Architecture creates spaces and modifies places for dwelling.
That is my definition of architecture: a discipline primarily concerned with space, place, and dwelling, which is its ultimate scope. A discipline in-between the ideal (or mental) and the physical (or corporeal), the abstract and the concrete. Spaces, which are ideal and abstract entities, can be created by the imaginative power of the architect; conversely, places – which preexist and outlast human presence and activities – can only be modified. Dwelling, in the most general and existential sense of the term, is the way beings stay in this world: a matter of implaced existence.[1]
It is appropriate to discuss architecture in terms of ‘creating space’ rather than ‘giving shape to space,’ a phrase I approximately used for years when defining architecture, adding the crucial qualifier ‘… for dwelling’ in a second moment to characterize the discipline unambiguously (otherwise, we could as well speak of sculpture, for instance).[2] Concerning the space-part of the definition, there are many important reasons for my revised definition into the current form (‘creating’ instead of ‘shaping’ space): first, the phrase ‘giving shape to space’ implies that space already exists ‘out-there’; in fact, we cannot shape something that does not exist—to give shape requires an entity already present to be shaped or, more appropriately, re-shaped. We must reject the notion of an entity called ‘space’ existing ‘out-there’, independently of the human mind: the supposedly entity ‘out-there’ was described as ‘a conceptual monstrosity’ by Ernst Mach, ‘a word devoid of meaning’ by Henri Poincaré, or a concept that ‘looses its meaning’ after the discoveries of the new physics according to Einstein, a ‘nothing [which] cannot have an actual existence’ by Johannes Kepler, ‘a fiction for geometers’ by James J. Gibson, ‘a pertenance of the world of fable’ by Kant or ‘a false hypostatization of an abstraction’ by Berkeley, ‘a very incomplete and vague conception’ by William James, ‘a phantasm of the existent’ by Hobbes, ‘an illusion’ according to Max Jammer, or a representational framework ‘due to the properties of the brain systems… and not to anything about the physical world in itself’ John O’Keefe, a 2014 Nobel Prize-winning neuroscientist, said, just to remind some highly critical views on the physicalist conception of space.[3] Just to be clear: there is no ‘space’ in Mendeleev’s table of physical elements. If it is not ‘out-there’ it means space is a conceptual invention—something that emerges out of our minds, an abstraction, ultimately, a fruitful abstraction, indeed. The name for an idea that represents an abstract concept (basically, a distance or extension per se) and not the name for something ‘out-there’ (contrarily to place, which may encompass both horizons—the physical and the ideal). Linguistically, space is a metaphor that becomes an oxymoron when combined with attributes such as ‘physical’, ‘experienced’, ‘lived’, and the likes to form ambiguous expressions such as ‘physical space’, ‘experienced space’, ‘lived space’, etc. Thus, space is primarily a creation of the human mind and, subsequently, an entity to be in-formed, shaped or re-shaped. In different articles at RSaP, with the contribution of many voices, we have seen the historical steps that have been necessary to envision (create) that entity as we commonly imagine it now. Second, from a logical standpoint, architectural space is a subset of the broader concept of space, therefore, sharing the same ideal (mistaken for physical) nature as its origin—a created entity. Third, numerous articles at RSaP, including the Appendix of the article On the Ambiguous Language of Space, reference the meaning and creation of this specific concept—architectural space. As we have seen in that Appendix, the envisioning or invention, at any rate a creation, of architectural space as a three-dimensional element of architecture have evolved through many decades of intellectual explorations, practical applications, and continuous refinements via feedback, starting from the second half of the XIXth century; over time, this concept has infiltrated the minds of modern and contemporary architects, becoming so familiar that the attribute ‘architectural’ is no more necessary when referring to the space of architecture, leading to an almost indistinguishable relationship between pseudo-physical space (the ‘conceptual monstrosity’) and architectural space itself. Fourth, if architecture were merely about modifying places and the authentic re-shaping of space rather than the more thoughtful and intentional creation of space, then, in spatial terms, there would be no distinction between the building activities of termites, beavers, bees, birds, etc., and the building activities of humans (the fact that architects should learn from the ‘building activities’ of termites, beavers, bees, birds, etc., is a different question – a question that I have always maintained and would deserve a specific article).
Ultimately, independently of disciplinary sectors, speaking in terms of ‘modifying space’ rather than ‘creating space’ means that we do not give credit to what it means to be humans, as a relevant (creative) part of the whole system called ‘nature’. That entails a flimsy understanding of what ‘place’ means since place and nature are two highly interrelated notions, as I am showing at RSaP. If we fail to understand the role of human beings in nature we cannot understand their agency with respect to places. In fact, as regards the concept of place — in the broadest sense that I’m arguing for at RSaP — it surpasses the traditional geographical and sociocultural dimensions, to include physicochemical, biological (hence, ecological), and intellectual or symbolic dimensions. Within this overarching compass of place, which comprises space as a symbolic dimension (i.e., an abstraction, an ideal entity as a beautiful creation of the human mind), nothing is left out: reality is place. Therefore, if architecture aims at being sensitive to places, lands or territories, it cannot avoid direct and conscious confrontation with all the processes and forces that are constitutive of reality as place (see On the Structure of Reality). This is a new realism for architecture, at the beginning of a new epoch for mankind — the Anthropocene.
Fundamentally, the definition of architecture I propose focuses on the fact that it is reductive to speak of architecture as a discipline of space, as it has been done since the middle of the XIXth century, or, alternatively, as a discipline of place only, as certain contemporary accounts of architecture invite to do from many different perspectives (philosophical, social, political, cultural, architectural, etc.). Architecture inherently deals with both questions of place and space finalized to dwelling. That definition, at an even more universal level of explanation, also mirrors the complementary way nature works, where the concrete (i.e., place) meets the abstract (i.e., space), or where objects (things—and among the universe of things we find architecture as one of the most complex) and subjects (living beings—i.e., flora, fauna, and human beings) meet, modifying each other nature on an evolutionary basis or geological timescale: ever since human beings and their creative agency on things and the environment entered the scene, places were no longer the same.[4] That is not an alteration or a transitory phenomenon to describe human activities (e.g., architecture) and their impact on and responsibility towards nature-as-place—the all-embracing system of processes that we call reality; much more relevant than that it is a structural change concerning the nature of place.
Notes
[1] According to this view, any building — such as a house, a school, a church, a museum, a theatre, an airport, etc. — or location — a mountain, a desert, a forest, an urban street, etc. — affords a modality of dwelling. Fundamentally, it is a Heideggerian position that I wish to extend by including all living and non-living systems within reach of architects’ attention: in fact, our understanding of dwelling at the epoch of the Anthropocene cannot be limited to human beings and dwelling, given that architects when creating new spaces for human purposes and dwelling also modify the existing places inevitably changing the dwelling conditions of all that already existed in such places, i.e., things and living beings—fauna and flora together with humans. This fact suggests the need for different ethics and the development of transdisciplinary strategies in design professions to address the human impact on Earth’s climatic and environmental systems (i.e., ecological systems) holistically.
[2] ‘Architecture gives shape to space‘ is also a definition given by the German philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method, 2nd revised edition (London: Continuum Publishing Group, 1989), 150.
[3] Obviously, the referential concept for philosophers, physicists and mathematicians after Newton is the concept of ‘absolute space’, which is the traditional physicalist conception of space that passed from the domain of classical physics to other domains such as philosophy, psychology and neurosciences, the social sciences, architecture, economy, etc., which is also the sense people understand and use space in common parlance. Specifically, Einstein’s reference regards the concept of ‘empty space’ (another ordinary, highly debatable way to figure out what space really is), which, just like ‘absolute space’, has no meaning at all in contemporary physics, substituted by the field concept—a notion that is close to the concept of place I am delineating at RSaP (an all-embracing concept that, from a physical point of view, includes, all at once, spatiality/locality, materiality, and temporality, just like the field concept of physics assumes. The validity of the concept of place I propose —place as a system of processes— includes and extends beyond the dominion of physics to embrace and complement all other aspects of reality, from physicochemical to biological, from ecological to social, from cultural to intellectual or symbolic: nothing is left out. Reality is place—everything is place, as I had the opportunity to say in the article Places Everywhere—Everything Is Place).
All quotations are highly popular sentences, which I already mentioned in different articles at RSaP, except for the reference to John O’Keefe, which is part of the essay ‘Kant and the sea-horse: An Essay in the Neurophilosophy of Space. In N. Eilan, R. A. McCarthy, & B. Brewer (Eds.), Spatial Representation: Problems in Philosophy and Psychology (Oxford UK and Cambridge USA: Blackwell Publishing, 1993), 59.
[4] That fact includes the concept of place since, from concrete places, place as a specific concept of theorization emerged after Aristotle.
Image Credits
Featured Image, by Alessandro Calvi Rollino, CC BY-NC-SA: Main Façade of the School of Architecture, Politecnico di Milano, IT – the place where I got my degree – designed by the Italian architect Vittoriano Viganò, 1970-1983.
