Goodman for Architects

Remei Capdevila-Werning

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781134660612
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Architecture
• Subtopic: Architecture General

American philosopher Nelson Goodman (1906-1998) was one of the foremost analytical thinkers of the twentieth century, with groundbreaking contributions in the fields of logic, philosophy of science, epistemology, and aesthetics. This book is an introduction to the aspects of Goodman's philosophy which have been the most influential among architects and architectural theorists.

Goodman specifically discussed architecture in his major work on aesthetics, The Languages of Art: An Approach to a Theory of Symbols (1968), and in two essays "How Buildings Mean" (1985), and "On Capturing Cities" (1991). His main philosophical notions in Ways of Worldmaking (1978) also apply well to architecture. Goodman's thought is particularly attractive because of its constructive aspect: there is not a given and immutable world, but both knowledge and reality are constantly built and rebuilt. Whereas other theories, such as deconstruction, implicitly entail an undoing of modern precepts, Goodman's conception of world-making offers a positive, constructive way to understand how a plural reality is made and remade.

Goodman's approach to architecture is not only relevant thinking in providing new insights to understanding the built environment, but serves also as an illustration of analytical thinking in architecture. This book shows that the methods, concepts, and ways of arguing characteristic of analytical philosophy are helpful tools to examine buildings in a novel and fruitful way and they will certainly enhance the architect's critical skills when designing and thinking about architecture.

CHAPTER 1

Introduction

Analytic philosophy, characterized by its rigorous and detail-centred methods and argumentation, provides an approach to architecture that complements the variety of theories that architects are already acquainted with and enhances their critical skills for both designing and thinking about architecture. While there is no doubt about the significant influence of continental philosophy on architectural thought (with contributions by thinkers such as Benjamin, Deleuze, Derrida, Foucault, or Heidegger), Anglo-American analytic philosophy also provides a relevant account of architecture that should no longer be disregarded. Nelson Goodman provides such an account. His philosophy is exemplary of analytic thinking and, most importantly, provides a fruitful and compelling way to reflect about architecture and the built environment. The present book thus introduces Goodman’s philosophy as applied to architecture and shows the unique role that architecture plays in both the creation of meaning and the making of reality.

As one of the foremost analytic philosophers of the twentieth century, Goodman made groundbreaking contributions to almost all philosophical disciplines, from logic and philosophy of science, to metaphysics, epistemology, and aesthetics, where his reflections on architecture are found. This wide range constitutes, as will be shown, a cohesive whole characterized by constructivist, relativist, irrealist, and pluralist philosophical convictions. Throughout Goodman’s work, there is thus a leading thread that is best illustrated by his major publications. It starts with his dissertation, A Study of Qualities (1941), which constitutes the basis of his first book, The Structure of Appearance (1951), continues with Fact, Fiction, and Forecast (1954), Languages of Art: An Approach to a Theory of Symbols (1968), Problems and Projects (1972), Ways of Worldmaking (1978), Of Mind and Other Matters (1984), and ends with Reconceptions in Philosophy and Other Arts and Sciences (1988, co-authored with Catherine Z. Elgin). Goodman specifically examines architecture in his major work on aesthetics, Languages of Art, and in two essays entitled ‘How Buildings Mean’ (1985, later published in Reconceptions), and ‘On Capturing Cities’ (1991). His main philosophical notions and theses apply as well to architecture, especially those discussed in Ways of Worldmaking.

Goodman was not prone to talking about himself. In the Fiftieth anniversary report of Harvard University Class of 1928, Goodman includes among his aversions ‘writing anything autobiographical like this’, ‘this’ being a short updated biography about his career and whereabouts (Harvard College, Class of 1928, 1978: 260). This statement reflects his unwillingness to look back, and rather indicates his desire ‘to look forward to the next philosophical problem or work of art’ (Elgin 2000: 2). A brief note on his life, which spanned most of the twentieth century, may nevertheless be useful. Born in Somerville, Massachusetts on 7 August, 1906, Henry Nelson Goodman attended Harvard University, receiving a B.S. in 1928 and a Ph.D. in Philosophy in 1941. During his graduate studies, he was running the Goodman-Walker Art Gallery in Boston, a way to sustain himself due to the impossibility of getting any fellowships because of his Jewish origins. This is how he became acquainted with art and started his own extensive collection (some of Goodman’s artworks are currently at the Harvard Art Museums, where he bequeathed them, and are accessible online through Harvard’s library catalogue). At the gallery he also met artist Katharine Sturgis, whom he married in 1944. He served the US Army during World War II as a psychological tester and afterwards he began his academic career, first at Tufts University (1945–6), then at the University of Pennsylvania (1946–64), at Brandeis University (1964–7), to end up again at Harvard, where he taught from 1968 to his retirement in 1977, when he became emeritus Professor. Apart from his philosophical work, Goodman was interested in the arts in a non-theoretical way: in addition to collecting and running an art gallery, he founded the Harvard Summer Dance Program and Project Zero at Harvard Graduate School of Education, an interdisciplinary program for research in education and the arts; he also commissioned, produced, and directed the artistic performances Hockey Seen, Rabbit Run, and Variations: An Illustrated Lecture Concert. He continued working actively in various projects, until his death on 25 November, 1998, at age 92, in Needham, Massachusetts. (A more extensive biography and a summary of Goodman’s main contributions is in Elgin et al. 1999, Carter 2000, and Elgin 2000).

Following Goodman’s philosophy, architecture’s task does not simply entail the physical construction of buildings that fulfil practical functions, but is also an active participation to the creation of meaning and reality. Architecture has therefore an epistemological role, insofar as it contributes to the making of meaning and understanding, and a metaphysical role, insofar as it contributes the making of reality and the world beyond just assembling materials. On the one hand, architecture creates meaning and contributes to the advancement of our understanding in a unique manner. This contribution is as valid as the ones conveyed by any other discipline, from sciences to humanities, from arts to everyday life, and there is no pre-established hierarchy that privileges one over the others: the meaning provided by science, for instance, is not superior or better than the one provided by architecture. Epistemology is hence concerned with all sorts of meaning; understanding is not limited to propositional knowledge, i.e., the one expressed by declarative sentences, but is a much broader notion that includes all sorts of beliefs, opinions, emotions, and experiences. What one learns from architecture, be it a conception of space, the building’s features, or something about oneself is not knowledge, but understanding. For Goodman, these meanings provided by architecture are irreducible to knowledge or other kinds of understanding. What we gain when experiencing a building cannot be completely transposed into words; it can be described through propositional knowledge, but something gets lost in translation. Architecture, thus, enhances understanding in a distinctive way.

Following Goodman’s philosophy, architecture’s task does not simply entail the physical construction of buildings that fulfil practical functions, but is also an active participation to the creation of meaning and reality.

Within this epistemological framework, buildings convey meaning by symbolizing. Or, better, buildings are symbols that mean many things in various ways. A farm may refer to a kind of dwelling, an economic activity, traditional values, an architectural style, or nostalgia for a way of life in decline. A parliament building may stand for political values, one of the nation’s pillars, or it may ironically stand for the false pretence of democracy in a corrupt country. A church symbolizes a particular religion, style, period, grandeur, solace, or its structure and construction materials. As symbols, buildings bear interpretation. To find out what they mean, we need to interpret them according to the symbol systems to which they belong, for symbols do not function in isolation. A house symbolizes a certain style within a system that classifies buildings according to stylistic features; it symbolizes being a residential building within a system that classifies buildings according to the activities they shelter; it symbolizes its size and distribution, but not its furniture or wall colour within a system that sorts out the features a house has to display as a model house. This might seem an unusual process, but we are constantly learning how symbol systems work and interpreting symbols: from languages to mathematical formulas, from traffic lights to works of art, from gestures to constellations. We live surrounded by symbols, creating and interpreting them. Accordingly, by designing and erecting buildings, architects are also symbol-makers.

On the other hand, architecture’s contribution to the creation of meaning and the advancement of understanding has its metaphysical counterpart, which is that of making worlds in a fundamental sense. By symbolizing, architecture participates in the process of worldmaking. Buildings may refer many things under different symbol systems which are irreducible to one another; there are hence various symbol systems that lack a last referent that would serve as their common ground. For Goodman, this means that the plurality of symbol systems corresponds to a plurality of worlds, each of them irreducible to the others. In other words, it is not the case that there is one world and many interpretations of it, but rather that these various interpretations and meanings actually constitute different worlds. As symbols are constantly made and remade, interpreted and reinterpreted starting from previous symbols and symbol systems, worlds are also constantly made and remade, constructed and reconstructed starting from previous worlds or world-versions. This is why Goodman’s philosophy is characterized as pluralist, constructivist, irrealist, and relativist. This is also why for Goodman epistemology and metaphysics meet, because the various construals of the world are at the same time constructions of the world. Buildings are not just physical objects and, as such, constitutive elements of the world, but rather every construal of a building contributes to worldmaking. Given this interrelation with meaning and reality and architecture’s central role in both, the task of the architect acquires a wider significance as the task of designing results in the very creation of meaning as well as of worlds. In Goodman’s terms, architects are primarily world-makers.

We live surrounded by symbols, creating and interpreting them. Accordingly, by designing and erecting buildings, architects are also symbol-makers.

Goodman’s discussion on architecture takes place within aesthetics, which means that architecture is considered as an art. Works of art and architecture are symbols with particular characteristics. When a building serves solely to shelter a practical function, it does not symbolize, it is just a building; when it symbolizes in an aesthetic or artistic way, then it is architecture. And when it symbolizes in a non-aesthetic way, in a political or religious manner, for instance, it is a symbol, but not architecture. What a construction is depends on (and is relative to) its symbolic functioning. It is not the case that a building is architecture because its creator intended to do so, because it was designed to be architecture, or because the historical, social, and institutional context so determines. Rather, the status of a building is a matter of how it is interpreted. Thus Goodman’s question of ‘when is art?’, or here, of ‘when is architecture?’ does not address architecture’s temporal status, but the conditions under which one and the same building can simultaneously be just a building, architecture, or a symbol of another sort.

In Goodman’s terms, architects are primarily world-makers.

Given that works of art and architecture are symbols, their main role is cognitive; they are characterized above all by their capacity of creating and conveying meaning and not by their beauty or their capacity to awaken emotions, for example. Our engagement with works of art and architecture is not a passive reception, but an active process of discerning and interpreting a work’s meanings. Aesthetics is thus an integral part of epistemology and, since through the creation and interpretation of symbols worlds are made, aesthetics is also an integral part of metaphysics. That architecture is considered as an art and examined as an artistic symbol does not mean that the theory of symbols only applies to buildings when functioning as art. Goodman’s theory of symbols is concerned with any sort of symbol and this is precisely what creates a common ground for all sorts of understanding and also the several worlds to whose making they contribute. Architecture’s social, cultural, and political meanings can also be understood in symbol theoretical terms, which entails that buildings do not only contribute to artistic worlds, but can participate to the creation of any kind of world. Since buildings may be part of multiple symbol systems and worlds, architects have an enormous potential for construing and reconstruing, constructing and reconstructing all of them.

Goodman’s theory of symbols is concerned with any sort of symbol and this is precisely what creates a common ground for all sorts of understanding and also the several worlds to whose making they contribute.

This book is structured following the conceptual development just described. Chapter 2 deals with the question of ‘when is architecture?’. By asking ‘when’ rather than ‘what’, architecture is examined within a relativist conceptual framework that considers that buildings are symbols. This explains the fact that buildings may sometimes be architecture and sometimes not and offers a solution to problems that three different approaches to architecture fail to solve: an essentialist account, which maintains that there are essential properties that determine what architecture is; an intentionalist account, according to which the intentions (generally of the architect) determine what counts as architecture; and an institutionalist account, which defends that what architecture is is decided by a series of established institutions and groups of experts. This chapter further discusses aesthetic experience in architecture, for the process of interpreting buildings as artistic symbols occurs when aesthetically experiencing a work. Chapter 3, ‘Buildings as Symbols’, examines how symbolization takes place in architecture. It explains Goodman’s conceptions of symbol and symbol systems, discusses the various modes of reference (denotation, exemplification, expression, allusion, variation, and style), and presents articulation as a means to prompt symbolization in buildings. Evaluation and criteria of rightness of both symbolization and interpretation are also addressed in this chapter, which finishes by answering again the initial question of ‘when is architecture’ by identifying the so-called symptoms of the aesthetic, a response that can only be given once Goodman’s theory of symbols has been discussed. Chapter 4 addresses issues of identity of architectural works. While certain buildings are considered as originals and others as their copies, other buildings are considered as instances of the same work and yet other buildings, such as restored structures and reconstructions, are hybrid cases. Goodman’s notions of the autographic and the allographic serve as conceptual tools to philosophically explain these differences. Within this context, architecture’s notation (constituted by plans, elevations, and sections) acquires a role of establishing the identity of allographic works. Finally, Chapter 5 examines how buildings contribute to the making and remaking of worlds. It explains the transition from symbolization to worldmaking and the underlying metaphysical assumptions that constitute Goodman’s constructivist, pluralist, and relativist thinking. The discussion of specific architectural examples shows architecture’s distinct involvement in the process of worldmaking.

There are plenty of examples throughout the book. This is not only for pedagogic purposes, but because for Goodman examples play a central role in both understanding and developing a theory. Examples are symbols that, as their name indicates, exemplify certain properties, and they do so in a way that is not completely transposable to other sorts of symbols. Good examples provide a privileged epistemic access to properties and concepts that otherwise would remain obscure. Developing one’s own examples and counter-examples is an important way of developing arguments, thinking, and reflecting. Therefore, everyone is invited to find their own examples to think and reflect about architecture.

CHAPTER 2

When is Architecture?

Some constructions are generally considered to be architecture and others not: ‘A bicycle shed is a building; Lincoln Cathedral is a piece of architecture’ (Pevsner 1963: 15). Likewise, the Taj Mahal is a work of architecture while the apartment block where I live is simply a building. No matter whether one agrees or not, whether these distinctions are elitist or controversial, ‘whether they arise … from the stomach or the imagination’ (Marx 1990: 125), it is not an uncommon classification that requires closer examination. Similarly, certain structures are sometimes works of architecture under certain circumstances but not under others: saltbox houses, among the earliest New England homes, had a primary function of providing shelter and now many of them are taken as artistic examples of American colonial architecture. And yet in other cases works of architecture can become simply buildings under other conditions, as happened to the first skyscrapers when their novelty and exceptionality became the norm. How can these shifts be explained? How can the change in a building’s stature be philosophically accounted for? Goodman addresses this issue when posing the question of ‘When is art?’ or, here, the question of ‘When is architecture?’.

Part of the trouble lies in asking the wrong question – in failing to recognize that a thing may function as a work of art at some time and not at others. In crucial cases, the real question is not ‘What objects are (permanently) works of art?’ but ‘When is an object a work of art?’ – or more briefly, as in my title, ‘When is art?’

(Goodman 1978: 66–7)

Goodman proposes this functional approach to art and architecture in a central chapter of his Ways of Worldmaking, precisely entitled ‘When Is Art?’. Since, for Goodman, no satisfactory answers have been given to the question about the essence of art and architecture, a change in focus may be helpful to understand not what architecture is, but rather when a construction functions as architecture and in that way explain how it is possible that one and the same building can be architecture in some cases and not in others. This shifting from ‘what’ to ‘when’, thus, is not simply a word game: it enables a completely different approach to architecture that abandons an essentialist take in favour of a much broader and elastic characterization, which for Goodman is a constructivist and functional one. This change in the question is what leads one to consider that buildings are symbols. Moreover, by changing the approach, the essentialist, intentionalist, and institutionalist accounts of architecture are rejected and the difficulties they pose are resolved. This chapter discusses these three accounts and introduces the fundamentals of Goodman’s philosophy while explaining how his account addresses issues that other approaches fail to solve.

Essentialism and Goodman’s account

An essentialist account of architecture aims to formulate the necessary properties that make something be architecture; it aims to provide a definition of what architecture is. As it turns out, however, it is quite difficult and problematic to determine exactly what the essence of architecture is and, consequently, to provide an adequate definition. Consider a standard definition of architecture as it is found in the Oxford English Dictionary (OED). Here, the first entry states that architecture is ‘[t]he art or science of building or const...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Series Editor’s Preface
• Acknowledgements
• Illustrations Credits
• 1. Introduction
• 2. When is Architecture?
• 3. Buildings as Symbols
• 4. Identity of Architectural Works
• 5. Buildings as Ways of Worldmaking
• For Further Reading
• Bibliography
• Index