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Posted by Kris Krieger on June 7, 2008, 9:16 pm
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>> HUGE can of worms. We spent all of History B (Modernity) reading
>> tedious papers by 19th C Germans and "discussing" questions of
>> ornament. I just told 'em to go to www.metalbuildings-r-us.com and
>> call it a day. That's all architecture is. Anything else is
>> worthlessly spending the client's money either at the clients or (far
>> worse) the municipalities behest. They figured that was wrong, but as
>> contemporary architecture students most of their counter assertions
>> centered around doing good things for poor people and had little at
>> all to do with either architecture or decoration.
I was mostly curious re: individual takes on the question, just becuase
of curiosity. I think that there is, in most humans, a need, in the
philosophical sense (i.e. not physiological, like the need for
food/water), to try to mka etheir surroundings aesthetically pleasing.
I'm interested not so much in acedemic criticism, but in the
thoughts/impressions of practicing designers - critics make their living
by dividing things up into little bits and then over-iontllectualizing
what each of those bits "mean". OTOH, practicing architects and
designers deal more directly/immediately with various expressions of
human aesthetics, ranging from the "I saw it on teevee" to "this is my
personal vision".
I knwo that sounds vague, but I'm exploring this topic in my own mind and
am interested in others' thoughts on the general topic, since that will
give me more points (and also, more specifics) to explore in my thinking.
IOW, I'm not seeking answers as much as I'm seeking additional ideas, or,
in a sense, additional questions relating to the subject.
Part of it is that beauty is not only seen in what is currently in vogue,
but in things ranging from megalithic structures (Stonehenge being the
most famous) to Victorian structures to Modern - so, it isn't a question
of style, which makes me wonder about what it is that makes one building
much loved through hundreds (or even thousands) of years, while others of
the same style are forgotten. So I'm interested in what thoughts
practitioners have, as food for my own thoughts so to speak.
>>
>> Had a fill in the blank question on a history test. It was about a
>> certain kind of decoration on furniture. I wracked my brain.
>> Eventually I filled in "frou-frou." The teacher laughed. And then
>> marked it wrong. She was after "chinoiserie".
>>
>> I think the tackiness of the frou-frou of your arch is going to
>> depend not on its honesty or lack there of, but in how it is dressed
>> and what its context is. Quite possibly summed up as "how well the
>> building is designed."
That's an interesting example in that I've personally never been a fan of
it (chinoiserie), because most of the things look, to me, disjointed - my
perception has always been (even as a kid) that something seemed to be
out of balance between the shapes of the items, and the decoration, some
balance that the originals might have had but the copies or, in today's
parlance, "reimaginings", lack - part of what I'm trying to figure out is
the origin of that type of perception, and why some people have it, but
others have an entirely different perception. I don't mean "intellectual
analysis", per se, but perception, the expereince of a thing.
>>> So, is a non-structural arch in a residence, for lack of a better
>>> phrase, "aesthetically dishonest"?
>>
>> We should define terms. I'll leave that up to you
I'm not defining, I'm, trying to figure soemthing out (albeit in what
might seem to be an obscure amnner).
>> and shoot from the
>> hip. No, it is not aesthetically dishonest because aesthetics is not
>> inherently honest. Frou-frou can be as aesthetic as tectonics. Some
>> people respond more readily to it than to formal massing. And isn't
>> aesthetics about that response?
Ah, good thought. I'll think on that for a while.
>>
>> Is it structurally dishonest? Well, duh. Maybe. Is how we decorate
>> part of structure? No. Then it isn't structurally dishonest. But if
>> we put up an arch aren't we saying "look, arch. arch is structure"?
>> How about "mostly." And arch is a part of architectural vocabulary
>> detached from purely structural concerns.
>>
>> How about saying that it is architecturally dishonest? Let me try to
>> hash this out:
>>
>> Aesthetically dishonest - If you paint or carve flowers on a building
>> that seems pretty safe to say is an aesthetics issue. There are no
>> actual flowers; building isn't presenting as having actual flowers...
>> I don't think the top Bavarian muralists or Baroque ceiling painters
>> were trying to say "no, this IS like this" but rather to say "I want
>> you to feel like this is this."
Ah!, good point and interesting thought.
>> I think in my assumed scope of this
>> discussion the idea of "aesthetic dishonesty" is a non-starter. No
>> such thing. Follow the term and get into questions of aesthetics and
>> intent and approach/implementation etc. and there may be dishonesties
>> to uncover, but I think that's not where we are. And isn't there a
>> whole branch of _philosophy_ called "aesthetics"? I try not to run
>> with philosophers.
There probably is such a branch of philosophy, but I've found that what
gets called "philosophy" all too often wither end up either (1) divvying
things up in such minute bits that the poins is missed, the thing that's
supposedly under consideration becomes unrecognizable (I suppose one
might simpy call it "hair-splitting?), or (2) passes from "trying to
understand something" to what sounds more like "falling-down-drunk dood
blithering in a bar"... I did take a semester of philosophy (due to it
being a requirement, rather than my desire ;) ), but a lot of it seemed
to, how to put it, ramble off into omphaloskepsis, losing, in the
process, much (sometimes most) of meaning.
At the same time, having read, and occasionally heard, bits about "lack
of [aesthetic] integrity" in various sructures, I'm interested in trying
to understand what the phrase means - if anything ;) !
>>
>> Structurally dishonest - I think my thinking here is rooted in the
>> engineering. Structure makes stuff stand up. If the structure is
>> lieing then it falls down. If you think something is structure but if
>> it were true then it would fall down then that isn't structure it's
>> something else (see below) and the structure isn't dishonest.
>> Structure may be misleadingly presented - that looks like a column
>> but on inspection it's really a pendant. But the _structure_ is a
>> pendant. The structure is real and it is what it is. I don't think it
>> can be "dishonest."
OK, makes sense - I'll want to think about that idea, too, for a while.
>>
>> Architecturally dishonest - This, I think is where the dishonesty can
>> come from. It is the architect that will use the arch for aesthetic
>> purposes and dress it up as structure. To the aesthete, it's pretty;
>> kinda nice and baroque looking. To the structural engineer, it's some
>> round cut sheet rock stapled to some studs, yeah, that doesn't fall
>> down. To the casual viewer "ooh, look how that arch brings the weight
>> of the bricks [scored stucco on plywood] around the opening [straight
>> back to the studs and down]. How muscular and masculine. I really
>> groove on that arch." The architect has lied. For, perhaps, and
>> aesthetic purpose - to make the consumer feel that masculinity, to
>> create the reaction BY MEANS OF saying the building is other than it
>> really is.
Ah, OK.
More food for thought.
That might be what generally bothers me about them, and similar
"fauxchitecture": knowing it's foam and sheet rock and whatnot, even if
it does look passably decent.
At the same time, I'm wondering whether it's "honest" of *me* to think
something look OK, *until* I realize it's just a fake - shouldn't I "like
what I like" without thinking about it?, am I merely piqued because I
feel I've been 'hoodwinked' so to speak?, am I a "faux eleite" *because*
I get bugged when I've been hoodwinked?, and finally, is any of that at
all relevant ;)
>>
>> As hinted before, an arch is not only a structural technique, it is
>> also an opening with a rounded (etc.) top. That is a different
>> experience (space, light, reaction) than an opening with a flat top.
>> Pure geometry, if you will. The choice of opening shape (see
>> Libeskind) may be based on any number of things aesthetic, structural
>> or architectural. We are architects and we have our
>> reasons/rationals/ Big Ideas/schemes/schemas/themes.... In short,
>> dishonesty does not enter in to "I wanted the user to experience an
>> uplifting of soul as she walked from point A to point B through this
>> arched opening with softly receding darkness. The square lintel is to
>> psychically truncating."
Now, that's interesting. OK. Going beyond th enecessities fo structure,
to create *a type of expereince*, and, re-reading the above, and thinking
about it, I'm thinking, Maybe that's part of the Art in Architecture,
since that's ne of the things Art is, i.e., communicating non-verbally,
using color, shape, composition.
Hmmm.
>>One might answer "but aren't you telling a
>> lie about... " And the answer "not really." Critics will pull
>> whatever truths out of the building they chose to put in to it. The
>> critics will lie to themselves. That is, to a degree, beyond
>> relevance or need of caring.
Good point. Probably why I've never much cared for most critics -
analysis is one thing, but criticism is another. THere's often a thin
line between the two, but good analysis examines what-it-is, whereas
criticism applied value judgements which tend to have everythign to do
with the judger and often little to do with what is being judged.
>> One might venture that it is erroneous,
>> but dishonesty requires some intent, no? And the psychically
>> uplifting opening is a clear honest (if perhaps goofy) intent.
Oh, I wouldn't say "goofy" - that's not something that would (or did) at
all enter my thinking. There is IMO nothing at all wrong (and a great
many things "right", in terms of human psychoemotional needs) with
wanting to crate something that lifts the mood of those who will
use/experience the space. That intent is what can make even utter kitsch
endearing - the *method* might have been off-kilter, but the intent was
to give others a positive mood/experience.
I just had the thought that maybe what separates "kitschiness" from
"tawdriness" could be that peole can perceive that the intent of kitsch
was to at least entertain, whereas that which is tawdy only makes a half-
asses effort, is only pretense, and thin pretense at that?
>>
>> There is a problem with the question itself. Totally loaded.
>> "Dishonest" already judges; brings a whole baggage train of
>> assumptions about correctness.
True. It's something I've read/heard, and decided to question.
>>
>> Mies urged us to be honest to our materials. Well, yeah, if I could
>> work with naked polished bronze and onyx that don't actually have to
>> DO anything I think I'd be "honest" to my materials too. And wasn't
>> Mies the guy who glued a bunch of I-beams to the outside of a
>> skyscraper to "honestly" express the hidden structure?
I don't know, but it'd be a hell of a thing if he did! My question there
would be, Why Bother? - it's no better that sticking black-painted
plywood planks onto a "monopoly house" (plain rectangle) to "make it a
Tudor style" - IOW, a complete pretense, not even a decoration.
>>
>> Dishonest? What is this honesty? Is it something important? Label it
>> "dishonest," as they did, and the argument is manipulated. Everybody
>> KNOWS dishonest is bad. (I read a criticism of Neue Staatsgalerie
>> (http://www.staatsgalerie-stuttgart.de/staatsgalerie.de/media/
>> architektur/map_og.gif) once that was all bile and nastiness.
>> Circles, you see, are fascist.)
Circles are "fascist"...? I wouldn't put it past some opeople to make
that sort if judgemnt, but IMO, it seems silly - even goofy ;) !
I looked at the website. I might call it "a bit stark in places", but
couldn't say much more unless I'd been inside fo it, expereinced how it
functioned, interacted with the art and visitor.
>> Therefore making arches out of sheet
>> rock is bad.
>>
>> But is it?
>> Of course not.
>>
>> Bah. Asking if something is "dishonest" in this context boils down to
>> "do some people dislike it enough to be rude about it."
AH! Interesting thought. I like it - it makes sense to me.
>> It ties in to
>> the larger question that everybody is pursuing and not so many people
>> state "what is the one true, right, correct architecture?" (though
>> some blissfully alert people tack on "for this time"). To which
>> question the answer is the same. Bah, of course not.
But a lot of things can be "true". As I see it, "truth", where Art is
concerned, is, "Does it move the human heart, invoke thoughts an
demotions, conjure up memories both real and (in the positive sense)
dreamed? Ancient song that the Inuit throat-sing are "true", Balinese
Gamelan music is "true", Shadowfax (the group) is "true" ((and in a
sense, so is the literary creation, in its own sense)), Brahms is "true",
Coltraine is "true", and so on.
WEll, so maybe that answers my own question. Architecture is, in a
sense, "music" and music is, in a sense, "architectural" (at least I
personally expereince it as a three-dimensional sculptural thing - well,
at least, music I think is "good" ;) ). So maybe it's similar to an
arpeggio, or a trill - if it harmonizes with the rest of the piece,
that's th epoint, so I suppose architecture is similar in that regard.
>>
>> So, is the non-structural arch in a residence some kind of dishonest?
>> Yeah. So what?
>>
>> Architecture is not about what you must do, it's about what you can
>> do.
Ah :)
>
> One of the best discourses on "dishonesty / honesty" in architecture
> I've seen.
> EDS
>
I might print this one out so I can think further about these things.
Additional input is, of course, welcomed!
- K.
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