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The Essence of Architectural Creation

2023; Springer Nature (Netherlands); Linguagem: Inglês

10.1007/978-3-031-45925-2_2

1875-466X

Tim Ireland,

Architecture and Art History Studies

This first chapter argues architecture is fundamentally about sensitive ordering of space. We look to a cluster of Viennese architects (Oskar Strand, Adolf Loos and Joseph Frank) whose approach to design and the configuration of space was to enhance daily life and strove to establish an architecture of affective occupation. Their work also serves as a backdrop, to thinking about the configuration of space as a process of directing forces to generate spatial assemblies; the configuration of which provoke speculations about what affordances particular assemblies provide for inhabitation. An algorithmic process of configuration is proposed and outlined, which takes lead from the design philosophy of Frederick Kiesler: another of our protagonists, who stemmed from Vienna but who, having moved to New York City in 1926, is more generally affiliated with the motley crue of avant-garde contemporary designers and artists that fled to the States in-between the World Wars; which included the Surrealists, and Marcel Duchamp, with whom Kiesler was close friends. Kiesler sought to distinguish an architecture of free-flowing space, that unified and energised occupants with their natural and technological environment. He pursued this approach most energetically through designs for his “Endless House”. Claiming architecture to be about forces, which an architect steers in a desired direction, his design philosophy stands as the basis for the combinatoric process of configuration outlined. The notion of continuity that was the backbone of Kiesler’s design philosophy equates to the notion of Synechism that Peirce held to be the keystone of his semiotic model. Synechism is the philosophical term proposed by Peirce to express the tendency to regard things such as space, time, and law as continuous. A correlation between Peirce and Kiesler is therefore claimed. A connection that will be elaborated further in the concluding chapter.