Юрий Погудин – Synthesis of Architectural Form. From Meaning to Concept (страница 5)
A. F. Losev often uses the word "
It can be said that sculpture is an organically inherent quality of many architectural works in their centuries-long development, from the Egyptian pyramids to the modernism of K. Melnikov and A. Aalto. The turn of the 20–21 centuries, marked by the rapid development of computer modeling, was the beginning of a fundamentally new architectural aesthetic.
The followers of modern Western architectural thought are characterized by pedaling the binary scheme of their new look and classical and modernist architectural paradigms, which are now combined into one type. Thus, the philosopher and mathematician of the early 20th century Alfred North Whitehead argued that "Process, not substance, is the fundamental characteristic of reality" [45, 88]. In the semantic field of Aleksei Fyodorovich Losev, such a "clash" of opposites is perceived as a commitment to formal logic that shall be overcome on the path of dialectical logic: One, Being, Becoming… There is no opposition of "what" and "how", but rather their transition into synthesis (Becoming and Having Become). This is a synthesizing thought, not an opposing one; a thought that has the intuition of unitotality as its inner message (Vl. Solovyov) and the higher synthesis of happiness and knowledge (A. Losev).
The concepts of symbiosis and alliance are similar in meaning to the category of synthesis in modern theoretical thought. So, Jeffrey Kipnis outlines a synthetic direction: "Folding" is a strategy for creating "smooth mixtures", according to which something fundamentally new can be created from two or more qualitatively different types of structural organization. For example, a homogeneous modernist "grid" can enter into a symbiotic connection with a hierarchically ordered structure" [41, 602-603].
A radically contrasting position was taken by Patrik Schumacher in the Parametricist Manifesto [69], who formulates opposition to modernism as taboo: "Avoid rigid geometric primitives like squares, triangles and circles, avoid simple repetition of elements, avoid juxtaposition of unrelated elements or systems… We might think of liquids in motion, structured by radiating waves, laminal flows, and spiraling eddies… There are no platonic, discrete figures or zones with sharp outlines" [69].
The modernist type of forms, and with it the entire ancient type of form perception, is declared obsolete, discrete, and rigidly regular. Turning to Losev's thought, we see that the ancient understanding is much deeper than such a parametric reduction of Antiquity to a single Euclidean type. A. F. Losev expressed the idea of the heterogeneity of space most fully in his work "The Ancient Cosmos and Modern Science": "Space has varying degrees of tension and is completely heterogeneous. Only metaphysical prejudices and blind dogma could make us believe for centuries that space had an absolute character. Space is just as compressible and expandable as a physical thing in a commonly understood space. Here, it is not the qualities of absolute space that are heterogeneous, but space itself is devoid of absoluteness and is relative everywhere, i.e., it depends on various other conditions" [1, 226].
If in understanding the heterogeneity of space it is possible to find a common point between the ancient cosmos and parametericism, then the concept of "seamless" takes us away from "sculptural" and "figurative" in the opposite direction from the classical understanding. This is "a new type of form that has absorbed all the dynamics of its own generation, tending to a kind of "
Let's summarize our comparison in a table of key concepts:
P. Schumacher speaks of a "seamless fluidity akin to natural systems." There is a fundamental difference in how an architectural form correlates with nature. If parametricism and bionics in many of their searches follow the path of maximum similarity and, in fact, literal copying and non–symbolic reproduction of biological forms in their external fluidity and curvilinear complexity, and sometimes a certain kind of
Moving away from the binary scheme of "primitive classical and modernist form" – "flowing seamless intricate complex parametric form", in the following discussion we will outline an exit to the aesthetics of a dialectically organized form combining classically clear forms and modern complex geometry, without "entanglement", which is uncomfortable for a person's psychological sense of self8, and depressing similarities with certain types of biological forms (such as forms of insects, invertebrates, internal organs, arteries, etc.)
The symbol expresses, reveals the prototype. In the word "revealing", one can feel the shape of a ray: it is a ray of light passing through other medium. In "folding", one can see a bend. A "fold" is a logical figure that brings a certain variety to a conditional uniformity. Discrete elements are absorbed by it, merged into continuity. "The "fold" does not tolerate gaps" [41, 600].
Here we can recall the antinomies of Father Pavel Florensky – examples of precisely thought gaps. The first such gap is the ontological difference between the Creator and creature in theism. In this context, the concepts of "seamless" and "fluid", which do not tolerate discontinuities, correlate with pantheism, for which being is both the cosmos and the absolute, which are consubstantially generating each other. The symbol is present, when there is an ontological abyss between the Creator and created world with a completely different nature.
Meaning can be expressed in words, sounds, forms, etc. The leading meaningful role in A. F. Losev's philosophy is given to the word. It originates in the Gospel of John and patristic thought. St. Gregory of Nyssa emphasized that man is a verbal being9. Hence, let's formulate the fundamental principle of the updated architectural propaedeutics: