What is 'timelessness' in architecture?

Whati s‘ t i me l e s s ne s s ’ i nar c hi t e c t ur e ?

Al ookt hr ought hee ye sof Chr i s t ophe rAl e xande randJuhaniPal l as ma

Ruc hi t aL.Ka npi l l e wa r

What is ‘timelessness’ in architecture?

A look through the eyes of Christopher Alexander and Juhani Pallasmaa

by Ruchita L. Kanpillewar

(Student ID: 1706707) Submitted on 10 January 2019 as part of MA Architecture Module name: Critical Issues in Architecture Tutor: Davide Deriu

CONTENTS

Introduction

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Chapter 1. ‘The Timeless Way of Building’

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Patterns and the pattern language

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Chapter 2. From the Industrial to the Egoless Way

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Chapter 3. Man and Environment

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The historical sense

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Chapter 4. The Material and the Self

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Chapter 5. Reflections

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Languages of alienation and familiarity

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Temporal Continuum

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Conclusion

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INTRODUCTION

“Form is nothing else but a concentrated wish for everlasting life on earth.”

(Aalto, no date, cited in Schildt, 1984, p. 192)

Time and the timeless Time―a concept that has escaped the resolute claws of human reason since the beginning of reason itself, comes back to haunt one’s lucidity, the moment it demands definition. In the studies of theoretical physics as well as psychoanalysis, temporal aspects of the material and psychic realms have regularly, even inevitably been viewed in relation with the spatial dimension.

Throughout human discourse, the phenomena of space and time have been very difficult to be captured in mutual isolation. Yet, we have been able to produce various explanations and understandings of the phenomenon of ‘time’, from different positions, and seem to share inexplicit consensus regarding a few.

Apart from the very difficult task of defining time, there is a term that poses a greater level of complication on that front. Time and again, this elusive phenomenon, called ‘timelessness’, appears in almost every creative field. Not to mention that on many occasions, the term has been used as a rhetoric, but some instances have justified their rationale for using the term to describe or speak of a particular entity. There are relatively very rare cases of any kind of explanation of ‘timelessness’, logical or otherwise. The term, irrespective of its definability, is often found in architectural discourse as well.

If architecture is understood as an undeniable union of space and time, and none can exist without the other―perhaps, technically, even attempting to imagine a time-less built space, would be futile. What then, exactly, do we mean when we regard and describe a building as ‘timeless’? In the generic sense, many great works of architecture have been widely said to have a certain timeless quality by virtue of numerous different factors, by different group of individuals. There exists a broad range of understanding of the single term, as it encompasses a wide area of concepts and interpretations. What is interesting is that designers, artists and architects seem to have always sought to create something unforgettable, iconic, everlasting, legendary, special and meaningful; and all of these adjectives somehow overlap with our general notion of what is casually said to be ‘timeless’. Maybe it is one of those things, maybe it is all of those things, or maybe it is none.

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“Architecture should speak of its time and place, but yearn for timelessness.”

(Iovine, et al., 1993, p. 43)

The above is an often appearing quote by architect Frank Gehry, one of the influential figures of twentieth century post-modernism, and renowned for deconstructivist architecture. Regardless of the endless debate upon the architect’s achievement of the same, it is still intriguing why a material phenomenon such as architecture, so physical and temporal in its fundamental nature, would strive to achieve this much desired quality of ‘timelessness’. And throughout history, if it appears to have been, and continues to be a desirable quality in architecture, it is critical to architectural research and practice to investigate its connotations and try to reach for the essence of the quality.

This essay set out on a precarious journey of finding the meaning(s) of the notion of ‘timelessness’ in architecture; hoping to arrive at a certain understanding in the course of this exploration. Upon a rigorous process of excavating for a potential beacon among the chaos, the study eventually narrowed its focus on the radical treatise on architecture, named ‘The Timeless Way of Building’ (1979), which is a part of the three volume series by architect Christopher Alexander and his colleagues at the Centre for Environmental Structure, Berkeley, California. This work was a result of more than a decade-long process of dedication and perseverance.

While the aforementioned text serves as the spine for this study, a range of essays and texts by architect Juhani Pallasmaa―one of the pioneering advocates of phenomenology, provide crucial inputs to assist a deeper understanding of Alexander’s theories. Another key concept that becomes of importance upon studying Pallasmaa’s works, is that of the psychological ‘archetypes’―a concept by Swiss psychiatrist, Carl Jung (1919). This essay involves a process of exploration to understand the meanings of ‘timelessness’ in architecture, through the points of view of the model references. It is an attempt to capture the essence of the ‘timeless’ quality that can emerge from the exploration of these texts.

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Chapter 1 ‘THE TIMELESS WAY OF BUILDING’

‘The Timeless Way of Building’ (1979) is the first in the three volume series, as previously stated.

This work shall not be ‘reviewed’, as much as ‘viewed’ for finding its crux. Initially, it sounds slightly incredible―the mere idea of the existence of a ‘timeless way’ of building; but this seminal work had presented an entirely new approach to architectural design and building, the basis for which was laid in the first volume. It was hoped that this approach would replace the prevalent ideas and practices. The second volume, ‘A Pattern Language’ (1977) serves as a guide to design, for everyone, to build in the timeless way.

Alexander has an academic background in chemistry and physics. He earned a bachelor's degree in architecture, a master's degree in mathematics, and a doctorate in architecture. During his doctoral studies, he worked at MIT in transportation theory and computer science, and at Harvard in cognitive studies. This peculiar background reflects in his treatise rather distinctly. It is an intriguing fact that the greatest philosophers in human history have almost invariably been rooted in studies of logic, mathematics, physics and biology. Indeed, because it might be the rightest way to discover the truths of the universe and the world. Even Carl Jung fortified his theories related to psychic temporality, with the support of then developing ‘relative time’ theories in quantum physics. (Yiassemides, 2014) This book is often called a philosophical treatise with architectural examples. This is because Alexander has aimed at providing the world with an ‘egoless’ approach towards building and design, which requires people to ‘forget themselves’. The crux of the ‘timeless way’ lies in people giving up control and fear, being honest to their true, innermost ‘feelings’, and relying purely on intuition to recognize the ‘patterns’ in their surroundings. He insists that the scientific accuracy of the patterns can only be ensured through directly assessing people’s feelings, and not their ideas, opinions, arguments or discussions.

A formal language constituting of rules inherent in these patterns, can be developed and adopted for designing coherent buildings and towns. This language can be unique to every Figure 1. The Timeless Way of Building, Christopher Alexander, 1979 individual, since it is recommended that the patterns be challenged, altered, according to specific requirements. The language will be a ‘living’ language only when it is shared among everyone, and the language will evolve over the course of time.

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Patterns and the pattern language The book proposes that buildings and towns acquire their “character, essentially, by those events which keep on happening there most often”1 (Alexander, 1979, p. 66). For every site, there are sets of events, human and nonhuman, the repetition of which, accounts to the greater structure events that make our world. Each of these events is inevitably anchored in space. It is the relationships between the events occurring in the context and the spaces that facilitate them, that constitute the patterns. Every system has deeply embedded patterns that originate from its culture. The inventory of patterns and the pattern languages will vary in different subcultures and societies, on account of the varying forces they accommodate.

The idea is echoed in Juhani Pallasmaa’s (1980) essay: Preceding the citation of Alexander in the essay, he writes, “Ethnoscience contends that the broad and complex field of all cultural behavior can be reduced to a small number of elements and rules that can be combined in different ways to produce cultural variation…however, it is not believed that these elements and rules are universal; they vary from one culture to the next. Culture is thus seen as a system of signs like language, a code that governs all observable human behavior” (Pallasmaa, 2012, p. 28).

The entire book resembles a quest to achieve what he calls the quality without a name. The quality that each individual must have within himself, which our buildings and towns then shall have. He shares the closest possible names for the very specific quality–“alive”, “whole”, “comfortable”, “free”, “exact”, “egoless”, and “eternal”; but explains why it cannot be named any of them. Hence, decides to call it a quality without a name.

He considers the patterns to be the atoms of our man-made universe; the morphological rules of the world. These unitary patterns are self-sustaining and help other patterns sustain. Hence, every pattern should exist as a part of the whole system. The analogous relationship between the generative nature of the pattern system and the genetic codes in living organisms, is also made clear in the book. “They have force. They are generative. They tell us what to do; tell us how we shall, or may, generate them; and they tell us too, that under certain circumstances, we must create them” (Alexander, 1979, p. 182). It includes the knowledge required for building a system, as well as the rules to generate the pattern in the world. In that sense, the patterns in themselves are the elements as well as the grammar of the language they form. The language is nothing but a system which allows us to generate meaningful sentences appropriate to a given situation. Just as natural language allows us to articulate, frame sentences that make sense, even create poetry―the pattern language enables the creation of an infinite variety of architectural expressions.

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Some parts of the book are italicized for aiding the reader to get the overall structure of the text in a short duration of reading. The italics are retained in this essay.

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What is critical is the recognition of the patterns and creating a pattern language. The clues for what the design should be, already exist in the context; and it is up to the builders to recognize the patterns. This would enable one to create buildings that are like nature, by erasing individual ‘will’ or ‘ego’. It is vital in this process to insist on adherence to the patterns, and nothing else; to do only what is required.

He says that “a living language must be personal” (Alexander, 1979, p. 337), and a language will live only if it is shared. Once the language is shared, it will evolve of its own accord; good patterns will be shared widely and the bad patterns will keep being eliminated gradually.

The goal of eventually creating ‘egoless’ and ‘alive’ places, stems from the derision of industrialist ways of standardization, and the movement of modernism, which he says, has created buildings that are made of languages which the society cannot understand. He compares this with the secrets of a chef. Architects have tried to keep their languages secretive, the products of which are imposed top down on the people that use the buildings. According to Alexander, this problem has created ‘dead’ pattern languages; the reason being that the power has passed to the hands of who is not the user of the building, from the hands of whom the language evolves from.

Alexander has mentioned an incident at Berkeley, regarding a student who read the ALCOVE pattern―one of the 253 patterns described in ‘A Pattern Language’ (1977). The student “said, in wonderment: “I didn’t know we were allowed to do things like this.” Allowed!” (Alexander, 1979, p. 544). Therefore, he emphasizes the fact that the pattern language gives people the permission to do what they really desire, and what they were made to believe is not ‘modern’. People can be confident to do what is simple, right and appropriate, without being afraid of being laughed at or ashamed.

“And it is in the end only when our feelings are perfectly in touch with the reality of forces, that we begin to see the patterns which are capable of generating life” (Alexander, 1979, p. 300). This is what he calls the ‘gate’ to lead us to an egoless state of mind, in which we can live so close to our own heart that we no longer need a language. It empowers us to see what is already within us, the right impulses which lead us to do the right thing, if we will only let ourselves.

“There is no skill required. It is only a question of whether you will allow yourself to be ordinary, and to do what comes naturally to you, and what seems most sensible, to your heart, always to your heart, not to the images which false learning has coated on your mind.

This is the final lesson of the timeless way” (Alexander, 1979, p. 547).

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Chapter 2 FROM THE INDUSTRIAL TO THE EGOLESS WAY

As Pallasmaa (1982) in his essay, ‘The Place of Man: Time Memory and Place in Architectural Experience’ says, “Architects have become immune to the poetic language of houses, rooms and objects. I believe that architects, like poets, should be sensitive to the images provoked by things.

We should re-learn naïve seeing” (Pallasmaa, 2012, p. 78). This does resonate with Alexander’s views on the need for an uninhibited vision, devoid of images and prejudice.

The persuasion in Pallasmaa’s works, is remarkably intense, where he iterates and reiterates the demons of modernity and industrialization. He writes in ‘The Place of Man’ (1982): “The experience of place in an industrial culture, and the affinity between man and environment, are disappearing at the level of both local identity and man’s sense of place on a human scale. Local forms of building culture are being eradicated by the entropic force of standardization exerted by industrial culture. Standardization is built into our culture, and furthered by technology’s indifference to local factors. The latter allows us to break free from locality and to produce a synthetic environment independent of tradition, landscape and climate. Having rejected the sense of continuity conferred by tradition in the time dimension, industrial man has started to expand his existence in place, instead of in time, by seeking a universal culture.” (Pallasmaa, 2012, p. 73) Christopher Alexander, too, has gone lengths to explain the hurdles that standardization poses in the process of ‘appropriate’ design. The indifference to local factors is what Alexander refers to as our disconnection with ‘reality’. He means by ‘reality’ only that what really ‘is’. We will acquire the ability to truly see the forces that actually exist, by recognizing only the unadulterated, real forces of the context, unclouded by opinions and images. “That is what is hard―because so often people choose to put their own opinions forward, in place of reality…A person who is convinced that offices ought to be “flexible” will be oblivious to the real forces at work in groups of people who are trying to work” (Alexander, 1979, pp. 301-303).

In ‘The Place of Man’ (1982), Pallasmaa has also said that homogeneity of space eradicates the sense of place: “In modern design, space is divided for the desired purposes as if a meaningless, valueless commodity. The modular grid of industrialized construction extends homogenously and without differentiation in all directions” (Pallasmaa, 2012, p. 74).

Although the views of both Alexander and Pallasmaa coincide, the solutions that both offer to escape the imprisoning effect of the industrialization, are different yet quite the same in ways more than one.

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Chapter 3 MAN AND ENVIRONMENT

Pallasmaa has consistently assumed a blatant tone of disapproval for the Western culture; whether in terms of its alienation from the spiritual, corporeal world, or for the separation of man from the natural environment. His most renowned work ‘The Eyes of The Skin’, first published in 1996, majorly reprimands the ocularcentrism of the Western culture. In his ardent efforts of accentuating the multisensory aspects of the actual architectural experience, he criticizes the hegemony of the vision, promoted since history in the Western world. In ‘The Place of Man: Time, Memory, and Place in Architectural Experience’ (1982) he writes, “[I]t is precisely this separation of man and environment that anthropologist Edward T. Hall, for instance, views as one of the most destructive unconscious cornerstones of Western thinking2” (Pallasmaa, 2012, p. 75).

Echoing Alexander’s statement regarding the alienation of the languages of our towns from the people, Edward T. Hall said that our sensitivity to the language of our material surroundings has diminished as a result of our tendency to disassociate the material world from intellectual culture (Hall, 1959/1966, cited in Pallasmaa, 1980). Architectural communication takes place through several unconscious means, which fail formal articulation and analysis. Such involuntary communication depends on expression and interpretation of cultural conventions based on collective unconscious and archetypes.

The growing distance from our natural environment is also a result of the lack of coherency of architectural expressions with other cultural forms of art. The artistic structuring in its creative and experiential aspects utilizes an unstructured and unconscious level of perception. In turn, art strives to evolve new links to keep with the spirit of each age, for its messages to speak their archetypal language to all ages; which contributes to the immortal nature of art. “The survival of art across fundamental cultural and temporal borders is incontrovertible proof of the existence of the permanent, universal language of art. The study of myths has in fact brought to light the existence and appearance of the same archetypal figures and experiences in the art of different civilizations” (Pallasmaa, 2012, p. 35).

In demonstrating different archetypal meanings of basic architectural forms, Pallasmaa describes the spatial mandalas from Persian, Indian, Tibetan and other cultures. The cultural, religious, mythical symbolisms and representations of the cosmos, and the man-cosmos relationships, are pointed out through such examples from the Oriental―and overall Eastern culture. Similarly, Christopher Alexander invites several examples from the Eastern world. It is noticeable in many

2

Mildred Reed Hall, Edward T. Hall, The Fourth Dimension in Architecture: The Impact of Building Behavior (Santa Fe: Sunstone Press, 1995) cited in the reference source.

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of the patterns that have been described in the work, how dear he holds the connection between man and the natural environment.

For example, stone pavements that allow grass to grow freely in the gaps, the flower beds, water, gardens, seating, light and air inside the building, interior material textures, window places, entrance transition and so on, encourage a raw interaction with the environment. The ‘timeless way’ and its patterns that he prescribes in such intricate detail would truly be one with even the forms of nature that are deemed primitive. David Gissen (2009) published ‘Subnature: Architecture’s Other Environments’, where he has uncovered the forms of nature, which he calls the ‘subnature’―a deeper aspect of the man-nature relationship on those levels that are neglected and even feared in modern industrialist urbanism. The formal language of patterns is an effective tool for seeing the reality in its entirety, the forces of nature, including gravity, and the total range of factors from sunlight, vegetation, water, ground and air, to grass, butterflies, worms and smoke; nothing can be left out.

The historical sense Concerning the traditional, mythical symbolisms of man-nature relationships, the pattern ZEN VIEW, is inspired by a cultural, spiritual anecdote about a Buddhist monk. Alexander writes, “The archetypical zen view occurs in a famous Japanese house, which gives this pattern its name” (Alexander, et al., 1977, p. 642). The implicit theme of re-creation and re-interpretation of the mythical, spiritual and the cultural is recurring in the works of both our pioneers, albeit in different avatars. Pallasmaa often stresses about the need for temporal continuity of art and architecture through the ‘historical sense’ which is of utmost importance for any artist.

Citing a particularly thought-provoking example of the poet, in ‘Tradition and Modernity’ (1988), he writes: “In his 1919 essay ‘Tradition and the Individual Talent’, T.S. Eliot perceptively describes this ‘historical sense’ and a poet’s position in the challenge of tradition: “the historical sense compels a man to write not merely with his own generation in his bones, but with a feeling that the whole of the literature…has a simultaneous existence and composes a simultaneous order. This historical sense, which is the sense of the timeless as well as of the temporal and of the timeless and of the temporal together, is what makes a writer traditional and it is at the same time what makes a writer most acutely conscious of his place in time, of his own contemporaneity. No poet, no artist of any art, has his complete meaning alone.” ” (Pallasmaa, 2012, p. 268).

On the same thread, Alexander has shared the realization that dawned upon him, on reading a passage in an ancient Chinese painting manual:

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“The writer of that manual describes how, in his search for a way of painting, he had discovered for himself the same central way that thousands of others like him has also discovered for themselves, throughout the course of history. He says that the more one understands of painting, the more one recognizes that the art of painting is essentially one way, which will always be discovered and rediscovered, over and over again, because it is connected with the very nature of painting, and must be discovered by anybody who takes painting seriously. The idea of style is meaningless: what we see as a style…is nothing but another individual effort to penetrate the central secret of painting, which is given by the Tao, but cannot itself be named.

The more I learn about towns and buildings, the more I feel the same thing to be true. It is true that many of the historic styles of building have some quality in common―they have it not because they are old, but because man has, over and over again, approached the secret which is at the heart of architecture.” (Alexander, 1979, p. 526) Alexander says that the old traditional buildings will always have one common character. This character, he clarifies, does not arise on account of history, or their primitive building processes; but it is because they are deep, and have allowed each part of them to be entirely one with its surroundings: a process where “there is no ego left, only the gentle persuasion of the necessities” (Alexander, 1979, p. 525).

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Chapter 4 THE MATERIAL AND THE SELF

The possibility of finding the self in the material, is bolstered by Alexander’s ‘timeless way’. His way of building is about making with the self. The timeless way proposes that each person must build his buildings himself; and the pattern language that will be shared and evolved, will enable the people to build their towns which will be ‘alive’ and ‘whole’. He believes that by making places which are like nature, our towns will eventually have the quality without a name.

In order to ensure that every person knows the patterns, shares the language, it is essential that every person knows how to build. In this way, every society will have its own character, and the patterns in them will keep giving life to those living in them. “In agricultural societies everyone knows how to build; everyone builds for himself, and helps his neighbor build. And in later traditional societies there are bricklayers, carpenters, plumbers―but everyone still knows how to design. For example, in Japan, even fifty years ago, every child learned how to lay out a house, just as children learn football or tennis today. People laid out their houses for themselves, and then asked the local carpenter to build it for them” (Alexander, 1979, p. 230).

In ‘The Eyes of the Skin’ (2012), Pallasmaa notes that the sense of self is strengthened by art and architecture, and it allows us to engage fully in the mental dimensions of dream, imagination and desire; that buildings and cities provide the setting for understanding and confronting of the human existential condition.

The controversial aspect about architecture, among other arts is our ambiguous connection with the medium. Architects work with drawings, which often forms the veil from behind which the self ‘projects’, but seldom ‘connects’ with the real surroundings. He says: “Instead of creating mere objects of visual seduction, architecture mediates, relates and projects meanings. The Figure 2. The Eyes of the Skin, Juhani Pallasmaa (2012), 3rd edition ultimate meaning of any building is beyond architecture; it directs our consciousness back to the world and towards our own sense of self and being. Profound architecture makes us experience ourselves as complete embodied and spiritual beings. In fact, this is the great function of all meaningful art…In creative work, both the artist and craftsman are directly engaged with their bodies and their existential experiences rather than focusing on an external and objectified problem. A wise architect works with his/her entire body and sense of self” (2012, p. 13).

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Chapter 5 REFLECTIONS

Languages of alienation and familiarity Something that lingers in the reader’s conscience upon reading the intense treatise by Alexander and team, is the profound thought that Alexander puts so simply, towards its end―we will be able to build places having ‘the’ quality, places which are alive, only if we let ourselves do the ordinary, and right; do what is sensible to our heart, always the heart (referring to pg. 5). He has fervently pronounced the role of intuition and feeling, which is immensely crucial in identifying the patterns in our surroundings.

This led me to ponder over man’s ability to recognize and acknowledge his/her innermost feelings.

It does not seem like an easy task: to be so honest and untethered by images, fears and control.

This is a task far tougher than to be given a set of instructions, and following them. Alexander shows immense faith and hope in the humankind, in believing that people will understand, follow and develop the approach he has suggested.

Without a doubt, Alexander’s intentions and goals of having rich and meaningful buildings and towns, and his remarkable efforts in providing the world with the boon of the pattern language, are invaluable. What can be learnt from the many things discussed in the massive work, becomes clear only upon reflecting on the depths and roots of his theories.

Consider a poetry written in your mother tongue―powerful, raw and brilliant―by virtue of profound simplicity. Such a poetry creates an impact that is very direct, on one’s unconscious self.

It naturally evokes emotions which we may not consciously be aware of, and cannot verbally articulate. This unexplainable association that it is able to establish, may not be the same in its evocative intensity, when the same poetry is translated to another language―even a language that you know. Some part of its spirit is bound to be lost in translation. This is because every language is rich with the essence of the culture that it originated from, the ways of life of the people it belongs to; the traditions and mythical treasures are dissolved in the language itself. It is very difficult to formally identify these characteristics in each language, but their existence is undeniable.

A person experiences such a spiritual and emotional connection with only something that he/she understands―when a form of expression reaches one’s heart with great power and sheer ease at the same time. The same is true of architectural expressions. When the language is understood by the people, the messages will speak to them. In ‘Two Languages of Architecture’ (1980), Pallasmaa states: “The deep-structure meanings unconsciously aroused by the architectural experience are memories and associations connected with the synesthetic mental images of early 11

childhood, our spatio-kinetic experiences, and collective archetypes…Responding to the deep and sudden impact certain buildings have on his mind, the architect Colin St. John Wilson says, ‘It is as if I am being manipulated by some subliminal code, not to be translated into words, which acts directly on the nervous system and imagination, at the same time stirring intimations of meaning with vivid spatial experience as though they were one thing. It is my belief that the code acts so directly and vividly upon us because it is strangely familiar; it is in fact the first language we ever learned, long before words, and which is now recalled to us through art, which alone holds the key to revive it…’ ” (Wilson, 1979, cited in Pallasmaa, 2012, p. 38).

Indeed, the language of art and architecture is unlike natural language; but these communicative experiences still take place between the material and the intellectual. “Bachelard writes of the ‘primal image’ as the cause of man’s most powerful experiences. The power of great poetry, and great art and architecture, stems from such primordial images, to which man reacts with the whole of his unconscious being” (1969, p. 91, cited in Pallasmaa, 2012, p. 77).

“[T]he modernist city is itself washed from the slate of memory, and we have lost the interpretative means to ‘translate memories and traditions into meaningful contemporary forms’3” (Crinson, 2005, p. xiii).

The connective links between man and his material world have suffered damage and have been broken in the modern built environment. The flow of messages between man and his environment appears to be disrupted by the invasion of a language that sought abstraction to achieve universality, but had reverse effects instead, perhaps due to a poor understanding of abstraction itself. Essentially, abstraction implies ‘density’ of significance―but is wrongly understood as the ‘absence’ of it in majority of the contemporary world. That what is abstract captures and condenses meaning in such a way that only the core spirit of something is bared for us to see. It is devoid of the limitations of formal attributes that decelerate the process of understanding, since it has to pass internal processes to reach its essence; in which we even fail occasionally.

3

Boyer, C. (1996). The city of collective memory. Its historical imagery and architectural entertainments. USA: The MIT Press. p. 28, cited in the reference source.

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Temporal Continuum Architecture can achieve the timeless quality when it helps bridge the gaps caused by those broken connections; when it puts us in touch with our existential condition by communicating through collective archetypes. It then not only belongs to its time, but also transcends the temporal dimension.

“Jung suggested that ‘the archetypal world is “eternal,” i.e., outside time’ (Jung 1976: 46).

Here eternal seems to indicate a condition that does not follow the laws of time. When denoting the inherent qualities of the archetypes he commented upon their independence of time. He proposed that archetypes have a timeless quality that is ‘beyond individual birth and death’ and therefore possess ‘an “eternal” presence’ (Jung 1936: par. 329). By consciously integrating the material of the unconscious it is possible to ‘make experiences of an archetypal nature providing us with the feeling of continuity before and after our existence. The better we understand the archetype, the more we participate in its life and the more we realize its eternity or timelessness’ (Jung 1954: par. 1572).” (Yiassemides, 2014).

The forms of creative expression, hence, need to be reinterpreted to suit the present, but must always be anchored in history and tradition. In this way it would be timeless, by belonging to the past, present and future at the same time.

“The connection and reinterpretation with the past is vital for our everyday healthy functioning. Jung emphasized the modernization of the past. We need to not simply revisit the past but to reinvent it through our current standpoint, to see it not as it was, but as we understand it in the present.

At each new stage of our development it is essential, for the sake of our mental health, to ‘orient to the past’ in order to reconnect with our inherited origins” (Yiassemides, 2014).

Architecture must evoke our sense of identity―individual and collective. In one of Pallasmaa’s (1988) essays, he quotes, “The fundamental question of architecture is existential: how does a human being experience his or her existence in this world? The task of architecture is to make us experience our existence with deeper significance and purpose; architecture assists us to know and remember our identity” (Pallasmaa, 2012, p. 265).

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As Mark Crinson rightfully states, “Something seems to have happened to cities and their relation to the past recently” (2005, p. xi). Architecture must foster a generative force for civilizations, instead of scattering the meaningful life in it, into infinite individual divergences leading to the loss of collective memory. In order for it to be timeless, it must establish, always, a temporal continuum, given to it by being rooted in tradition. “The greatest psychological task of architecture is to create a sense of cultural continuity. Thus in its deepest significance, the art of architecture is ever on the side of preservation, not of change as an end in itself” (Pallasmaa, 2012, p. 44).

“Architecture is deeply engaged in the metaphysical questions of the self and the world, interiority and exteriority, time and duration, life and death. ‘Aesthetic and cultural practices are peculiarly susceptible to the changing experience of space and time precisely because they entail the construction of spatial representations and artefacts out of the flow of human experience,’ writes David Harvey.4 Architecture is our primary instrument in relating us with space and time, and giving these dimensions a human measure. It domesticates limitless space and endless time to be tolerated, inhabited and understood by humankind.” (Pallasmaa, 2012, p. 19)

4

David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity, Blackwell (Cambridge), 1992, p. 327, cited in the reference source.

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CONCLUSION

The expressions in the language of architecture must reinstate man’s sense of identity―which seems lost in modern cities. The streets, public buildings of contemporary towns hardly evoke our sense of identity when we are in them. The language of geometry and abstraction, of glass and steel, might not be working they way it should. The forceful imitation of traditional motifs would be of no use either, because the meanings that have been lost in our cities, cannot be compensated for by a superficial reference which ultimately is ‘out-of-place’.

“Today’s fashionable attempts to recreate a sense of place and rootedness in history through the application of historical and regional motifs usually fail, due to the one-dimensional, literal use of reference and a superficial manipulation of the motifs” (Pallasmaa, 2012, p. 268).

We have completely erased historical motifs from our buildings, but as long as the essence of them is embodied in the material, the buildings will speak to us. It is ultimately the reinterpretation of the archetypes that keeps the communication alive. The language of architecture of a place must not be alienated from the expressions in other forms of culture. “The new expressions of art arise from individuals, but they should have the chance to take root in culture before they are swept aside” (Pallasmaa, 2012, p. 43).

“Archetypes themselves are dynamic since they do not simply exist in the distant past, but are active in the present. Their function, that is, their teleological significance, is to give meaning in the present by connecting the ‘now’ with the past” (Yiassemides, 2014).

Just as Alexander says that the good patterns in the language would evolve, and the bad would vanish gradually, artistic expressions develop over periods of time; they become part of normative structures until they lose potential of expression. New forms of expression are born unconsciously.

If the signs and symbols of a particular age are effaced, and replaced by a secretive–code language by artists, all art would cease to make sense to its people. The timeless character of architecture can come from its connection with the spirit, the essence of humankind. If only the moral responsibility of architecture is adhered to, and if we do only what is required, it would then flow freely across the temporal dimensions of individual life and death.

One of the very few, or perhaps, the only modern architect whose work Pallasmaa acclaims is Louis Kahn. He said, “Modern architecture is blinkered in its faith in the potential of formal fantasy. It has grown remote from the essence of material structure and phenomena and at the same time lost its strongest emotional content. Louis Kahn made it his life’s work to restore to modern architecture the primal images of building―or, as he puts it himself, the institutions of man. His buildings do in fact speak with an unanswerable weight and authority: they are both primitive and noble at one and the same time” (Pallasmaa, 2012, p. 77).

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Figure 3. Salk Institute by Louis Kahn, San Diego, California (1960)

Pallasmaa’s (1982) statement from ‘The Place of Man’ helps to sum up: Traditional building grows unconsciously out of an interaction of landscape, soil, climate, materials and type of culture. Just as a bird shapes its nest with its own body, so the traditional community shapes its habitat with its collective memory. Tradition is a centripetal force that prevents both committing of errors and individual divergences. Through tradition, the overall interaction between physical conditions, a way of life, and psychological needs are developed towards a balance…The determining factor in the equation is always a choice dictated by culture-the community’s concept of the world-which building reifies. Building converts the community’s cosmological view of the world into physical reality.

Simultaneously, the temporal order is linked with the mythical order. In the end there is complete affinity between the individual and the community, between thinking and place” (Pallasmaa, 2012, p. 73).

The precise difference ‘time’ and ‘timeless’ becomes clearer now. It is very unlike what I speculated in the beginning of this study. It is perhaps best understood in an example of―‘home’ and ‘homeless’. It does not mean that the ‘timeless’ is the absence of ‘time’. Our ‘homeless’ here is―a ‘nomad’. The nomad has no home, but anywhere in the world could be his home. Similarly, ‘timeless’ does not mean something that belongs to no particular time, but in fact something that perfectly fits its place, yet flows across the boundaries of time.

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Bibliography

Alexander, C., 1979. The Timeless Way of Building. New York: Oxford University Press.

Alexander, C. et al., 1977. A Pattern Language. New York: Oxford University Press.

Boyer, C., 1996. The City of Collective Memory: Its historical imagery and architectural entertainments.

Cambridge: The MIT Press.

Crinson, M., 2005. Urban Memory: History and Amnesia in the Modern City. London: Routledge.

Eliot, T. S., 1964. Tradition and Individual Talent. In: Selected Essays. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World.

Gissen, D., 2009. Subnature: Architecture's Other Environments. 1 ed. New York: Princeton Architectural Press.

Hertzberger, H., Roijen-Wortmann, A. v. & Strauven, F., 1982. Aldo van Eyck: Hubertushuis. Amsterdam: Stichting Wonen.

Iovine, J. V., Gross, K. & Stone, J., 1993. Home. New York: A.A. Knopf.

Jung, C., 1947/1954. The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche (Collected Works). London: Routledge.

Marcuse, H., 1991. One-Dimensional Man: studies in the idealogy of advanced undustrial society.

Boston: Beacon Press.

Pallasmaa, J., 2012. Encounters 1. 2nd ed. Helsinki: Rakennustieto Publishing.

Pallasmaa, J., 2012. The Eyes of the Skin: Architecture and the Senses. 3rd ed. United Kingdom: John Wily & Sons Ltd..

Sager, T., 2008. The Ethics of Mobilities: Rethinking Place, Exclusion, Freedom and Environment. 1 ed.

London: Routledge.

Yiassemides, A., 2014. Time and Timelessness: Temporality in the theory of Carl Jung. New York: Routledge.

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Image sources Figure 1. The Timeless Way of Building, Christopher Alexander, 1979 [image] Courtesy of Amazon Available from https://www.amazon.co.uk/Timeless-Building-Center-EnvironmentalStructure/dp/0195024028 [Accessed on 8 January 2019] Figure 2. The Eyes of the Skin-Juhani Pallasmaa (2012) 3rd Edition [image] Courtesy of Amazon Available from https://www.amazon.co.uk/Eyes-Skin-Architecture-Senses/dp/1119941288 [Accessed on 8 January 2019] Figure 3. Salk Institute by Louis Kahn, San Diego, California (1960) [image] Courtesy of Essa, A. Available from https://www.flickr.com/photos/tatler/339218853 [Accessed on 8 January 2019]

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