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On
the
Interpretation of Architecture
Theory
of Interpretation Vol.
12, No. 2, December 2008 |
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Mercurius/Hermes
Giordano Bruno: de imaginum compositione, Frankfurt 1591
(liber II, Kap VI, S. 240) |
Conceptional design and editing,
Curators:
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Eduard
Heinrich Führ, Robert J. Miller
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Organisation,
editorial assistant and layout:
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Ehrengard
Heinzig
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Editorial The
Determination of the
Architectural
as a Subject of Interpretation |
Matthias A. Amann |
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Architectural
Work without Use |
Sabine Ammon |
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Interpreting, Understanding,
Knowing –
Cognitivity of Architecture |
Stefan Hajek |
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"You dare! This will
kill that." |
Alban Janson |
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Turn!
Turn! Turn!
On the Architectural Image |
Roland Lippuner |
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Objects and
Locations –
A Systems Theory Interpretation of Space and Architecture |
Stefan Meißner |
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Objects – Discourse – Interpretation |
Robert J. Miller |
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architecture is what
blows off in a hurricane |
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Interpreting
of Interpretations |
Martin Düchs |
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thin and
thick conceptions of morality – A Discussion in Moral Philosophy
as Analogy for Architecture and its Interpretation |
Thomas Hackenfort
& Stefan Hochstadt |
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Architecture
that I mean –
How Architectural Reality is Constructed through Interpretation |
David Kolb |
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Public
Exposure: Architecture and Interpretation |
Anna Valentine Ullrich |
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Effects of
Media:
Reception between Architecture, Language and Image |
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Theories
of Interpretations |
Burkhard
Biella |
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Architecture
in Context –
Hermeneutical Notes on the Interpretation of Architecture |
Nathaniel Coleman |
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Elusive
Interpretations |
Monika Grubbauer |
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Interpretation
of Architecture: Photographic Images of Architecture and the Visual
Mediation of Architectural Knowledge |
Lex Hermans |
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The
Rules of Rhetoric as Manual for Reading Architecture |
Rixt Hoekstra |
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Lost
in Translation?
Tafuri in Germany, Tafuri on Germany: A History of Reception |
Jonna M. Krarup |
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Interpretation as Doing |
Maria Lorena Lehman |
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Interpretation
and Evolution: A Scenario |
Sandra Lippert-Vieira |
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Towards
a “Reader-Response” Criticism in Architecture: The Implied Llife of
the Built World |
Klaus Rheidt |
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The
Mystery of the Gigantic Ashlars |
Oliver Schmidtke |
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Sociological
Interpretation of Architecture by the Method of Objective Hermeneutics
– Exemplary Analysis of the Urban Home for F. C. Robie, Architect:
Frank Lloyd Wright 1906-09 in Chicago, USA |
Jörg Schnier |
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The Silence of the Houses |
M. Reza Shirazi |
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‚Genius
loci’, Phenomenology from Without |
Irina Solovyova
& Upali Nanda |
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Embodied Intuition |
Ulrike Tillmann |
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The
Apartment Buildings “Romeo und Juliet” by Hans Scharoun |
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On
the Distinguishing of Interpretations |
Myriam Blais |
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Understanding
and Interpretation:
The Work of Architecture as Image and Representation |
Markus Breitschmid |
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Between
Object and Culture |
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Analysis
versus Interpretation |
Harald
Deinsberger |
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Interpretation
or Analysis of Housings – Contradiction or useful Completion ... and
what about the Theory of Housing? |
Nassir
Zarrin-Panah |
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Constructing
a Building by Interpretation |
abstracts: |
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The Determination of the Architectural as a Subject of Interpretation
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___Matthias
A. Amann
Dresden |
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We face a theoretical problem when identifying an unoccupied building
with a work of architecture – except on the condition that we are
taking on a historian‘s perspective. Since Vitruvius a work of architecture
must be destined for a certain use; use (utilitas) is one of its indispensable
preconditions. The relationship between a work of architecture and
its intended use is established by means of conventional criteria,
which are borrowed from a historical and/or practical background.
Patterns of human activities are to correspond to spatial patterns
of geometry.
But still it proves impossible to evaluate a building‘s intended use
focussing on its geometric properties, only. If a geometrical pattern
significantly diverged from established models – we call this an original
solution – wouldn‘t this mean we could only speculate about how it
would be used? ‚Use‘ exists in present continues only, in the future
it appears as mere potentiality. The only way to give positive demonstration
of the quality of a building‘s ‚use‘ is to use it. Thence the dilemma
of an unused building becomes evident.
Thus this Gordian knot can just be resolved assuming there is a superordinate
context of concealed ‚use‘, which then would qualify the vacant building
as a work of architecture. This would mean vacant buildings are still
in use. But their ‚use‘ seems to lie in fields, which are hidden to
the usual gaze. |
Paper
in German
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___Sabine
Ammon
Berlin |
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Theory of symbols enables to study the cognitive dimension of architecture.
Investigating architecture as symbol systems and its underlying symbol
processes expose manifold ways how interpretation influences architecture
– not only, as one could expect, when we interpret buildings, but
also when we plan, design or use them. The article examines the function
of interpretation in designing, constructing, using and reading architecture.
By following a line of thoughts developed by Nelson Goodman, it can
be demonstrated that dealing with architecture is determined by processes
of interpretation. Additionally, the cognitivity of architectural
symbols explains its interdependence with knowledge and understanding.
Theory of symbols makes plausible why symbol systems in architecture
can count as a form of knowledge and why they further our understanding. |
Paper
in German |
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___Stefan
Hajek
Au am Inn |
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Dieser
Satz aus Victor Hugos „Der Glöckner von Notre-Dame“ ist dabei Leitgedanke
der Überlegungen.
„Dieses“ – die Buchdruckerkunst – steht für den Verlust der Kontrolle
über Inhalt und Interpretationshoheit. Das Gebäude verliert seine
Funktion als Buch der Menschheit und damit eine Interpretationsebene.
Dieser Verlust verändert die Interpretation der Architektur und die
Architektur an sich.
Der Beitrag versucht zu analysieren, was der Akt des „Interpretierens“
an sich bedeutet, und was die Interpretation eines Objektes beim Objekt
verursacht. Interpretation wird dabei als Vorgang zur Nutzbarmachung
von Information verstanden, wobei jede denkbare Interpretation als
zulässige Interpretation eines Interpretationsraumes behandelt wird.
Was passiert nun, wenn das Objekt interpretiert wird? Wie verändert
sich der „Interpretationsraum“, der alle denkbaren Interpretationen
umfasst, und wie verändert sich die Beziehung zwischen Objekt und
Interpretation?
Diese Fragestellungen werden als wesentlich für das Interpretieren
angesehen und bilden die Grundlage des hier skizzierten Beitrages.
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Paper
in German |
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___Alban
Janson
Karlsruhe |
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Für kulturelle
Phänomene werden in den Kulturwissenschaften unter der Bezeichnung
cultural turn unterschiedliche Interpretationsrahmen verwendet.
Je nach eingeschlagener Richtung (turn) lässt sich auch Architektur
verschieden interpretieren. Ist insbesondere das Bildparadigma geeignet,
Architektur angemessen zu erklären? Bilder sind keine Architektur.
Aber man kann Bauwerk und Stadt alternativ als Architektur oder aber
als Bild betrachten. Um Bauwerk und Stadt als Architektur und gleichermaßen
als Bild aufzufassen, braucht man einen architektonischen Bildbegriff.
Er wird hier – gestützt auf Beobachtungen von Graf Karlfried von Dürckheim
– hergeleitet aus dem Zusammenwirken der persönlichen Raumsphäre mit
gegenständlichen Raumeigenschaften struktureller und gestischer Art.
Im Unterschied zu anderen Bildern repräsentiert das „architektonische
Bild“ keine andere Wirklichkeit, sondern ist Artikulation der aktuellen
Realität; es ist ein szenisches Bild. Abschließend wird gefragt, in
welchem Verhältnis das „architektonische Bild“ zur sonstigen Art von
Bildern in der Architektur steht. |
Paper
in German |
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___Roland
Lippuner
Jena |
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The
social sciences’ engagement with the interpretation of architecture
is generally directed towards the daily use and social appropriation
of the built environment. By way of contrast, this entry attempts
to describe architecture as a social system on the basis of Luhmann’s
systems theory. The programmed production of the built environment
(architecture) should be understood within systems theory as the processing
of observations (decisions and descriptions). From there, I begin
a functional analysis of architecture that inquires into the medium
and the forms that architecture produces through its observations. |
Paper
in German |
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___Stefan
Meißner
Dresden |
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For
the interpretation of architecture, it has to be known first, what
architecture is. The following essay argue the thesis that architecture
can't be understood without their describing comment, because our
conception of architecture is constituted by texts, models, photographs
and films over this architecture – and not only by their "physical"
representation. Architecture depends always of social discourses.
A discourse analysis tries to reconstruct this relationship. To that
extent a discourse-analytically trained interpretation of architecture
could say something to the specific, historical knowledge that makes
possible both, the process of building and the perception of architecture. |
Paper
in German |
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___Robert
J. Miller
Charleston, SC |
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The
interpretation of architecture hinges on what we mean by interpretation
and what we take to be Architecture. This article will argue that
Architecture does not exist as an autonomous physical entity, the
significance of which is subject to the interpretation of variously-qualified
interpreters. It will argue, rather, that Architecture is a non-physical
(but not entirely intellectual) construct; that this construct must
be activated to come into being; and that, while the interpreter’s
competence will condition the reading, there are more- and less-correct
activations, their significance and depth being a function of the
construct’s rigor.
My argument is advanced as a thought experiment, working through a
logical series of issues and drawing on thoughts by John Dewey, Antonio
Gramsci, Raymond Williams, and Marco Frascari. Briefly citing Renaissance
and Baroque theory, the argument is situated historically. Finally,
it adapts Umberto Eco’s semiotic notation to provide a more accurate
method of articulating the ideas. |
Paper in English |
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Interpreting of Interpretation |
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___Martin
Düchs
Munich |
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In
moral philosophy there is a long-standing debate about thin and
thick conceptions of morality.
Important elements of the thick conceptions are the assertion of inseparability
of fact and value as well as the view that axiologies are multifarious
and flexible. In contrast, the thin conceptions separate fact from
value and refer to one central value or to a small number of values
in their axiologies.
Analogous to these competing conceptions in the realm of philosophy,
one can make a distinction between thin and thick conceptions concerning
both the production of and the interpretation of architecture.
The thin conceptions find a dichotomy between fact and value while
giving priority to certain aspects of architecture whereas thick conceptions
emphasise the unreducible richness of architecture.
The discussion about thick and thin conceptions in moral philosophy
can help us better understand architecture and its interpretation. |
Paper
in German |
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___Thomas
Hackenfort
& Stefan Hochstadt
Dortmund |
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Investigating
the semantic content of architecture and the subsequent conveyance
and explication of the attained perceptions doesn’t just start out
with its reception, but at the latest with the selection of what is
deemed to be interpretable and conveyable. The therefore necessary
attribution of architectural reality as a sui generic-measure of value
becomes the real act of interpretation, being the constituent point
of origin of what has to be understood as architecture.
In this process, thematic concerns are far more significant than examinations
of the content of possible architectural interpretations themselves.
This is supported by the variety of the miscellaneous communication
organs – trade journals, consumer magazines, features, travel magazines
with their respective target audience and their custom-tailored systems
of preferences and values, the semantic holism in architecture (“The
whole is more than the sum of its parts”) as well as the absence of
a fundamental architectural character repertoire.
Besides the regularisation of architecture, parts of the society have
nevertheless developed codes and symbols as efforts of differentiation
that are followed up collectively through constant offers of interpretation.
Against this background, architectural hermeneutics with the intention
to argue “supra-diastratically” has great difficulties to be convincible.
This is to emphasize the functional-systemic aspect of the interpretation
of architecture, that extensively consists in the fact that, depending
on the social perspective, architecture is not only described, but
first of all declared as such – including which is similar, excluding
the unlike. |
Paper
in German |
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___David
Kolb
Eugene, Oregon |
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Architecture
stands distinctively exposed to the community, yet architecture maintains
a distinctive resistance to interpretation. Many theories of interpretation
treat buildings according to a scheme of passive text and active interpreters,
but the building, and its context, are not definite and passive, waiting
to receive a general categorization by active subjects or communities
who are themselves already totally definite. Buildings and interpreters
both act on each other within public exposures and causal constraints.
Interpretations need to be responsive within dimensions of meaning
that are not under the control of either the architect or the interpreter. |
Paper in English |
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___Anna
V. Ullrich
Aachen |
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How
is architecture to be interpreted in contexts of science or everyday
life? Besides somatically and spatial adoptions, we approximate architecture
in linguistic and visual representations. This paper describes these
different procedures of interpretation as medial practices; using
this approach I emphasise their functions of producing meaning and
creating ways of accessing the world. Following my perspective, the
reception of architecture, but also its production, is always involved
in medial relations. Therefore, interpreting might be regarded as
actions of recipients, who generate sense and readings of architecture
in performative acts.
My aim is to sketch a re-conceptualisation of architectural interpretation
between using and reading in terms of ‘media’ and ‘performance’. |
Paper
in German |
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Theories of Interpretations |
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___Burkhard
Biella
Duisburg |
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Interpretation
of architecture is like any interpretation of signs mediated by language.
The fundamental approach to our world, occurring by thinking and talk,
is as well coincidently mediated by communication as the condition
of communication. Individuality can be asserted as the constitution
of sense in any interpretation. So also architecture is translated
into individual sense by everyone who uses or reflects upon buildings.
Interpretation asks questions about architecture, about architects
– and opens the way to criticism. But architecture itself depends
on interpretation – the architect’s interpretations of his world,
which become part of each of his plans: There are material references
to building materials, regional or not, to landscape, the town and
its area or streets, in which the building takes place, to the building-site,
to the climate, references which are integrated in a texture of formal
or ideal references like ideology, aesthetics, politics or religion.
All those references might be accessible in the – new – interpretations
of those who use or reflect upon architecture. |
Paper
in German |
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___Nathaniel
Coleman
Newcastle upon Tyne |
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Interpreting
architecture is a particularly fraught endeavour. An overview of the
variety of methods for comprehending buildings reveals just how unpromising
any one of them is on its own. For example, any method that attempts
to either limit or fix meaning once and for all or is dependent on
a fixed point of reception will be of limited use to opening up perspectives
on architectural meaning, experience or making. As a corrective, this
paper examines the prospect of interpretative modes dynamic and multi-dimensional
enough to account for the degree to which architecture both causes
change and is affected by it: meaning continually shifts through time
according to circumstances.
Nevertheless, the persistence of certain works through time, in the
imagination, as objects of inquiry, usefulness or value within a culture,
suggests that some interpretable aspects of architecture are stable
enough to persist, while others must be supple enough to be shaped
by change.
Ruskin’s theories of architectural interpretation as outlined in The
Seven Lamps of Architecture will be considered.
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Paper in
English |
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___Monika
Grubbauer
Hamburg |
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Architectural
objects are widely used as motifs of visual communication in today’s
mass media. This article draws attention to the role of ordinary photographic
images of architecture as they are used for editorial purposes, journalistic
coverage and commercial advertising. I argue that these images, even
though they often appear unremarkable und don’t draw our attention,
contribute to the construction of architectural meaning and shape
the interpretation of architecture by non-professionals confronted
with architecture and its images as part of everyday life. Drawing
on the analysis of visual examples I show how architecture is used
for different strategies of visual representation and how visual typification
has a key role in these strategies. In consequence, I posit that the
power of these kinds of photographic images lies in their ability
to present generic and seemingly “typical” images of building types
which tend to be repetitive and lasting. Thus, architectural knowledge
is not only mediated but also constructed by means of photographic
images in mass media and a closer look at the processes of image production,
distribution and perception is necessary to understand these processes. |
Paper
in German |
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___Lex
Hermans
Leiden |
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From
the mid-fifteenth through to the mid-nineteenth century rhetoric has
been the backbone of education. The rules for persuasive speech, analysed
in Antiquity by Aristotle and laid down by Cicero and Quintilian,
were taught in the whole of the early modern Western world. Moreover,
these rules were adapted to other disciplines than the art of speaking,
such as painting, sculpture, and indeed architecture.
Rhetoric required of buildings that they expressed the status and
the character of the patron, owner or user. Over the centuries theorists
developed an ever more refined syntax and vocabulary of architectural
expression, which in the eighteenth century made architecture an ‘architecture
parlante’.
Speaking as an act of communication assumes there will be an audience
to speak to; it also supposes that the audience will understand what
is being said. In the early modern period this was the case. Viewers
used the same rhetorical skills to interpret a building as the architect
in designing it. Rhetoric, then, was the main tool for interpretation.
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Paper in
English |
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___Rixt
Hoekstra
Innsbruck |
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My
contribution deals with the notion that the interpretation of architecture
has a proper history. This history consists of thinkers and conceptions
that throughout time have influenced the way we perceive of architecture.
For example, where we once thought of architecture as an aesthetic
object to be known only by an élite of conaisseurs, today we might
be more apt to think of architecture as a means of communication,
to be appreciated by a wide arrange of people. By focussing on the
history of interpretation we may contribute to the intellectual history
of the discipline: a history that is based on subjects rather then
on objects. The objectivity of knowledge about architecture is in
this way not exclusively founded upon the object, but is also a consequence
of the scientific debate that is held within the discipline. The interpretation
of architecture is actively constructed, by using certain criteria,
parameters and so on, just as much as it is the result of a reconstruction.
Within this framework my contribution deals with the position of the
Italian architect and historian Manfredo Tafuri (Rome, 1935 – Venice,
1994). Although the work of Tafuri is not so well know in Germany,
he was one of the most dominant thinkers of architecture and society
in the final third of the 20th century. Being both influential and
controversial, Tafuri received fulsome praise as well as trenchant
critique during his lifetime. Tafuri was responsible for a fully revised
standard of how architectural history might be written. My thesis
is that in the final three decades of the 20th century Tafuri brought
about a fundamental change in the way we perceive of and think about
architecture; this change has substantially influenced the discourse
that came after him. For Tafuri, architecture was no longer a success
story created by heroes. Equally, it was no longer about isolated
monuments and aesthetic objects. During his lifetime, Tafuri actively
searched for new methods and new insights upon which to base the understanding
of architecture. In my paper, I describe this methodological journey,
which went from the Marxist critique of ideology, to the microhistory
of Les Annales, and to the history of mentality. Finally, Tafuri regarded
architecture as a ‘technique of control’ of the physical environment
and an element of power in a field where also other elements of power
are active. Architecture becomes the story of the powers and authorities
that shape our built environment. It may be interesting to conclude
with the influence Tafuri has had on the architectural discourse that
came after him.
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Paper in English |
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___Jonna
M. Krarup
Copenhagen |
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The
intent of the paper is to address and discuss relationships between
the aesthetic perception and interpretation of contemporary landscape
architecture. I will try to do this by setting up a cross-disciplinary
perspective that looks into themes from the contemporary art scene
and aesthetic theories, and relate them to observations in contemporary
landscape architecture.
It is my premise that investigating the relationship between modes
of aesthetic perception and examples in contemporary art, and landscape
architecture, will enable us to better understand characteristics
of a contemporary concept of landscape and design in landscape architecture,
and hereby address the question of how interpretation might be processed.
It is also my premise that a key point in this is the interplay between
different sensory experiences of both material and non-material aspects,
and that it is this interplay that the individual collects into an
entity – an interpretation – through an intellectual process. |
Paper in English |
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___Maria
Lorena Lehman
Medford, Mass. |
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As
architecture evolves into complex adaptive systems, form and function
become more transient and less apparent while beauty redefines itself;
thus, becoming more elusive to interpret. Furthermore, this architecture
has a nervous system with memory to help it learn, adapting with each
interaction to improve upon the next. In doing so, it gives voice
to its architect and its occupants by recording their adapting interactions.
Referred to as the collective, this record of interactions becomes
the key to the interpretation of adaptive architecture.
With input from the collective, critics gain behind-the-scenes access
into fleeting architectural events. Sensory Design states that “an
event is usually far richer in nuance than the language used to describe
it” (Malnar, Joy Monice and Frank Vodvarka. Sensory Design. Minneapolis:
University of Minnesota Press, 2004). For this reason, critics need
a collective intelligence to set free architectural meaning, concealed
within its behavioral fabric.
Collective wisdom helps to interpret a building’s overall impact on
architectural evolution as well as political, educational and other
cultural influences. In addition, the collective helps evaluate how
well an adaptive architecture learns over time, revealing its prior
significance and future potential. Effectively, the means to interpreting
adaptive architecture is in the collective, allowing critics and architects
to deconstruct perception, yielding interpretation and ultimate expression
influencing future works.
|
Paper in English |
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___Sandra
Lippert-Vieira
Stuttgart / Cottbus |
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In
the framework of an optical-aesthetical thinking, which launches the
principals of architectural beauty in optical harmony, Ralf-Peter
Seippel denotes 1989 the importance of a "viewer-response criticism"
in architecture, for architecture involves not only the user, but
also implies the viewer. Based on Achim Hahn's definition of architecture
as "Lebens-Mittel", i. e. as a means for life, the following
text points out the incompleteness of this argument, as far as architecture
implies here living. It discusses methods that enable the theoretical
determinations of the implied life of the build world: a framework
to communicate individual behaviours – life performances – to others.
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Paper
in German |
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___Klaus
Rheidt
Cottbus |
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Der
überwiegende Teil der Bautätigkeit findet heute ‚im Bestand’ statt.
Wer Architekt wird und in den historisch gewachsenen Baubestand verändernd
eingreift, soll dies verantwortungsvoll tun. Er soll sich analysierend,
kritisch und verständnisvoll mit den Werken seiner Vorgänger auseinandersetzen.
Jede Baufuge, jeder Wechsel im Steinformat, jede Richtungsänderung
einer Bauflucht kann ein Hinweis auf Umbauten, Planungs- und Nutzungsänderungen
sein und Informationen über die Planer und Bauherren preisgeben, die
oftmals erst die historische Überlieferung zu verstehen helfen. Die
Methoden der Bauforschung haben sich trotz immenser Fortschritte in
der Messtechnik nicht verändert: am Anfang steht die detailgetreue
Dokumentation des Objektes mit konventionellen oder modernen, automatisch
scannenden Verfahren. Doch alle Messtechnik ersetzt nicht den geschulten
Blick des historisch forschenden Architekten – des Bauforschers, der
das Bauwerk durch seine Beobachtungen und Interpretationen zur Geschichtsquelle
macht.
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Paper in
German |
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___Oliver
Schmidtke
Frankfurt am Main |
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Die
Objektive Hermeneutik ist von Ulrich Oevermann im Zuge der soziologischen
Ausdeutung verschrifteter Tonbandprotokolle von Interviews und von
familialen Interaktionen entwickelt worden. Sie hat also ihren Ausgangspunkt
zunächst in der soziologischen Hermeneutik sprachlicher Ausdrucksgestalten.
Diese Methode der Interpretation geht von einem weiten Textbegriff
aus, bei dem auch nicht-sprachliche Protokolle von Praxis als Ausdruck
von Sinnstrukturen ausgedeutet werden können. Das Verfahren hat sich
bei verschrifteten Interviews, Kunstwerken, Protokollen, edierten
Texten bewährt. Die Interpretation mit Hilfe der Methode der objektiven
Hermeneutik erfolgt als Sequenzanalyse. In dem Beitrag erfolgt zunächst
eine kurze methodische Skizze der Prinzipien der Sequenzanalyse, und
es wird die Frage behandelt, wie sich das Interpretationsverfahren
auf den Gegenstand Architektur anwenden lässt. Anhand des gut dokumentierten
Beispiels des Robie-House wird schließlich exemplarisch herausgearbeitet,
welche Chancen die Methode der Objektiven Hermeneutik für die Architektursoziologie
bietet.
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Paper
in German |
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___Jörg
Schnier
Buffalo, New York |
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An
analysis of specific aspects inherent to the production, marketing,
and perception of buildings and their effect on the interpretability
of – as well as the public discourse about – architecture.
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Paper in
German |
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___M.
Reza Shirazi
Cottbus |
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‘Genius
loci’ is originally an ancient Roman belief, but Christian Norberg-Schulz
has used it as the base for his ‘phenomenology’. For him, ‘genius
loci’ alludes to the special character of the given place. To catch
the ‘genius’ of a place implies identification with it. Moreover,
Norberg-Schulz is essentially Heideggerean. He refers to the phenomenological
ideas of Heidegger, gives them architectural meaning and employs them
to establish a kind of ‘phenomenology of architecture’.
In this essay, I want to present an introduction to his understanding
of ‘genius loci’, concentrate on his ‘phenomenology of architecture’,
and have a review on his Heideggerean thoughts to show that the way
he understands Heidegger and the way he analyzes buildings suffer
from some shortcomings that leads to a partial phenomenology, that
is, to a ‘phenomenology from without’.
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Paper in English |
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___Irina
Solovyova
& Upali Nanda
San Antonio, Texas |
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In
the paper we will argue that architecture is an intuitive interpretation
of our previous spatial experiences. We will investigate such concepts
as intuition, sensory and emotional perception of space that result
in embodiment of space experience, and re-introduce a term of Embodied
Intuition. Embodied Intuition can be defined as sensitivity that one
develops through perception of space and its embodiment. Sensory and
emotional understanding of space and space-related concepts, an emplaced
and embodied sensitivity, and our intuitive process is what makes
architecture meaningful and distinguishes it from mere buildings.
We will found our argument on the theory of how body experience and
perception become material for design by considering how we interpret
and transform embodied experience to a symbol and then remake that
experience into a different object. Without an emplaced and embodied
sensitivity, our intuitive interpretation becomes disembodied and
weak, and the creation of architecture becomes mere simulation. |
Paper in
English
Paper
in Russian |
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___Ulrike
Tillmann
Zürich |
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The
author attempts to conceptualize the interpretation of architecture
as a dialogue between designers. This approach is illustrated with
reference to research into Hans Scharoun’s “Romeo und Juliet” apartment
buildings in Stuttgart.
Who is trying to understand what, which is to say: Who directs which
decisive questions toward the work, and from which perspective? As
the design process proceeds, the designer’s questions and those of
the recipient enter into a dialogue. The interests of the recipient
emerge in tandem with those of the designer. This dialogic reflection
involves a pair of interlocutors, one of whom – the recipient – assumes
the presence of a common interest: the question he finds thematized
in the work of the designer. Our temporal distance from the work demands
consideration of the historical context and its influence. Nonetheless,
the interest is primarily on the design performance and on the questions
that have shaped the individual work.
|
Paper
in German |
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On the Distinguishing of Interpretations |
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___Myriam
Blais
Québec |
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According to the
philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer (Truth and Method), understanding is
applying meaning to the present; understanding is a guide towards
interpretation. In such a theory of knowledge, works of art, including
works of architecture, take on a privileged status as embodiments
and bearers of truth since they open new worlds. It is in being real
and tangible “images”, Gadamer suggests, that works of architecture
perform their essential task of representation, that is, presenting
anew, and enhancing our understanding and experience of ideal situations.
This paper argues for the relevance of thinking of, building, offering,
and understanding works of architecture “as” and “through” images,
as a means for reconciling various traditions of interpretation in
architecture, thus establishing a genuine sense of place. It mainly
draws from images presented by Philibert de l’Orme (1510-1570) and
Gottfried Semper (1803-1879), whose representative richness helps
illustrate what can be expected from our discipline. |
Paper in English |
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___Markus
Breitschmid
Blacksburg, Virginia |
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The
essay first questions the validity and limits of an “unmediated experience”
advocated by adherents who speak against the interpretation of architecture.
While the essay defends interpretation as a key characteristic of
modern humanist man’s aesthetic mentality, the second part of the
text questions hermeneutic theories declaring all understanding as
being interpretive. Taking a middle ground position between “what
it is” (the building as object) versus “what it says” (the building
as a communicative cultural signifier), the essay subsequently argues,
by siding with Nietzsche, Heidegger, and Wittgenstein, for a functional
differentiation between a relatively fixed understanding and interpretations
that revise that prior understanding. In the last part, the essay
argues that more recent postmodern hermeneutic theories, by declaring
all understanding/interpretation as being based in linguistics, grossly
limit the ways of how man can understand architecture. It is argued
that non-discursive understanding that is not based on explicit interpretation
is supplying the “cultural” meaning-giving ground that makes subsequent
interpretation meaningful in the first place. |
Paper
in English |
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Analysis versus Interpretation |
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___Harald
Deinsberger
Graz |
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From
a scientific point of view the analysis of housings would have to
fulfil the task to find out knowledge about the respective housing
objects and to present the results in a verifiable, checkable form.
But what purpose could be assigned to the interpretation of housings?
According to the original mediatorial function, the purpose would
be to explain or "translate" the facts won by scientific
analysis. Thus it becomes clear that only a combination of both could
generate a practical and comprehensible instrument.
From all building tasks housing is supposed to have the strongest
and straightest relations to the human being. An analysis which tries
to reach the core of the housing task has therefore got to feature
a wholistic human scientific orientation. Which means, that a residential
building must not only be seen as a building or design object but
always in relation to the whole context, to the respective housing
environs as well as the human being. Thus the whole "system"
human-housing-environs has to be considered including the internal
and external interchanges and interrelations.
But how can such a methodology of housing analysis look like? Which
criteria and parameter could be defined? And how can the results of
such an analysis be communicated or interpreted? |
Paper
in German |
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___Nassir
Zarrin-Panah
Wien |
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Some architects
like Adolf Loos have excluded buildings from the domain of art, emphasizing
on “function” as the distinguishing quality of architecture compared
with other plastic arts. From this non-artistic point of view, it
can be argued that the evaluation of architectural works is strongly
user-oriented, as buildings cannot exist independently of their users
and any good architecture should be individually identified by its
so called “inhabitants”. Therefore the criteria for judging architecture
are contingent to user’s interpretation and “function” is the most
determined constituent element of architecture which ascribes meaning
to the work. Functional analysis captures the essence of an architectural
work in its materiality optimally satisfying user’s utilitarian “needs”
and links conventional meaning to buildings. In this regards, architecture
becomes a coherent entity, a unity where every element is perfect
and nothing is redundant in it. But can we fully understand a building
referring to its functionality and arrive at a correct interpretation
by its material properties? Should the architect always attribute
his work to what his/her client intends? Can’t architecture remain
open in reference to newer readings? |
Paper
in English |
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