Arcismic Architecture: The "Dictum".
- ARISTOTLE
- Jul 20, 2020
- 4 min read
Updated: Aug 4, 2020
" In the age of Big Data, the buildings are learning machines we live in"
Words and Image: "Data alone is not enough, we need the whole image and picture to know where our design will take us".
If you will trace the word “dictum”, it is ‘something said’ or “coined” by a certain philosopher or a well-known architect.
We know that most of our Masters in Architecture, have a dictum – a principle they live by and carried on, so that they can be able to practice their artistic and scientific endeavor.
An architect dictum is a statement of opinion or belief of a person in designing buildings or structures.
We have a lot of Famous Architectural Masters and “Starchitects”, who have immensely shared their talents and their philosophies into our profession.
Architectural Dictum in history
SULLIVAN, LOUIS
“Form follows function.”
GAUDI, ANTONIO
“Form does not necessarily follow function.”
WRIGHT, FRANK LLOYD
“Form follows function- that has been misunderstood. Form and function should be one, joined in a spiritual union.”
“Every great architect is –necessarily- a great poet. He must be a great original interpreter of his time, his day, his age.”
GROPUIS, WALTER
“Art and Architecture, the new unity.”
KAHN, LOUIS
“Architecture is the reaching out for the truth”
“A house is a house.”
BURNHAM, DANIEL
“Make big plans; aim high in hope and work, remembering that a noble, logical diagram once recorded will not die.”
“Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men’s blood.”
Gottlieb Eliel Saarinen
(August 20, 1873 – July 1, 1950)
“Beauty grows from necessity not from repetition of formulas.”
“Architectural-form equals social-form.”
SAARINEN, EERO
(August 20, 1910 – September 1, 1961)
“Function influence but does not dictate form.”
PERRET, AUGUSTE
(February 12, 1874 - February 25, 1954)
“Truth is indispensable to Architecture & architectural lie concepts.”
Maria Ludwig Michael Mies
(March 27, 1886 – August 19, 1969)
“Less is more.”
“Architecture is the will of an epoch translated into space.”
“Architecture starts when you carefully put two bricks together. There it begins.”
MENDELSOHN, ERICH
(March 21, 1887 – September 15, 1953)
“Architecture seizes upon space, encompasses space and is space itself.”
“Architecture depends on the sensuous seizure by means of touch and sight.”
LOOS , ADOLF
(December 10, 1870 – August 23, 1933)
“Supply and demand regulate architecture form”
LE CORBUSIER
Charles-Édouard Jeanneret-Gris
(October 6, 1887 – August 27, 1965)
“The house is a Machine to live in.”
“Cube within a cube.”
LATROBE , BENJAMIN H.
(May 1, 1764 – September 3, 1820)
“A bldg. is the combination of different geometric figures.”
JOHNSON, PHILIP CORTELYOU
(July 8, 1906 – January 25, 2005)
“Architecture is the art of how to waste space ”
“All architects want to live beyond their deaths.”
GROPIUS, WALTER
(May 18, 1883 – July 5, 1969)
“Architecture begins where engineering ends”
BREUER, MARCEL LAJOS
(May 21, 1902 – July 1, 1981)
“A Building has straight geometrical lines. Even when these lines are free, it must always be evident that they have been studied & that they did not spring up simultaneously.”
“Nature & Architecture are two different things.”
“Architecture is a social art.”
POCIO, MARCUS VITRUVIUS
“Architecture must meet 3 requirements: strength, beauty, and unity.”
The History's Architectural "ISMs"
Photo credits to Bubbakeitrick
The dictum
But a dictum, remains a dictum, if there is no practical usage, or it cannot be proven or express it meaningfully in reality.
An Architect's dictum might became obsolete or it became a synthesis and anti-synthesis to another Architect’s dictum.
As an Architect, knowing that we are both Artist and Scientist, where we will start and how we are moving with times?
How we can be able to cope up with the technology, focus and use it wisely?
How can we be able to synthesize the dictum of our Architectural Masters who have given us the legacies of knowledge of designing meaningful building we are still enjoying and been using up to this very moment?
How can we use the vast knowledge available everywhere?
The Data are just in a click of your fingers?
These are the rhetorical questions that you, yourself can be able to answer.
Millennial Architects
Some of us were lost in this vast knowledge of the cyberspace.We do not know where to start.
Newly graduates, especially the millennial, are very adoptive with the trends, especially with new design software. Some of us, chose to be part of existing architectural firms rather than to carved our own firm from the ground up, for the sake of practicality and financial security. Big architectural companies cut the bigger pie of projects worldwide, whereas smaller Architectural firms niche themselves, and choose to specialize.
But regardless of the journey we chose to take, I am hoping that the passion and empathy towards Architecture will always be lighted until the end.
Where we go from here?
So, as an Architect, and for those who have lost their architectural passion due to personal reasons, I suggest that it is good to get back to the basic:
1. Start somewhere.
2. Get back to a dictum. Believe in it wholeheartedly.
3. Create your own path. Create your own logo.
4. Create your own merchandise.
5. Create your own style of building!
This world is not a world just to live upon, but a fertile living planet where you can plant your ideas, your philosophy, your dictum!
Personally, I am building a philosophical dictum myself:
Arcismic Architecture!
" In the age of Big Data, the buildings are learning machines we live in"
Words and Image: "Data alone is not enough, we need the whole image and picture to know where our design will take us".
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