tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6155675775465112398.post7579954410195595021..comments2023-11-05T02:16:46.195-05:00Comments on TradArch: “Living Structure" or Nature?Patrick Webbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10943369706791485615noreply@blogger.comBlogger18125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6155675775465112398.post-65736043886862473572016-10-26T17:59:27.631-04:002016-10-26T17:59:27.631-04:00Bill - please look closer, I think you will find i...Bill - please look closer, I think you will find in Chris a lot more than the Modernist small-n nature of which you speak. We are indeed special beings with special moral responsibilities. But please don't forget "supervenience" -- we are part of the family of creation, not freaks, or little god-beings, wholly separate from the rest of creation as we once imagined. (Maybe that's just my Deism coming out, and maybe we will never agree on that point!) Michael Mehaffyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06158838333786955983noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6155675775465112398.post-88374329365863763652016-10-26T08:18:14.125-04:002016-10-26T08:18:14.125-04:00From the segue in the 4th paragraph it seems the i...From the segue in the 4th paragraph it seems the implicit title might be: "Living Tradition" vs Natural Law<br />And so it would appear to me that the charge leveled against Christopher Alexander is that he is somehow guilty by a sin of omission, an ignorance or avoidance of the pivotal role of architecture as an expression of justice and when done for the good, a beautiful expression of justice.<br /><br />I remained unconvinced of the Classical notions of the relation of the good, just and beautiful and their potential physical embodiment in architecture but I'll save that for my own contributing essay. What I would like to point out that I disagree that the living structure Christopher describes can be imposed. Unlike the Modernist focus on form that is imposed upon matter, living structure is cultivated, it grows from a society that is essentially left unencumbered. Human beings living as human beings. Christopher seems likewise concerned with the conditions under which human beings will flourish.<br /><br />I do think there is a great deal of convergence of thinking between Bill and Christopher on certain points. Fundamentally, each in his own way are taking up the ethical position: how ought we to live (and build)? One point that struck me in Christopher's paper was that of "empty imagery for living structure" and how "deeper structure" was a different activity than "copying the shapes of classicism". I heard similar concerns echoed by Bill recently in person (and Christine Franck) within the practise and theory of classicism itself. The overemphasis on the teaching of the orders but not the building volumetrically, the act of building/construction itself as well as building the society. How do we get past this surface imagery of classicism?Patrick Webbhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10943369706791485615noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6155675775465112398.post-49812012730135105112016-10-26T05:28:33.917-04:002016-10-26T05:28:33.917-04:00In tribal communities justice was essential, and I...In tribal communities justice was essential, and I think Ross Chapin's "Pocket Neighborhoods" represent some of the same values.<br /><br />- Pocket Neighborhoods: Building Blocks for Resilient Communities:<br /><br />http://pocket-neighborhoods.net/SmartGrowth.pdf<br />Øyvind Holmstadhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04750850581311963220noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6155675775465112398.post-38032315348386021882016-10-26T05:18:10.616-04:002016-10-26T05:18:10.616-04:00"Everyone has common sense. Intelligent peopl..."Everyone has common sense. Intelligent people, however, have a tendency to overapply their analytical and logical reasoning abilities derived from their general intelligence incorrectly to such evolutionarily familiar domains and as a result get things wrong. In other words, liberals and other intelligent people lack common sense, because their general intelligence overrides it. They think in situations where they are supposed to feel. In evolutionarily familiar domains such as interpersonal relationships, feeling usually leads to correct solutions whereas thinking does not."<br /><br />https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-scientific-fundamentalist/201003/if-liberals-are-more-intelligent-conservatives-why-are<br /><br />Maybe architects are too intelligent?Øyvind Holmstadhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04750850581311963220noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6155675775465112398.post-82418124928619340112016-10-25T15:13:24.646-04:002016-10-25T15:13:24.646-04:00Posting response on behalf of Steven Semes:
Bill,...Posting response on behalf of Steven Semes:<br /><br />Bill, I certainly do not want to deny any of the history of the uses people and powers have made of architecture. But you will surely agree that other kinds of architecture have also been used to intimidate, various moderisms in particular. So it is not denial of the history to ask that a critique of the expressive capacity of the forms themselves be used as a balance to the more common critique of those forms based on the "association of ideas."Patrick Webbhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10943369706791485615noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6155675775465112398.post-10228108825645296942016-10-25T14:35:54.361-04:002016-10-25T14:35:54.361-04:00I looked at your reply to him, and understand just...I looked at your reply to him, and understand justice a bit better. BUT, it is fairly to say that living structure accounts for a majority of architecture (say, 90%). We should not let some trivial parts (say, 10%) to accounthis for the majority of architecture. Just as noted by Alexander, 90% of our feelings are shared, idiosyncratic parts account for only 10% of our feelings. HOWEVER, people tend to use the 10% idiosyncratic parts to account for architecture. This is the failure that modern architecture has experienced. Bin Jianghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13225096106297456415noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6155675775465112398.post-65344873065279933712016-10-25T14:15:35.609-04:002016-10-25T14:15:35.609-04:00Indeed, buildings always express the authority of ...Indeed, buildings always express the authority of those who build them or use them. The most important uses are reserved for what is considered most important in architecture. Their USE is judged according to standards of things that are done, which are the standards of the good, their quality as architecture is judged according to their achievement in that art. Why else could the Pantheon, the throne room for venerating a pagan divinized emperor be adapted to its many later uses, including a church and a mausoleum for modern kings? Westfallhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13340308801203172512noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6155675775465112398.post-62528552987389925132016-10-25T14:02:22.278-04:002016-10-25T14:02:22.278-04:00Posting response on behalf of Bill Buchanan:
I...Posting response on behalf of Bill Buchanan:<br /><br />I'm well aware that the classical has been used to project many things, including the ideas American democratic government, rooted in the perhaps idealized memory of Athenian democracy. But it has also been used to intimidate, and to project superior order to longing for it, whether in the roman or German empires. Some wish to deny the more troublesome uses of the language, but I thing its flexibility is impressive and worthy of serious thought and open-minded appreciation.Patrick Webbhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10943369706791485615noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6155675775465112398.post-5428491849069619802016-10-25T14:01:32.299-04:002016-10-25T14:01:32.299-04:00Posting response on behalf of Steven Semes:
The s...Posting response on behalf of Steven Semes:<br /><br />The same architecture was built by abolitionists and is employed in the war memorials for those who died defeating slavery. All architecture projects power of some kind. Classicism has been used by many different types of power, some noble, some repellent. In many cases, the classical has come to represent justice, even if the practice of that justice by the sponsoring power was imperfect at best. I wouldn't push this argument as far as Bill does, perhaps, but the association of the classical with slavery (whether of the ancient or the modern variety) is misdirected.Patrick Webbhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10943369706791485615noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6155675775465112398.post-81964422634110540252016-10-25T14:00:42.301-04:002016-10-25T14:00:42.301-04:00Posting on behalf of Bill Buchanan:
I certainly h...Posting on behalf of Bill Buchanan:<br /><br />I certainly had my difficulties with Chris but I completely don get this argument, at least as sketched. An architecture expresses superior "justice" because it is better at intimidating those enslaved by the Roman Empire or in the New World. Surely that projection of power was a major programmatic purpose of Classical architecture revivals? There are many arguments for the forms, but justice? The justice as seen by slave masters?Patrick Webbhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10943369706791485615noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6155675775465112398.post-71510123395939996102016-10-25T10:34:48.890-04:002016-10-25T10:34:48.890-04:00Take a look at my reply to him. Take a look at my reply to him. Westfallhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13340308801203172512noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6155675775465112398.post-67291323180900770462016-10-25T09:54:06.711-04:002016-10-25T09:54:06.711-04:00I am all for Natural Law which, as I explain in my...I am all for Natural Law which, as I explain in my recent book, is the shared foundation of the civil order and of the buildings and cities serving it in the classical tradition. Every nation sees that comity within its own traditions. The United States does so through its adaptation of the classical tradition, using what it builds to serve and express that quest for justice. My reservations about Alexander's argument, like that of Modernists, is that they loose contact with that tradition, confusing the means of using what they find in (small n) nature as an adequate reason for justifying a way to build buildings and cities. They fail to account for architecture as a means to a greater end, namely, the enjoyment of the happiness that comes from each person's fulfillment of their unique nature. Westfallhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13340308801203172512noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6155675775465112398.post-2139079730674820052016-10-25T09:49:42.213-04:002016-10-25T09:49:42.213-04:00Great, so we agree upon the notion of living struc...Great, so we agree upon the notion of living structure. However, I still do not understand your notion of justice, too abstract to me. Do you agree on Michael Mehaffy's interpretation of justice?Bin Jianghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13225096106297456415noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6155675775465112398.post-85562581321473156272016-10-25T09:40:08.376-04:002016-10-25T09:40:08.376-04:00I nowhere suggested that he invented rather than d...I nowhere suggested that he invented rather than discovered what he calls "living structure." He does support it as fact, a term that belongs more to means of living rather than ends for living. <br />And, justice is sought in Plato's Academy, not in the Abbey of Thelemene. Westfallhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13340308801203172512noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6155675775465112398.post-27251953455785407152016-10-25T05:49:11.846-04:002016-10-25T05:49:11.846-04:00I think what Bill Westfall is getting at is not so...I think what Bill Westfall is getting at is not so far from what Chris has in fact argued - although he hasn't recognized it in Chris' work. He is speaking of justice, which is really a kind of harmony achieved between people (as Plato argued in The Republic) and expressed in a range of ways -- in their economic conditions, in their legal processes for resolving conflicts, in their physical ways of living -- and in their architecture and urbanism. As Paul Murrain likes to say, architecture is a political system, it limits our freedoms (if you build a wall, I am no longer free to walk there) but it does it, we hope, in a way that achieves a (near) resolution of our conflicting freedoms. That's justice. (Never fully realized, always imperfectly approaching its full realization.)<br /><br />This justice is a form of adaptation, then, which is how Chris explains it. Chris does not see that kind of justice as foreign to the natural world, but rather, "supervenient" to it -- we are beings that can choose justice, in ways that others do not or cannot. But justice IS a kind of natural condition. (One could go so far as to say a "natural law" as some Catholic theologians do - although I would not go that far.)<br /><br />That Classical architecture was an embodiment of this kind of justice is a fair point. That all Classical architects today have managed to really express this justice again, instead of sometimes merely recapitulating its appearance -- well, that question is up for debate, is it not! <br /><br />But we all have our challenges with recovery and regeneration in these times, and there is a saying about "people in glass houses who shouldn't throw stones..." I am all for the recovery and regeneration project, and the ways that we can support one another in the work...Michael Mehaffyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06158838333786955983noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6155675775465112398.post-91692910551410655082016-10-25T04:05:03.939-04:002016-10-25T04:05:03.939-04:00I'm gonna comment in the exact same way as the...I'm gonna comment in the exact same way as the above text was written: full of arrogance. ;)<br />This is quite The Example of a convoluted interpretation without any solid base supporting it: who stated that architecture is a way to enjoy justice? If this pillar is wrong then all this brainy structure crumbles instantly. The blindly arrogant way used to answer to Alexander's letter points clearly towards a narrow mind and approach to architecture itself.<br /><br />See? Handful of arrogance Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07878557946390720440noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6155675775465112398.post-80186399379470285822016-10-25T03:34:02.991-04:002016-10-25T03:34:02.991-04:00To supplement, living structure is defined mathema...To supplement, living structure is defined mathematically, it exists in space and matter physically, and it reflects in our minds or cognition psychologically; see details in this paper.<br />https://www.researchgate.net/publication/296396310_A_Complex-Network_Perspective_on_Alexander%27s_Wholeness<br /><br />I have also developed a mathematical model of living structure or wholeness that enables us to address (1) why a design is beautiful, and (2) how much beauty the design has:<br /><br />https://www.researchgate.net/publication/272159333_Wholeness_as_a_Hierarchical_Graph_to_Capture_the_Nature_of_Space<br />Bin Jianghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13225096106297456415noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6155675775465112398.post-68720492288667605322016-10-25T02:52:11.661-04:002016-10-25T02:52:11.661-04:00Alexander is a scientist, and he discovered - rath...Alexander is a scientist, and he discovered - rather than invented - that living structure exists in all traditional buildings and cities and works of art, as well as in nature and biology. In other words, living structure is NOT his invention, just as fractal is a discovery rather than an invention of mathematicians. The open letter simply points out a matter of fact of living structure rather than an imposed opinion. In addition, could you explain what you mean by justice? Are you saying that that every one is entitled to do whatever architecture he/she likes? Thanks.Bin Jianghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13225096106297456415noreply@blogger.com