The Three Forces That Create an Art Object
A work of art is born at the intersection of three forces: this is a visual, sensory and logical principle. The role of sensory and visual principles is well known. The effect of the verbal and logical, ideal and semantic component is less obvious. Thus, A. G. Rappaport notes: "Perhaps it is precisely the lack of experience in the logical study of professional thinking that has led to the fact that it has become customary that verbal forms of thought are underestimated and thinking in images is set in opposition to them" [67]. Next, we will try to substantiate the importance of the word and conceptual logic in architectural form generation – it is no less than the importance of three–dimensional images as such and materials / structures.
The Basis of the Method Is a Dialectical Triad, a Synthesis
When we think of modern architecture, we are in two minds: from the edge that it can do anything (conquer gravity and explore other planets) to the edge that it is a thing of the past, when one can hear that "there is no longer a recognized formal concept", but there is a "chimerical consciousness", and "it cannot create a form, it does not believe in it" [68]. We can say that the destiny (as the path, not the fate) of architecture is the destiny of form. Architecture exists as long as there is a form and there is a will to create a form, and architecture degenerates into something else (for example, a mirror or a screen) when the concept of the form is devalued, ceases to be a worthy task, and is replaced by a game or imitation.
Two forces inspired the author to propose a discussion to dear readers – the love of architecture and the philosophy of Aleksei Fyodorovich Losev. The thoughts outlined here run the risk, in the words of Grigory Revzin, of remaining marginal "both in relation to architectural studies, which are not engaged in philosophy, and in relation to philosophy, which is not interested in architectural studies [italics mine Yu.P.]" [29, 7].
But there is a third area for which the thoughts of this book were honed – pedagogy: pre-university training of students – future designers and architects, and teaching architectural composition (propaedeutics) to first-year students of architectural design colleges and universities. The ultimate goal of this work is of an applied nature: it is intended to introduce form-generating architectural composition into the practice of teaching creative art.
N. F. Metlenkov draws attention to the fact that "creativity as a philosophical and psychological concept has not found a place in logic. Therefore, the theory of teaching creativity has not been worked out either. Project creativity is still taught in artisanal manner, only in the process of joint project activity of the teacher and the student" [35, 427]. The material of the proposed essays seeks to fill this gap and form a theoretical core for the application of the constructive dialectical method in architectural propaedeutics and at the design stage aimed at the compositional and artistic solution of the image of the future building.
The practical results of applying our method – selected works of the author and his students – are experimental in a positive sense of the word. According to A.P. Kudryavtsev, "it is necessary to look for all the latest methodological tools; there is no other way to new methodological tools except the path of experimentation; without experimentation, one cannot be in pedagogy today, that's why one must experiment, and experiment very actively, in all areas of architectural education" [36, 369].
In the context of the polemic of "formalists" and "functionalistic constructivists", the author's thoughts are more formal in nature and belong to the field of artistic form generation. Formalism as a phenomenon is rehabilitated in the works of S. O. Khan–Magomedov [25] and the ideas of Zaha Hadid's colleague Patrick Schumacher [48]. Formalism is harmful if it is the only approach, but it is fruitful to develop it as a significant part of an integrated design method..
Before proceeding to the main thoughts, let us clarify that the established connection between philosophical concepts and architectural categories belong mainly to categorical dialectics – one of the foundations of A. F. Losev's thinking. A. F. Losev's philosophy itself is broader, and represents a complex synthesis of dialectics, phenomenology, and other important structural and logical elements. It is his thoughts and works that the author refers to as the most familiar to him.
Revealing the understanding of the cosmos and space among the Greek philosophers, Aleksei Fyodorovich Losev wrote about its heterogeneity4, and on the one hand, contrasted it with "Newton's space"5, on the other – connected it with "Einstein's space". For modern physics, the vacuum turned out to be not an absolute void, but a medium with a generative force [71]. According to V. V. Rozanov, space contains the full potential of various forms: "… in every place of space there is a form of each given object; and, moving, it does not move its form with it <…>, but, having left it and thereby having made it potential again, it enters into a new form, identical to the previous one in appearance, but located in a different place in space – exactly in the place where it moved to. Thus, the apparent movement of a form is essentially a continuous concealment and detection of visible spatial forms along the path of a moving substance – concealment and detection accompanying the exit and entry of this substance from one form into another; so that the substance moves, but the forms remain motionless" [17, 162-163]. Space is the actual and potential repository of the whole infinity of all possible forms. With this understanding, the architect, creating a new form, actualizes the potency already contained in the space. It is important here to dwell on the idea that this infinity includes both harmonious and disharmonious forms. Similarly, musical instruments, such as the piano keyboard, contain the full potential of sounds, both euphonious and cacophonous.
New experiences in architectural morphogenesis are numerous, radical, and expanded to include the aesthetics of the ugly. The "lack of freedom" of a new level – dependence on technology – is one of the main reasons for the triumph of the ugly in twentieth-century art"6 (Bychkov V. V.). Reflecting on the role of computer modeling in creative searches, Alexander Ryabushin warned: "Today, "the computer allows you to try everything without building at all"… However, there are objective reasons for concern: each tool generates specific dependencies (and the more sophisticated it is, the stronger it is), and the identical programs from Silicon Valley can lead to an excessive convergence of the things that, by their very nature, should have originality, even in our [architectural – Yu.P.] field. The universality of streamlined whale-like outlines, suspiciously reminiscent of newfangled sports sneakers in their sleekness, is already beginning to confuse [33, 52]. If in the case of the resemblance to sneakers we can talk about an obsessive trend in the morphogenesis, then in the case of the aesthetics of forms resembling insects or internal organs7, it's time to recall the "Pandora's box". As I. A. Dobritsyna notes, "the non-linear logic of a computer has made it possible to build models of complex objects.… Gilles Deleuze turned out to be the closest of all other philosophers to non-linear science.… It is known that in his last works he already expressed concern about experiences of non-linear thinking, trying to propose ways out of the fascinating, but unusual and demonically uncomfortable world of non-linearity [italics mine Yu.P.]" [39, 9].
The most important antidotes to such inhumane aesthetics are the memory of the emotional and spiritual well-being of people in the designed and created new environment; the preservation of the art of live creative freehand drawing; the maintenance of classical ideals of beauty, proportion, harmony, integrity, which does not imply the impossibility of developing new architectural forms.
Before outlining an alternative aesthetic in its comparison with parametric and blob aesthetics, let's turn to the basic principles of architecture.
We encounter architecture as an art that has a direct and most complete communication with space. "Space, not stone, is the material of architecture," Nikolai Ladovsky formulated for centuries [25, 65-67]. Architecture, of course, acts as a repository for man and his activities [2, 122-123]. At the same time, while forming the space, architecture is revealed externally, and therefore it is an eidetic form, which means it has its own figurative face, image, and, in this sense, it is connected with a sculptural form, as N. Ladovsky convincingly argued: "Although space appears in all forms of art, only architecture makes it possible to read the space correctly. Structure is included in architecture insofar as it defines the concept of space. The basic principle of the designer is to invest a minimum of material and get maximum results. It has nothing to do with art and can only accidentally satisfy the requirements of architecture. Since architecture deals with space, and sculpture deals with form, it is best to design the building as a sculpture from the outside and as architecture from the inside, the thickness of the walls does not matter. With this approach to design, the exterior does not always express the internal content [italics mine Yu.P.]" [25, 67].
