experiential meaning, escape from
preconceptions, and give voice to the intentions that are not fully realized. This last
action of giving voice allows language to bridge the theory and practice of design. By
holding designers accountable to language, the architecture is improved. .
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APPENDIX FIGURES
A-1 Typical Door Schedule – Image Credit: http://www.fdsi-ca.com/Photo-
Gallery.html
A-2 Iterative Project – Image Credit: Janet Diaz
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A-3 UF SOA “matrix” project – Image credit: John Vieweg
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A-4 Narrative Project – Image Credit: Timothy Lakeem
A-5 Sequential Language Application and Spatial Morphologies
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A-6 Naming – Image Credit: Crystal Hernandez
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A-7 Reframing – Image Credit: David Espinosa
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A-8 Mapping – Image Credit: Summer DEP 2016
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A-9 Escaping – Image Credit: Design 3 Collaborative Gallery
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A-10 Dysphasia (read images sequentially left to right) for Anomia (read images
sequentially right to left) – Image Credit: Janet Diaz
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A-11 Dysarthria – Image Credit: Gabriella Villalobos
A-12 Stuttering – Image Credit: Summer DEP Student Collection
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A-13 Disfluency – Image Credit: Gabby Villalobos
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BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
Levi Wiegand, is an architecture graduate from the University of Florida, School
of Architecture. He maintains high academic standing, in addition to taking an active
role in studio culture, leadership positions, research partnerships, and home life.
Currently, he is a studio instructor to second year design students and candidate
for Master of Science. As the instructor, the students are the show. And it is Levi’s role
to facilitate success, find ways to motivate and encourage them toward better, stronger
design.
Alongside academics, Levi enjoyed serving with the local architectural firm
Armstrong + Cohen as the primary model maker for the Obdurate Space Exhibit,
displayed at the Center for Architecture NYC. Levi served as one of five, founding
editors to the new graduate publication – VORKURS. The publication featured writings
by Juhani Pallasmaa, Robert McCarter, and other influential architectural designers and
thinkers. The efforts of the team helped to procedure a Graham Foundation Grant for
the second issue titled “Exquisite Corpse”. Additionally, Levi worked as a research
assistant securing image permissions for Lisa Huang’s book project Learning from
Failure in the Design Process: Experimenting with Materials. (to be published by
Routledge.)
Levi’s passion in architecture lies in-between the reality of constraints within the
development of a project, and the imagined and idealized design. Architecture is a
bridge between the real and imagined and language is a method to build connections
and add meaning to the designs he creates.