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Metaphors We Live In
Wednesday, Oct. 26, 2011 · 6:33 p.m. · 01h 06m 07s
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that's your tools
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about roots of rock was small does that got to me they would global for room gold program
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which is because of ruth not would you only parables record for hours that's huge doom or be room
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looks pretty to be the only gonna copy the lever running
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from las vegas compared to the group real person secluded coveralls
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remove engineer assume recruit you do stopping ontology to you
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only for so it's it that this material does don't created easter parade
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rex is is this the most was actually been actually purebred under due to my t.
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v. martins your regular 'cause some plan to release got brown rice in our product from
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so this don't look they're mainly due to read whose objective are
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gonna put don't complain attitudes were crucible except the mobile claremont determine you
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no permit don't prepared your beeping corey for or clues you put there is the low it is observer some couple program
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so i must uh one stronger lower the university the columbia on business documents that
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early doctor volunteer reader should determine down a quarter poker no on business on a non sound
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set the the oats you know really please come where led to present
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so right the only real um isn't
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it true return situated modernism laugh it direct
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to monitor a few more prone to return a call for them are created only the but some don't
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pretty through draft estate it couldn't week so it's you
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in conclusion you so it there would believe this document preferred or was that they had three
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but i mean does and then you need to dismiss dominant market do we see if
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therapy professor i'm a graduate school designed to harvard to do to join cambridge models
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that billiard don't assume you you mean the the group is the meaning of the summer
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long it'll certainly made a billy cube is
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real good remote logically q. let's vision visual literacy
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a regular member tells you couldn't aptly crepe only different you know used to text
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on phone it so that you know some simplicity to your
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would also look is joel from good to fabric with from
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not should take your comments pass cool screen i read the news journal
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reason arc programmers interactivity do do we still need a critical people don't examples
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we don't really is the dude is suited the the rules use problem
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was so calls are clearly key to this on sumo accommodated x. you
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you may get the memory can be most you and to the republic
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social men do so to broach it in reference to
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menu mobile group we don't visit it not put e.
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isn't it time no good customers with you to do by movement updated through
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exactly to this are some provoke went through a okay don't on the bottom of carolyn
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accepted the can you go circular feet more does it in the profit passive are pretty soon
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so long direct is also so come through for the second determine warner for prissy it wouldn't t.
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i mean options to present your you know one of the really good
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oh
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uh_huh
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thank you we next um fit that lovely reflection oh
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i'm really pleased to be here and especially pleased
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this is this talk is taken from a new book
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that i'm working on about the experiences that contemporary adult environment
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and so you can all consider yourselves like in clicked
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which means i'm i'm very interested in hearing what you
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have to say because of course experience is a big topic
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um but it's a topic that that did this got brown a rubber band touring or
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one of the first people to really introduced in to
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help the discourse of architecture not so this is um
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this is a chapter that a a while to chapter on a lot of different things anyway this is a
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very small part of a very big um but i
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i think it it should be fun it's there's plucking up
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let me take it off her come up that's okay
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my mother in law forgive me she's the one okay eventually okay
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okay i'm i'm sure you've seen this many times before the semester
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that can decorated shed i thought i'd start out by the fact
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the segmentation was an occasion for me to revisit that frames got
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brown and i work yeah i think a little bit about their contributions
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not just historically since i moved unseen yes said more more toward thinking about
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contemporary architecture well even though i come from a training and background as a historian
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tell what or their contributions i'm not historically but also to contemporary architecture
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uh it is uh one of the questions i began to ask
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myself when i knew that you had this exhibition oh how do well
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hot projects like learning from las vegas contribute to our understanding of how
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people experience architecture uh at the focus there is on the work experience
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and following that uh and so on the one hand you have how people
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experience architecture the built environment on the other hand you have hot shark attacks design
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given the knowledge that we have of how people experience the built environment um
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yeah that of course there first proposal in learning from las vegas
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what's that modern architects of the post war period but their target really
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is nice uh i think more than anybody else we're working too hard
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uh in trying to create a experience of architecture they were
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creating too many ducks um and and up the proposal was that
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this of course it's a roadside diner the cells dark uh on long island
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um and so they've made it into the jacket architects for working too hard to get integrate form
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function anti apology into one expressive units
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and i'm having visited las vegas unseen all these kind of shed like buildings
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and signs and signs and signs and signs which you see in your exhibition
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uh their conclusion was well you know this really is just
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bending over backwards and making architecture a lot more complicated really
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then that needs to be what we need to design is
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decorated sure that um so if you wanna make a monument
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you build a very simple building and then you put a sign on it or some kind of symbol on it and it says
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i am a monument and there you have it you've got a monument right um
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it's
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so mm another what their targets oh fend for is that for
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lewis contour wrote on whom i wrote my first talk
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about another whole root out funky attacked because he didn't
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want to attack caught 'cause commas kind of like a father to have in learning from las vegas another box
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um so let's take the bridges medical centre but sorry i was trying to go for laser here
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well which is a laboratory building that many of
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you probably now not very functional but nonetheless on con
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thought okay what is it about the laboratory building what
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sort of defines a laboratory building well in biological sciences
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you have to clean the here you have to constantly purify the air and so he separated out
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the what he called the here you need to breathe from the ear you need to throw away
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and that became the party for the form of the building
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so here these you serve monumental ten hours to the ear
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it is austere that you need to throw away cleaning the air for the laboratories over here um
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so you have the expression of the function of
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the building really driving the party of the form um
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that doesn't work what a venturi in scarborough wanted
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was a decorated shared services they're called should light
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narrow science it's research centre at the university of california in los angeles
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which is completed by about ten years ago uh a very basic building
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uh and and lots of ornamentation i don't quite know how this relates to
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cognitive neural scientific research but and maybe if i looked at it more carefully i would
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figure out an nonetheless so we have here oh ducks over here decorated shelves over here
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oh they compared it almost like the difference between a clubs and
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okay now let's our former because the fingers so form each
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other they're more flexible in terms of being able to you know
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more from your fingers news manipulate them on her gloves are kind of
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awkward and and you can't change the form of local of okay um
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okay so
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yeah
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different precedence if they need a historical argument not go through this
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relatively quickly assuming that you forget these that like this before but they
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say historically this is what people have always done in fact if
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you look at the moment ask architecture where is the communication coming from
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um where we're from where do you drive the meaning in your understanding of these buildings
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not necessarily from the form of the building in fact one roman a structure early christian church looks very much like
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another raster early christian church one gothic very much like
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another yes there are differences and someone ah but the iconography
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and the symbolism in it really christian that's the most say x.
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when you get to of cathedral like um yeah it's the sculptural program
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that's where the meeting come sam and me is what keeps
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people experience this is the argument in learning from las vegas yeah
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okay
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uh_huh alright so if you think step back a little bit what what for their contributions that patients where
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to shift the emphasis and this continues to be the contribution
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adventure it's got round to shift the emphasis away from the object
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toward the viewer and the user n. e. k. because
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we're interested in how the user experience it's the building
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um now the argument that they make about what kind of architecture
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comes out of that you can take or you can leave but this was a radical shift
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it's no longer about construction technique or structure or the relationship with structure to form
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where the relationship of form to ideology
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as in the core bluesy a.'s architecture a
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revolution um it's certainly no longer about this
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kind of surety of foreman radical reduction um
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that you get in me says architecture no it's always about the user user in the
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user's experience moving through the building um and that from that what does the building me
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yeah
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yeah
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another important contribution that comes out of their emphasis on
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experience is in placing their emphasis on the experience of
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you were or the user of buildings spent towards got
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brown also argued against the privacy isn't the intact art
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qualities of the object itself thank you that's okay if um they recognised
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especially in learning from las vegas set up okay what's the bat
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in case everything is about a creating and an integrated object right i mean the
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funds were thousands of course the most the most obvious example of that where um
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you can almost figure out what the other side of the building looks like from the for side of the building well now
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centurion start around thought and this is a very important contribution
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of here's the way you experience architecture you experienced architecture you
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move around you guys look really different and i stand over here then when i start over there right um in fact
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most architecture you really never have this kind
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of whole total icing view of its e. show
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um and you forget a little bit and then you move through it maybe you remember something that you solvable bubble for and
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so on and so forth um this is this was the
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size and learning from las vegas because they were driving and chords
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they were very interested in this sequence of moving through the built environment in automobiles
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but not not last the kind of disparate sequential
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and no one integrated aspect of the way that
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people experience architecture is something that no one had
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really paid that much attention to and was extremely influential
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yeah and not architecture but the delta environment more generally because of course learning from las vegas is
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really more about the city then it is about buildings but it applies also to sell things as well
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okay so you all of these contributions you wonder about
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it why it's history past winter it's got around but i've
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this is another you have this in the exhibition wants to get you can't really read these things but
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um and they have a lot of different drawings like this
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where they show kind of a typical suburban landscape
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and then disposable things like you haven't cartoons communicating
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what's important about this landscape know curved curbing street
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no fast finance sidewalk someone and so forth
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um okay to cover from learning from los vegas
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i would pass it that one of the central reasons that oh
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the movement that then tori and scott brown actually initiated
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moved so quickly by their number of different
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reasons i won't get into the whole historical explanation
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yes because it's their emphasis on words their emphasis on architecture has
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or or the architectural experience as semantic
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meaning through words okay um everything is verbal
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inventory and scott brown um its declaration or
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pattern and things that you can communicate so they
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i mean this is not everything is verbal maybe this is a bit of an exaggeration here but you wanna museum
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well we're gonna give you a museum and we're gonna tell you it's a museum and guess what kind of museum it is it's a museum
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for kids and it's gonna be really obvious to you that it's a
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museum for kids and there's nobody that but look at this and say oh
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that's amusing forgets where there's something playful about that that has to do with kits
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right they've very very kind of literal
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one to one correspondence is between the idea
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um of verbal idea they can seconds translated into a visual idea and then gets put on a building
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um yeah of course the context for those what's the rise of semiotics
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uh in which philosophers linguists of
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what do you call people like well lombard cultural theorist i guess um
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i didn't mean to show my disdain
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um we're arguing that all thought is linguistic
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so the experience of the building up is an experience that you have
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by thinking about uh_huh about it in words
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um in fact for twenty years from semiotics into post structural is on the
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dominant idea was that all language is
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socially constructed and all socially constructed off pot
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socially constructed so if you can't think it
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semantically it doesn't exist it's not a thought
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i'm kind of um
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and i said three separate continue um basically to argue this now
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according to semiotic theory and then transcriber and if you read their
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work it's very clear that this is what they're thinking even though
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they don't or for explicitly to semiotics on visual experience spatial experience
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what and how it phenomenon logical experience experience in the bonding and at the body
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his order experience dependent which you can only understand or even
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be aware they are how i think when you can articulate hyperbole
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hats it's plan
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when you say oh well curves that you
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actually begin to experience and understand are how
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and uh so if you express if you understand this
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print less than that integrates cut rounds emphasis on science it's
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also makes sass and it's true some meaning works this way
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absolutely now i i had initially thought that i would be talking more about
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asian i just got back from a long trip in china japan korea um
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and here is a perfect example of entering in scott brown's approach to architecture
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i thought it's in beijing it's just a regular old apartment house and um i
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fifty sixty stories something like that and they wanted something that really look chinese
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so what did they do they kind of stuck a pagoda on the building and then in fact they did more than that
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so they can't to the apartments looking one way one looks
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out this way one looks out that way and someone um to
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suggest or evoke the of trade traditional chinese construction
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techniques underneath the roofs okay no someone who's not chinese
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would not understand these references um there this
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is a perfect example of the kind of semantic
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a way of approaching meeting here's another example this is oh
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okay here's this kind of very complicated under the under the roof
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construction maybe get on last patterns and then they're really interested in patterns
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here a building by comparison forks um in which the upper according to
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the architect the client use a command and like the plants you know
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pattern tire and he loved pattern any thought it was very chinese and so we asked them to
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do this again this is really it's so there or semantically based cultural symbols of
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interest that brown or not wrong but they're not right either um okay and so
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we actually now know that most meaning
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a out and which means most experiences
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that people have and from that the meaning that they derive a is not semantic
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does not come through language at all um
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we know much more than we did in one well i'm
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bart or venturi it's got around to writing about human cognition
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and about human cognition in the delta bar that
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um we know this because uh technology in um
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in studying the brain has developed enormously in the last twenty
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or thirty years we now have functional magnetic resonance imaging we
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have had scams we have this so you can study to
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the brain um and see how it's working as people are thinking
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um by giving them certain things so these are f. m. r. i. images um head
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that integrates got rounds idea about experience and
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the semantic nature of experience had it exactly backwards
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most thought most processing of human experience is
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on or non conscious about eighty five to ninety
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percent that eighty five to ninety four or ninety percent of what you think is not conscious
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okay um now that's
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surprising to architects in fact i wrote an article
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couple years ago on the other foot exclamation point exclamation
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point come on say or you know you can't really be true is set to scientists and it's again um
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okay and that in fact conscious thought six it often six c. it's
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i'm conscious thought oh and the famous it the most famous example of
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studies they did a few years ago and decision making we're up they would
00:24:18
put an apple on a table and they would say okay pick up that apple
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um and what how they were doing f. m. r. and
00:24:26
brain scans on these people and the new ones that would fire
00:24:33
it has to tell you to pick up that apple fire before you we're we're
00:24:40
that you were going to pick up the apple and wait before you actually started to move your hand to go and pick it up
00:24:47
so there's just one example to people understand what i'm saying here so
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you had this kind of you're constantly thinking unconsciously is you're navigating your way
00:24:57
through the world and that the truth is that they've
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done enough studies now that they know that very very little
00:25:06
of what we think actually makes it into
00:25:08
words um as one scientist put it most only
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only a very small part of what we think is as he put it clean and well weird enough
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to become to become more it's um or so
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that you go back and you look at architecture and actually gets is think about
00:25:31
it in a different way um you know really be up and take the pyramids them
00:25:38
you need words to know that these guys are really kind of settled into the ground
00:25:44
right and they're happy and you don't need words to stand on this
00:25:49
plaza as i did this summer and take me on this is pretty scary
00:25:54
right this thing i mean i know that ran had a good engineer but what if this thing comes crashing
00:26:01
i'm a very physical and phenomena watchful eyes of experience it's not uh
00:26:10
so step around to emphasise the user rather than the maker of the object that's good
00:26:18
they emphasise the relationship that meaning it an experience to one another um
00:26:25
there's nothing in life without meeting you derive meaning
00:26:27
from and that meeting comes from experience there also
00:26:32
it was a car right in their relationship of
00:26:34
architectural experiences disparate and sequential and moving through time
00:26:40
but they're correct in their assumption or even proposition
00:26:47
that architectural meaning is still lives through language it's not
00:26:53
so get what we now know about the nature of human cognition
00:26:56
we have to rethink architectural experience i think freely from the ground up
00:27:02
and in rethinking architecture experience we will
00:27:05
once again rethink how architecture actually approached design
00:27:10
it's i'm not this by the way is a wonderful image five them holding amish
00:27:17
i'm from the nineteen twenties which she was trying to express the integrated
00:27:22
and interactive relationship of the human body to the exterior it far um okay
00:27:30
it's got brown talked a lot about us signs and symbols this is
00:27:34
a ups comes directly out of sight of semiotics and the emphasis on language
00:27:39
ah but then that's your category is not symbols
00:27:43
um this is a symbol to master category as metaphor
00:27:48
okay as well is a one to one direct correspondence between
00:27:54
let's say in this case a visual image and an idea um okay look
00:27:59
at this you think christianity you think christ it's very straightforward most symbols all our
00:28:05
um semantically based in their culturally based metaphor is something else this
00:28:11
is the unfortunately the slide is not as good as a candy
00:28:13
but it's kind of like it's a stair it's a circular staircase
00:28:17
wrapped enough what looks like a fish nets talking i'm very kind fan
00:28:24
last summer with metal wrapping huh no why would you wrap a staircase and fish net stockings
00:28:33
um well if you think about it there's room lots of wonderful reasons why
00:28:36
you might write c. move three staircase to use your legs and like this or
00:28:41
that fish net stockings go why does and it contains you but it doesn't
00:28:46
continue you can move around so it gives you a sense ups of the
00:28:51
uh probably progress and the special notice of moving through this space that
00:28:57
you get to prospect out and yet you think about being contained in this
00:29:01
based on their lots and lots of layers and things like that sell
00:29:07
this is the kind of metaphor that in for the correspondence insert not restrictive
00:29:13
in other words is not a one to one correspondence and i'm sure and then read it for from uh
00:29:19
configure its cultural anthropologist m. f. in metaphor he writes
00:29:24
and hung where would be a sense on one level
00:29:29
like what a rapid fish net stockings staircase okay that makes no sense um
00:29:35
produces and keep flux of significance another
00:29:39
well a multitude of meetings on another level
00:29:43
okay that's what metaphors are um but now they're braced for this call the shaft
00:29:51
from simple to metaphor yes i'm not here metaphors more
00:29:58
loose if they're more more times various um no not logical
00:30:05
okay in the way that symbols are logical and some ice you can next line now
00:30:11
um and metaphors for for to auditory
00:30:15
patterns to visual patterns to tactile sensations
00:30:19
take interpersonal experiences to the probation chip auditory patterns and
00:30:24
so on and so forth tool motions and some combination
00:30:30
they're up let's just take alright very famous image from the film area by out of are
00:30:35
also um how many lectures of you start for go i'm assuming it's at least one or two
00:30:41
um in which you you've heard this building described is warm building
00:30:46
okay it's more um now the buildings are more buildings of buildings
00:30:53
right that's a metaphor okay um what makes this building more
00:31:01
colour it's made out of wood it's what is it is warmer
00:31:07
to the touch then that always know which it tends to be cool
00:31:13
um i worked as a physical sensation it um
00:31:22
you also think when you think of the war
00:31:26
you think what are other things that we use the word warm for he's a morning person
00:31:32
right um you say that in french to write something like this is the one person you know what
00:31:37
the state in all languages she's the one person okay
00:31:41
how does that happen because people are more more people
00:31:46
form this more okay to fit a tactile sensation when we were in france
00:31:51
when all of what's um you are held close to your caregivers body
00:31:58
when you're how close your caregivers body you experience warmth
00:32:02
therefore you develop an association between emotional sense of closeness
00:32:08
and the tactile sensation of feeling physically more
00:32:14
and then as to develop um you develop a sense of
00:32:21
the tactile senses other tactile sensations they're physically warm um
00:32:27
well hope those kinds of emotional experiences so to fill in my area
00:32:31
which is a building it ends up being more okay i suppose the fines with house right which is called or
00:32:38
uh i mean just you know you could take so many different examples of let's say they're having a rough semester
00:32:45
okay well that's not for right references roughness of the physical
00:32:50
sensation semesters the semester it's the passage of time experience um
00:32:56
our language the way we think the way we construct the well the world is filled
00:33:02
with these kinds of metaphors um
00:33:07
the same having a rough semester everybody understands you're having a semester that's not
00:33:11
necessarily pleasant because if you walked up to paul rudolph the art and architecture building
00:33:17
at the uh university which is what that's a detail of and by mistake
00:33:21
rubbed her back against a guess what it wouldn't feel nice it's and everybody understand
00:33:27
that having a rough semester means things are are going well um if
00:33:33
yeah and not only that you don't even need to touch
00:33:37
that that building on the right to have the sense
00:33:41
of roughness because you you can look at it and because
00:33:46
of your memories of past experiences of reference you know that
00:33:49
that's not a pleasant experience just looking at that time um
00:33:57
with
00:34:02
let's get a okay i'm sorry it's working the built environment
00:34:11
right actually
00:34:14
so the import than just summarise quickly import thing about metaphors it is that they're not logical
00:34:22
ah and there you sure sensory
00:34:26
for example she's the warm person takes a physical feeling yet
00:34:33
any rasta onto unemotional feel that their their
00:34:37
inter sensory they're not logical and they're embodied
00:34:42
in other words they come from your physical experience of living in a bawdy
00:34:46
right now that's you can explain a language but it's not linguistic
00:34:54
our car um so how does this work in architecture um
00:35:00
i'm gonna take a very simple metaphor to try to explain that we doing
00:35:04
on time here um take it tree trees an object nature shelters the basic um
00:35:14
we actually will go back like that's um if you don't need to treat your kind of sense shot right
00:35:21
oh shelters the basic bottling it gives you some protection from
00:35:27
nature's elements um trees can also be place markers right um
00:35:34
a tree but i particularly like this image i thought you know i remember battery
00:35:39
that would be you know a landmark for me if i saw that tree oh okay
00:35:46
how each phrase and i was actually but innocent patrick goes having dinner
00:35:51
last night we were talking about where you need to we will um
00:35:54
get their home each freeze to you see in contemporary architecture
00:35:57
this is by a very small japanese farm called mount fuji um
00:36:02
and it's a little house because everything in tokyo it's kind a
00:36:07
little when it comes to residential environment has got the tree cats
00:36:12
um and everything is hung off of this month thing right here and you can see
00:36:17
uh these beans beans a cross things going across as if
00:36:23
they were branches stretching out um and then turning into bookshelf
00:36:29
it's a tiny little space well what they get by making it a tree well
00:36:36
okay well i think they get is that it works and earthquakes right
00:36:40
because it's off set into this one column so they're functional reasons to um
00:36:46
but what else did they get um you had the evocative associations of standing
00:36:51
in the tree and when i talk to the owners they said you know
00:36:55
what kind of shelter does the tree provide it's not like sitting in the container
00:37:00
right i'm not being sheltered by a tree gives you both shelter but also freedom
00:37:07
um and anybody whose stands under tree understands that as we all have
00:37:12
um and then they take these metaphors in lots and lots of different directions so
00:37:19
the tree starts out as kind of looking very freedom like over here
00:37:23
and functioning as a tree like and then it moves in to becoming
00:37:28
sort of an implement its trees make implements right you make
00:37:31
furniture from the me make box from them this becomes bookshelves
00:37:35
um there's also an uneven terrain here we've got lots of
00:37:38
changing room floor levels in this house is you can see
00:37:42
um so one rum the kind for a year and then the main living space and so on
00:37:48
and then which here we're going the other way around that's the living room and then the bedroom
00:37:53
there's a new but just a couple spaces each time you got just as when you
00:37:56
walk around the traits with money eventually um you get the sense of the tree house
00:38:03
um there's a playfulness yeah that moving up the tree climbing you get to see different levels um now i'm
00:38:09
not saying uh what i haven't really like this house but i'm not saying this is brilliant architecture and simply
00:38:16
trying to illustrate to you how
00:38:19
pervasive metaphors or sorry i'm in
00:38:24
um in the way that architecture is made to help myself here is alright so
00:38:35
it's a relatively simple metaphor but it's it is embodied um the relationship
00:38:41
of a person to which free tree to shelter to shelter to home
00:38:47
um these are things that you understand you don't need necessarily
00:38:51
words or language um and then there are a whole sense
00:38:57
of associations that come along with using this metaphor of the
00:39:01
tree or tree house um trees provide some sense of protection
00:39:09
um there sound absorbing maybe a sense of peacefulness why and uh if you look at
00:39:14
the tree there is of all of this kind of maybe works and maybe doesn't work um
00:39:20
you know tree structured a little bit the way we are right if i go like virus
00:39:25
um do you think wow she's sort of imitating branches spreading now on a tree um has a haircut
00:39:32
moving like that and then the trout um so there is
00:39:35
that i think that kind of in a mistake association as well
00:39:40
okay take a completely different sense of a kind of tree here we've got your
00:39:44
gun mire h.'s project that still i think i'm not even quite finished human condition c.
00:39:49
d. yeah where he makes a little forest in the middle of the city um that's
00:39:54
what it looks like from above lucy you have on this kind of organic um if
00:40:01
it
00:40:03
this organic by or more fig invasion to
00:40:08
um in to a very dense urban environment um
00:40:13
creating a sense of of forest in the middle of the city and us up
00:40:18
protections and shade and so on and so forth um thing
00:40:27
i know where that's at least what i call size let's go back to an
00:40:35
say you see a lot of the things that and saying you're not necessarily consist
00:40:41
one another in your experience what trees or work right um
00:40:49
the sense of celebrity that you the spatial fluidity
00:40:52
relationship indoor to outdoor that you get yeah and
00:40:55
your gun marriages projector and fuji mount fuji project um doesn't necessarily have
00:41:01
anything to do with what but it does to you because you know trees
00:41:05
um so there's a series of metaphor calls associations that are being made here
00:41:13
okay um
00:41:20
oh
00:41:29
'kay
00:41:31
yep
00:41:37
we think metaphors all the time i mean here that this is just another quick example because
00:41:42
i wanted to get away from something that's kind of obvious is the tree let's say um
00:41:48
if you say what that person's them really really big deal
00:41:53
right what does that mean that means that person's import
00:41:58
or a person for a small person right if not important or
00:42:06
somehow unappealing well big small when you work here well what was big authority figures
00:42:13
what was mom you are right what did you need you needed people to take care of
00:42:18
you were big and some lunch and the point is that the brain research has shown that
00:42:24
yeah notably missing the brain is extremely plastic
00:42:27
that you develop these associations very early on
00:42:31
and they're wired there don't really wired in your brain that you think
00:42:37
another way once you begin to develop all this
00:42:40
kind of cache of man metaphors like important as big
00:42:45
a small is on important and let's go to something more complex and then
00:42:50
i think i've written too much so i may just end up with this um
00:42:55
because i wanted to do something that was
00:42:58
a little more spatial and sequential i'm also
00:43:05
is someone who understood the metaphorical nature of experience
00:43:10
um even before we knew all the stuff that we now know about the brain this is the bit worried library
00:43:17
oh which he got the commission for nineteen twenty you would think i would
00:43:21
know this like this but i doubt nineteen twenty eight i think maybe twenty
00:43:26
seven but it was a finish until nineteen thirty five on and get the
00:43:32
project but for many iterations and it's often seem to be indicative of alter chef
00:43:38
toward modernism because it ends up at the um the final project
00:43:43
the first project was quite neoclassical the final project has these sliding
00:43:48
uh planes off of one another the sliding volumes and um this much more modern
00:43:54
um hum yeah just in its orientation but i'll just said
00:43:58
you know my basic idea for this library really never changed
00:44:02
um i i always had two blocks i had what he called a block for the year
00:44:09
and a block for that i was the public library and he also sometimes called refer to this is the social
00:44:16
block that's where the famous auditorium with the wavy ceiling
00:44:19
yes um and this is cause sort of the private block
00:44:23
okay so he thought of reading as a private experience
00:44:28
um and then their offices and auditory here survey an auditorium here this is the social experience
00:44:34
is it like basic idea for the slippery never changed even know i'll put it the initially had a kind of
00:44:40
asked bluntly in design and then i ended up with what i ended up with it was always from the us
00:44:45
which is the preliminary sketch for the drawing huh and he said i thought about what a library was
00:44:52
can i thought okay
00:44:55
what i wanted was to convey experience of moving up on mount them
00:45:04
and then stopping on planet to have this
00:45:08
and looking around and prospecting and then moving out to the next flight tell and stopping
00:45:14
in prospecting coming down and so on and so forth okay well what's the matter for here
00:45:21
knowledge is light right
00:45:26
when you say you're getting an idea to use say or think to yourself
00:45:32
well like bob just one of my hand
00:45:35
or i solve ally i understood right um one of the oldest metaphors i mean he used to be caught
00:45:42
a slight and morph lynch's times knowledge is late so
00:45:47
then the progression there's light at the end of the tunnel
00:45:52
okay the progression through architecture into a library is the progression from the world
00:46:00
can you move you move you go one plateau and you
00:46:03
think maybe you understand and that's why you can look around
00:46:07
but then you climb some more and it's later and there's more someone up on the top and so here's the section
00:46:14
yeah that's what you do when you get into the v. worry
00:46:17
library now course these are old slides you go into this tight compress
00:46:23
all area space into this okay are coming up a picture was the staircase right here we
00:46:31
move around into this and then you're up on the plateau and then of course the famous
00:46:37
skylight switcher six or seven feet deep and um design very very carefully to give
00:46:44
a sense of even light so that you would never have a shadow on the block
00:46:48
as you were reading privately oh also let me just go back
00:46:52
to plan for minute um you notice the difference this this glazed
00:46:57
um and the heat of walls here are some ridiculous
00:47:01
dimension i think's six feet thick or something like that didn't need it to be
00:47:07
that big but um he wanted to get the sense of acoustical privacy an individual
00:47:12
so moving uh because not the acquisition of knowledge is the private and personal uh
00:47:17
right um and so he wanted to emphasise you
00:47:21
as a private person so that's the social block not
00:47:27
is the private block
00:47:31
okay um i could go on and hot home about that's um
00:47:39
i see
00:47:42
i think that i think is most controversial or making perhaps i'd be interested to know what you say
00:47:48
um it's not controversial about using this research that we
00:47:52
now know about cognition and brain is the universal is on
00:47:58
of my proposals okay now i ask you i said tuesday
00:48:03
people are more when you like them well yeah it's okay to use you think okay i speak
00:48:08
french but what about others that maybe they don't say that birds that were in china or whatever um
00:48:14
but the fact is that cognitive linguists have done a huge amount of research and these metaphors themes such
00:48:19
huge wall of metaphors that already exist in every
00:48:23
single culture can swipe because we all live in bodies
00:48:29
we all within bodies than we all moved through the
00:48:31
world and we'll have some set of the same experiences
00:48:38
of being held by or caregiver of looking for shelter underneath the tree
00:48:43
and so on and so forth um so there it gets a kind of universal component
00:48:51
to this experience that's not somehow take that
00:48:54
is not culturally based um now when i okay
00:49:02
i i want i want go there okay i'll let you go there
00:49:06
if you want um this is just another quick example um this is
00:49:12
sue fuji motivates the tokyo apartments ah and the metaphor here to me
00:49:18
is very clearly relationships are containers you say i'm in a bad relationship
00:49:24
right i mean i'm getting into our relationship or i'm getting
00:49:27
out of a relationship right i'm really come on my tree he's
00:49:32
which give you a kind permeable boundary that you can move into another
00:49:37
very quickly you wouldn't say i'm standing under a tree to say that you
00:49:41
were in relationship right you'd so most relationships are bound containers in your
00:49:47
in it or you're not in it or in the case of this guy
00:49:51
i'm here wishing you were and maybe and i'm hoping that you'll get there
00:49:56
but um we're not there yet anyway these apartments are really trying to sell
00:50:01
and i think that tori has got brown
00:50:06
affection waited on really important series of shapes
00:50:10
in our understanding of architecture and i think
00:50:14
that this generation of architectural theorists and stuff
00:50:18
hours and writers and so on can now move and make the next at toward understanding oh
00:50:26
understanding have phenomena logical architectural meeting in the built environment actually
00:50:32
works um and i try to give you some introduction to that they thank you
00:50:45
questions of people
00:50:52
yeah
00:50:55
yeah
00:50:56
to
00:51:00
yeah
00:51:05
'kay
00:51:10
no
00:51:12
i'm not saying that i'm i'm off
00:51:16
no absolutely not it clearly is about experience um
00:51:21
and a certain kind of sensuality in its experience
00:51:25
i was using the fines with
00:51:27
house to illustrate the object orientation
00:51:33
oh oh of an architect like me
00:51:35
nice versus of viewer in user orientation
00:51:41
i'm from the point of view of inventories
00:51:46
i think we actually what the way that they attack nice or con
00:51:54
care captures the architects that their attack
00:52:05
it's
00:52:08
yeah sure
00:52:11
yeah yeah yeah absolutely um
00:52:15
no arguments for me there um and look at part of the
00:52:20
reason also is an interesting example is because a lot of this stuff
00:52:26
i don't like this word uh architects have into with it
00:52:32
right because first i sleep because we live in bodies in the world and we
00:52:36
stick meeting for in the built environment um and means to do so anybody else
00:52:52
yeah
00:52:54
uh_huh
00:53:00
the beginning of the twentieth century uh_huh models to local
00:53:04
busy actually think that they were forms which we you me
00:53:08
uh_huh problems which remember and perception forms that were the pyramid for example
00:53:16
everybody might have seen uh_huh intuition to associate
00:53:21
the pyramid with strange for solidity resist it
00:53:27
grounded uh_huh uh and that would be easy enough right we don't need education too
00:53:38
okay this type of with this huge uh_huh and there were other types of forms we needed
00:53:43
supported education right to understand right so what
00:53:49
which are stain and it had its problems of course because it was we impulse of the political aspects which we're not
00:53:58
i mean aren't very difficult to talk about right right in big i see the
00:54:03
typical so in a way what would be the relationships between these new commute to
00:54:11
which seemed to be more scientific me and this sort of
00:54:16
early twentieth century into she was doing twitch of them do
00:54:21
have this sort of discourse or is there because your relationship
00:54:28
college we can actually look when we hear it it's nice you know worry
00:54:32
is tending to this uh_huh and that but we know that hundred years ago
00:54:39
he's into bush's with their used
00:54:43
some things we're we're not so sure we're we're not so sure about well
00:54:49
i don't know i tell me if i'm not answering the question just stopping in the middle but
00:54:56
i think you have to separate out analysis from
00:55:02
implications and political implications of these things um the
00:55:07
first time i gave part of this talk on also
00:55:12
i was crucified because it was about ten years ago and
00:55:18
the implication that there were that so many experiences more universal
00:55:24
was repeatedly in each county was so controversial
00:55:29
that people just couldn't they they didn't even know cognitively had the other than me you
00:55:33
know i'm i'm so they are right i was the renegade i had betrayed them all huh
00:55:41
no
00:55:43
to get to another part of the question i'll go for example was
00:55:48
very interested in experimental psychology experimental psychology is the field that ended up trade
00:55:53
becoming cognitive neuroscience in card don't
00:55:56
know psychology um so in some instances
00:56:00
oh he was actually reading of stuff um or however you
00:56:06
gave the example of geometry is a study that came out
00:56:10
about eight or nine months ago they found some tribe
00:56:16
in south america completely uneducated um it's
00:56:22
and done experiments i can't remember the
00:56:28
the nature of experiment exactly but they found out that
00:56:33
the people of the adults in this tried even ten you will children and this time
00:56:38
understood basic geometric concepts completely but there is
00:56:42
in fact we do you have any geometric sounds
00:56:47
um for basic geometric forms um
00:56:52
is this answering your question
00:56:58
just wondering um i know that we seem to have in signs
00:57:06
confirmation he proves as of course it it
00:57:11
it's also um the question of how far can
00:57:15
you go from this in me to know there's a big age it's mm mm no i don't
00:57:23
it's it's disturbing purpose that so much is already given yeah yeah well just
00:57:30
or i don't know so distributing clean of comforting in a way that you
00:57:36
i mean what what what age or you know or you don't
00:57:41
we walked around beijing we want random stuff cities that nothing like
00:57:46
ever seen on the one hand ah yeah him completely from your
00:57:51
uh_huh so much of the basic organisation was like what's that day
00:57:56
because he gets why because people have certain yields the door knobs need to go
00:58:01
where they go when we they need to have windows and they need to have natural
00:58:04
light and so on and so forth the point is that i think a lot
00:58:09
of people are threatened enough by this research and or by these ideas that they stink
00:58:15
that the suggestion is that everything is universal but that's obviously not true
00:58:20
it's not you don't have to that's why i showed those images from china
00:58:23
there is the whole layer of semantically
00:58:26
based culturally derived meanings in every culture
00:58:31
um and you don't have to have one and not have the other you can have well
00:58:38
anybody else
00:58:40
yeah
00:58:44
oh
00:58:47
f.
00:58:51
use of the report wasn't good uh_huh of of votes on controls correct or no
00:58:57
i'm conscious there's actually a difference between the two but i did go ahead because the
00:59:03
uh_huh thinking when we are it's become controls doesn't look to for example when we you you drew
00:59:11
something million controls of even a conclusion
00:59:15
then begin moving then it's an action
00:59:19
when you can punctures hunt so would it be conclusive everything do you
00:59:24
use countries because everything goes maybe is going to speak of consciousness the
00:59:30
like do the thing the room in countries with low hum you
00:59:37
i would propose uh_huh
00:59:40
mm because we just to see if i'm interested windows
00:59:45
uh_huh those something hitting the action to him but his intentions that was something
00:59:54
it was in greenwich choose the mm is is that what you're
00:59:58
doing something you'd be you'd point if it is like in countries
01:00:06
i do think that for example in these this kind of body of
01:00:11
universal metaphors by the way i mean even even people who only would deaf
01:00:16
and speak sign language use the same body of metaphors
01:00:19
these metaphors are wired in the same developmental sequence okay
01:00:24
oh i do think that people can play them i'm consciously
01:00:28
and semi consciously or unconsciously and part of my message it is
01:00:34
you know because the underlying sense of threat is
01:00:39
that if you feel like it's some of your agencies being taken away from you
01:00:43
right i mean if you say ninety nine percent of what you think is
01:00:47
good i'm conscious or unconscious you think well you know what what might making decisions
01:00:52
i mean you you're severely limit it are are much more limited than you were before
01:00:57
um so what you're getting at it's you know where it is where is human agency committed
01:01:05
well the more aware you are of how you think
01:01:12
the more agency you get
01:01:16
which is why i'm working on this material um so you don't just like i think i i think people
01:01:25
our conscious of some of those and i think they're not conscious of some of that
01:01:31
um we're more of that and
01:01:36
the more you know about how the mind actually works
01:01:40
the more control you end up having and you can
01:01:44
make you can make more informed decisions about what you're doing
01:01:55
i mean it it's also because it was supposed to to
01:02:02
because i remember from some work to use him and fey sounds good
01:02:12
both of the load the because p. for example uh_huh but this of
01:02:18
so maybe it's not limited to to mm mm hum so
01:02:23
are you are you saying that you you're going but we uh_huh
01:02:27
what do you mean by that way him weird for trying mm
01:02:33
so it would be to use um which mm work in
01:02:36
the local stones oh cool moves so because of you comfortable so
01:02:44
yep i think that's one way and going it's not only about emotions
01:02:49
but certainly there is there's in fact a lot of scientific studies
01:02:52
round round mental health um morning light is better than afternoon light
01:03:01
um westlake is better than is like that i don't remember but again there's
01:03:05
one kind of orientation that's better than another i'll and i'd i'd do you think
01:03:10
that you know why don't we all like natural light so much well they're your wire
01:03:17
so want natural natural way um and the more you understand that the more you can make better arguments to your clients
01:03:24
you can make better arguments you know and you can say you want interesting this is but this is something that people need
01:03:31
um why we have only use this information for people who are stuck
01:03:37
rather than using it for people who are well but can feel more well
01:03:44
anybody else yeah
01:03:48
yep
01:03:52
mm this is regarding the scientific research in these associations huh
01:03:57
do you think there are any ethical implications in architects you about knowing of these uh
01:04:03
nate associations between things we see and things you feel and how we didn't behave
01:04:09
what do you have in mind
01:04:12
i don't know but i would like to put another views i think it can be very um
01:04:17
the two through mass manipulation input from mass manipulation
01:04:21
that already is issue probably i'll take a look at
01:04:26
the journal of environmental psychology in business environments for
01:04:31
example and you'll see the research on the colour red
01:04:35
versus the colour blue and stuff like that so it's already there um
01:04:41
but
01:04:47
what's under it will tell me if i'm wrong what's
01:04:49
underlined your question is um or take implications of this
01:04:57
worrisome enough
01:05:00
that i don't want to accept that this is true
01:05:05
is that what you're saying is it okay i can analysis is one thing
01:05:12
what you do with that information is another but you can't not look at this
01:05:17
it's they are we understand how the brain works we
01:05:21
understand much more about human cognition in human embodied experience
01:05:25
than we did twenty years ago and you know what it's not gonna change so you're better off knowing it
01:05:32
then shying away from but knowing it is one thing but the using it to some and is another well
01:05:40
don't you think that you'll have more opportunities for ethical conduct is an
01:05:44
architect if you know it and then decide how you want to use it
01:05:50
that's part of my point
01:05:52
anybody out
Conference Program
Vernissage de l'exposition Las Vegas Studio
Sept. 21, 2011 · 6:09 p.m.
Quand l'architecture et le cinéma transforment les territoires délaissés
Sept. 22, 2011 · 6:36 p.m.
PechaKucha 'Lumière
Sept. 24, 2011 · 8:22 p.m.
Las Vegas, Film, and the Mobilized Gaze
Oct. 19, 2011 · 6:33 p.m.
Metaphors We Live In
Oct. 26, 2011 · 6:33 p.m.
Craftsmanship
Nov. 8, 2011 · 6:34 p.m.
L'épaisseur des lignes
Nov. 9, 2011 · 6:32 p.m.
La controverse Learning from Las Vegas
Nov. 16, 2011 · 6:46 p.m.
Dans le paysage urbain
Nov. 22, 2011 · 6:38 p.m.
An Aggregate Body
Nov. 23, 2011 · 6:46 p.m.
Curating Postmodernism
Nov. 30, 2011 · 6:41 p.m.
Pièces à conviction – Une périphérie prend forme
Feb. 22, 2012 · 6:05 p.m.
Pechakucha 20x20
Feb. 23, 2012 · 7:03 p.m.
Espace, Lumière, Structure. 7 Concepts
Feb. 28, 2012 · 6:32 p.m.
Suburbia does not exist. Strategies for dense city growth
March 14, 2012 · 6:38 p.m.
CONSTRUCTIVE REACTIONS. The Architecture of Kurtogpi
March 27, 2012 · 6:32 p.m.
Les coulisses de Malley
March 28, 2012 · 6:38 p.m.
Débat critique - Projets de première année
April 3, 2012 · 5:15 p.m.
Ensamble studio
April 16, 2012 · 6:36 p.m.
Le travail d'ingénieur et le projet de modernité
April 18, 2012 · 6:35 p.m.
RUR: PROJECTS
April 24, 2012 · 6:20 p.m.
Conférence du cycle 'Pièces à conviction
May 8, 2012 · 6:34 p.m.
260 views
Paysages intérieurs
May 15, 2012 · 6:35 p.m.
Yona Friedman, Genesis of a vision
Sept. 19, 2012 · 6:13 p.m.
Working in Mumbai
Oct. 4, 2012 · 6:40 p.m.
Yona Friedman and the Gost of Utopia
Oct. 10, 2012 · 6:13 p.m.
Global Holcim Awards 2012 Gold
Oct. 12, 2012 · 6:06 p.m.
Just what is it that makes Friedman so appealing ? hier et aujourd'hui
Oct. 17, 2012 · 6:07 p.m.
Pour une histoire culturelle de la construction
Nov. 12, 2012 · 6:35 p.m.
Partage d'expérience
Nov. 21, 2012 · 2:17 p.m.
Hall Of Mirrors
Feb. 20, 2013 · 6:09 p.m.
Happy Street
March 13, 2013 · 6:29 p.m.
Pier Luigi Nervi : l'architecture comme défi
April 17, 2013 · 6:09 p.m.
Pier-Luigi Nervi, entre ingénierie et architecture, chantier et images: Part 1
April 24, 2013 · 6:34 p.m.
110 views
Pier-Luigi Nervi, entre ingénierie et architecture, chantier et images : Part 2
April 24, 2013 · 7:22 p.m.
Présentation de Riccardo Morandi
May 1, 2013 · 6:30 p.m.
Présentation des conférenciers, MM. Aurelio Muttoni & Mario Alberto Chiorino
May 8, 2013 · 6:31 p.m.
Présentation de Robert Maillart
May 8, 2013 · 6:33 p.m.
131 views
A dispute of the ephemeral and permanent in architecture
May 21, 2013 · 12:04 p.m.
Peter Cook
May 27, 2013 · 6:12 p.m.
Radical Pedagogy: a collaborative projec
Oct. 29, 2013 · 6:32 p.m.
L'exploration du possible
Nov. 26, 2013 · 6:39 p.m.
Power of Place
Dec. 6, 2013 · 6:06 p.m.
Recommended talks
Why "no cars"
Paola Viganò, Architecte-urbaniste, professeure EPFL et IUAV, directrice du laboratoire Lab-U/ EPFL, membre fondateur de l’agence Studio 16, Milan
March 22, 2018 · 7 p.m.
345 views