The Humanities in Architectural Design

A Contemporary and Historical Perspective

Soumyen Bandyopadhyay, Jane Lomholt, Nicholas Temple, Renée Tobe

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2010
• ISBN:
  9781134999637
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Architecture
• Subtopic: Architecture General

Offering an in-depth consideration of the impact which humanities have had on the processes of architecture and design, this book asks how we can restore the traditional dialogue between intellectual enquiry in the humanities and design creativity.

Written by leading academics in the fields of history, theory and philosophy of design, these essays draw profound meanings from cultural practices and beliefs. These are as diverse as the designs they inspire and include religious, mythic, poetic, political, and philosophical references.

This timely and important book is not a benign reflection on humanities' role in architectural design but a direct response to the increased marginalization of humanities in a technology driven world. The prioritization of technology leaves critical questions unanswered about the relationships between information and knowledge, transcription and translation, and how emerging technologies can usefully contribute to a deeper understanding of our design culture.

Part 1
Freedom in the shadow of uncertainty

Contributors to this part explore the role of the humanities in the rapidly changing design environment of extreme uncertainty and arbitrariness. The papers focus on the role of ethics in discharging the responsibility society bestows on architects to create buildings and dwellings. The reflective nature of praxis with ethics embedded at its core, the role of history in expanding and sustaining the ethical responsibility, the reviewed notion of

as the ability to know, and the opportunities posed by migration and the concomitant loss of urban autonomy are discussed by the contributors.

In the first chapter of this part, “The responsibility of architectural design”, Karsten Harries discusses the tension that characterises the relationship between the words “creativity” and “humanities”. This is especially relevant at a time when it would appear that the role of culture and the humanities has faded into insignificance in our daily lives. Equally, for architectural design creativity, instant simulation is at hand through developments in science and technology, made readily available and immediately applicable. In this context Harries explores the extent to which culture and the humanities could still provide the critical understanding of the limits of freedom we have all grown to accept and cherish. The opportunities of freedom, Harries argues, are being overshadowed by the growing threat of arbitrariness. Citing Milan Kundera, he laments the “unbearable lightness of so much that is being built”. Urging designers to be open and responsible, and to step back from the objectifying reason that prevails over the technologically driven nature of our existence, he argues that the importance of the humanities is greater today than ever before.

In “inHumanities: Ethics inn architectural praxis”, Leonidas Koutsoumpos plays with the word in, in an attempt to understand the place of philosophical ethics in contemporary architectural design. Koutsoumpos argues for the need to understand ethics in the design activity itself, underscoring architecture’s role as a deeply humane endeavour. By pursuing the etymology of the word, Koutsoumpos discovers a connection between in and inn, an earlier usage richer in meaning that encompassed not only the meaning of “inside” but also the notion “to dwell”. Following a Heideggerian philosophical path, the author unravels two ways of understanding the term in: the first is spatial specific, while the second is existential specific and refers to the awareness of being-in-the-world. Focusing on the connection between ethics and praxis, the discussion shifts from the dominant theoretical and poetic aspects of architecture to a practical one. Extending the notion of praxis beyond the demands of technological romanticism, he emphasises the ethical term phronesis or practical wisdom. Warning against the applied relationship between ethics and architecture, Koutsoumpos argues the deeply embedded nature of ethics in architectural praxis, which, he suggests, should be conceptualised through their inner relationship: ethics inn architectural praxis.

In “Cultivating architects: The humanities in architectural education”, Alexandra Stara proposes to revisit the tradition of the humanities and the underlying theme of a contemporary humanism as the medium for communicating fundamental ideas and demonstrating modes of enquiry, without which, as she argues, both the making and teaching of architecture becomes distorted and problematic. Stara focuses on the role of history in architectural pedagogy, arguing that a historical understanding of architecture is inseparable from its understanding as a creative act. However, she emphasises that the kind of history relevant here has to move away from the established view of teaching history as a systematic collection of information, as well as the equating of truth with fact. In an era of increasing specialisation and difference, there is the pressing need to revisit and redefine the common ground between making and thinking. To fulfil architecture’s ethical role and to reestablish its cultural relevance, she emphasises ethical responsibility through a sympathetic and relevant understanding of history.

In “The architect as humanist”, Leslie Kavanaugh poses the important question: How does architecture re-situate itself in the humanist tradition? Obviously, humanism has a trajectory that winds its way through history since the time of Erasmus. Humanism, she argues, was not only a plea for rationality, as it is often conceived, but for the self-responsibility of free citizens. Architecture, a profession arising from and existing within this tradition, has always encompassed two streams of thought that can be seen today in the apparent dichotomy of the humanities and the technological sciences; that is to say, the humanist and the master builder. Yet, because the humanist tradition, following Aristotle, exalted man as an animal that reasons, and most specifically an animal that reasons for himself, she asks: Should the architect not follow his or her own reason and occupy the place that embraces the free practice of thought and experiment? Emphasising the pervasive notion of

being crucially the “ability” to know rather than “what” to know, she emphasises the humane spatial responsibility of the architect.

In “Migration, emancipation and architecture”, James McQuillan reflects on the phenomenon of migration that characterises our cultures at the present time. Migration, as population movement – for work, for tourism and due to strife – McQuillan argues, is of ancient origin, known to the Hebrews and many other races in history. Following Eric Voegelin’s treatment of the role of emancipation in Western culture in his Order and History, McQuillan asserts migration’s emancipatory oppor tunities. The freedom of the Jews from Egypt, and what Plato called metaxy, a realised conflict between divine and mundane orders, were two famous realisations of philosophy arising from ancient experience. Unfortunately, modern architecture failed to focus the attention migration legitimately demanded, beyond a few largely abortive attempts at utopian housing projects. However, contemporary urbanists such as Saskia Sassen have addressed its pivotal importance, highlighted, for example, in tourism as a form of organised migration. The issue of “reverse colonialism” as an emerging cultural, social and political phenomenon is gradually attracting attention from such thinkers and philosophers as Neil L. Whitehead. The resultant loss of autonomy of cities, McQuillan argues, could present a new opportunity for architecture.

Chapter 1
The responsibility of architectural design

Karsten Harries

Introduction

We have come to expect creativity from the architect. What then do the humanities have to contribute to design creativity? There is tension in the question: “Creativity” refers to the ability to invent. It suggests “originality.” “Design creativity” would thus seem to call for a certain freedom from the established and accepted ways of doing things, an openness to the challenges presented by an inevitably uncertain future, made exciting, but also troubled, by the new possibilities technology continues to open up. The task of the humanities, on the other hand, is to preserve our shared cultural heritage as expressed in the canonic works of the past. Design creativity demands freedom. The humanities seek to bind freedom to what is most essentially human, thus keeping freedom responsible. But how are we to understand what is “most essentially human”? No longer do we find a ready answer in the works of the ancients, which for so many centuries seemed to provide the humanities with a canon and a foundation. What authority can the humanities still claim?

The tension between “design creativity” and “the humanities” is thus shadowed by the way the latter would seem to possess only a marginal significance in today’s world. The humanities may claim to be the custodians of a past that has shaped our values, that has given us our culture, and for centuries provided us with something like a spiritual home. Today that home would seem to lie neglected, if not in ruins, no longer able to provide us with adequate shelter. What importance do the humanities retain in our post-technological, global and market-oriented society? Homer, Virgil, Dante, Shakespeare, Goethe – who still reads them?

George Steiner deplored in a recent lecture the fact that “young Englishmen choose to rank David Beckham high above Shakespeare and Darwin in their list of national treasures” and that “learned institutions, bookstores, concert halls and theaters are struggling for survival in a Europe which is fundamentally prosperous, where wealth has never spoken more loudly.” “The fault,” he charged, “is very simply ours.”¹ But just what is our fault? Who are “we”? Does this “we” include those young Englishmen who care little about Shakespeare and Darwin? Are we to blame them or are they just, like all of us, part of this modern age? Should we blame ourselves for not insisting that our governments spend more on the humanities and culture? What place should the humanities have in a modern democracy? And what place should they have in a university that is truly of today?

The place of design, it would seem, is much less problematic. Just consider such undergraduate programs offered by the Lincoln School of Art and Design: Animation, Conservation and Restoration; Contemporary Decorative Crafts; Contemporary Lens Media; Creative Advertising; Fashion Studies; Fine Art; Furniture; Graphic Design; Product Design; and Illustration and Interactive Design. The engagement of these programs with the world we live in is evident. Not so evident is the relevance of the humanitie...

Table of contents

• Contents
• Illustration credits
• Contributors
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• Part 1 Freedom in the shadow of uncertainty
• Part 2 The spectre of technology
• Part 3 Measures of awareness
• Part 4 The challenges of instrumental knowledge
• Select bibliography
• Index