Designing with words_Vol. 1_Theory by Davide Perottoni

Designing with words Three Libraries for Meran

VOLUME 1 THEORY

Davide Perottoni

Designing with Words Volume 1: THEORY CONTENTS Preface p.4 Introduction p.8

Background Theory

p.22

Reading the World

p.38

The Opening p.64

Writing the World

p.80

The Literary Approach

p.104

Reveries p.110 Bibliography p.114

Preface How to read these volumes The goal of these volumes is double, that of unveiling the workings of a literary approach to architecture - designing with words - and at the same time reflecting on it, its possibilities, implications and relations with the other tools of architecture. As a way to order this work the graduation thesis has been divided into four parts - represented by these four volumes - respectively for theory, analysis, design and portfolio. Each one of these volumes deals with a different element of the graduation project presented here, it is very important to understand though that these parts are in no way separated, they all intertwine throughout the process, reinforcing and informing each other. Indeed, it is when this intertwining is unveiled that the process of using literature as a tool for design becomes clear and can be grasped - although one should say that this clarity is something that one strives for but never completely reaches. In order to make this intertwining visible, the materials of these volumes is divided into three big categories: the main text at the centre of the page, the images accompanying it or connected to it in Volume 4 and the marginalia accompanying the main text. This last element is the key to show the working of the process and

the intertwining of its many elements. The role of the marginalia added as author comments to the main text is that of unveiling the connections between the different parts of the work presented here and to show the way in which these contributed to the final design presented in Volume 4, the final goal of the architectural project. The main text of theory, analysis and design can be read by itself; that is, it does not need the marginalia, or even the images, to be understood and employed by the reader who would like to understand what are the materials that compose this approach. The marginalia next to it add a new layer to this reading, overlaid on the first one of the main text, which furnishes a key of interpretation and connections. A key, because for as much as it tries to cover the connections and interrelations between the different parts of the work it could never exhaust them, rather, what these small texts do, is suggest a way in which one can look at this work and understand the ways in which the materials presented here were employed. Ideally one should start from this first volume, gain an understanding of the theory behind the work, and then proceed in order through the analysis, the design, and finally the architectural results presented in the portfolio. This though, is not the way in which these materials were created; their order results from a necessity of exposition and explanation. Another role of the marginalia texts would be that of helping the reader to jump

from one volume to the other, to create his own way of reading and understanding this work. The format of the volumes in this sense is thought for this as well, one can keep the big portfolio as a base on which to read the other volumes. Indeed, the whole work can be read by going backward, tracing back the origin of the final results in the previous volumes that compose them. As said above, these volumes have a double goal, that of showing the process employed here and that of reflecting on it as a completed fact - or at least as completed as anything can be. Of course, the materials presented here are just a selection of the whole work which lead, after one and a half year, to three designs and a theory regarding their conception. Given the particular approach defined by the use of literature the choice has been that of giving precedence to the textual parts while using the graphical ones as a counterpoint that accompanies and grounds the unusual work that has been carried out here. Far from wanting to achieve a linear explanation of a process that refuses linearity, these volumes tries the difficult task of employing a linear medium - that of the traditional book - to construct a constellation.

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Introduction A phenomenological and poetical gaze This graduation thesis is two folded, it is a trial to merge two different interests into one. As such it deals with literature and architecture, trying to merge the former into the latter. On the one hand, literature has always been a passion of mine since I learned to read; I discovered a tool that allowed to see the world and many worlds, to travel by being still and to dream with your eyes open. On the other hand, the architectural considerations present here, or rather the understanding of what architecture is and what is possible to do with it, arose much later as the knowledge gathered during the Bachelor degree coagulated around the self that needs to employ it. This thesis therefore is an attempt in trying to combine these aspects in a single view towards the goal of any graduation - at least in my view - of defining yourself as a designer. FASCINATION Coincidently, this connection was first inspired by reading a book, randomly found in the TUDelft bookshop. When I first read The poetics of space by Gaston Bachelard it was like an epiphany; the two worlds of literature and architecture where meeting to analyse and

Introduction

explain the power and effects of space.1 I found the way in which this book analyses space and its features absolutely fascinating in the ability it had to explain space and its meanings, the way one deals with it and the way in which this relation is expressed. It felt like a veil was finally lifted. Of course, one could relate to Bachelard’s analysis on space in a personal way drawing from experience but it is startling to see the clarity with which he is able to explain features and qualities of space which are usually only felt, without being able to conceptualize or express them. This insight on space and the literary tools with which he is able to grasp it and convey it to others can be very useful to shed light on the works of some architects. Indeed, such an understanding of space is able to ground inspiration into something tangible, it puts some poetic works under a new light, it surpasses mere appreciation and give an understanding of some works or attitudes. This phenomenological gaze that Bachelard employs thanks to literature is able to describe those qualities that are at the core of architecture itself, of both its experience and its conception. Connotations become denotations, a threshold is no longer a line marking two different spaces but is something in itself, sheltering is not only the need to protect oneself from the weather but a psychological act as well. All this shows what Heidegger meant when speaking about building, dwelling and thinking as inter1 “The print house awakens a feeling for the hut in me and, through it, I re-experience the penetrating gaze of the little window.” G. Bachelard, The Poetics of Space, p.50

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twined actions.1 This poetic understanding gives an insight on some very proficient architects, such as Aldo Rossi or Peter Zumthor - only to quote a couple which in its similarities and difference is exemplary. It seems that the phenomenological approach advocated by Bachelard gives an insight on both the way we perceive architectural space and the way in which it can be designed; furthermore such an approach encompasses an understanding of space that allows for new ways of dealing with architecture and its tools. It allows to employ integrally in the design process the use of art and literature as references and inspiration, to deal with subjective impressions along with memories, both collective and individual. What Bachelard does for the designer, though, is to show a possibility, a path through which it is possible to gain spatial understanding and therefore meaning; he unveils qualities of space and ways to understand and grasp them, but a question still remains. How can such qualities be created as well as understood, how can one embed this understanding in the design process itself ? Or in other words, what does it mean when Rossi says that translating one of HĂślderlinâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s poem has made him understand architecture more than his years at the polytechnic? Why does Zumthor need to recall memories from his childhood when he is designing a building? These are aspects of the design which are often vague 1â&#x20AC;&#x192; M. Heidegger, Building Dwelling Thinking in Basic Writings

Introduction

and difficult to grasp, indeed it may very well be the most difficult task of any creative process: how to stimulate creativity and make it meaningful. Everyone accepts the fact that a creative act, such as that of design, employs both subjective and objective inputs, rational and irrational sides. This subjective side, the one usually considered responsible for inspiration, is therefore as important as the technical or objective side. Be it conscious or not, looked for or simply inevitable, designing has this subjective side to it which is determined more or less openly by memory, inspiration, culture and so on. In certain particularly interesting cases, such as with the aforementioned Rossi and Zumthor, the act of designing is openly a poetic act as well as a technical and rational one. It is interesting to see the architectures alongside the writings of these architects to realize how big a part this process can play in the act of designing. Their poetic approach is a way of designing via influences coming from memory, art, landscape. It is a way of looking at things - a phrase used by both Rossi and Zumthor in their books1 - not through a rational point of view but through the eye of the poet; or as Bachelard would say, with a phenomenological gaze.2 In design, it is the act and ability to transform a poetic 1 Rossi uses it many times in his Scientific Autobiography and it is the title of the first chapter in Zumthor’s Thinking Architecture 2 “Only phenomenology - that is to say, consideration on the onset of the image in an individual consciousness - can help us restore the subjectivity of images and to measure their fullness, their strength and their transubjectivity.” G. Bachelard, The Poetics of Space, p.XIX

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With yellow pears the land And full of wild roses Hangs down into the lake, You lovely swans, And drunk with kisses You dip your heads Into the hallowed, the sober water. But oh, where shall I find When winter comes, the flowers, and where The sunshine And shade of the earth? The walls loom Speechless and cold, in the wind weathercocks clatter. Friedrich HĂślderlin, HĂ¤lfte des Lebens

Introduction

“The little iron banners which Hölderlin never drew himself subsequently invaded my drawings, and I am unable to answer any further the persistent question I am asked about them except to say that I have translate the last lines of Hölderlin’s poem into my architecture” Aldo Rossi, Scientific Autobiography

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experience into a built architecture, or better to embed those values found in a memory, a poem, a painting, into the design itself.1 This way of looking at things is particularly important not only because it allows to draw from the self, the driver and fueller of creativity, but also for the way in which it is able to create connections with the world. As Bachelard points out, and anyone can understand this by thinking of any work of art, the subjectivity of an author can be meaningful and even become personal for someone else; this connection with the world then, attained through a phenomenological reading of it, is not only achievable but shareable as well. How does this work though? Bachelard helps again in answering this question. He speaks of resonances and transubjectivity2, as of the ways through which it is possible not only to understand a subjective poetic image created by the author but also to make it our own, to possess it in the active act of reading. Things therefore are evoked by the artist and re-lived by the receiver who does not play a merely passive role. The French author uses literature, particularly poetry, to carry out his phenomenological analysis of intimate places. Literature in 1 See for example Steven Holl’s Knut Hamsun Centre or Valerio Olgiati’s book The Images of Architects 2 “Through this reverberation, by going immediately beyond all psychology or psychoanalysis, we feel a poetic power rising naively within us. After the original reverberation, we are able to experience resonances, sentimental repercussions, reminders of our past. But the image has touched the depths before it stirs the surface.” G. Bachelard, The Poetics of Space, p.XXIII

Introduction

this case seems to be the perfect bridge between the experience of place the author is looking for and the spaces themselves. That is because literature is indeed a perfect way of describing not only physical qualities of space but gets much deeper in what space is and what it means to us. Literary descriptions of places take into account perception as well of memory, associations and inspiration; they can express in a very comprehensive and detailed manner the way in which we live space. For these reasons, the use of literature can be a very powerful and valuable tool for architects to understand, analyse and design.1 Klaske Havik, in her book Urban Literacy, advocates this approach for architects. Employing literature can be useful and fruitful in different ways throughout the whole design process. It is the tool, the medium, through which a connection can be made between the understanding of space exposed above and the creation of such spaces. That is because it is at the same time a way of looking at things, a way to elaborate on them, creating connections and meanings, and a way to project the results in a future scenario in order to test the results, thus covering the whole design process. How then can one employ literature in the design process in order to achieve such results, what are the tools and methods that a designer can employ to reach 1â&#x20AC;&#x192; See for example Zumthorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s description of the atmosphere of a square, in Atmospheres, p.15-17

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the goal of a design that embeds phenomenological and poetic understanding, that is, a consideration of space as the infinite milieu of our lives?1 The goal of this research is to explore this approach in order to test its possibilities, find its role and its implications in the overall process. Creating a feedback loop between the design process carried out in this way, the reflection on it developed contemporaneously and the theoretical research, the task is to find out how to employ the possibilities suggested above and what are their implications. Beginning from the analysis of site and brief, its elaboration in the design process and its projection to test the design, the intention is to define a set of tools and methods that could help to achieve an architecture that embeds these spatial considerations. A use of literature to reach a perceptual and poetic understanding of architecture, one that embodies memory and culture, place and inspirations, is a way of translating poetic and sensory qualities into formal and material ones. As Pallasmaa writes: “The foremost skill of the architect is […] turning the multidimensional essence of the design task into an embodied image; the entire personality and body of the architect becomes the site of the problem. Architectural problems are far too complex and existential to be dealt with in a solely conceptualised 1 “The problem is to understand these strange relations woven between the parts of the landscape, or from the landscape to me as an embodied subject, relations by which I perceive an object can condense within itself an entire scene or become the imago of an entire segment of life. Sensing is this living communication with the world that makes it present to us as the familiar place of our lives.” M. Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenology of Perception, p.55

Introduction

and rational manner.” It must be said that this will not generate a series of ready employable tools or a series of steps inevitably leading to a good result, with creativity relaying so heavily on the self such things are not possible. It is possible though to show a way, to explore a way of designing that breaches the rationality of the design in order to embody those existential problems Pallasmaa speaks about. Therefore, the research is largely an exploration of the self, on the self. To give attention and proper space to these aspects is to reinforce the act of designing itself; once subjectivity is unveiled, it ceases to be arbitrariness and becomes a necessary part of the creative act. To quote Alberto Pèrez-Gòmez, “the main concern of any generative theory of architecture is therefore, in my view, to find appropriate language (in the form of stories) capable of modulating intended actions (projects) in view of ethical imperatives, always specific to each task at hand. The practice that emerges from such a theory can never be an instrumental application, but rather appears as a verb, as a process that is never neutral and should be valorised, a process that in fact erodes the boundaries between the artistic disciplines concerned with space.” My goal is to understand how this process works and how it can be employed, to learn how to grasp a sheer drop in a room, to paraphrase Rossi.1 1 “...I understand that in every room there is a sheer drop, a plunge into space, but it would as foolish to try to construct that precipitous place as it would be to construct intimacy, happiness, or ruin.” A. Rossi, Scientific Autobiography, p.37

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THESIS STATEMENT To design a sheer drop in a room, to give a shape and a material to intimacy as well as a place to memory and a narrative to society; as Pallasmaa writes, architecture problems are existential. Architecture is an existential action, not only a functional or technical one. It is the act of man taking place, in the most literary and practical of ways but in a very deep one as well. According to Martin Heidegger1 to built, to dwell and to think are parts of the same act. Building is an activity that has accompanied man’s civilisation from the start, being since its first beginning around 12.000 years ago something more then shelter.2 In the act of building, and therefore in designing as well, many factors of life come to the fore, not simply the practical ones. If we consider this existential importance that architecture embodies, from the house to the temple, it is obvious that architecture and its design must be considered in this way as well. Technical knowledge and satisfaction of functional needs is only part of what is considered the craft – or art – of architecture; its richness is much more extended and it borders on many different aspects of culture such as psychology, memory, gestalt and so on. In this sense architecture is considered as the space of our life, not a container but and integral part of life. That does not mean that architecture, like a drug, is able to reach 1 M. Heidegger, Building Dwelling Thinking in Basic Writings 2 see http://gobeklitepe.info/

Introduction

the same effect on anyone, every time, in the same way; merely that space has an influence on us in a very complex way, and that we relate with it in much more diverse and deeper ways than that of sheltering. Architectural space, as it is approached in this thesis, is one that has to be thought in all its qualities: poetic, perceptual, functional, practical, psychological, social and so on. The power of space on persons and the meanings it can have aside from the functional ones make architecture one of the fundamental, yet often overlooked, element of our lives. It is therefore mandatory, when one shares this belief, to think of a way of making architecture that is not only able to consider all of this aspects but to embody them in the building as well. Architects need to be able to think about concepts and details but they need also to consider stories and actions, materials and suggestion. Architecture is a field of infinite density whose qualities are so wide that it is very difficult, if not impossible, to deal with them all. Still tradition and research have developed tools and methods to deal with this very complex matter, to mould it according to certain categories without disregarding the others. It is therefore the scope of this research to try and define an approach to architecture that is able to deal with architecture as a whole in its different implications that make it the physical narrative of our lives, imbued with poetic as well as social values, dealing with cultural functions and technical ones, not as a machine

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that performs many tasks at once but as an organism whose actions are many but performed in concert with a single idea. The current historical period seems to be one where the concept rules over the artefact, where the reason for something, its driver or inspiration, seems to be more important than the thing itself. A work of art is about a certain concept and thus gains its value, justifications are looked for out of the work itself becoming such, justifications, not reasons. Complicated structures of thought and construction of interrelated concepts are the base ground for an idea that risks to lose itself and never in the end sees the light of the world, if not in a very impoverished way when it has to pass from the realm of thought to that of built reality. The goal of this research is to explore a way of understanding and designing that while not being at all simplistic does not escape into virtual constructions, on the contrary, it tries to bind the tangible with the intangible through the sensible world which contains them both. Literature and the approach advocated here, are the tools that enable the designer to bridge this gap and consider both concept and artefact, abstraction and materiality, as a whole; that is, considering architecture in its existential qualities, from analysis to scenario. Literature, therefore, is seen here as a way of understanding space in this way and of designing it according to it, to turn space into place, and inhabit it.

Introduction

see Volume 3 and Volume 4 sections of the Mountain Library

to turn space into place, and inhabit it

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Background theory An approach made of philosophy, architecture and literature Having given an introduction on the interests of the graduation and its summary goals, it is time to ground it and define its scope and its course. The scope of the thesis, to explore a literary approach to architecture, covers a wide range of theoretical and practical ground; going from literature to philosophy, from architectural materiality to social concepts, the theoretical grounds are quite important in order to form a cultural base for these diverse elements to lay on. How can the approach to design advocated above be put into practice, what does it need in order to do so and what is the academical answer that is looked for is what this chapter explores. THESIS GOAL The goal of this graduation thesis is to define a literary approach to architectural design. It means to analyse the ways in which literature can be employed for architecture, testing its role in the difference phases of the design process and its implications in the resulting design and its development. By doing so, employing a research by design method, the aim is to identify those processes, tools, relations and so on that a literary approach can add to the design process. Such an approach, in fact, is not a simple procedure to be applied indifferently;

Background Theory

literature in itself is already a very big and complex collection of different things - in terms of style, functions, approach and so on - and when applied to something as large as architecture, its results are many and impossible to foresee. Because of this, the result of the research is not a manual on how to use literature for architecture; there are no fixed set of rules or protocols to follow. The result is rather a series of suggestions, a reflection on the possibilities that emerge, thus showing what are the opportunities of such and approach and what are its risks. The other reason why this could not possibly result in a series of objective indications is the high amount of subjectivity that is involved in this research. As its been noted above, the approach advocated here deals largely with the designing self; as such, any result, while being meaningful for others, wonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t be immediately reproducible. Most of all though, the reason behind the impossibility of an objective manual lies in the fact that this engagement of the self has to be carried out by one in oneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s own way. This is also then a research on the self and for the self. To prove, though, that this is not just a personal exploration, many examples can be found of architects using similar approaches, using literature or relating to language in their architectural practice in many different ways. See for example Rossi, Zumthor, Holl, Tschumi, Koolhaas, Hejduk just to quote a few of the most important ones of our historical period - although thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s

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who refers to Piranesi in this way as well1. That is mainly because literature “concretises basic properties of existence. ‘Concretise’ here means to make the general ‘visible’ as a concrete local situation. In doing this, the poem moves in the opposite direction of scientific thought. Whereas science departs from the ‘give’, poetry brings us back to the concrete things, uncovering the meanings inherent in the life-world.”2 Poems, and literature more in general, can evoke space, make us live it with just a few well used allusions; it does not need a comprehensive description of the place in order to make us inhabit it. What does it mean to translate that into architecture? Of course a real architectural space needs to be made in all its parts in order to exist – however detailed and carefully crafted, being real gives it the infinite density of reality that is not related to the amount of detail or the complexity of the space. It is true though, that most of the times a few elements are enough to characterise a place, either because they overpower everything else shadowing it or because the rest of the space is in accordance with the main elements; that does not necessarily mean that it was designed in that way, not always. In some cases, particular features are so strong – or so they appear to us – that they define the way we see other things as well, shading their light over them. The literary, or

poetic

gaze, which gives a phenom-

1 Jennifer Bloomer, Architecture and the Text. 2 C. Norberg-Schulz, Genius Loci, p.10

Background Theory

enological insight on space is necessarily a subjective one. Without refusing subjectivity, this non objective condition has to be considered when literary space is translated into a design, especially when using literature to grasp the genius loci1 of a place in order to make an architecture out of it or when trying to address a general cultural idea. The description of the same thing given by different persons will necessarily be different, from a few details to the whole idea. When you then translate that back into architecture that individuality will still be present; that does not mean that the result will not be effective â&#x20AC;&#x201C; see the production of any work of art that goes from the personality of the artist to the general public â&#x20AC;&#x201C; but the features defining the space are no more something that the personal sensibility of the author has caught from the infinite milieu of things and sensations that make a place. Those features, until then indistinctly part of the place, are distilled, crystallized by the author and brought to the fore as the defining elements of space. To this there is a corollary: should we define spaces in such a way that some characteristics identified by our subjectivity are brought to the fore and made to reverberate through the whole architecture and its elements? Or should we design an architecture that recreates the infinite milieu of sensation and characters you find in space without underlining any one of them? I can 1â&#x20AC;&#x192; C. Norberg-Schulz, Genius Loci.

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... I pace upon the battlements and stare On the foundations of a house, or where Tree, like a sooty finger, starts from earth; And send imagination forth Under the day’s declining beam, and call Images and memories From ruin or from ancient trees, For I would ask a question of them all. ... W.B. Yeats, The Tower

“Those features, until then indistinctly part of the place, are distilled, crystalized by the author and brought to the fore as the defining elements of space.”

Background Theory

only give a subjective answer to this. I believe architecture needs to be characterized and needs an orientation, some defining elements that help grounding its concept and guide the composition. Nonetheless, a really successful architecture is the one that is able to host even what it cannot foresee see for example the analysis of the history of the Coliseum in Rome by Aldo Rossi in Architecture of the City. It may be possible therefore to characterize an architecture in such a way that it remains open, so that its defining elements are what guide it without strictly defining it. The goal of this thesis then is to define a way in which literature can be employed to read and to write space. To see what a literary approach can add to the design process and what are the implications of such an approach, looking for its modes, its tools and its relations with the rest of the matter at hand in the designerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s craft. RESEARCH QUESTION How can literature be employed in the design process? This is the question which drives the whole research, a simple question whose answer is very large and complex. First of all, literature, is a very broad and diverse matter. It will be shown in the rest of this paper how it is employed and divided throughout the process, for now, literature is intended in all its parts; from poem to prose, from historical account to mythical legends, diaries and

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reports, they are all considered as the many faces of this highly versatile tool we are learning to employ. What does it mean to employ it though is a different matter, this one as much varied as the previous one. Literature is considered here in all its forms and is employed in the same manner; the first big distinction is that it is both read and written, which for now can be called as a passive and active employment - although it will be seen that reading is no passive act at all. Inside this two big groups though, the employment of literature varies in many different ways that will be exposed in the coming chapters and through the design itself, which runs parallel to this theoretic reflection, both of them connected by a continuous feedback loop. The design process in which this employment is tested is what defines the structure of this research and the findings on the approach; the process itself, in fact, is what guides the whole research. Literature can be many things and can be employed in many ways but what defines which literary piece is chosen and how its employed, what drives this choice and necessity, is the design task, which changes and develops according to its process. Thus the steps of the design, such as analysis, concept, design and so on, are the chapters dividing this story and the big categories into which it can be organised and made sense of. The reason for this research is that of finding a way to delve into architecture in all its existential qualities, that

Background Theory

is those that make space something more than a physical setting of shapes and materials; all of those qualities that make space into place, those that define our relation with it. It is of course an enormous wealth of elements that can be described in this way, they vary according to the situation and the observer. Space in fact can have many different qualities, they can be embedded in the space itself or they can be projected on it by those living it. Be it one situation or the other, all of those qualities need space to exist, either as the source they stem from or the structure on which they stand. Through the use of literature then, these qualities can be explored and expressed, both in terms of perception and conception. These qualities of space are anything from cultural values attached to it to perceptual aspects, atmospheres and symbolism, emotions and ideas; space, as the place of our lives, embodies all of these qualities and it is through it that we are able to ‘give them a place’.1 What is the literary approach then? It is quite a vague definition of the employment of literature to architectural ends. In this sense it ranges from the objective description of the brief of a program to the inspiration of an architecture taken from a poem. It has been employed in this open way by many architects, even well known ones like the ones mentioned above, but the 1 “The very act of building may become a means to this understanding and the house may act as a ‘model’ for the cosmic image [...] We thus realise the fundamental importance of architecture as a means to give man an existential foothold.” C. Norberg-Schulz, Genius Loci, p.52

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two examples of connections between a poem and a sketch

Background Theory

matter has rarely received a real academic interest. A few examples can be found though and they corroborate what has been said above, that the way to organise this research is by dividing the use of literature according to its presence in the various design phases; thus the use of literature is defined according to its influence in the process and has been named accordingly. Description, is the most evident way of use, the one where literature is employed in order to evoke feelings and perceptions generated by an existing – or imagined – architectural setting. In transcription, literature deals with social aspects of space, with narratives and ways of using and structuring space, it employs the interactivity between writer and reader, or designer and user. In prescription instead reality and imagination are balanced, this is the phase where a design is projected into a future that will host it, testing scenarios and ‘writing places’. It is called inscription when it deals with history and its traces, providing a tool to analyse the effect of history and memory on places, balancing the difficult relation always present in design between past, present and future. From literature to architecture, rescription is the employment of literary structures and methods applied to the practice of design, literature and architecture are often compared for their ability in structuring life and spaces and the two can be interestingly intertwined. Finally, there are many scriptive experiments that have put this concepts into action, exploring the bounda-

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ries between literature and architecture. The first three categories expressed here have been defined by Klaske Havik in her book Urban Literacy, these have been then expanded in the five ones mentioned here during the conference ‘Writing Places’ that took place at the Faculty of Architecture of TU Delft in November 2013. Although these categories have been defined and there are some examples and discussion around this interest, the question on how to employ this approach is not definitely answered. That is because, given the multiplicity of possibilities offered by literature in this field, the ways for applying this approach are many. The main reason why the question remains relevant though, lies in the fact that these approaches always contain, in various degrees, a subjective side. Especially when dealing with the most ‘existential’ features of space and architecture, subjectivity has to be considered and employed, not discarded. This makes for an approach that openly deals with the personal and the question then should be “how can I employ a literary approach….”. SCOPE AND THEORETICAL BACKGROUND In explaining the research question and its implications it is clear that the scope of the research is a broad one, covering different theoretical topics and different modes of action. It ranges from matters of perceptions and material to the most abstract concepts of history

Background Theory

see Volume 3 on the different design texts

and memory, from the most personal influences space has to the most common ones of society. Another aspect that makes the background of this thesis so vast is the number of ways in which the literary approach can be employed. All of the different features make use of different modes of writing and reading spaces and their qualities, employing different kind of theoretical knowledge. It is necessary then to define the scope of its exploration and the knowledge needed for it to be carried out. Theoretical studies and practical exercises are always carried out together in a mode of research were continuous feedback between theory, practice and reflection is at the core of the research; the purpose is to explore what is the literary approach in the various phases of the design, what are its tools, its scope, its relations with the other design tools and what are the theoretical grounds on which it stands. The theoretical background set for the research is divided into three main parts, reflected in the bibliography at the end of this paper; namely philosophical, architectural and literary. Philosophy, especially the branch of phenomenology, is the ground on which all of the reflections are based. Following Bachelard’s Poetics of space and Norberg-Schulz’s Genius Loci among others, phenomenology as the philosophical act of returning to the things themselves1 is the branch of philosophy that allows for a theoretical grounding of those qualities of 1 Heidegger’s reference

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space that deal with perception and atmosphere, the qualities embedded in space that literature can evoke, architecture creates and phenomenology explains.1 Architectural knowledge, on the other hand, is here considered in the writings of architects as a field of study that can give suggestions on how literature has been used by others and to analyse the design methods of architects. Rossi and Zumthor, very different architects, are two good examples of architects writing about their own practice and dealing with those existential qualities of space that are at the core of this thesis.2 Analysing their work shows how approaches can vary and how things can gain different meanings according to the author and the situation; but most importantly it shows how qualities of space that are not clearly inserted in the academic knowledge of architecture, although wonderfully realised in the built project, remain often very vaguely expressed. Along the writings of architects reflecting on their work and methods, reflections by architect that in a more general way advocate the use of literature, or a phenomenological approach, are studied in order to find suggestions and hints on how to proceed with the research. 1â&#x20AC;&#x192; Bachelard has played a very important role in getting this thesis started and in leading the first understanding on space and on the relation literature can have with it; the works of Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty on the work of art and phenomenology are fundamental references for the phenomenological approach presented here. 2â&#x20AC;&#x192; Rossi in his Scientific Autobiography and Zumthor in Thinking Architecture and in Atmospheres.

Background Theory

I called them cabins because not only are they actually given this term in practice and in conversation but also because they seem to me a minimal dimension of like, like an impression of the summer. With The Cabins of Elba, I wanted to reduce the house to the values it has in the seasons. A. Rossi, Scientific Autobiography

â&#x20AC;&#x153;...qualities of space that are not clearly inserted in the academic knowledge of architecture, although wonderfully realised in the built project, remain often very vaguely expressed...â&#x20AC;?

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Finally, literary theory has two faces in this thesis. On the one hand it is intended as the study of literature and its implications, dealing with writing techniques, styles and approaches in order to know and be able to deal with the literary tool in all its forms and possibilities. Some avant-garde experiments, like the ones of the Oulipo group, can be very useful in defining ways of use of literature that transcends the limits of the discipline; throughout the whole process literature assumes various forms and roles, these can be borrowed from literary history to be employed by the designer. On the other hand an extensive literary review is needed in order to collect those books, poems or selection of texts that will be the material at hand with which to inform the design. These are very varied as well, from historical account on the site, literary renderings of pertinent situations, poetic analysis of a certain setting and so on. It is crucial to find fitting materials to be employed in the design, that is to know what is the literature that is being used and how it relates to the design matter at hand. To recapitulate, the theoretical background of the thesis grounds the finding of the research into an established academic knowledge, allowing for a shareable assessment of the findings and furnishing those â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;ways of looking at thingsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; that research and design will employ to reach their final results.

Background Theory

the valley as a garden, from Steinbeckâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s East of Eden

1. THEORY

Reading the world The design arising between self and world As its been explained in the previous chapters, the role of the literary approach inside the design process varies according to the different phases of the process; in this chapter therefore the first design phase is analysed in regards to the role literature plays. The first part of the design process considered here is the one of the analysis; it is the phase where the context as well as the brief or the program are analysed in order to define the basis from which the project will arise. Building the foundations for the project, both theoretical and of design, is the task of this phase but it does not stop there. To read a place and its context means to reconstruct the sensible world and its intelligible qualities as a whole, in order to locate and define the design which has to arise from them. This not only furnishes usable and practical data that will inform the design and the approach to it but also builds a frame of thought from which the design is approached. This framing is a very important element of the process in this approach, it is the act that defines the development of the design in the next phases but most importantly it informs one of the most important aspects of this way of designing, it gives a way of looking at things, from the first approach to brief and site to the last considerations in testing the design.

Reading the World

â&#x20AC;&#x153;...the mountain is the bond between Earth and Sky. Its solitary summit reaches the sphere of eternity, and its base spreads out in manifold foothills into the world of mortals.â&#x20AC;? R. Daumal, The Mount Analogue

1. THEORY

WAYS OF LOOKING AT THINGS

1â&#x20AC;&#x192; A. Perez-Gomez, Attunement, p.184

see Volume 2, Place analysis and the relative drawings

The task of the analysis and of literature in this phase is that of building up this framing, a way of looking at things. That is because, in the context of this approach, the collecting of data and notions, maps and charts, that is a core part of the analytical phase, needs to be embedded in the understanding of the world that these documents partly describe. Space is here always considered as a quality that transcends its geometrical connotations, although it is directly tied to them. The goal of a thorough analysis from the point of view employed in this thesis and in the related design is that of reconstructing the whole milieu of the place, intended in all its physical, metaphorical, mythical, cultural and structural connotations. The analysis of the water system, for example, cannot exclude the historical value of particular rivers or the mythical and cultural associations that have taken place over the course of history; infrastructural values are considered in the bigger whole of the context as one of the many features of the rivers. The intent of such a large and varied attention to things is that of considering the world in all its connotation, employing metaphors along with scientific observation, analogies as well as comparisons. To quote Ricoeur, â&#x20AC;&#x153;metaphor is to poetic language what the model is to scientific languageâ&#x20AC;?1; in this sense there is no longer an

this “cubist” image is in a way the sense of these volumes, showing all the different parts of the approach and their interrelation

Reading the World

opposition between scientific and poetic, objective and subjective, rather they all participate in creating a single cubist image. In this way values and data that could not otherwise be compared are all considered in the infinite milieu of reality as the many interconnected facets of a phenomenon, thus allowing the analysis to build a more complex, complete and integral image of the world in which the design has to insert itself. Deriving from the phenomenological point of view expressed in the previous chapters, the design analysis considers the world as the infinite sensible milieu whose objectifying reduction can only offer a pale phantasm of what reality is. The approach presented here therefore proposes a way of looking at things that considers them in their irreducible richness and tries to grasp them without reducing them; that is, to create an image that although incomplete - because the infinity of the milieu as such defies any kind of integral representation - is not reductive. Indeed, it is not strictly speaking a matter of representation, rather of reconstruction; through the use of literature, or better via its gaze, one is able to recreate for one’s self the world that is analysed in order to be able to grasp it, to understand it and make it one’s own. A way of looking at things; it is how the infinite milieu of reality can be encompassed without being simplified, that is by employing a particular point of view that relates elements and qualities, meanings and values. This reconstruction of the world from a given perspec-

1. THEORY

This is the cognitive value of literature2; unlike scientific, objective knowledge it is a less defined one but more overreaching, it can adapt itself to the situation and take many shapes but most importantly, it doesn’t simplify into schemes of categories, that is it allows to grasp everything for what it is in itself and in its relations with its context. Science, in order to convey meaning, needs to reduce the particular to the general, to abstract in order to reach the universal; literature gives place to the particular in the general and structures their relationship, it sees the universal in all things thus not needing to reach for it. According to the way of looking this structure can be different but that does not mean that one is true and the other is false; again we see here the ability of literature of hosting ambiguity and accommodating opposites represented very well in 1 B. Chatwin, Songlines 2 “narration reveals meaning without committing the mistake of defining it” H. Arendt quoted in G.O. Longo, Scienza e letteratura: un incontro possibile?

see Volume 2, Place analysis and the bibliography relating to the site and its culture

tive is the role of literature in this analytical phase of the design process. Narrative, the act of story telling, is one of the oldest activities of man, employed for thousands of years as a way of making sense of the world and reconstructing it into a comprehensive and understandable structure.1 All the great religious texts are in a way cosmogonies, just as every text in its own way builds its microcosm. Structuring the matter of the world in order to give it meaning and relations between different facts and between man and the world.

Reading the World

the rhetorical figure of the oxymoron. Both inside a single way of looking at things - that is, the text of one author - and in the many ways in which this looking can be done - from different authors to different kinds of literature altogether - differences and oppositions are not seen negatively but as an expression of the richness of the written world, as a reflection of the real one. This openness of the approach thus allows to explore different meanings of the same things, to consider different relations and to unveil values and meanings; not a reduction then, rather a filtering like a coloured lens crossed by light. This ability of literature to deal with multiplicity of perceptions, values and meanings, to tie relations between different values and to recreate space in its sensible and intelligible parts, shows one of its most valuable uses in the field of architecture, that is the ability to grasp atmospheres. Atmosphere is a term everyone is familiar with but very few would be able to define in its constituent parts.1 That is because atmosphere is in itself something almost impossible to grasp, it is the sum of all characters of a place, their interrelation and our way of looking at them; and still, the sum of the parts is not the whole. Literature, in being able to tie together in a description a multiplicity of factors - from the most 1â&#x20AC;&#x192; â&#x20AC;&#x153;After all atmosphere is something personal, vague, ephemeral and difficult to capture in text or design, impossible to define or analyse. Atmosphere...is precisely that which evades analysis. Although atmosphere can perhaps be seen as the essence of architecture it is not easily defined, let alone constructed or controlled.â&#x20AC;? K. Havik, H. Teerds and G. Tielens, Building Atmosphere in OASE #91

1. THEORY

matter of fact description to the freest of mental associations - is able to grasp and convey atmosphere, to touch on its parts without separating them and unveil their character and participation in the whole of experience. In the architectural process being able to deal with atmospheres, that is to recognise, convey and create them, is an extremely useful tool that allows to expand the limits of the discipline to all the senses instead of the common overruling one of sight. Through literature in fact, the senses are blended together in the unique and overreaching element of the sensible body1, or better, the subject with his cultural and personal connotations as well as physical ones. Literature not only allows to deal with these aspects of self and world but also to consider them as one integral thing. Indeed, one of the reasons why this approach is explored at all in this paper is to find a way to integrate the existing design tools to create a fuller and deeper understanding of the design and all that accompanies it. Traditional architectural tools such as the drawing and the model are quite limited in dealing with space in a phenomenological way, that is because theirs is a reduction of the world, a necessary abstraction that although it makes the data it gathers poorer it is also much clearer and 1â&#x20AC;&#x192; â&#x20AC;&#x153;The problem is to understand these strange relations woven between the parts of the landscape, or from the landscape to me as an embodied subject, relations by which I perceive an object can condense within itself an entire scene or become the imago of an entire segment of life. Sensing is this living communication with the world that makes it present to us as the familiar place of our lives.â&#x20AC;? M. Merleau-Ponty, The Phenomenology of Perception, p.53-55

Reading the World

grasping atmospheres by writing and rewriting

see the bibliography for the reading material and Volume 2 and 3 for the writing part

see the references between texts, drawings, photos and models in these volumes

1. THEORY

employable. The employment of literature therefore does not discard those tools, rather it recognises their role, possibilities and limitations in order to integrate them into a more comprehensive way of designing. Later in this essay the relation between text and drawing will be therefore explained as a fundamental part of the application of the literary approach. For now it suffices to say that this ability to grasp, recreate and deal with atmosphere is an unparalleled ability that literature has and that can be employed in the architectural process throughout its many phases. A CALEYDOSCOPIC VIEW OF REALITY The multiplicity of the point of views is only one of the elements that make the literary approach so varied and able to encompass many sides of reality. First of all though, a very large distinction needs to be made before delving deeper into the literary analysis of site and brief. For the matter of this thesis, literature is separate in two interdependent parts: that of reading and that of writing. Both of them are a way to investigate the world, ourselves and the relation between self and world. Both of them can be employed in many different ways, with different degrees of insight and on different levels and phases. Both of them, and this is something that is maybe not so commonly considered, are an active endeavour. It is important to underline this before continuing on the roles and values of the dif-

Reading the World

1 W.H. Auden, The Dyer’s Hand 2 G. Bachelard, The Poetics of Reverie

see Volume 3 where different texts unveil and approach different elements of the same design

ferent literary approaches; a reader is in its own way a writer, or at least a translator1. That means that even when reading something written by others, the reading self is undergoing an active relation with written words which it has to reconstruct in itself in order to be able to relate to them and give them meaning - it is common knowledge that a single text has many interpretations, even very different ones. The belief of this paper is that there may be wrong interpretations but no exact ones; once the work has become something in itself and has detached itself from the author who created it, the two become independent2. In this sense the interpretation of a text closest to the perspective of the author may not necessarily be “more right” than another reading of it which reveals different aspects. This leads to a crucial matter throughout the whole thesis: literature is employed as a tool. This means that there are ways in which to use it, modes of employment according to the situation, different applications for different means. As a way of looking at things, a text is like a magnifying lens whose optical effects we can point in the direction we want; of course a telescope works much better when pointed to the sky then against the wall, learning when to use one or the other is therefore one of the abilities that are needed to employ this approach with fruitful and meaningful results. Just like a section and a plan are drawings conveying different aspects of a design and

1. THEORY

Books such as Narrare lâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Alto Adige, Leggende Meranesi, Gli Eredi della Solitudine have been fundamental in developing an understanding of the Heimat of the place. (see bibliography)

allowing to deal with its complex composition, different texts as well can be employed in many ways to generate a better and more complete understanding. The good news is, like with all approaches, one learns by doing. Regardless of the openness of interpretations outlined above, a text - a well written one at least - guides the reader and makes him privy to its opinions and look on the world. Before the open interpretation of a literary work comes therefore a different phase which for the architectural analysis advocated here is of great importance and richness. The wealth of literary texts available about almost anything and everything allows the inquisitive reader to analyse the same matter from as many point of views to rival a cubist painting, thus generating an image of the matter much more complex and complete that one could ever do by a single personal or objective point of view. This allows to understand for example the way in which people look at their landscape, the values they associate it with, its features and meanings. Physical elements can then be easily related to cultural or even emotional ones; the world of literature allows a reading of the world that is at the same time open and precise, focused and general. In a time when architecture calls for site-specificity and local-integration, attention to the context and care for the existing social and cultural structures, literature offers a way to approach these issues as part of a general image, it doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t reduce them to separate qualities of a space

Reading the World

but it reconstructs them as the pieces that make up the whole, thus keeping alive the connection between the design and the world it stems from and operates in. It is not then a matter of bottom up or top down, rather of becoming part of a place in order to built for it; that is, to inhabit it. Many different authors in many different times thus allow the reader to step into the flux of history and culture, not only to observe it. In order to properly read, one has to establish an intimate relation between the self and the text, thus avoiding sterile observations or stereotypical reduction. This is the first step of an action that is fundamental in order to be able, later in the design process, to relate with site and project; that is, to establish an intimate relationship between the self and the matter at hand, to become part of it through a reverence that could almost be called religious or mystical but that allows for the essence of things and their relations to emerge. One needs to feel the matter in order to make it one’s own and be able to mould it in the creative process of the design; in the active process of reading, the reader appropriates the text.1 This way of reading is not the cold storing of data in memory to be retrieved at will but the actual modification of the self which adapts to the text and makes it its own; no more self and text but a self that is new and richer because it has assimilated, not only understood, the written word. 1 “In the resonance we hear the poem, in the reverberation we speak it, it is our own.” G. Bachelard, The Poetics of Space, p.XXIII

1. THEORY

see Volume 3 where this has been systematically carried out for each design

Finally, it is nothing other than a matter of sensibility, to look at the world and its representations like Merleau-Ponty, “the world as the sensible place of our lives”1. Another aspect that makes literature a very fruitful and varied way of looking at things is the fact that it can take many different forms. From the basic divisions of fiction and non fiction, poetry and prose, to the different styles, themes and ages of texts. Even only the description of a banal situation can be written in tens of ways only by changing the style of writing2, the same thing is thus looked at from different point of views, so much so that it can be almost as if it is not only the point of view that changes but the observed thing itself. The same design site can therefore be studied and understood from an historical standpoint, revealing for example cultural and social meanings; a narrative point of view of a fictional story, conveying things as emotional association and ways of use; or a poem, drawing relations and analogies. Of course the list could continue line after line, but the goal here is not to give a comprehensive account of all of the different facets of literature, rather to show their presence and express their possibilities. Again, literature proves to be an extremely flexible and interchangeable tool to analyse reality in its facets and aspects; it focuses the gaze without reducing it. 1 M. Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenology of Perception 2 R. Queneau, Exercises in style

Reading the World

Nature is a temple in which living pillars Sometimes give voice to confused words; Man passes there through forests of symbols Which look at him with understanding eyes. Like prolonged echoes mingling in the distance In a deep and tenebrous unity, Vast as the dark of night and as the light of day, Perfumes, sounds, and colours correspond. There are perfumes as cool as the flesh of children, Sweet as oboes, green as meadows And others are corrupt, and rich, triumphant, With power to expand into infinity, Like amber and incense, musk, benzoin, That sing the ecstasy of the soul and senses. C. Baudelarie, Correspondences

Baudelaireâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s caleydoscopic view of reality

1. THEORY

SKETCHING WITH WORDS So far literature has been shown as a tool to analyse reality, to gather different kind of informations over it and draw meaningful relations between them. Reading thus is the first step, the approach to the world by gathering observations made by others and making them ours. It is this act of appropriation that makes reading active in the process and that ensures the interaction between literature, the raw material at hand, and the reader who moulds this material. The second step, that of writing, further develops the approach by making this act of appropriation a productive one in which the gathered informations are further elaborated and constructed into the analysis itself. To make a parallelism with the world of visual arts, reading is the preparatory study, gathering sketches and fast observations; writing is the composition of the studies into a single image that sums them up and puts them together in a completed work. This, of course, is but weak comparison to express the idea because just like Leonardoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s preparatory sketches are masterpieces in themselves, so the division between what is the mean and what is the end is not fixed. Reading is active in the sense that the reader needs to consciously take part in the act and imbue it with his self, the activity of the reader is therefore the way in which he employs and interprets the text at hand. In writing instead, the gathered knowledge is condensed

Reading the World

see the relations between Volume 2 on analysis and Volume 3 on design

and made to react, the gathered ingredients are fused together in the big melting pot that is a writer when he tries to condense on paper what is in his head. Although the distinction from the two activities must be made, many characteristics are shared. All that has been said regarding literature in general: the many different kinds of literary texts, the possibilities of interpretations, the grasping of different values, meanings and their interrelation, are shared character of both reading and writing. The even more obvious but crucial difference is the way in which the designer, the protagonist of this story, relates to them. In fact, though both activities require an active participation in order to be meaningful, in the act of writing the personality of the designer and his approach to design and context come to the fore. While in the act of reading, gathering and filtering information, the text is employed and filtered according to needs and interests, in writing the text itself is created by reassembling gathered notions and integrating them with the designerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s take on the place. Thus, in the moment of writing, the position of the designer comes to the foreground as a central element, setting the tone for the whole project to come. If reading was a way of selecting and ordering concepts writing brings them back into place after they have been elaborated and structured in view of the design. A very important aspect of the literary approach becomes evident now, that is the actual role of writing

1. THEORY

1â&#x20AC;&#x192; For this concept see J. Pallasmaa, The Thinking Hand: Existential and Embodied Wisdom in Architecture

see how from the analysis on Volume 2 the themes recur in the designs on Volume 3

and reading in defining the approach to the design. It may seem in fact, that the whole process explained here is a clear and linear succession of steps to be followed in a simple alternation of research and results. That is not so; the whole point of the approach being an active action of the designer implies that the act itself is a way of thinking and approaching the design. That may be unclear in reading, where this way of working appears as illumination or sudden inspiration, but it becomes evident when writing. Both processes, although in writing it is much more clear, are a way of thinking. Not then only an observation or a representation but an active process of reasoning. Thus, when one gets into the writing part of the analysis, the reordering of the gathered notions into a written form forces one to elaborate on things. Writing is here, and in the whole of the thesis, a sketching with words instead of lines. That is, an action that engages the mind and by elaborating on existent knowledge generates new one. It may be a certain recurring word in the description of a place, or a perspective on some urban elements that immediately unveils their character; by writing and sketching the hand thinks1, employing different parts of the brain and drawing from different concepts and perspectives. Although this is only tangent to the theme of the essay, the relation between body and mind that is analysed in its phenomenological aspects becomes evident here in a

Reading the World

â&#x20AC;&#x153;an action that engages the mind and by elaborating on existent knowledge generates new oneâ&#x20AC;?

see Volume 2 on the analysis of site and type

1. THEORY

different way. One could quote studies by philosophers, designers and scientists alike showing how the act of thinking is deeply related with the physical act that accompany that thinking1. What is important to underline here is that this relation indeed exist and any designer will be familiar with the difference between sketching by hand or doing it on a computer screen, during the course of this research the difference between typing and handwriting became evident as well. What comes out of these observations is not an opposition of one mode against the other, rather the awareness of our bodily way of thinking that corroborates the connection mind-body expressed in the previous chapters. Writing and reading are therefore also ways of engaging our mind-body in a different way, therefore being able to exploit other sides of our abilities. OBSERVATION: ANALYSIS AS DESIGN Analysis is not only a propaedeutic phase of the design but an integral and fundamental part of the process, it is a design action itself. Analysis is a form of design. The perspective employed in analysing a site, the elements that are brought to the fore and those that are 1â&#x20AC;&#x192; It is very interesting to see in this sense the recent studies of neurology mapping the part of the brain that carries out actions and thoughts. A person affected by Parkinsonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s disease for example, can have a lot of difficulties in walking and none in dancing. Without getting into a field that is still unknown and experimental, the fact that different actions employ different sets of neurons can very well be a hint of the fact that different actions make us thing differently.

Reading the World

discarded, the hierarchy in which they are organised and all of this filtering actions already stem from a design that although not defined is already present in these actions. Writing, in the moment of analysis, is making this concept clear and giving it a proper place and scope, just like in final drawings and schemes. Indeed, by writing the results of the analysis one does not only observe the existing context but â&#x20AC;&#x153;preparesâ&#x20AC;? it for the design. The text is already a projection into the future, which is the whole action of designing; it envisions a situation where the constituent elements of context and brief are gathered and put in relation with the design to be. In this elaboration of notions and ideas, gathering of concepts and informations, the analysis of the place is brought together with that of the brief and with the individuality of the author, creating the setting in which the design will take place and the elements of which it will be made. The whole process is a loop of gathering knowledge and re-elaborating it, expansions covering the multiplicity of the world and contraptions condensing it into a perspective with a concept. This condensation, though, is no mere collage or composition, nor it is an abstraction or a reduction; it is rather an act of distillation, out of which new elements arise: the first materials of the design. This approach could be called observation, borrowing from a method defined in the School of Architecture

1. THEORY

and Design of Valparaiso in Chile1. Starting from the consideration of a phenomenological world as considered in the general approach of this thesis, the tool of observation aims at looking at the world as if for the first time and at discovering in it, indeed by observing it, new views of reality. In this sense, observation, carried out before the design phase through drawing and writing, is a way of accessing the world in its infinity of perception and drawing from it the foundations of the design. It must be noted though, that it is a poetic act. That is, it deals with all aspects of reality, it is a penetrating gaze that is able to reveal reality according to different point of views, thus seeing the world from the perspective of the design and therefore readying it for the design to be. Practically speaking, it is a way of looking at things, again, that concentrates the gaze in order to unveil different aspects of reality and to grasp out of them a concept, an observation. In the case of this thesis, drawing is not as important2 and the literary observation becomes the main tool; the premises and the approach, though, do not change. Literary observation allows to look at the world each time differently and to discover it for the infinite milieu of sensations and meanings that it is; by carrying out the observation - be it drawn or written - one is forced to set up a structure, to reconstruct reality and therefore find a structure for this construction. In doing so one starts 1â&#x20AC;&#x192; Fabio Cruz, Una clase de la ObservaciĂ˛n 2â&#x20AC;&#x192; In Valparaiso drawing is the main tool, associated with notation writing.

Reading the World

see Volume 2

Writing and reading are therefore seen here as ways of thinking, different ways to engage the mind and the

this act of naming, arising from the analysis and defined in the design part, defines the base concepts that lead the work. See from Volume 2 to Volume 3 the recurrence of particular concepts and settings

recognising certain elements of the observed fact, underlying patterns, spacial situations, emotional settings and so on. This structure, through the observation, can be named, thus capturing its essence, making sense of it by defining it and therefore grasping it. By doing this, one starts defining the concept, the underlining idea that guides and structures the design and its creation process; moreover, this way of reaching the concept is imbued with the qualities of literature we have already analysed. It can therefore be strictly defined and yet very open in its application, it is rooted in many different kind of considerations that are thus made to collaborate to a more integral understanding and it is directly related - although that does not necessarily mean that it is so clearly - to the basis of the design, the fertile ground it is plucked from. Observation therefore furnishes the work with a solid foundation that is at once connected to space and transcends it. The last thing that should be noted is that, as with all the approach advocated here, this method of analysis is applied to the context, the brief and the program; it is therefore a very flexible tool whose results are always homogeneous and comparable because of their poetic abstraction. Thus observation for the design is carried out on the site at hand, on existing and imaginary similar types or briefs, on the actions that the design needs to host and so on.

1. THEORY

principle from analysis before design (above) and implementation in the design (below)

Reading the World

hand, adding new scopes and possibilities to the act of designing. Seen as such, as a way of thinking, an important part in the development of the literary approach to architecture is its non linearity. It is in no way first reading, then writing, and then designing. Rather the whole process is a way of engaging the self through different modes of thinking and elaborating, gathering and structuring. That is very important for two reasons; in this way the process influences itself and boundaries of scales or field are discarded - the same text can be used for planning and detailing, a philosophical concept can be turned into space and vice versa - and architecture being a creative act, engagement of the self is fundamental in order to be able to draw from oneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s creativity. Writing thus allows to build oneself a system of thought and a way of looking at things, not only in deciding from which point of view but also in clearing meanings and values, fascinations and relations. Starting from the belief that creativity needs subjectivity, the drive of a stimulated self, writing is a very useful tool in clearing for oneself how this subjectivity reacts to the matter at hand; the context, the brief and the design itself are dealt with in a myriad of connotations, from the most personal to the most practical and functional, working together to build a single picture. SETTING FORTH A WORLD Thus the goal of the design, and of the literary ap-

1. THEORY

This act of setting forth a world is crucial in the whole literary approach; it is the result of the analysis - as the building up of all that was gathered - and it is the starting point for the design. It is also representative of the whole approach itself as a way to try and not reduce the infinite milieu of reality and design - which will hopefully become part of said reality; it shows the evocative power of literature in being able to conjure a world and deal with it in all its aspects.

see the preliminary design schemes and their relation with the final designs

proach in this part of the process, is that of setting forth a world for the project to take place in and for the designer to inhabit; the task of the analysis as it has been explained is not only that of gathering and organising data but by doing so the goal is to reconstruct a reality. It is in this act that we can see why the analysis is already an integral, generative part of the design process; by constructing this reality, the design already start to appear out of the relation between the world, the context in which it is set, and the designer, the self out of which it is driven. The literary approach in this phases sets forth a world, the result of all the processes explained above, for the designer and the design to inhabit; the two opposite poles of designer and brief, the subjective and the objective, are thus made to appear and relate. Out of their encounter the design takes place and starts to solidify, like condensation on a window separating inside and outside.

Reading the World

1. THEORY

The Opening Inspiration or the setting forth of a world Following the progression of the design process, this chapter focuses on that phase in between analysis and design. It is the phase where the design concept is formulated, that is the underlying essence of the project which leads the decision making process. It is a phase of reflection and formulation; drawing from the results of the analysis the essence of the design is distilled. As with all the phases of the design process analysed here, literature plays a main role in the definition of the design; indeed, this is the phase where the literary approach reaches its apex. That is, literature is here employed poetically, as that which contains the universal in the particular, that which condenses what is vast and unlimited1. The world set forth by the analysis is here inhabited in a kind of reverie; associations are freely inspired by the different elements that were previously gathered, reflection follows the course of words as well as signs; to use a term dear to Bachelard, this is the day-dreaming act necessary in order to inhabit a poem - a world - and absorb it in ourself, with all that this implies. READING POETICALLY 1â&#x20AC;&#x192; R. Rizzi, Hejduk Incarnatio

The Opening

see Volume 3 where some quotes always set the tone and the atmosphere for the text that follows them

Throughout the whole process of literary approach to design, the relation between literature and architecture is ever-changing, their roles are swapped, their hierarchies subverted. Literature is employed as a given - by reading existing texts - and written by the designer itself; nevertheless its role is always subordinated to the design. Especially when literature is made by the designer its value begins and ends inside the design process, its goal is out of itself and has therefore to be considered as such. In this phase though, literature is employed poetically, that is in its capacity to be a guide into the world, a gaze that illuminates and reveals reality for what it is in its infinity. It is a window into the world and into being, which, as such, can work and be meaningful only if it is complete in itself. Thus the literature employed in this phase, although indeed employed by the designer, needs to be self standing. Generally speaking then, the texts referred to in this phase are those of poets and writers which the designer gathers and employs according to his sensibility and his design brief. There are few examples where the designer is also a poet and he therefore makes himself the texts to be employed in this phase, thus tying the whole process with design in an indissoluble way. In doing so though, literature can no longer be considered simply a tool; employing again the analogy of sketching and writing, in this case the sketch cannot only be propaedeutic to the final drawing but must be a work in itself. It is no longer then the

the poems for each design in Volume 3 are an attempt at this

1. THEORY

matter of a designer who employs literature but of a writer who happens to also be a designer. This is the case, for example, of John Hejduk, whose poems are as important for his architecture as his sketches, but both of them are also self sufficient works in themselves - his poems and sketches have value in themselves, like any work of art, even without considering the project out of which they arise. Probably Le Corbusier could be considered in a similar way; his pictorial work, although kept completely separate from the architectural discipline, had a clear influence on it. To sum up the two positions, one could say that gathtext without producing them in this phase is a work of inspiration, the act of looking for things that might drive towards a goal that can be felt but is not yet known. Writing the text itself, on the other hand, is the proactive generation of an inspiration; instead of engaging the mind through reading by making it react with the text at hand in order to generate inspiration out of a reaction, by writing one is actively seeking for that inspiration in a different way. This second proactive mode unveils the highest gnosiological power of literature that is employed throughout the whole process, that of engaging creativity by elaborating thoughts and data through the creation of a text. Either way, the use of literature in this phase - both in reading and in writing - touches its most intimate side, the one that is closest to creativity and therefore the self. As such it is ering

The Opening

image, volumes, sections and detail from A. Stifter, Rock Crystal

1. THEORY

very difficult to define a way in which this works, more than indications one has to satisfy himself with vague suggestions. In this phase the goal is inspiration, that flickering light that can be followed but never grasped.

What is looked for here then, are those texts - usually poems but not limited to that - which can be used as a source of inspiration for the design process. They are the material with which a bridge is built for the design to enter the world constructed by the analysis. A threshold then that transforms and colours; from text to space, from analysis to design. The role of the text here is double, at the same time it ties analysis to design, that is reflection with formulation, and it sets a tone for the design to come. It is not a limitation then, it does not define - which is the role of the design - but it distils the essence of the design, or a part of it, which the successive phase has the task to give shape to and materialise. It is in this sense the inspiration of the design, that thing that although undefined carries within itself the characteristics of the design to come. As such it is what opens the ground for the design to inhabit the world set forth by the analysis, it defines possibilities without being constrictive, it is a Opening. Inspiration, though, is something difficult to define and a very vague term at best. Like the atmospheres

as such, each design text is preceded by a quote that sets its tone and gives it a place in the milieu created by the analysis, in this case considered also as the phase of gathering of the texts

see the first â&#x20AC;&#x153;design ingredientsâ&#x20AC;? from the analysis and their relation to the final designs

INSPIRATION: AN OPENING

The Opening

discussed in the previous chapters, inspiration is something evanescent, a flickering that dissolves as soon as one tries to pin it down. Moreover, the source of inspiration is often so unclear, subjective and deeply rooted in both the self and the origin - in this case the text - that the inner workings of this mechanism are difficult or almost impossible to define. Nevertheless, inspiration exists. Some designers may directly refer to it and some may hide it behind more objective explanations, it may be looked for or arising as if it were an autonomous force; whatever the case, it undoubtedly plays a very important, if not fundamental, role in any creative process. Inspiration is the origin of an idea, and therefore of a design; it is the blossom that stems forth out of the rich soil between the self and the matter at hand. In this sense, inspiration is an opening, a setting forth of a world in which the design is already a constituent part. An opening then, both in the sense that it opens the world for the design and that it remains open, it defines the design without constraints. As much as it is difficult to define the coming into being of an inspiration, in the same way it is difficult to define its scope and its characterisation. In this sense in fact, the opening is a concept that is still lacking part of its definition; until such concept is brought into life in the design, accommodating and bending to all the corollary constraints, its definition is open and shapeless. This does not mean, though, that it does not define something; in the most

1. THEORY

a poem used as an opening for the preliminary design principles

The Opening

general sense, what a poetic opening does is set a tone but just like a poem, it is vague while already carrying in itself the strictest definitions. There are many different kinds of inspirations; they can be very precise, having to do with a particular spatial configuration, materiality, relation with context and so on; they can be limited to a determinate field, the approach to a building, its openings, the kind of shapes or architectural style; they can be very broad and vague, defining a certain mental state, a philosophical concept, a poetic view of reality. In any case, the point to be stressed now is the fact that they define without describing, that is, inspiration sets a tone for the design or one of its elements, like the key of a musical piece. A poem, for example, can be interpreted in many different ways through a literary reading; once the reading is done with a purpose other then literature itself, in the case here of the literary approach to design, the amount of interpretations and suggestions arising from the poem increase exponentially; we only need to take its lens and point it a things to see how it changes and how in turns things are changed by it. As it will be shown in the next section, the poem once read in the right way opens up a world of possibilities that can lead anywhere, depending both on the text and the reader itself. Before explaining the poem through Bachleardâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s concept of the poetic image, its importance and originality can be stressed drawing from personal experience. There is a trueness to the poetic image that can-

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not be discarded; the power of poems or other works of art over people and their work speaks for itself. The difficulty of grasping the speech of the poem is what makes it difficult to deal with, to define its effects and importance, but anyone who has ever felt a poem knows that there was some truth there that came to light in the contact between the word and the self. This coming to life is what is looked for in this part of the thesis, the springing forth of a word from a work other and autonomous in itself. Autonomous does not mean unrelated of course, rather that as a work of art, it is not dependent from the design but it can, via the medium of the designer, be connected with it. Again though, this connection is open and broad; thanks to the multiplicity of perspectives discussed in the previous chapter, the versatility of literature, and the active role of the reader, a point of contact between a text and a design matter can always be found. This does not mean that it can be meaningful for the design though. Alas, one has to lean over the abyss like Heideggerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s poet (Heidegger, Poetry Language Thought) hoping to find something to take back to the people while trying not to fall in. THE POETIC IMAGE A very important matter in employing literary texts as inspiration for a design comes here to the fore. It is true that it is possible to draw a more or less meaningful connection between almost any text and design brief,

The Opening

but being able to see a connection does not imply that out of it a real inspiration, that is, an opening, will arise. Again, inspiration is a very subtle, flickering matter that is almost impossible to grasp. It requires attention and dedication, a careful touch and a lot of sensibility; that is, it requires an active participation of the self that must not be though a forced one. In the case of a poem, to make a practical example, the title will maybe suggest a connection with a design theme - for example the description of a room with particular qualities -, and this connection can be found and constructed quite easily although without necessarily stimulating a real inspiration. As Bachelard puts it, one must live the poetic image in order to feel it; through this alignment of the self and the poetic image, a reverberation takes place and the self makes the poem his, he speaks it.1 In this phase, reading as an active act becomes fundamental for the opening to work, be meaningful and employable in the design. It is a matter of reverie, which is the way in which the poetic image can be lived and thus possessed. One then needs to attune oneself with the text in order to make it his; it is an almost spiritual exercise, carried out phenomenologically, which allows one to enter the poem and employ its many possibilities in the design project. Indeed, the poetic image is a tool of awareness, of consciousness; through the imagination 1â&#x20AC;&#x192; G. Bachelard, The Poetics of Space

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of the poet, transcribed for us into text, one is able to see the world in different ways, to be aware of things and illuminate them with the bright and colourful light of the poem which is able to reach the highest peaks and the deepest pits of both the sensible and intelligible world. It is a different kind of knowledge, or at least it is employed in a different way, compared to the one in the phase of the analysis. In this phase literature is like a torch that colours and gives shape to what is still in front of us in the design process. It is important then to notice how here not only the text is important but also the way in which it is read. That is, the relation between the self and the text is crucial; as said for all creative acts one has to delve into one’s self in order for creativity to arise. The poetic image, as described by Bachelard in its concept of resonance and reverberation1, and the role of the poet explained by Heidegger employing Rilke’s concept of the Open2 both explain how and why the use of literature is advocated in such a way here. Two themes in these discourses are very important, the poetic image as an ontology - by Bachelard - and the ability of the poet of looking over the abyss, into the open, as a guide for other men - by Heidegger. Indeed literature here is employed and considered according to this two complementary philosophical perspectives; the literary text 1 G. Bachelard, The poetics of space and The poetics of Reverie 2 M. Heidegger, What are poets for? in Poetry, Language, Thought

The Opening

is seen as that thing which bridges analysis and design and which is able to imbue the latter with its ontological and open - that is in Rilkeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s sense of being part of the world - qualities. These qualities can be found in a literary text and they can be transformed into spatial and design qualities. ILLUMINATION In order for this to work, the choice of the origin of the opening, the text, and the relation with it, the self, are very important. The text is here considered in Bachelardâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s terms as an ontology, a poetic image that is complete in itself and that must be analysed phenomenologically in order to be understood and felt as a reverie; that is, it must be lived by the reader who becomes a poet himself. In this way the poetic image becomes an origin of consciousness1, something through which we gain a meaningful connection with the world and an insight into some of its qualities. To employ this approach to design means to own those images and turn them into architectural concepts. A kind of concept, though, that is at the same time very open and very defined, as is the characteristic of poetry; something that leads the design in a clear and definite way without though being a constraint to it. A poem, for example, can suggest a way to look at how to approach a building or a consideration on the relation between landscape and man; it can 1â&#x20AC;&#x192; G. Bachelard, The poetics of Reverie

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the “structural relation” between a poem and a design

The Opening

give an insight on materiality or charge with significance a device like that of the threshold. The influence of inspiration, then, is something that colours the design, the light shining from the poem illuminates certain elements and gives them place and meaning in the world and in the work; it should always be remembered, in fact, that this is but a phase of a more complex approach whose many phases inform and influence each other in a continuous feedback. This allows to minimize a big risk of this employment of literature, the inability to foresee its applications and therefore its usefulness for the design. It must be said, indeed, that this approach is made of trial and error and especially in this phase, where one has to let oneself be carried by the text in order for it to work, the result is never sure. A text, a good one, will always illuminate something but what it illuminates and how in the design is unclear until the design phase itself. This illumination is one of the most important powers of the literary tool in the design process, that is its ability to both direct the gaze and imbue it with meaning; it teaches how to see and at the same time it puts what is seen under a different light. In this sense, the opening sets forth a world which the design picks up and shapes but always under the light of this first illumination, on the plane of this first opening. This will become clear in the next chapter where the influence of this phase on the design - both in its textual and graphical form - will become evident and very im-

1. THEORY

portant in continuing the process. As in fact it is for any design approach, the opening sets the rules for the design without actually designing; in this sense it opens up a world for the design to take place in, but it is a world with its own qualities, with its own light, values and meanings, all of which is defined in this phase of the design. These words of Bachelard, which deserve to be fully transcribed, will in part clear the sense of this chapter and introduce the coming one. I am a dreamer of words, of written words. I think I am reading; a word stops me. I leave the page. The syllables of the word begin to move around. Stressed accents begin to invert. The word abandons its meaning like an overload which is too heavy and prevents dreaming. Then words take on other meanings as if they had the right to be young. And the words wander away, looking in the nooks and crannies of vocabulary for new company, bad company. What a lot of minor conflicts we must resolve upon returning from vagabond reverie to reasonable vocabulary! And it is worse when, instead of reading, I begin to write. Under the pen, the anatomy of syllables slowly unfolds. The word lives syllable by syllable, in danger of internal reveries. The problem remains how to maintain the word intact, constricting it to its habitual servitude in the projected sentence, a sentence which will perhaps be crossed off in the manuscript. Doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t reverie ramify the sentence which has been begun? A word is a bud attempting to

The Opening

become a twig. How can one not dream while writing? It is the pen which dreams. The blank page gives the right to dream. If only one could write for himself alone. How hard is the destiny of a maker of books! He has to cut and sew up in order to make ideas follow logically. But when one writes a book on reverie, has the time not come to let the pen run, to let reverie speak, and better yet to dream the reverie at the same time one believes he is transcribing it?1

1â&#x20AC;&#x192; G. Bachelard, The poetics of reverie, p.17

1. THEORY

Writing the world Design between word and drawing Once the world has been set forth by the analysis, it has been opened and illuminated by inspiration, it is time to enter it and start working. That is the actual phase of the design, the central element of the whole process, the point where all that has been said until now needs to be moulded and materialized in a project. This does not mean that the process is linear, generally speaking one proceeds two steps forward and one backward, so to say. Just as theoretical research and practical design influence each other, in the same way the findings of the various phases inform their development. Nevertheless, at a certain point the world conjured by the analysis is complete enough and the light provided by the opening sufficiently bright to step into it and start designing. INHABITING THE WORLD To make use of the material put together in the previous phases, one needs to make it its own, that is, literally to inhabit it. One needs to feel its presence and establish a relation between the self and the matter at hand; as it has been said for the previous phases, here even more, the engagement of the self is fundamental in order to make the material react, in order to extract something out of all that has been gathered. To do so, then, one

Writing the World

must step into this world and feel its presence, its mood. Mood is not intended here as an emotional state but something larger, it is the mythos, that thing that makes us relate to things in a certain way, to feel them as something. To put it in a different way, one has to attune one’s self to the created world, not only because that is the only way to make it one’s own thus enabling to deal with it, but because by identifying this relation with the matter at hand we are able to shape and configure it. Literature, in this sense, is not only the tool that allows us to build the world to step into but is also what allows us to move in it, shape it, read it and rewrite it. If in the previous phases the aim was to gather and construct, to gain an understanding and a point of view, now it is the time to apply that understanding; the designer is no longer observing and making sense of things that are already present but in this stage has to create, that is to attune a new element with the ones he has gathered, according to the structures they dictated and in line with the light they are coloured by. Feeling the presence of the world, being able no longer to construct it but to actually step into it, is very well represented by the German concept of Stimmung, “as prior to conscious knowledge, Stimmung, rather than being itself in a place, is the very opening of the world, the very place of being.”1. This concept of being in the world, of phenomenological perception, is driven by subjective sensibility, by an embodied sense 1 A. Perez-Gomez, Attunement, p.93

1. THEORY

of being in the world and, through that, one can turn around and shape this world in its entirety. Indeed, the insights of literature are exploited here in order to build a connection with the world set forth that colours its elements in order to have them ready for the design. Such a state determines a certain amount of things. First, a deep connection with the place intended in a wide range of aspects - physical, psychological, cultural and so on - that is crucial to develop a design that fits the place, that is attuned to it. The aim of this phase, in fact, is that of extracting the design out of the matter at hand; of course that does not mean that the work of the designer does not generate anything new, but it does so in concert with what is there and out of it. It is only with a deep connection with the existent, allowed in this case by the literary insight, that we can develop an attuned intervention. What one needs to attune to is usually called the genius loci of a place, its essence that is declined in all the aspects that define it. In architecture theory, the genius loci is often associated with vernacular architecture, the architecture without architect, arising in a seemingly spontaneous way out of the culture and tradition of a place. The beauty of this is that a single concept - this genius loci, the spirit of the place one might say - emerges in a myriad of declinations as the various notes of the attunement that is looked for. The connection with the place that is advocated here is a way of reaching such an essence and

Writing the World

inhabiting the design through writing

1. THEORY

being able to operate its declination; it is not vernacular architecture per se, because it is not spontaneous and it requires a noticeable intellectual and practical effort. It is though the result of the genius loci. As such, the act of inhabiting the world set forth, allows to â&#x20AC;&#x153;close the circleâ&#x20AC;?, to reach the instinctive through the cultural, that is to achieve a result that seems to be spontaneously sprouting from the ground even though it took a lot of effort for this to happen. Generally speaking this means that any design carried out in this way, because it needs to attune itself to the place, will in a way always belong to it. If this is pushed to the extreme though, one may indeed find a way to become vernacular again, but it is after all a way of closing the circle, it is learning to unlearn. If on the one hand we have the general essence of the place, its genius loci, that the designer reads and attunes himself to, on the other we have more varied but not less important characterisations of space that can be dealt with by inhabiting this space through the employment of literature. It has been already said in the previous chapter that storytelling is a way of making sense of the world, a tool humans use and have used to construct their reality to make it their own and be able to deal with it. Man does so via telling stories, creating narratives and rituals, generating values, hierarchies and meanings; this connotation of space is what makes it so much important for us, is what makes us able to

see the narrative texts on Volume 3

Writing the World

relate with it, thus being a meaningful presence instead of a neutral fact. If in the previous phases this was understood and gathered, here these stories are actually constructed; any design is in itself a narrative that integrates, and thus changes, the overall narrative of a place. It is important then that this is done with awareness of the change and allowing for these meanings to develop, in this sense then inhabiting the world set forth and employing the light of the opening allows to define meaningful changes that donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t disrupt the existing but integrate and continue it. Furthermore, once one can deal with these stories, mythologies and psychologies of a place, they can become a driver of the design informing its many choices and giving a set of rules, or better of indications, by which one can feed the creativity of the design and steer it on the right path. Storytelling then, the development of a narrative integrated into the place, is particularly effective not only in gathering the understanding during the previous phases but also in shaping it for the design. Finally, this act of inhabiting is carried out with literature because of the possibilities it offers, particularly because it allows to create, or simulate, a situation of being-in-the-world, of literally inhabiting this world set forth. This matter is very important because this is not a purely intellectual exercise, or rather it does not involve only the brain as an abstract thinking presence. One has to inhabit the world because literature here takes on a

1. THEORY

phenomenological gaze to allow us to think of something not only with our brain but with our senses. “Being-in-the-world is thus beyond any subject-object dichotomy; it is neither first-personal (subjective) nor third-personal (objective), an existential structure that remains prior to all abstractions.”1 This generates an understanding that is similar to Bachelard’s inter-subjectivity; the role of the designer is thus that of the translator, a point of contact between the existing the place - and the projected - the design. THE DESIGNER AS A TRANSLATOR The designer in this approach to design acts as a medium, as the pivoting point between the matter at hand - the site, the brief, the theme and so on - and the project to be. By inhabiting the world one extracts from it something new, being at the same time reader and writer, that is, a translator. That of the designer is therefore an active role, of course, but not one of imposition; rather than imposing something new on the site, the design has to reveal existing qualities and make them emerge in itself, the existing and the new are thus joined, attuned. The goal of the designer then is the same of the musician who says that a good song is one that nobody has ever heard before but everybody recognises. This recognition is the key, it shows that something is attuned, that is, in concert with the constituent elements of a place; the designer has thus to translate 1 A. Perez-Gomez, Attunement, p.143

Writing the World

this attunement into the project. To use the words of Perez-Gomez: “Ancient Greek and Roman architects inscribed (grapheien) geometrical figures (resonant with a superhuman order) into tòpos (place). In so doing they contributed to the disclosure of qualities already present and recognised in the experience of places. To varying degrees, the place recognised and named as the site was a central part of the architecture’s meaning, of its appropriate presence or “atmosphere”, conductive to culturally attuned rituals.”1 Of course, this does not mean that the design is neutral, not at all. This act of translation is an authoring one; the designer, acting as the connection between place and design is the one translating a sense of place into a novel element which is constructed out of the existing reality. The authorship is therefore an act of sensibility, a way of grasping the right elements that are present and combining them in concert. The prerequisites for this to happen, all the materials needed, are already present from the previous phases; in this step of the process the designer works with what he has, moulding the materials with the help of the literary tools that will be introduced soon. One needs then to identify oneself with the effect one wants to create, with the elements it is made by and the relations it needs to establish, the narrative it wants to unfold. By doing so such design is in itself a poetic image, a powerful one because of its ontology and its deep connection with its 1 A. Perez-Gomez, Attunement, p.115

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context. The translation between literature and architecture, word and form, is made through the thinking body, as defined by Merleau-Ponty, by exploiting that sense of being in the world; a “super-brain” that envelops poetic sensibility, memory, sensations, habits, ideas, values and all that makes one’s being and presence. It is through that, because all is related to it, that one can enact this translation; when they are inhabited in this way, a text and a drawing are not the same thing but they can communicate and integrate each other through the common point they find in the gemüt of the designer; gemüt being “the threshold of consciousness to the world and the self, the place of an integrated perception, imagination and memory. If it is disrupted, harmony must be re-established in alignment with nature. This became the calling of poetry and architecture.”1 THE TOOLS OF LANGUAGE It is a core argument of this paper that language has a gnosiological quality, it is able to unveil structures of place, meanings, relationship, values. So far it has been shown as an amazing exploratory tool to understand reality in its multifaceted qualities but it can be used also to generate and reorganize those qualities. Indeed, human imagination is primarily linguistic, our way of thought is inextricably connected to language; that is why writing, just like sketching, is a way to engage mind and creativity. It is done so in the previous phase of the design 1 A. Perez-Gomez, Attunement, p.92

Writing the World

the name of the mountain reveals its essence; Zielspitz is roughly translated in â&#x20AC;&#x153;target peakâ&#x20AC;?

1. THEORY

see Volume 3

process, where one is looking for inspiration, for a concept to colour the understanding of things; in this phase writing, and language in general, is used to engage the mind in generating the actual design and it furnishes multiple tools and approaches to do so. First of all, there are many different kinds of writing divided into the two big groups of poem and prose. One can engage in descriptive analysis to delve into the material and physical aspects of the design; manifesto and in general prescriptive writing sets the general idea, the abstraction connected with reality of what something is, in its most absolute sense; experiential descriptions, in first or third person, engage with the relation between person and space. These are only three large categories that show some of the many different ways in which literary approaches can be employed to construct an homogeneous image to drive the design. Literature, in its multifacetedness, allows to approach the design matter from many different point of views; the design can therefore be approached and developed not only in its different parts but in its many connotations as well. These different point of views, different kind of literary texts, are defined by various categories, that is because many are the factors that influence what a text is and therefore what are its analytical and generative properties. The point of view, be it descriptive or manifesto, experiential or abstract, is the first main determinant of a text but it doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t stop there, style for example is an-

Writing the World

other important element. Different styles of writing in fact, can deal with the matter in different ways and even more, they lead the work differently. When considering writing as a way to engage the mind, all of these things are very important to define the way in which this engagement happens, influencing the results it produces. Thus the same subject of a text can not only be approached from different point of views but these in turn can be engaged in different ways; automatic writing instead of metric poetry, flux of conscience or pseudo-objective account are just a few examples of the different ways in which this can be carried out. Language engages the mind and it can do so in many different ways, to generalize it does so according to the point of view it takes - be it experiential, descriptive, prescriptive and so on - and in tune with the mode of approach of such point of view - the way in which the writing is carried out. Taking a step back though, in a more generalised sense language does have its own tools, its rhetoric figures. Some of them are more suited for a certain point of view or style or they may change according to it; metaphors and analogies, for example, thrive in poetry but struggle to fit into objective descriptions; a narrative is the backbone of a story but may be of hindrance to a free play of associations. As for all of the tools and the approaches presented here, one has to try and test them, to see what works, and how, and where. There is a limit up to which logic can

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see the declination of the three libraries in Volume 2 according to the character of their mode of dwelling

guide to understand the possibilities of these different approaches, after that it is a matter of sensibility, of seeing what happens and being able to learn from it. One of the most widely employable rhetoric tools is that of the character, not only because it can be used in different ways in many kinds of text but also because character in itself can mean many things and encompass a wide variety of applications. A character in a narrative is one of the actors, but it does not necessarily have to be a living one; a house in a story can be a very important character of the overall narrative, even the most important if one thinks of some of Poeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s stories for example.1 Character though is also associated with atmosphere, with the qualities of a being, a place, a thing; to define a character means to find the essence of something in all the separated qualities it is made of, it means to deeply understand a very complex thing at once as a whole and as its many parts. Character thus is a powerful instrument to grasp and define what something is, for example a new building in a city or the presence of a certain setting, thus helping to deal with the elements of the design in a personified way, as we do in our everyday life sometimes without even noticing. Personifying the aspects of reality we deal with is in fact a way to construct our understanding of things but most of all our relations with it, thus it does not sound strange when somebody says that a certain 1â&#x20AC;&#x192; See for example The Fall of the House of Usher, in E.A. Poe, Complete Tales and Poems

Writing the World

words, topoi and analogies employed in the preliminary phase of the design

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place looks cheerful for example, even though a children room can hardly posses any feelings. By creating characters, both of existing settings and projected ones, one is able to deal with the existing atmospheres and values in order to fit new ones into it, to deal with their interactions and test different possibilities; because it covers such a wide range of aspects, it tries to define the essence of something, it can be an incredible tool to attune a design element in its parts. That is, once a character is defined for a design matter, this set of qualities can be employed to define a detail as well as a massing, the character of a building can be used to see how it should relate to its neighbours but also how it should be dressed and what are the things it does, why it does them and how. To make an evident example of this, lets think of the ancient Greek and Roman architecture and their orders; they can be considered as the primordial characters of architecture, at least in their being actually defined in theory and practice. Doric, Ionic, Corinthian and so on can be understood simply as proportion rules for a balanced building but this is only the most superficial interpretation; they were considered to be the actual character of the building, associated with the function it should host - the kind of God or institution for example - or the reason for which it was being built.1 Its set of rules is not prescriptive but only indicative, there is no ancient building that follows 1â&#x20AC;&#x192; See Vitruviusâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Ten Books on Architecture

Writing the World

them to the letter - not even the Palladian ones for that matter - but the character of the building, be it stern, joyful, lush, is declined on the site according to the matter at hand, each time moulded by the designer. In fact, the orders were associated to actual human characters, the ionic for example being that of the maid. The most important, or at least the most well known, rhetoric figure could not be missing here and it is indeed a very important and powerful one. To use Ricoeur’s words “metaphor is to poetic language what the model is to scientific language”1. Indeed, following this statement, metaphor is the base of the gnosiological quality of literature and as such one of the cores that allows this literary approach to work. A metaphoric description, in fact, is not something that colours of poetic light some physical matter, nor it is a distortion of reality to accommodate some external meaning put there by the author. If we considered the way in which we relate with the world that is advocated throughout this whole thesis, metaphorical understanding is what allows to bridge the objective and the subjective, that is to give place in the physical world to things that belong to the abstract one, or rather to be able to see the physical as something other than what simply appears. A metaphor indeed is a “way of looking at things”, it is what unveils the essence of worlds and words. While writing, the use of a metaphor allows to bring design elements and concepts 1 A. Perez-Gomez, Attunement, p.184

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the building as a human character

Writing the World

The power and value of narrative has been already discussed in more that one part of this thesis, that is because it has and incredibly wide range of application and declination but also because it is one of the most important element to ground a design in a place; it may be done consciously or not, through literature or any other mean, but it still is a fundamental way of how places work and how we relate to them. In the previous phases narrative is an act of discovery and disclosure,

see Mountain Libraryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s poem on Volume 3

in relation and to deal with them in ways that would not be possible otherwise. If we consider perception as metaphorical, imbued with meanings and relations, our understanding of the world is so as well, at least in part; to know one needs both poetry and science, the metaphor and the model. In this way it is possible to deal with things and matters that would otherwise be irreducible to a controllable state; one understands what one means by saying that the facade of a house salutes the morning sun - because indeed metaphoric thinking is something we do as much as objective thinking - but what are the architectural implications of such a facade is not knowable if one does not develop and explore the metaphor. Metaphor helps us imagine things, to see them as something; the metaphor is what allows to shine the light of the opening of the design, to reveal its full image; metaphors thus allow also to move from the verbal, the written, to the non verbal, the drawn or modelled.

this was the case for the Foothill Library and the definition of its program. (see Volume 3, Living the Library)

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it reveals what is already there, it is an act of reading even when in order to be unveiled it is written. At this phase, instead, narrative is used as a way to project the design into the existing, to shape its inner and outer workings. As with all of these tools, it is a way to engage the mind, in this case in the way things relate and are structure among each other. Writing narratives thus helps to ground a design into its social and cultural settings, but also to define its volumes, functions, details. From the way in which you approach a building to the recurrence of a certain detail, narrative can help define even the function of a place; a narrative in fact has its own logic, it guides the writer and thus the design, it helps making sense of things by having to make them work together under a overreaching idea. In this sense narrative is an efficient way to make new elements arise from given ones, to let the mind engage itself; an example of this is the writer who says that it was not up to him but a certain story wanted to go that way, or that a character had to end up in a certain way. In the design this particular way in which a narrative engages creativity is employed to generate the design; in the narrative one can feed all inputs like a big melting pot that will force them to a single coherent logic. Thus the story becomes a machine, driven by the designer and fuelled by all he has gathered, leading to the design. Sometimes it is a way to elaborate concepts and give them place, value, order; at other times it is

Writing the World

These are the main tools of language that have been used in this research and that constitute the theoretical basis for what is argued, the actual instruments that allow the literary approach to be. They are not, though, the only ones; if one explores the work of other architects, looks for suggestion in literary and philosophical theory, the ways in which one can employ literature in architectural design are quite many, from the most banal to the most complex. Although this is not the place to make a list of the different practical ways in which literature is employable in design, it must be said that any application of this approach is always facing the risk of resulting in banalities or empty rhetoric. That is where the two previous phases come to help, to corroborate

see the poem Reveries at the end of this volume

a way to force a choice, to clear the way in which to consider something or to understand what can be saved and what has to be discarded. The happier and fruitful occurrence though - although, alas, the rarest as well - is when the story unveils, or rather generates, something new out of its materials, a result which is not equal to the sum of its parts. This is part of what has been called an illumination in the previous chapter, it is the stereotypical light bulb going off in oneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s head that makes you see things for the first time as if they were already there. This should not be considered an arbitrary choice because de facto it is not a choice. It is a light that comes from deep within the caves of our mind whose brightness we should cherish and protect.

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the approach and keep it in check. All of these tools - metaphors, characters, styles and so on - are used inside the milieu that is created by the designer in the previous phases. In here, the different literary tools find their own place and scope, each element is reconnected to the whole by the designer and is always tested in accordance to the logic of that milieu, that is, the essence of the design. Associations are therefore no longer arbitrary but part of a bigger, somehow causal world - although of course the freedom of the designer is always present, it is up to him to abide to the logic of the world he has created. Each of these tools therefore find their place in the toolbox of the designer who uses them according to the bigger whole of the project, thus discarding novelty or banality. Of course this is not a guarantee of success nor of a perfectly functioning mechanism; as in any approach to a creative process the abilities of the designer, its capacity to set forth a world, to tune it and attune to it, are what in the end defines the goodness of a design. TEXTS AND DRAWINGS Finally, although this is a research on a literary approach to design, the design is not carried out only through texts. It is in this phase that the most important translation from the word to the figure happens, from texts to drawings. More than that, this relation is a mutual one, texts are translated into drawings which

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spatial concept from text elaborated through drawing

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Drawing and writing are both ways of engaging the mind, in this phase this engagement has to meet, to establish a dialogue so that a textual understanding can go into the drawing and vice versa. One last important

102

thus the inconsistencies between texts and design that can be found in this work arise from this problem. The only goal being the design they have been kept in order to show the process.

in turn are translated into texts. The whole process is a continuous reworking from one to the other and back. Indeed, literature has all the advantages that have been discussed until here, but still, a design needs to be expressed in drawings, an architect needs to translate the atmosphere into a material shape; in this approach it happens between texts and drawings. This translation from text to drawing is not though a direct reduction or linear translation, the poetic image is always present and it is what informs the drawing and what completes it at the same time while that is the same the other way around. Like with Ledoux, Hejduk, Rossi or Holl, the text is never exhausted by the drawing but it remains as the light that illuminates the otherwise empty space on paper. At this point in the process, in fact, one has to join all that is going to define the emerging design, to tie together functions with atmospheres, volumes with details, narratives with places. It is indeed the messiest part of the whole process and the most complex ones; one needs to be aware of the fact that something working very well on a text may not be satisfying when translated to a drawing, or very simply one may struggle to make the translation itself and therefore goes back to the text to approach it from a different point of view.

Writing the World

thing that needs to be mentioned at this point though is that the goal is the design. It may be obvious to say so but what it means is that the aim of this approach, what it aspires to produce, is an architectural design. As such it is important to be aware of what is the goal and what are the means; in this sense a lot of texts that were developed in the process were not necessarily finished, whereas the drawings needed for the design to be executed need to be concluded and complete. This means that in the loop process between texts and drawings the end will almost always be on the drawing, or any other means of architectural production. Of course as much as drawings and models are used to convey a design an important part of the designer work before actually realising the design - texts can be employed as well and in a very fruitful way. Still, one needs to remember, after all this work on texts, that an architect builds buildings, and if he writes he does so in order to make better architecture, not literature.

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The literary approach Conclusions and considerations I am a dreamer of words, of written words. I think I am reading; a word stops me. I leave the page. The syllables of the word begin to move around. Stressed accents begin to invert. The word abandons its meaning like an overload which is too heavy and prevents dreaming. Then words take on other meanings as if they had the right to be young. And the words wander away, looking in the nooks and crannies of vocabulary for new company, bad company. What a lot of minor conflicts we must resolve upon returning from vagabond reverie to reasonable vocabulary! And it is worse when, instead of reading, I begin to write. Under the pen, the anatomy of syllables slowly unfolds. The word lives syllable by syllable, in danger of internal reveries. The problem remains how to maintain the word intact, constricting it to its habitual servitude in the projected sentence, a sentence which will perhaps be crossed off in the manuscript. Doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t reverie ramify the sentence which has been begun? A word is a bud attempting to become a twig. How can one not dream while writing? It is the pen which dreams. The blank page gives the right to dream. If only one could write for himself alone. How hard is the destiny of a maker of books! He has to cut and sew up in order to make ideas follow logically. But when one writes a book on reverie, has the time not come to let the pen run, to let reverie speak, and better yet to dream the reverie at the same time one believes he is transcribing it? G. Bachelard, The Poetics of Reverie

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The Literary Approach

The aim of this graduation was that of developing an approach to architectural design that employs literature, understood both as a written text and as the act of writing, as a core tool for design. This intention stems from a double understanding of what a master thesis in architecture should be; on the one hand the conclusion of an academic path that leads to the formation of an architect and on the other hand the definition, for oneself, of what kind of architect one wants to be. In this sense, employing literature in architecture is a way of merging two profound interests into one, in doing so one reflects on the way in which architecture is produced and what are the position one takes in the larger architectural and social milieu. As such, the results of the thesis have first of all a personal value, the whole work has been carried out as a way of positioning oneself and defining that position, from theory to materials, approaches and methods. As a result of writing the Theory Thesis on these themes, literature was identified as an extremely useful and powerful tool to approach this aspects of space, both to understand and to create them; many architects have used it in different and more or less obscure ways to drive, explain or understand their designs. Such examples, along with the reading of architectural theory and philosophy - especially from the branch of phenomenology - served as the starting point to define an approach to design that would employ literature and suit

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the designer. The research thus proved to be at the same time the exploration of a method and of the figure of the designer, one unveiling the other as the process of trial and error - of research through design - unveiled the workings of the approach and the way in which they could be fruitfully employed. This exploration started as a “leap of faith”, lead by Bachelard’s Poetics of Space as inspiration and Havik’s Urban Literacy as academic grounding; the possibility of such an approach wasn’t certain and most importantly the practical ways in which it could be carried out were unknown. The research on the literary approach was therefore carried out with a “research through design” approach, were the use of the literary tools in the design practice and the reflection of their meaning and values influence each other and are carried out in parallel. The whole thesis can be seen as a way of finding a mediation between architecture and literature, but also between the place and the function, between subjectivity and objectivity, between inspiration and logic. To find a mediation between the different matters and themes that compose an architectural work, to define their part and the ways in which they are substantiated into matter and space is nothing other that to find what the architect is. That is the goal that drives the whole exploration and that defines the graduation, to find how one can make architecture and what that means. In doing so one

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The Literary Approach

is forced to position himself in regard to a wide array of themes and problems, to take a stand and define oneself as an architect. Architecture being a creative art - among other things - makes it absolutely dependent from a self, as the source of that creativity, and it is fundamental to understand that self and its relation to certain modes of creativity in order to deal with architecture in a conscious and fruitful way. In terms of design this led to a elemental approach, that is a strive towards the essence of architectural matters, be them formal, programmatic or material. Archetypes thus become milestones that lead the exploration and mark the infinite milieu of architectural possibilities, spatial configurations and the understanding of their relations to a program or an atmosphere are first stripped to the bone and then reconstructed out of a newly generated sensibility for the matter at hand. This kind of approach was helped and fuelled by the use of literature, in its many forms, throughout the design process; a poem, to make an symptomatic example, reduces what it observes to the essence without though depriving it of its density of meanings and relations. Practically speaking, this architectural exploration was carried out employing the two main themes of the design as the two opposite poles of a fluctuating movement; considering the architect as an authoring medium that translates into space a whole series of considerations - social, formal, aesthetic, technical and so on - in

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the design he is the pivot between the mountain and the book. That is between the place - Merano in the Italian Alps - with all its connotations and the program - a library - with all its values and meanings. Because of this, the design was divided into three libraries which “climb” the mountain, from the valley to its high ridges, passing from the foothills, thus exploring the merging of place and function, the application of an abstract idea - that of the library - to a palimpsest of meanings that is the place, the Heimat, the genius loci. In doing so, the three designs, or rather the design in its three declinations, allowed for a more varied understanding of architecture, its relation to the methods of production and the place it takes in the world. Architectural devices and methodological tools thus become fixed points that lead the understanding of the architecture and the way in which it is dealt with. Again literature proved to be an extremely useful tool in gaining this understanding and in leading this kind of approach; indeed language forces “a way of looking at things” which can be employed to structure an understanding of the design and its relation with its references and influences. The final result of this graduation are thus not the three designs, which were always used as means to an end, but an understanding of architecture and its tools that covers the whole design process, from analysis to scenario and the relation between architectural prob-

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The Literary Approach

lems and the ways in which different tools can be addressed. Each of the three designs are thus the result of a poem and three texts of different kinds, along with drawings and visualisation, and they are all tied together and with the research by a more general texts that sums them up and puts them in place. In doing all this the relation between the different tools, modes, materials, influences and techniques becomes clear and is made explicit in what is the end result of the graduation, these four volumes that are a gaze into the way of designing, tracing a mind map that is not a path or a hierarchy but rather a constellation with its myriad of different connections.

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Reveries The thinker as a poet In a way this poem is a second version of the conclusion of the previous chapter. It is the summary, through poetic means, of what this book tries to explain in an academic way. Although much more hermetic, it is also much more vast and open; in a way a second take on theory, where the thinker is the poet.

To dream a world of words and words that are worlds. To play with memory and feelings, the mindâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s hand searching, feeling, grasping; scraping. To weave like a spider with threads of thoughts and colours spanning textures over scales, things and thoughts. To daydream is to feel on the skin of the mind. To design is to inhabit a world before its existence. Dreaming is thinking, reflection is a walk along corridors in open fields. Real and unreal;

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Reveries

a reverie of a memory from a future time. I step into this world eyes open and hands forward, the skin prickles with the gust of a restless thought. I breathe the atmosphere of a universe of neurons lungs, skin, hands, eyes. I return with a stone in my pocket dripping memories and moods. I feel around with many hands, mouths, noses, ears, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s all the mindâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s skin no distinction, no lip or lobe in a world of points. Darkness smells, of musty rock the sound of light entering windows drips down the walls. Walls made of memories and taste like beach cabins I never visited or flags I never saw. Like a bird in its nest my skin is the world, and as I move it moves and change and I move.

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One has to squint, to breathe the thick air blown by flickering images. A sound moves in the air, shapes the confines of my room, the words of my speech. Homeliness is but a flickering moment between frustration and exaltation. Thus I move, looking for the balance for a place that has to be and is not yet. It coagulates and explodes again, like a storm of birds. When the air vibrates and the skin of the mindâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s body prickles with the whole world, the atoms are tuned the crystal glass sings a reverberation, the song of the mind, that is body. I bring my body with me in the pocket, a compass to navigate the density of perception. I think with my eyes and ears and with my hands and feet

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and with my nose and mouth. To think a flower is to see and smell it, to eat a fruit is to taste its meaning. I keep my memories close at hand to filter the blinding light of the world I create, at each blink of my own many eyes. To design, to dream, to live, to feel, to sense your body under the light of the world in the cave of your brain.

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Bibliography A library to design a library As it should be clear, in a work like this one, a bibliography has an importance much higher than usual. The books presented here are not mere references or guides, they are the real sources out of which the project and the thesis have been developed, they are one of the two poles of the whole work, on one side the book, on the other the landscape - the mountain. This mountain of books is then divided, as explained in the introductory chapter, in three main fields and a fourth miscellaneous one; architecture, literature and philosophy are the tripod on which this whole work stands.

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PHILOSOPHICAL •

Aristotele. (2010). Poetica. Milano: Bompiani.

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Arnheim, R. (2011). Arte e percezione visiva. Milano: Feltrinelli.

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Bachelard, G. (1971). The Poetics of Reverie. Boston: Beacon Press.

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Bachelard, G. (1994). The Poetics of Space. Boston: Beacon Press.

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Davidson, P. (2016). The Idea of North. London: Reaktion Books.

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De Botton, A. (2007). The architecture of happiness. London: Penguin Books.

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Dewey, J. (2005). Art as Experience. New York: Penguin.

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Eco, U. (2013). Opera Aperta. Bompiani.

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Healy, P. (2003). Bachelard: The Phenomenology of the Image. In P. Healy, Beauty and the sublime (p. 105-113). Amsterdam: SUN.

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Heidegger, M. (2008). Basic Writings. New York: Routledge.

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Heidegger, M. (2012). Soggiorni. Parma: Guanda.

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Heidegger, M. (2013). Poetry, Language, Thought. New York: Harper Perennial.

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•

Merleau-Ponty, M. (2012). Phenomenology of Perception. New York: Routledge.

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Settis, S. (2012, September-October). Aby Warburg, il demone della forma. Accessed October 2015 from engramma.it: http://www.engramma.it/eOS2/index.php?id_articolo=1139

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Severino, E. (2003). Tecnica e architettura. Milano: Raffaello Cortina Editore.

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Taylor, M. C. (1986). Deconstruction in Context. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

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Tilley, C. (1994). A phenomenology of landscape. Oxford/Providence: Berg.

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Valéry, P. (1977). Man and the seashell. In P. Valéry, An Anthology (p. 108-135). London: Routledge.

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Valery, P. (1988). Eupalino o dell’architettura. Pordenone: Edizioni Biblioteca dell’Immagine.

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ARCHITECTURAL •

Aureli, P. V. (2011). The possibility of an absolute architecture. Cambridge: MIT Press.

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Böhme, G. (2013). Atmospheres as mindful physical presence in space. OASE #91 - Building Atmospheres, 33-52.

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Böhme, G. (2013). Encountering Atmospheres. OASE #91 - Building Atmospheres, 93-100.

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Cruz, F. (s.d.). Una clase de la Observación. Accessed at ead.pucv.cl: http://www.ead.pucv.cl/carreras/unaclase-de-la-observacion/

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Havik, K. (2006). Lived Experience, Places Read: Toward an urban literacy. OASE #70 - Architecture & Literature, 37-49.

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Havik, K. (2014). An introduction to literary methods in architectural design. In A. V.v., Delft Lecture Series on Architectural Design (p. 74-85). Delft: TU Delft.

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Havik, K. (2014). Urban Literacy: reading and writing architecture. Rotterdam: nai010.

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Havik, K., Teerds, H., & Tielsen, G. (2013). Editorial: Building Atmospheres. OASE #91 - Building Atmospheres, 3-12.

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Holl, S. (1989). Anchoring. New York: Princeton Architectural Press.

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Holl, S. (1996). Intertwining. New York: Princeton

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Architectural Press. •

Holl, S., Pallasmaa, J., & Pèrez-Gòmez, A. (2006). Questions of perception: phenomenology of architecture. San Francisco: William Stout Publishers.

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Koolhaas, R. (1997). Delirious New York: A Retroactive Manifesto for Manhattan. New York: Monacelli Press.

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Lobsinger, M. L. (2002). That Obscure Object of Desire: Autobiography and Repetition in the Work of Aldo Rossi. Grey Room, No. 8, 38-61.

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Lootsma, B., & Cuyvers, W. (1995). Wim Cuyvers. Antwerp: deSingel.

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Norberg-Schulz, C. (1980). Genius Loci - Towards a phenomenology of architecture. New York: Rizzoli.

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Norberg-Schulz, C. (1983). Heidegger’s Thinking on Architecture. Perspecta, 61-68.

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O’ Byrne, B., & Healy, P. (2008). Architecture and Phenomenology. Footprint 3, p. 1-5.

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Olgiati, V. (2015). The Images of Architects. Basel: The Name Books.

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Olmo, C. (1988). Across the Texts. Assemblage, N. 5, 90-121.

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Pèrez-Gòmez, A. (2002). Phenomenology and Virtual Space. Alternative Tactics for Architectural Practice. OASE #58 - The Visible and the Invisible, 35-57.

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Pérez-Gomez, A. (2016). Attunement, architectural meaning after the crisis of modern science. Cambridge: MIT Press.

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Pizzagalli, S., Privilegio, N., & Schoonderbeek, M. (2013). Space, poetics and voids. Delft: Architectura & Natura Press.

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Plummer, H. (2009). The Architecture of Natural Light. London: Thames & Hudson.

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Rasmussen, S. E. (1959). Experiencing Architecture. New York: M.I.T. Press - John Wiley & Sons.

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Rizzi, R. (2010). John Hejduk: Incarnatio. Venezia: Marsilio.

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Rizzi, R. (2014). Il daimon di architettura. Milano: Mimesis.

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Rossi, A. (1978). L’Architettura della Città. Milano: Clup.

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Rossi, A. (2008). Disegni. Milano: Skira.

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Rossi, A. (2009). Autobiografia Scientifica. Milano: Il Saggiatore.

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Rossi, A. (2012). Scritti scelti sull’architettura e la città 1956-1972. Macerata: Quodlibet.

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Rossi, A., & Huet, B. (1997). Architecture, Furniture and Some of My Dogs. Perspecta, Vol. 28, Architects. Process. Inspiration, 94-113.

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Stout, F. (2014). Tout est poesie. Eindhoven.

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Turan, B. (1998). Is “Rational” KNowledge of Architecture Possible? Science and Poiesis in “L’Architettura della Città”. Journal of Architectural Education, Vol. 51, No. 3, 158-165.

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Utzon, J. (1962). Platforms and plateaus. Zodiac.

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Zermani, P. (2010). Oltre il muro di gomma. Reggio Emilia: Diabasis.

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Zumthor, P. (2008). Atmosfere. Milano: Electa.

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Zumthor, P. (2010). Thinking Architecture. Basel: Birkhäuser.

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Alessiato, E. (s.d.). Thomas Mann tra mare e montagna. Accessed at academia.edu: https://www.academia. edu/9697316/Thomas_Mann_tra_mare_e_montagna

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Aste, A. (2000). Pilastri del Cielo. Chiari: Nordpress.

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Auden, W. H. (1987). The Dyer’s Hand. London: Faber&Faber.

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Auden, W. H. (2009). Selected Poems. London: Faber&Faber.

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Baudelaire, C. (2009). I fiori del male. Milano: Mondadori.

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Blake, W. (2002). Collected Poems. New York: Routledge.

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Blixen, K. (1978). Sette storie gotiche. Milano: Adelphi.

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Blixen, K. (2001). Winter’s Tales. London: Penguin.

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Borges, J. L. (2000). Labyrinths. London: Penguin.

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Brodskij, I. (1991). Fondamenta degli incurabili. Milano: Adelphi.

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Brodskij, I. (1996). Poesie Italiane. Milano: Adelphi.

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Canetti, E. (1980). La lingua salvata. Milano Adelphi.

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Canetti, E. (1982). Il frutto del fuoco. Milano: Adelphi.

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Canetti, E. (1985). Il gioco degli occhi. Milano: Adelphi.

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