Architecture, Masonry plate as an impractical instruction

from Diderot's Encyclopaedia6 (1765) addressed in this essay, can be seen as example of an inability to impart tacit knowledge described by Polanyi in his essay The Tacit Dimension7 (1967) as a type of knowledge that is not captured by written or oral expressions but instead only by its action. Through a contextualising composition staging time and actors related to the craft in question, alongside tabulated illustrations showing technical drawings, the plates remain insufficient to transmit tacit knowledge8 . Therefore, one could argue that the deviation of practical knowledge into its intellectualisation is at the origin of the Encyclopaedic project’s failure as a practical knowledge transmission apparatus. This can be rendered in particular by a specific encyclopaedic plate under the Architecture domain that relates the topic of masonry. By deciphering in a small scale the intrinsic character of the Architecture, Masonry9 plate, the research will demonstrate its impracticality as a knowledge transmission tool. It is by widening the study to the emancipation of knowledge from the body, in other words, the understanding of knowledge as “memory” rather than “physical experience” that this essay will reveal the plates are intellectualising technical knowledge. Consequently, bypassing the corporal dimension of knowledge results in a semiotic reading, creating multiple realities and interpretations of knowledge put forward by the plates.

6. d’Alembert, Encyclopaedia, or a Systematic Dictionary of the Sciences, Arts, and Crafts. 7. Michael Polanyi, The Tacit Dimension (Chicago: university of Chicago Press, 1966), 3-25. Tacit knowledge is the term used by Polanyi in his 1966 essay “The Tacit Dimension” to describe a type of knowledge that is not captured by written or oral expressions. Because of this elusive character, we can see it only by its action. 8. Michael Polanyi, The Tacit Dimension (Chicago: university of Chicago Press, 1966), 3-25. 9. “Architecture and related subjects – Masonry” The Encyclopedia of Diderot & d’Alembert Collaborative Translation Project. Michigan Publishing, University of Michigan Library, accessed Dec. 9, 2021, http://hdl.handle.net/2027/spo.did2222.0001.371.

Memory of The Knowing How

Architecture, Masonry plate as an impractical instruction

The Architecture, Masonry plate describes how to build a brick wall (AppendixA). The plate is divided into two sequences, one-third (the upper sequence) is dedicated to a tableau vivant showing how brick walls were built by the 18th century craftsmen and two-thirds (the lower sequence) depicts eight perspectival brick wall typologies representing different brick laying methods and compositions. The upper part is devoted to a contextualisation of the object, whereas the lower part is committed to technical information. The plate aims to transmit technical knowledge on brick wall making, especially with the tableau vivant showing the different gestures and actions of the making process. While the experienced will understand the craft thought by the plate, it will be less obvious for the profane to grasp the visual content of it, as the plate does not convey the Knowing How10. Hence, the plate addresses our memory as we recognise that the object in question is a brick wall when we examine the lower part since we have the visual trace of the object subscribed in our memory. Similarly, when we look at the tableau vivant, we understand that the plate communicates the making of brick walls. However, one cannot understand how to build a brick wall by reading the visual information provided by the plate. The plate does not convey the practical knowledge one can acquire by physical experience. The reader understands that the liquid mixed by the children is mortar because they know the required materials for the construction of a brick wall (Img.3). Still, the way the mortar is made is not communicated by the plate. The English philosopher Gilbert Ryle argues in his essay, Knowing How and Knowing That : The Presidential Address11 (1945) that the “Knowing That” and the “Knowing How” are two distinct

knowledges. He writes, “There is a distinction between the museum-

10. Gilbert Ryle, Knowing How and Knowing That : The Presidential Address (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1945), 1-16. Ryle remarks in his essay “Knowing How and Knowing That” that knowledge can be distinguished into two: "Knowing that" is the fact that a person knows "what" happens or has happened, whereas, "Knowing how" implies that the person understands the mechanism that makes something happen. 11. Gilbert Ryle, Knowing How and Knowing That: The Presidential Address (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1945), 1-16. Img. 3 Engraving by Prévost Fécit (1756) showing children workers mixing mortar - Edited by the author.