Has Architecture Lost its Soul?
Understanding the person as a body soul composite may help illustrate architecture’s detachment from modern architecture per se through the modes of Crisis, Form, Language and Projective. A classical understanding of the human person posits that the human body makes no sense without the rational soul and as such, the soul requires a physical body to collect and deposit information required for making rational decisions. The purpose of this analogy is to appreciate the integral and symbiotic relationship between the spirit and body which is necessary to create a whole “somebody”. Removing the body from the soul would render the soul incomplete and void. Likewise, removing the soul from the body would remove the dignity and rationality of the individual.
Now how does this relate to the reaction to Modern Architecture failing to fulfill its utopian vision for humanity? I answer, first, to remove the body of architecture from its soul, and when that did not work, to reinsert a soul without a satisfactory body. A purely mathematical approach to architecture removes the meat of architecture; its body. Think Eisenman’s grid-like structures following an imaginary pattern separated from any physical purpose. But equally problematic is the body of architecture void of a soul. We live in a musical world full of melody, harmony, and drama. Functional architecture flaunting a “cool atmosphere” is nothing more than a random instinctual action. One may suavely suggest at a cocktail party that they have cracked the code to a universal ideal in architecture, but the batting average of such projects demonstrates that the body of architecture void of its rational soul is nothing more than a broken clock which is itself correct twice a day.
I say all of this to suggest, if we are to return to an era of great architecture, architecture that is firm, useful, and beautiful, we must find a way of reuniting the soul of architecture to its body.
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ReplyDeleteThe comparison between architecture and the human condition is certainly a good place to start when attempting to discern the best way to move the discipline of architecture forward. Architecture does not exist without humans and humans do not exist long without architecture or at the bare minimum, shelter. Architecture however is a more noble pursuit than shelter alone, it is meant to excite, inspire, and invigorate the soul.
DeleteThis day in age we often only consider truth to be what we discern through a Newtonian, scientific approach. However, when only relying on our 5 senses and what we can observe and record we are beginning to miss out on the things that make us human. The intangible elements of the soul. As architecture reflects the culture of the society it’s built in what does this say about us? Have we lost touch with those intangible elements that make us human?
My comparison is not about the human condition, but rather the essence of a human. The point being that we are not merely physical beings, but a body soul composite. My argument is that architecture, like music, consists of both a physical a spiritual component. I believe that architecture, as practiced today, has disconnected the two...
DeleteSean,
ReplyDeleteYour response makes me think of the classical principles of architecture back to the Vitruvian Man. This fundamental image we have all seen and much of early architecture can be tied to is a representation of the harmony seen through proportion, scale, and symmetry at the human scale. I believe that simply put most all architecture is either the acceptance or denial of this early concept, however could there be an inbetween?
Sean,
ReplyDeleteI agree with the importance of firmness, commodity, and delight. Architects like Eisenman focus entirely on delight and lose the importance of firmness and commodity. Eisenman believes that geometry should be the driving factor, giving it more importance than commodity. Which is why many of his designed spaces feel useless. He values geometric ornamentation over function.
Sean, I believe the example you used is a beautiful and insightful one. To observe buildings as living, breathing embodiments of space is a great way to think about a buildings character. I feel like in modernity, the character of the building has gone stagnant or missing. I think you’re point of mathematics in architecture trims the ‘meat’ of the practice, is a great one. Yes, parametric and calculated design have its great uses for control, but to input 0s and 1s into an algorithm lacks a level of connectiveness that is needed to carry the human scale and feeling into projects.
ReplyDeleteMathematics for sure plays a huge role in the separation of the body of architecture and its soul. That which is natural such as patterns, proportions, scale, and the simple orders of mathematical rules is broken in twentieth century architecture and void of function. Your comment on music is a great point of something that is natural and intrinsically mathematical (patterns) and we see a lack of harmony in architecture today
ReplyDeleteThat Anonymous comment was mine haha
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