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Let’s think about time and what it means for animals experiencing the world. There are particle physics timescales (stretching to Planck time, or 10-43 seconds) and those of cosmology (stretching to Hubble Time, the age of the Universe). These are the largest and smallest conceivable timescales for humans. Absolute time, however, died with Einstein’s seminal publications,Continue reading “In which events happen”

What is it that we do, we fiction-making animals? We move in and through physical reality and experience ourselves wandering in environments – the former an event verifiable by modern science and the latter the subject of personal narratives. This way of putting things is an oversimplification, yes, but more or less correct. It isContinue reading “Convert the physical world into environments”

“There is no art or discipline for which the nature of reality is a matter of indifference,” according to novelist and essayist Marilynne Robinson, “so one ontology or another is always being assumed if not articulated.”[i] Choice of worldviews is a combination of chance (largely resulting from contingent factors such as where and when you wereContinue reading “Fiction-making animals”

The importance of the three questions above to meaning-oriented practice is difficult to overstate. It is tempting, therefore, to proceed directly to their solution. Despite my desire to be as straightforward as possible, the demands of logical discourse assert themselves here. Ground must be prepared. Working definitions of fiction and meaning in general arenecessary before diving off intoContinue reading “(Fiction is neither purposeless nor extraneous, accidental nor solipsistic)”

The notion that architecture is fiction in its experience is relatively unproblematic. Theorists have used expressions suggesting people “read architecture” or that architecture can embody narratives for centuries and researchers have established that our subjective experiences of the world have a far looser connection to reality than most of us are comfortable admitting. As nature writerContinue reading “Architecture is fiction”

Clearly the above isn’t adequate, much less complete.  Incompatible experimental results do not cause physicists to wonder if light exists. In the case of the blind men, there is recourse to an entity – the elephant itself – and a zoological classification that mediates a wide diversity of reports across regions and times going backContinue reading “Requires a new paradigm”

Need for a disciplinary definition trips up most histories and theories of architecture. Three approaches predominate: a tight boundary is proposed which conforms self-fulfillingly with the author’s theoretical agenda; a broad definition is applied that includes all constructions intended for human inhabitation or use, and in which unintentional habitats such as caves and trees areContinue reading “Distinguishing architecture from buildings”

Drawing on the three previous posts, it is possible to revise the original hypothesis – Architectural meaning is the experience of an experience in and of architectural space – so that many of the ambiguities are resolved and its open-endedness given some limits. The new version is as follows: Architectural meaning is an extraordinary (third) experience constructedContinue reading “To formulate an axiom”

At first glance, particularly in the eyes of architects, readers of architectural criticism, even avid watchers of home decorating shows, “architectural space” is the most straightforward of the phrases in the original hypothesis. It is a mantra, practically, in architecture schools – an article of faith amongst architects. With each reading, however, the phrase growsContinue reading ““Architectural space””

The enigma of the linking phrase “in and of” does not lie in its complexity or obscurity (it is neither complex nor obscure) but in its selection over other, seemingly similar, phrases. Why, for instance, is it “in and of” instead of “in or of”? Why wouldn’t “within” be preferred? Or why not simply “in”Continue reading ““In and of …””