Dalibor Vesely
Encyclopedia
Dalibor Vesely was born in Prague
, Czech Republic
in 1934. He studied engineering, architecture, art history and philosophy in Prague and in Munich and obtained his PhD from Charles University in Prague
. He studied with Hans-Georg Gadamer
, with whom he kept a correspondence that would last until the end of Gadamer's life. He was also taught by Jan Patočka
and has developed an interest in the poetics and hermeneutics of architecture.
As a professor of architecture, Vesely has been influential in establishing the role of hermeneutics and phenomenology as part of the design and discourse of architecture. He has taught some of the current leading architects and architectural historians, such as Daniel Libeskind
, Eric Parry, Alberto Pérez-Gómez
, Mohsen Mostafavi
and David Leatherbarrow
. He has taught at the University of Essex
, at the Architectural Association in London and since 1978 at the University of Cambridge
, where he also started an M.Phil. programme in History and Philosophy of Architecture. Vesely currently teaches also Architectural History and Philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania
, and is Honorary Professorial Fellow at the Manchester School of Architecture
. In 2005 he was recipient of the CICA Bruno Zevi Book Award granted by the International Committee of Architectural Critics
. In 2006 the Royal Institute of British Architects
honoured Dalibor Vesely with the Annie Spink Award for Excellence in Architectural Education.
and anamorphosis
, which are traditionally understood to have taken departure from Renaissance
culture. Vesely contributes to the current debate with the depth of the problem of representation; a question which has divided Western philosophy
with regard to the epistemological possibility of representation and understanding of natural phenomena. The ‘birth’ of modern science
and its increasing challenge on traditional views has also marked the divide within the possibilities of representation. In the context of the seventeenth century, this was especially clear as a polemics surrounding the nature of scientific work and philosophical understanding.
According to Vesely, the inevitable partiality of such views is at the very core of the problem that affects the cultural understanding of representation. Its contingent nature was not always understood as a divide originating all kinds of dualisms. Before modern science, representation was naturally contingent and the universal aspirations of science (metaphysics
) were bound to the nature of the epistemological ground (arché). Vesely’s work traces back the ontological foundations of the problem to the Greek context, helping to clarify its original meaning. In Architecture in the Age of Divided Representation (2004), Vesely presents the notion of ground as having a provisional nature, that can only be seized as a continuity of reference through different levels of representation, ranging from the more explicit, visible world down to a latent world of potential articulation. Precisely this continuity is what may allow us to address the modern, fragmented notion of representation as a task of rehabilitation, which would trace the fragment back to its original whole.
, as it constantly works through different modes of representation, including "built reality".
Vesely defines the present cultural situation as divided and ambiguous, especially when it comes to architecture
(pp. 4-12, 36, 44 ss). Twentieth-century architecture placed its trust in the epistemological model of modern science
and technology
that is today largely reflected in instrumental concepts of city
and suburban landscape. When epistemology initiated its foundational enterprise it could hardly suspect that its role in validating scientific knowledge would very soon be challenged. Quine
's Epistemology Naturalized (1969) reports how this is precisely what happened when it became clear that the argument developed in the terms of logical empiricism
was not based on the same empirical standing as the sciences. Today, the attempt to rehabilitate epistemology faces the problem of bridging this gap. This is obviously not an easy task, since the gap is between different modes of representation and concepts of knowledge
that in some cases precede modern science, i.e., precede the historical notion of scientific knowledge as it takes course from the seventeenth- and sixteenth centuries.
Vesely's research delves into these historical settings that are understood to be the birth place of modern science, in the general hope of exposing the origin of our modern notion of knowledge
and how it came about to emancipate from traditional representations of the world. Vesely’s research has accordingly been working out the historical notion of representation, as it constitutes a central issue in this historical affair; and the construction of a modern notion of knowledge has much to do with a changing nature in the concept of representation (pp. 13-19). The concept as it is generally understood today largely surpasses the history of epistemology. According to Vesely, this is because representation is generally understood on the basis of a certain "continuity between a particular mode of representation and what is represented" (p. 14), a notion which has been current throughout the whole of European architectural history.
In response, Vesely's work explores how architecture
constantly works between different modes of representation, through the difference between project and what is built, for instance, when it translates a whole city
into a diagram, a plan or a map. The simple act of reading a map involves more than just the imagination to relate the map with the buildings and the surrounding space; it involves the reciprocity between different levels of representation, that may intake discrepancy and lack of information. According to Vesely, this kind of discrepancy might be useful to understand the nature of the question; and may in fact become a means to understand what impairs the communication between different levels of representation, and conversely, what happens when such communication takes place.
Vesely also takes up the example of an experiment that, paradoxically perhaps, was carried out in the hey-day of logical empiricism
. The experiment was carried out by Schilder, and involved a temporary inversion of the visual field (pp. 46ss), leaving other perceptual fields untouched. Schilder's experiment addressed the discontinuity between the visual and other fields of perception
, and exposed the situated human body
as a basic structure of spatial reference (pp. 48-49). Vesely investigates how the subjects of the experiment found that their bodies were the first instance they could rely on when trying to situate in a visual world that was not only upside down, but also turned from left to right; and when trying to perform simple gestures like picking up a book, or reading. Although the experience was difficult to endure, the inverted vision could be partially reconciled with the original body structure (p. 47).
According to Vesely, the ability to reconcile the acquired inverted vision with the situational structure of the human body, points out to a deeper problem when dealing with situation, which is related to our ability to become situated on provisional grounds, even when lacking a fundamental 'ground' of spatial or temporal reference. The example from inverted vision also means to show that such a basis is far from being immediate; it is constituted in the process of a search within the actual space and comes about in the reciprocity between different levels and forms of representation such as visual, tactile, and so forth. Vesely elaborates on situation and the phenomenon of being situated as an example of how we contextualize spatial knowledge and on which basis; and on how a particular point of reference allows us to situate spatial knowledge
. In the course of the argument, Vesely demonstrates that what constitutes the fabric of situation is a continuity of reference and experience through different forms of articulating spatiality down to an implicit structure that itself is neither visual nor tactile, and is only potentially articulated in the objective realm (pp. 48, 82-87, 378ss).
, i.e. what one is able to recognize and know out of visual perception
. Accordingly, the natural process of seeing is shown to be a result from learning. Vesely presents the example of inborn conditions of blindness treated through surgery, where sight itself only emerges after a painful stage of learning, and without which, the recently-acquired sense of sight would be unable to detach or recognize individual objects out of a ‘visual field’ (pp. 50-51). Vesely describes how the integration of the newly-acquired sense relies on the fact that the world of the blind is already structured, not only in terms of temporal sequences, but spatially; and that the reconciliation of the new ability of sight takes place on an already structured ground of existing objects and spatiality. Perception
such as visual or tactile is reconciled upon an implicitly structured ground.
Vesely shows how the task of bridging different plateaux of representation can only be fulfilled by covering the distance to a common 'ground' (pp. 61-63). 'Ground' is like a point of departure from which it would become possible to uncover the basic structure of spatiality; but it is hardly the case that such an epistemological ground can provide us with an absolute source of spatial reference. The notion of epistemological ground is not established a priori, as a given point of reference. It comes about in the process of searching, taking place as a continuum of references between different levels of spatial understanding. In which case, what constitutes the structural source of situation is this stream of references (p. 60).
Vesely's notion of ground consists of a primary source of reference that in many ways coincides with the traditional Greek understanding of arché. Arché is not an absolute source of reference, but only a primary one that works as a point of departure towards our notion of "earth" and our understanding of "world" (pp. 50-52). This is an insecure ground that in a sense, speaks more of its own topography
, than of clearly defined rules and references. Although this is an unfamiliar ground for modern science, Vesely accurately describes how much of the understanding of what it means to be situated derives from the knowledge of daily situations on Earth, where horizon and gravity play a common role. Accordingly, architecture's task of raising and 'building' situations does not address the mere existence of conditions such as floor or gravity, but concerns the fundamental condition of 'ground' allowing the phenomenon of situation to take place.
and Jacques Derrida
. Although most architecture cannot escape the ‘predicament’ of gravity, there are numerous examples of play with gravity and the 'visual weight' of architectural mass against gravity, starting from the early twentieth-century constructivism
. Such architectural play shows an impulse towards the emancipation from gravity as a natural source of situation, and looks forward to expose a more fundamental ground of reference and its problematic nature. Architecture
is thus setting a clear challenge on everyday experience as they are structured characteristically in terms of up and down, and according to a horizontal ground. The experiment of the ‘inverted vision’ seems to show exactly that: the touch of ground helps to define the vertical and the relative distances of objects, orientation, and to recognize the physiognomy
of the space. Outside these conditions it seems more or less obvious that the 'grounds' for situation escape our grasp. At the same time, architects are conscious that it is precisely the implicit nature of ground as a structure of references that makes the task of its architectural exploration so difficult.
Moreover, according to Vesely, the notion of ‘ground’ can never provide us with an absolute knowledge of the whole, but only with a mediated understanding of spatial structure. This means that the task of uncovering the hidden nature of ground becomes, a fortiori, one of looking for a provisional ground that is beyond gravity as a natural source of spatial reference. The first long-term programme dealing with the consequences of the absence of gravity was developed already in 1973 by the NASA
Skylab
. Vesely reports how one of the greatest difficulties encountered by the astronauts is the constant loss of orientation that becomes a general difficulty in recognizing previously known situations. Without gravity, an otherwise familiar compartment would be unrecognizable if not seen from a particular angle. The Sky Lab experience seems to illustrate quite well how the phenomenon of spatial structure and situation comes to be known through a sequence of approximations. Without the right orientation, simple recognition such as finding objects in their right places would become an almost impossible task. Once found the right orientation towards objects, however, the entire spatial frame of the compartment was recognized and so would all objects in their right places and relative positions. In a situation without light or gravity, one of the Sky Lab astronauts also described how a single touch on one of the walls of the space compartment would be sufficient to enact the knowledge of the relative position of the body with respect to all objects (pp. 52-54). This seems to be particularly relevant to show how a particular point of visual or tactile reference can provide with orientation; a physiognomic recognition of the space; and be related to the spatial disposition of the whole. These are instances that, according to Vesely, constitute a continuity of spatial reference and an epistemological, provisional ground. As it arises in the continuity of understanding the potential structure of the space, the notion of ground seems to be of a projective nature (p. 103).
and apraxia
, which rank among others of what is generally known as mental blindness, there is a blatant discontinuity between the possibilities of notional understanding and the actual performance of a purposive act or standard articulation of speech. The work and research that has been carried out on mental blindness tends to show that the ability to articulate both speech and purposive actions and gestures is nonetheless affected by the surrounding environment, and is not based upon mental impairment alone. On the contrary, it has become increasingly clear that such conditions do not take place solely as a result of mental functions; neither can they be enacted by the situational structure, as both contribute to the failure and success of treatment (p. 57).
Vesely brings the argument about these conditions back to the experiments regarding orientation, such as the inverted vision experiment and orientation under zero gravity conditions, and correlates it with the problems experienced with mental blindness. This is because of the fundamental knowledge of spatiality that is at stake that enables a possible representation to be actually effected. As regards spatiality, Vesely presupposes an existing continuity between the possible and the actual spatial configuration, as a mediated structure (p. 58). This understanding of representation seems to reverberate Husserl's phenomenological treatment of representation, as moving from the horizon of vague, informal representation (Vorstellung), through a number of possibilities (Vergegenwärtigungen), until it finally reaches actuality (Repräsentation). The fact that Husserl only used the word Repräsentation to deal with explicit forms of representation, may serve us as an example of how a whole representational process was being kept in the background. Husserl's process of representation shows that our knowledge of spatiality intakes different levels of articulation, which are not always as clearly defined as we would wish. This means that the ground and point of departure of explicit references is not a point of departure towards a growing, cumulative knowledge of situation, but is rather a 'coming back' into a prereflective world of experience. In this sense, representation takes place as a spectrum ranging out of explicit forms of articulation into an implicit background, a concept that seems to be confirmed by later phenomenology of perception. It seems obvious that, because of the nature of this prereflective ground, verbal or visual articulation of it cannot take place in an explicit sense. On the contrary, the phenomenological gaze at this background takes place indirectly (p. 69) as a preunderstanding of the world. If this is so, then not only our epistemological ground is constituted as an identity of interpretation of different levels of perception
, but also the concept of representation as such is constituted as a movement out of a prereflective background. This is precisely the background against which it becomes possible for an articulated structure to take place and be identified as such (pp. 75-77). This also means that the difference between different levels of articulation, namely between a preunderstanding background and a given object is precisely what allows us to see the object and situate it within our world of experience. If we accept Vesely's argument, then the difference that formerly stood as an epistemological barrier now becomes a necessary condition for representation to take place.
and becoming. Vesely thus enters the core of the question of representation in terms of its coming into the level of visibility. In the sequence of Vesely's argument, the subject of visibility becomes then, of itself, problematic in nature as it intakes a background of potential articulation.
According to Vesely, "the horizon of visibility displays a synthesis of the prereflective experience and of the achievements of reflection insofar as they preserve ontological continuity with the visible" (p. 85). On the other hand, the rise onto the explicit level of visibility primarily seems to express the problem of representation in terms of what is kept from the prereflective world. This could perhaps be seen as a consequence of the traditional concept of inner representation as relating to an external reality
. Vesely challenges this concept of representation, and widens it as a spectrum that ranges from the explicitness of our world down to implicit levels of articulation. Consequently, the term reality is restricted mostly to certain types of representation (e.g. virtual reality
) that view reality as something extrinsic (pp. 308-315).
Vesely's concept of representation, however, takes place in terms of a communication between a wide range of levels; whereby the question that concerns representation also concerns the truth
of representation, a question that has been amply developed by modern hermeneutics. In this domain, the visible world conveys a kind of knowledge of the prereflective levels of articulation that also jeopardizes the epistemological status of the visible. As we have seen, contrary to empiricist belief, the visible world by itself does not constitute an epistemological ground (pp. 84-86). Instead, our epistemological ground is constituted by features such as orientation, physiognomy
, and the relative position of things with regard to one another; and it is from these features that a provisional ground comes to be constituted as regards spatiality. This ground is not a still point of reference. On the contrary, by ground is here meant a source and stream of references. This means that the explicit horizon of the visible, tangible world is the most explicit form of embodiment
we have, but such a narrow horizon we can only take as a point of departure if we want to understand the rest of our world that is largely beyond visibility. This also means that the visible holds a very important part as a symbolic representation of our world, enabling us to see and imagine beyond the visible.
Finally, this means that we construe our knowledge of 'world' largely on the basis of invisible, implicit references which are only symbolically re-enacted by the visible realm. The level of visual representation may perhaps be compared to the level of more explicit verbal articulation as regards the implicit, preverbal domain of knowledge. Just as visual representation, verbal articulation has the power to emancipate from the given world, and the freedom to convey any meaning. This is a power bestowed upon representation, allowing it to withdraw from its original symbolic domain, thus establishing a tension between the instrumental nature of representation and its larger symbolic field.
Prague
Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...
, Czech Republic
Czech Republic
The Czech Republic is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Poland to the northeast, Slovakia to the east, Austria to the south, and Germany to the west and northwest....
in 1934. He studied engineering, architecture, art history and philosophy in Prague and in Munich and obtained his PhD from Charles University in Prague
Charles University in Prague
Charles University in Prague is the oldest and largest university in the Czech Republic. Founded in 1348, it was the first university in Central Europe and is also considered the earliest German university...
. He studied with Hans-Georg Gadamer
Hans-Georg Gadamer
Hans-Georg Gadamer was a German philosopher of the continental tradition, best known for his 1960 magnum opus, Truth and Method .-Life:...
, with whom he kept a correspondence that would last until the end of Gadamer's life. He was also taught by Jan Patočka
Jan Patocka
Jan Patočka is considered one of the most important contributors to Czech philosophical phenomenology, as well as one of the most influential central European philosophers of the 20th century...
and has developed an interest in the poetics and hermeneutics of architecture.
As a professor of architecture, Vesely has been influential in establishing the role of hermeneutics and phenomenology as part of the design and discourse of architecture. He has taught some of the current leading architects and architectural historians, such as Daniel Libeskind
Daniel Libeskind
Daniel Libeskind, is an American architect, artist, and set designer of Polish-Jewish descent. Libeskind founded Studio Daniel Libeskind in 1989 with his wife, Nina, and is its principal design architect...
, Eric Parry, Alberto Pérez-Gómez
Alberto Pérez-Gómez
Alberto Pérez-Gómez is an architectural historian and is also known as a theorist and a promoter of phenomenology. Born December 24, 1949 in Mexico City, Mexico, he graduated as an engineer and architect from the National Polytechnic Institute of Mexico and pursued graduate studies in the history...
, Mohsen Mostafavi
Mohsen Mostafavi
Mohsen Mostafavi is an Iranian-American architect and educator. He currently the Dean and Alexander and Victoria Wiley Professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. He was formerly the Gale and Ira Drukier Dean of the College of Architecture, Art and Planning at Cornell University...
and David Leatherbarrow
David Leatherbarrow
David Leatherbarrow is Professor of Architecture and Chair of the Graduate Group in Architecture at the University of Pennsylvania School of Design, Philadelphia, where he has taught since 1984. He received his B.Arch. from the University of Kentucky and holds a Ph.D. in Art from the University of...
. He has taught at the University of Essex
University of Essex
The University of Essex is a British campus university whose original and largest campus is near the town of Colchester, England. Established in 1963 and receiving its Royal Charter in 1965...
, at the Architectural Association in London and since 1978 at the University of Cambridge
University of Cambridge
The University of Cambridge is a public research university located in Cambridge, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest university in both the United Kingdom and the English-speaking world , and the seventh-oldest globally...
, where he also started an M.Phil. programme in History and Philosophy of Architecture. Vesely currently teaches also Architectural History and Philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania
University of Pennsylvania
The University of Pennsylvania is a private, Ivy League university located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Penn is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States,Penn is the fourth-oldest using the founding dates claimed by each institution...
, and is Honorary Professorial Fellow at the Manchester School of Architecture
Manchester School of Architecture
The Manchester School of Architecture was formed in 1996 with the merger of the architecture departments of the University of Manchester and Manchester Metropolitan University. The MSA is a joint school of the University of Manchester School of Environment and Development and the Manchester...
. In 2005 he was recipient of the CICA Bruno Zevi Book Award granted by the International Committee of Architectural Critics
International Committee of Architectural Critics
The International Committee of Architectural Critics is a non-profit organization of international architecture critics, and was founded in Mexico City on October 26, 1978, during the 13th World Kongress of the Union internationale des architectes . The CICA is headquartered nearby the UIA in Paris...
. In 2006 the Royal Institute of British Architects
Royal Institute of British Architects
The Royal Institute of British Architects is a professional body for architects primarily in the United Kingdom, but also internationally.-History:...
honoured Dalibor Vesely with the Annie Spink Award for Excellence in Architectural Education.
Architecture and hermeneutics
Vesely’s work may be understood primarily as a contribution to cultural hermeneutics, and his exploration of the historical background of modern science in the sixteenth- and seventeenth centuries is particularly rich in detail and insight onto the changing nature of representation. Vesely polemises on concepts such as perspectivePerspective (graphical)
Perspective in the graphic arts, such as drawing, is an approximate representation, on a flat surface , of an image as it is seen by the eye...
and anamorphosis
Anamorphosis
Anamorphosis or anamorphism may refer to any of the following:*Anamorphosis, in art, the representation of an object as seen, for instance, altered by reflection in a mirror...
, which are traditionally understood to have taken departure from Renaissance
Renaissance
The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...
culture. Vesely contributes to the current debate with the depth of the problem of representation; a question which has divided Western philosophy
Western philosophy
Western philosophy is the philosophical thought and work of the Western or Occidental world, as distinct from Eastern or Oriental philosophies and the varieties of indigenous philosophies....
with regard to the epistemological possibility of representation and understanding of natural phenomena. The ‘birth’ of modern science
Science
Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe...
and its increasing challenge on traditional views has also marked the divide within the possibilities of representation. In the context of the seventeenth century, this was especially clear as a polemics surrounding the nature of scientific work and philosophical understanding.
According to Vesely, the inevitable partiality of such views is at the very core of the problem that affects the cultural understanding of representation. Its contingent nature was not always understood as a divide originating all kinds of dualisms. Before modern science, representation was naturally contingent and the universal aspirations of science (metaphysics
Metaphysics
Metaphysics is a branch of philosophy concerned with explaining the fundamental nature of being and the world, although the term is not easily defined. Traditionally, metaphysics attempts to answer two basic questions in the broadest possible terms:...
) were bound to the nature of the epistemological ground (arché). Vesely’s work traces back the ontological foundations of the problem to the Greek context, helping to clarify its original meaning. In Architecture in the Age of Divided Representation (2004), Vesely presents the notion of ground as having a provisional nature, that can only be seized as a continuity of reference through different levels of representation, ranging from the more explicit, visible world down to a latent world of potential articulation. Precisely this continuity is what may allow us to address the modern, fragmented notion of representation as a task of rehabilitation, which would trace the fragment back to its original whole.
Architecture and representation
In Architecture in the Age of Divided Representation (2004), Vesely sets the argument from the experience of architectureArchitecture
Architecture is both the process and product of planning, designing and construction. Architectural works, in the material form of buildings, are often perceived as cultural and political symbols and as works of art...
, as it constantly works through different modes of representation, including "built reality".
Vesely defines the present cultural situation as divided and ambiguous, especially when it comes to architecture
Architecture
Architecture is both the process and product of planning, designing and construction. Architectural works, in the material form of buildings, are often perceived as cultural and political symbols and as works of art...
(pp. 4-12, 36, 44 ss). Twentieth-century architecture placed its trust in the epistemological model of modern science
Science
Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe...
and technology
Technology
Technology is the making, usage, and knowledge of tools, machines, techniques, crafts, systems or methods of organization in order to solve a problem or perform a specific function. It can also refer to the collection of such tools, machinery, and procedures. The word technology comes ;...
that is today largely reflected in instrumental concepts of city
City
A city is a relatively large and permanent settlement. Although there is no agreement on how a city is distinguished from a town within general English language meanings, many cities have a particular administrative, legal, or historical status based on local law.For example, in the U.S...
and suburban landscape. When epistemology initiated its foundational enterprise it could hardly suspect that its role in validating scientific knowledge would very soon be challenged. Quine
Willard Van Orman Quine
Willard Van Orman Quine was an American philosopher and logician in the analytic tradition...
's Epistemology Naturalized (1969) reports how this is precisely what happened when it became clear that the argument developed in the terms of logical empiricism
Empiricism
Empiricism is a theory of knowledge that asserts that knowledge comes only or primarily via sensory experience. One of several views of epistemology, the study of human knowledge, along with rationalism, idealism and historicism, empiricism emphasizes the role of experience and evidence,...
was not based on the same empirical standing as the sciences. Today, the attempt to rehabilitate epistemology faces the problem of bridging this gap. This is obviously not an easy task, since the gap is between different modes of representation and concepts of knowledge
Knowledge
Knowledge is a familiarity with someone or something unknown, which can include information, facts, descriptions, or skills acquired through experience or education. It can refer to the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject...
that in some cases precede modern science, i.e., precede the historical notion of scientific knowledge as it takes course from the seventeenth- and sixteenth centuries.
Vesely's research delves into these historical settings that are understood to be the birth place of modern science, in the general hope of exposing the origin of our modern notion of knowledge
Knowledge
Knowledge is a familiarity with someone or something unknown, which can include information, facts, descriptions, or skills acquired through experience or education. It can refer to the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject...
and how it came about to emancipate from traditional representations of the world. Vesely’s research has accordingly been working out the historical notion of representation, as it constitutes a central issue in this historical affair; and the construction of a modern notion of knowledge has much to do with a changing nature in the concept of representation (pp. 13-19). The concept as it is generally understood today largely surpasses the history of epistemology. According to Vesely, this is because representation is generally understood on the basis of a certain "continuity between a particular mode of representation and what is represented" (p. 14), a notion which has been current throughout the whole of European architectural history.
The modern situation
When looking at the modern situation, Vesely finds that the problem is generally structured on the basis of an ontological difference that is intrinsic to representation itself. This is precisely the difference that allows modes of representation to emancipate from that which is represented, and from particular, given circumstances (pp. 4-5). The discussion of ontological difference therefore constitutes an epistemological difference affecting the conditions and possibilities of knowledge. And speculative thought, which we so associate with modern science, is built on this difference. Charles Taylor (1995) points out how the question for modern science is to fit a particular mode of representation to another, extrinsic representation: what we commonly call the "outer reality". The difference between the two constantly jeopardizes their epistemological value; and affects not only the way in which representation relates to what it means to represent, but also between different modes of representing it.In response, Vesely's work explores how architecture
Architecture
Architecture is both the process and product of planning, designing and construction. Architectural works, in the material form of buildings, are often perceived as cultural and political symbols and as works of art...
constantly works between different modes of representation, through the difference between project and what is built, for instance, when it translates a whole city
City
A city is a relatively large and permanent settlement. Although there is no agreement on how a city is distinguished from a town within general English language meanings, many cities have a particular administrative, legal, or historical status based on local law.For example, in the U.S...
into a diagram, a plan or a map. The simple act of reading a map involves more than just the imagination to relate the map with the buildings and the surrounding space; it involves the reciprocity between different levels of representation, that may intake discrepancy and lack of information. According to Vesely, this kind of discrepancy might be useful to understand the nature of the question; and may in fact become a means to understand what impairs the communication between different levels of representation, and conversely, what happens when such communication takes place.
Vesely also takes up the example of an experiment that, paradoxically perhaps, was carried out in the hey-day of logical empiricism
Empiricism
Empiricism is a theory of knowledge that asserts that knowledge comes only or primarily via sensory experience. One of several views of epistemology, the study of human knowledge, along with rationalism, idealism and historicism, empiricism emphasizes the role of experience and evidence,...
. The experiment was carried out by Schilder, and involved a temporary inversion of the visual field (pp. 46ss), leaving other perceptual fields untouched. Schilder's experiment addressed the discontinuity between the visual and other fields of perception
Perception
Perception is the process of attaining awareness or understanding of the environment by organizing and interpreting sensory information. All perception involves signals in the nervous system, which in turn result from physical stimulation of the sense organs...
, and exposed the situated human body
Body
With regard to living things, a body is the physical body of an individual. "Body" often is used in connection with appearance, health issues and death...
as a basic structure of spatial reference (pp. 48-49). Vesely investigates how the subjects of the experiment found that their bodies were the first instance they could rely on when trying to situate in a visual world that was not only upside down, but also turned from left to right; and when trying to perform simple gestures like picking up a book, or reading. Although the experience was difficult to endure, the inverted vision could be partially reconciled with the original body structure (p. 47).
According to Vesely, the ability to reconcile the acquired inverted vision with the situational structure of the human body, points out to a deeper problem when dealing with situation, which is related to our ability to become situated on provisional grounds, even when lacking a fundamental 'ground' of spatial or temporal reference. The example from inverted vision also means to show that such a basis is far from being immediate; it is constituted in the process of a search within the actual space and comes about in the reciprocity between different levels and forms of representation such as visual, tactile, and so forth. Vesely elaborates on situation and the phenomenon of being situated as an example of how we contextualize spatial knowledge and on which basis; and on how a particular point of reference allows us to situate spatial knowledge
Knowledge
Knowledge is a familiarity with someone or something unknown, which can include information, facts, descriptions, or skills acquired through experience or education. It can refer to the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject...
. In the course of the argument, Vesely demonstrates that what constitutes the fabric of situation is a continuity of reference and experience through different forms of articulating spatiality down to an implicit structure that itself is neither visual nor tactile, and is only potentially articulated in the objective realm (pp. 48, 82-87, 378ss).
Situation and perception
Vesely’s argument on the epistemological process of being situated develops in terms of an analogy to the formation of the visual field. And takes the organic ability of sight only as a point of departure to the phenomenon of visionVisual perception
Visual perception is the ability to interpret information and surroundings from the effects of visible light reaching the eye. The resulting perception is also known as eyesight, sight, or vision...
, i.e. what one is able to recognize and know out of visual perception
Perception
Perception is the process of attaining awareness or understanding of the environment by organizing and interpreting sensory information. All perception involves signals in the nervous system, which in turn result from physical stimulation of the sense organs...
. Accordingly, the natural process of seeing is shown to be a result from learning. Vesely presents the example of inborn conditions of blindness treated through surgery, where sight itself only emerges after a painful stage of learning, and without which, the recently-acquired sense of sight would be unable to detach or recognize individual objects out of a ‘visual field’ (pp. 50-51). Vesely describes how the integration of the newly-acquired sense relies on the fact that the world of the blind is already structured, not only in terms of temporal sequences, but spatially; and that the reconciliation of the new ability of sight takes place on an already structured ground of existing objects and spatiality. Perception
Perception
Perception is the process of attaining awareness or understanding of the environment by organizing and interpreting sensory information. All perception involves signals in the nervous system, which in turn result from physical stimulation of the sense organs...
such as visual or tactile is reconciled upon an implicitly structured ground.
Vesely shows how the task of bridging different plateaux of representation can only be fulfilled by covering the distance to a common 'ground' (pp. 61-63). 'Ground' is like a point of departure from which it would become possible to uncover the basic structure of spatiality; but it is hardly the case that such an epistemological ground can provide us with an absolute source of spatial reference. The notion of epistemological ground is not established a priori, as a given point of reference. It comes about in the process of searching, taking place as a continuum of references between different levels of spatial understanding. In which case, what constitutes the structural source of situation is this stream of references (p. 60).
Vesely's notion of ground consists of a primary source of reference that in many ways coincides with the traditional Greek understanding of arché. Arché is not an absolute source of reference, but only a primary one that works as a point of departure towards our notion of "earth" and our understanding of "world" (pp. 50-52). This is an insecure ground that in a sense, speaks more of its own topography
Topography
Topography is the study of Earth's surface shape and features or those ofplanets, moons, and asteroids...
, than of clearly defined rules and references. Although this is an unfamiliar ground for modern science, Vesely accurately describes how much of the understanding of what it means to be situated derives from the knowledge of daily situations on Earth, where horizon and gravity play a common role. Accordingly, architecture's task of raising and 'building' situations does not address the mere existence of conditions such as floor or gravity, but concerns the fundamental condition of 'ground' allowing the phenomenon of situation to take place.
Situation and knowledge
On the epistemological level, this means that for Vesely, the nature of ‘ground’ allows an understanding of ‘spatial structure’; like a hermeneutical key granting access to phenomena of spatiality. Contemporary architecture has been particularly keen on challenging the average views on ground viz. gravity as a basic ground for the displacement of the subject. This is particularly the case of the collaborative architectural enterprise of Peter EisenmanPeter Eisenman
Peter Eisenman is an American architect. Eisenman's professional work is often referred to as formalist, deconstructive, late avant-garde, late or high modernist, etc...
and Jacques Derrida
Jacques Derrida
Jacques Derrida was a French philosopher, born in French Algeria. He developed the critical theory known as deconstruction and his work has been labeled as post-structuralism and associated with postmodern philosophy...
. Although most architecture cannot escape the ‘predicament’ of gravity, there are numerous examples of play with gravity and the 'visual weight' of architectural mass against gravity, starting from the early twentieth-century constructivism
Constructivist architecture
Constructivist architecture was a form of modern architecture that flourished in the Soviet Union in the 1920s and early 1930s. It combined advanced technology and engineering with an avowedly Communist social purpose. Although it was divided into several competing factions, the movement produced...
. Such architectural play shows an impulse towards the emancipation from gravity as a natural source of situation, and looks forward to expose a more fundamental ground of reference and its problematic nature. Architecture
Architecture
Architecture is both the process and product of planning, designing and construction. Architectural works, in the material form of buildings, are often perceived as cultural and political symbols and as works of art...
is thus setting a clear challenge on everyday experience as they are structured characteristically in terms of up and down, and according to a horizontal ground. The experiment of the ‘inverted vision’ seems to show exactly that: the touch of ground helps to define the vertical and the relative distances of objects, orientation, and to recognize the physiognomy
Physiognomy
Physiognomy is the assessment of a person's character or personality from their outer appearance, especially the face...
of the space. Outside these conditions it seems more or less obvious that the 'grounds' for situation escape our grasp. At the same time, architects are conscious that it is precisely the implicit nature of ground as a structure of references that makes the task of its architectural exploration so difficult.
Moreover, according to Vesely, the notion of ‘ground’ can never provide us with an absolute knowledge of the whole, but only with a mediated understanding of spatial structure. This means that the task of uncovering the hidden nature of ground becomes, a fortiori, one of looking for a provisional ground that is beyond gravity as a natural source of spatial reference. The first long-term programme dealing with the consequences of the absence of gravity was developed already in 1973 by the NASA
NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research...
Skylab
Skylab
Skylab was a space station launched and operated by NASA, the space agency of the United States. Skylab orbited the Earth from 1973 to 1979, and included a workshop, a solar observatory, and other systems. It was launched unmanned by a modified Saturn V rocket, with a mass of...
. Vesely reports how one of the greatest difficulties encountered by the astronauts is the constant loss of orientation that becomes a general difficulty in recognizing previously known situations. Without gravity, an otherwise familiar compartment would be unrecognizable if not seen from a particular angle. The Sky Lab experience seems to illustrate quite well how the phenomenon of spatial structure and situation comes to be known through a sequence of approximations. Without the right orientation, simple recognition such as finding objects in their right places would become an almost impossible task. Once found the right orientation towards objects, however, the entire spatial frame of the compartment was recognized and so would all objects in their right places and relative positions. In a situation without light or gravity, one of the Sky Lab astronauts also described how a single touch on one of the walls of the space compartment would be sufficient to enact the knowledge of the relative position of the body with respect to all objects (pp. 52-54). This seems to be particularly relevant to show how a particular point of visual or tactile reference can provide with orientation; a physiognomic recognition of the space; and be related to the spatial disposition of the whole. These are instances that, according to Vesely, constitute a continuity of spatial reference and an epistemological, provisional ground. As it arises in the continuity of understanding the potential structure of the space, the notion of ground seems to be of a projective nature (p. 103).
The continuity of reference
Vesely seems to confer a projective ability on spatiality that is thus knowable from its own potential to generate a situation. According to Vesely, the continuity of reference to ground exists within a permanent tension with the actual space, a continuity which under certain conditions may be disrupted and even destroyed (pp. 55-56). The fact that there are discrepancies between different levels of representation should perhaps be no surprise as it is the case of the above-mentioned examples of reading a map, or orienting oneself in a space under zero gravity. That there is discrepancy between the given representation of a space and the actual space is in fact a common datum of everyday experience. The question is not to be solved, although it may constitute one important point of departure to understand the phenomenon of representation. This is particularly the case of extreme conditions where the phenomenon of 'continuity' is no longer recognizable. In the cases of aphasiaAphasia
Aphasia is an impairment of language ability. This class of language disorder ranges from having difficulty remembering words to being completely unable to speak, read, or write....
and apraxia
Apraxia
Apraxia is a disorder caused by damage to specific areas of the cerebrum. Apraxia is characterized by loss of the ability to execute or carry out learned purposeful movements, despite having the desire and the physical ability to perform the movements...
, which rank among others of what is generally known as mental blindness, there is a blatant discontinuity between the possibilities of notional understanding and the actual performance of a purposive act or standard articulation of speech. The work and research that has been carried out on mental blindness tends to show that the ability to articulate both speech and purposive actions and gestures is nonetheless affected by the surrounding environment, and is not based upon mental impairment alone. On the contrary, it has become increasingly clear that such conditions do not take place solely as a result of mental functions; neither can they be enacted by the situational structure, as both contribute to the failure and success of treatment (p. 57).
Vesely brings the argument about these conditions back to the experiments regarding orientation, such as the inverted vision experiment and orientation under zero gravity conditions, and correlates it with the problems experienced with mental blindness. This is because of the fundamental knowledge of spatiality that is at stake that enables a possible representation to be actually effected. As regards spatiality, Vesely presupposes an existing continuity between the possible and the actual spatial configuration, as a mediated structure (p. 58). This understanding of representation seems to reverberate Husserl's phenomenological treatment of representation, as moving from the horizon of vague, informal representation (Vorstellung), through a number of possibilities (Vergegenwärtigungen), until it finally reaches actuality (Repräsentation). The fact that Husserl only used the word Repräsentation to deal with explicit forms of representation, may serve us as an example of how a whole representational process was being kept in the background. Husserl's process of representation shows that our knowledge of spatiality intakes different levels of articulation, which are not always as clearly defined as we would wish. This means that the ground and point of departure of explicit references is not a point of departure towards a growing, cumulative knowledge of situation, but is rather a 'coming back' into a prereflective world of experience. In this sense, representation takes place as a spectrum ranging out of explicit forms of articulation into an implicit background, a concept that seems to be confirmed by later phenomenology of perception. It seems obvious that, because of the nature of this prereflective ground, verbal or visual articulation of it cannot take place in an explicit sense. On the contrary, the phenomenological gaze at this background takes place indirectly (p. 69) as a preunderstanding of the world. If this is so, then not only our epistemological ground is constituted as an identity of interpretation of different levels of perception
Perception
Perception is the process of attaining awareness or understanding of the environment by organizing and interpreting sensory information. All perception involves signals in the nervous system, which in turn result from physical stimulation of the sense organs...
, but also the concept of representation as such is constituted as a movement out of a prereflective background. This is precisely the background against which it becomes possible for an articulated structure to take place and be identified as such (pp. 75-77). This also means that the difference between different levels of articulation, namely between a preunderstanding background and a given object is precisely what allows us to see the object and situate it within our world of experience. If we accept Vesely's argument, then the difference that formerly stood as an epistemological barrier now becomes a necessary condition for representation to take place.
The latent world of architecture
Vesely addresses the preunderstanding of world as a latent world (p. 83), that is potentially articulated and structured, and whose relationship to its visible manifestation is not immediate. The reciprocity between this prearticulated level and its visible articulation dwells within the very ontological difference that has been discussed previously. Such reciprocity is a schematic constituent of phenomena of continuity and metaphoricity, that have been constantly described throughout the primary tradition of Christian humanism in the nature of beingBeing
Being , is an English word used for conceptualizing subjective and objective aspects of reality, including those fundamental to the self —related to and somewhat interchangeable with terms like "existence" and "living".In its objective usage —as in "a being," or "[a] human being" —it...
and becoming. Vesely thus enters the core of the question of representation in terms of its coming into the level of visibility. In the sequence of Vesely's argument, the subject of visibility becomes then, of itself, problematic in nature as it intakes a background of potential articulation.
According to Vesely, "the horizon of visibility displays a synthesis of the prereflective experience and of the achievements of reflection insofar as they preserve ontological continuity with the visible" (p. 85). On the other hand, the rise onto the explicit level of visibility primarily seems to express the problem of representation in terms of what is kept from the prereflective world. This could perhaps be seen as a consequence of the traditional concept of inner representation as relating to an external reality
Reality
In philosophy, reality is the state of things as they actually exist, rather than as they may appear or might be imagined. In a wider definition, reality includes everything that is and has been, whether or not it is observable or comprehensible...
. Vesely challenges this concept of representation, and widens it as a spectrum that ranges from the explicitness of our world down to implicit levels of articulation. Consequently, the term reality is restricted mostly to certain types of representation (e.g. virtual reality
Virtual reality
Virtual reality , also known as virtuality, is a term that applies to computer-simulated environments that can simulate physical presence in places in the real world, as well as in imaginary worlds...
) that view reality as something extrinsic (pp. 308-315).
Vesely's concept of representation, however, takes place in terms of a communication between a wide range of levels; whereby the question that concerns representation also concerns the truth
Truth
Truth has a variety of meanings, such as the state of being in accord with fact or reality. It can also mean having fidelity to an original or to a standard or ideal. In a common usage, it also means constancy or sincerity in action or character...
of representation, a question that has been amply developed by modern hermeneutics. In this domain, the visible world conveys a kind of knowledge of the prereflective levels of articulation that also jeopardizes the epistemological status of the visible. As we have seen, contrary to empiricist belief, the visible world by itself does not constitute an epistemological ground (pp. 84-86). Instead, our epistemological ground is constituted by features such as orientation, physiognomy
Physiognomy
Physiognomy is the assessment of a person's character or personality from their outer appearance, especially the face...
, and the relative position of things with regard to one another; and it is from these features that a provisional ground comes to be constituted as regards spatiality. This ground is not a still point of reference. On the contrary, by ground is here meant a source and stream of references. This means that the explicit horizon of the visible, tangible world is the most explicit form of embodiment
Embodiment
Embodied or embodiment may refer to:in psychology and philosophy,*Embodied cognition , a position in cognitive science and the philosophy of mind emphasizing the role that the body plays in shaping the mind...
we have, but such a narrow horizon we can only take as a point of departure if we want to understand the rest of our world that is largely beyond visibility. This also means that the visible holds a very important part as a symbolic representation of our world, enabling us to see and imagine beyond the visible.
Finally, this means that we construe our knowledge of 'world' largely on the basis of invisible, implicit references which are only symbolically re-enacted by the visible realm. The level of visual representation may perhaps be compared to the level of more explicit verbal articulation as regards the implicit, preverbal domain of knowledge. Just as visual representation, verbal articulation has the power to emancipate from the given world, and the freedom to convey any meaning. This is a power bestowed upon representation, allowing it to withdraw from its original symbolic domain, thus establishing a tension between the instrumental nature of representation and its larger symbolic field.
Further reading
- Derrida, Jacques (1993). Khôra. Paris: Galilée.
- _____________ (1967, 2003). La voix et le phénomène : Introduction au problème du signe dans la phénoménologie de Husserl. Paris: Presses universitaires de France.
- Eisenman, Peter (1999). Diagram Diaries. London: Thames and Hudson.
- Heidegger, Martin (1925, 1985). Categorial Intuition In: A History of the Concept of Time, trans. T. Kisiel. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, pp. 47-72.
- Husserl, Edmund (1900, 2001). Logical Investigations, vol. 2. International Library of Philosophy.
- _____________ (1970). The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology, trans. D. Carr. Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press.
- Kornblith, Hillary (ed.) (1985). Naturalizing Epistemology. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.
- MacArthur, John (1993). Experiencing Absence: Eisenman, Derrida, Benjamin and Schwitters In: Knowledge in/and/or/of Experience. Brisbane: IMA, pp. 99-123.
- Merleau-Ponty, Maurice (1945, 1998). Phénoménologie de la perception. Paris: Gallimard.
- Pérez-Gómez, Alberto (1983). Architecture and the Crisis of Modern Science. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.
- Quine, Willard Van Orman (1969). Ontological Relativity and Other Essays. New York: Columbia University Press.
- Rorty, Richard (1979). Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press.
- Taylor, Charles (1995). Overcoming Epistemology In: Philosophical Arguments. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, pp. 1-19.
- Toulmin, Stephen (1990). Cosmopolis: The Hidden Agenda of Modernity. Chicago: Chicago University Press.