Identity and Meaning in Architecture by Alan Shear
Abstract
Recent trends in the philosophy of architecture show a need
for a robust method in which to clarify those principles that
constitute a building’s identity. Current theories
of architectural identification offer, as factors that can
contribute to architectural identity, the history of production,
the architect’s intention, and the building’s practical function.
In this paper, I will show how alone these factors are
insufficient to establish identity. Philosopher Nelson Goodman,
who has written specifically on architecture, proposes a series
of definitions that help establish architectural identity, but
they are only a beginning. My task here is to present my own
analysis of Goodman’s theory of architecture, review the history
of the commentary on his theory of architecture including
criticisms, and finally, assess their strengths and weakness. I
will review Goodman’s theory of architecture in the context of
worldmaking (in “When is Art?” in Ways of Worldmaking), and then,
how architecture relates to his theory of representation,
1
exemplification and expression (in Languages of Art). Finally,
applying these to his theory of architecture (in “How Buildings
Mean” in Reconceptions in Philosophy, and in “Art in Theory” in Of Mind
and Other Matters). Later, I will discuss the strengths and
weaknesses of Goodman interpreters, such as, Paul Ricoeur. After
assessing the adequacy of the various critiques, I will propose
my own understanding of Goodman’s theory, and in its application
to Michel Foucault’s theory of vision as cognition and
understanding, will demonstrate how this understanding would work
in practice.
The Problem of Identity
The task before us here, the investigation of identity in
architecture, has previously been undertaken by philosophers of
art who have been seeking an aesthetic description of how a
building is a work of art. Philosopher Nelson Goodman identifies
a building as an artwork when it “signifies, means, refers,
symbolizes in some way” (R 33). It is the particular way a
2
building signifies means, refers, and symbolizes that identifies
it an art work. On the other hand, there are others, whom we
might call functionalists, seeking to identify a building with
its purpose as intended by its architect, or as represented
solely through its structure. This investigation will begin
neither by comparing architecture with other art forms, or with
the relationship of its form to its function. Following Goodman
in How Buildings Mean, my path to discovery of a building’s
identity is found in the symbol systems. In How Buildings Mean,
Goodman states that naming, predication, narration, description,
exposition, portrayal, and pictorial representations are kinds of
denotation, but because buildings are neither texts nor pictures,
they only metaphorically describe or depict.1 More important
than investigating ‘how a building can be a work of art’ when it
does these things, is the fact that a building can do any of
these things. These terms and their definitions provide a way of
seeing qua understanding that is based upon the recognition that
what is perceived is perceived as part of a symbol system.
1 Goodman, Reconceptions in Philosophy, hereafter, R, 34.
3
In Languages of Art, Goodman provides a theory of symbolism
that establishes consistent and practical identity criteria by
positing three interrelated aspects of representation:
denotation, exemplification, and expression. A representation can
be a generalized or specific image, a token or a type, and even
if it’s meaning is overt or hidden, all representations
participate in their symbol system. Both representation and
denotation posit relational meaning, but while representation and
expression are referential modes of symbolization, only
expression is self-reflexive. These distinctions are necessary in
order to avoid the simple but incorrect formula: ‘what denotes
also represents when there is resemblance.’ What is important to
remember when considering building identity is that labels are
independent of resemblance; a building will completely resemble
itself while representing something else. Goodman’s example of a
building that looks like what is sold from it (hotdog-shaped
building selling hotdogs) is a rare kind of resemblance. “An
architectural work may of course both literally exemplify some
properties and express others” (R 41). Denotation is central to
representation, but is not the same as resemblance. Parts of a
4
building can represent, for example, when they display sculpture
or mosaics, but representation, as well as, exemplification and
expression, are to be understood as varieties of symbolization
and reference. Signifies means, refers, symbolizes in some way.
Denotation is the heart of representation and is independent of
resemblance of which it is neither a sufficient nor a necessary
condition.2 Denotation is a relationship of applying-to or
standing-for like the relationship between a label such as ‘Louis
Sullivan’ or ‘architect of building X’ and what it labels.
A building may or may not represent anything, and if it
doesn’t it still may literally exemplify or metaphorically
express when the meaning comes “from symbol to certain labels
that apply to it or to properties possessed by it” (R 36).
Certain architectural styles in the 20th century built structures
specifically to literally exemplify, that is, to make visible its
formal elements, to refer to structural characteristics, to show
these in order to express their meaning.3 Buildings can
metaphorically refer to properties (labels) that it does not 2 Goodman, Languages of Art, hereafter, LA, 5.3 Goodman, R 38.
5
literally possess or “may express feelings it does not feel,
ideas it cannot think or state, activities it cannot perform” (R
40). “Reference by a building to properties possessed either
literally or metaphorically is exemplification, but
exemplification of metaphorically possessed properties is what we
more commonly call ‘expression’” (R 40). Goodman is clear that
what a work of architecture means cannot be identified with the
thoughts it inspires, the feelings it arouses, or with the
history of its origins including those of the identity of the
architect and his building designs.4 Causes and effects of a
building are not reference. Meaning, understood in this way, is
not identity. Importantly, Goodman distinguishes meaning from the
history of the building, because it’s meaning, “may have nothing
to do with its architecture” (R 43). If some of what a building
means is not its identity then to what meanings can we turn that
might constitute identity? Buildings do have meanings and so
there is the need to discover how to interpret those meanings
that indicate identity from those which don’t. Combining
Goodman’s philosophy of the languages of art and the ways of
4 R 43.
6
worldmaking allows for establishing criteria for determining the
identity of a building.
In Ways of Worldmaking, Goodman follows Ernst Cassirer in
positing that there are many world-versions.5 Goodman shows how
worlds are built through the conceptualization of the properties
and structure of the stuff the world is made of. The plurality of
the visions or versions are irreducible, and that each version
builds on another that is already made. Envisioning a worldview
qua version is a form of knowledge, and as will be made clear,
knowledge understood in this way is a structure not an authority.
It is a kind of cognition, an epistemic regime, and each regime
is its own authority. “My interest here is rather with the
processes involved in building a world out of others…I want to
illustrate and comment on some of the processes that go into
worldmaking” (WW 7). Each ordering schema is a world-version,
rather than a version of the world; the latter implying that
there is some objective world over and above the versions, an
5 Goodman contrasts his approach from that of Cassirer’s whose search is “a cross-cultural study of the development of myth, religion, language, art, and science,” while Goodman’s approach is, “an analytic study of the types and functions symbols and symbol systems” (WW 5).
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idea rejected by Goodman. Each world is equally legitimate and
each (including Goodman’s) may be right or wrong. Right, in that,
it fits with the current experience with symbols and that it
provides guidelines for the use of the terms defining symbol and
representation, but not ‘right’ as true. Goodman resists the
Siren’s call of reductionists by refraining from condensing the
different versions into a single materialist or physicalist
world-in-itself. Reductions are partial, fragmentary, and vague,
he thinks, and besides, no one reduction would satisfy everyone.
No doubt, each would demand that the reduction be conducted in
such a manner that the end result would prove their most favored
antecedent. This applies also (or most of all) to the reductions
demanded by those who privilege mathematics, science or
technology. The evidence offered by these quantitative
disciplines as inevitable is, according to Goodman, negligible,
thus denying their attempts to posit their particular symbol
systems as the undeniable necessary proof warranting reduction.
Each worldmaking organization refers are symbol systems.
Symbol systems are referring systems, and as a referring system
8
are epistemological constructs integral to, “our perceiving,
understanding, (and) constructing the worlds of our experience:
the different sciences and the different arts equally contribute
to the enterprise of understanding the world” (Giovannelli).6 We
make worlds by construing symbolic systems. Each symbol system is
capable of making and remaking, organizing and reorganizing the
world. The process is, in general, a linguistic analysis of the
words used to order things into kinds. Worlds may or may not
differ according to entities, emphasis, construction, proximity,
spatiality, temporality, periodicity, circumstances, objectives,
patterns, and derivation. What is important, for Goodman, is that
none of these ordering structures is found in the world, but
rather, they are “built into the world” (WW 15). Even so, in How
Buildings Mean, Goodman critiques three interpretative systems that
seek to establish how a building means.7 First, the absolutist
rejects the worldmaking premise for how could there not be a
single meaning that identifies a building. Second, the relativist
states that on the worldmaking view there is then no one correct
6 Giovannelli, Alessandro, Goodman's Aesthetics, Standard Encyclopedia of Philosophy, http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/goodman-aesthetics, 2005.7 R 44ff.
9
interpretation for there is no standard of rightness that would
apply throughout all the referring symbol systems, that is,
worldviews. Goodman faults the relativist claim that a building
will mean whatever an interpreter says it does and so the
building does not have any meaning in itself for all
interpretations are external to it. Third, the deconstructionist
accepts the worldmaking view in order to label all
interpretations as storytelling. By doing so they are released
from the futility of searching for that one right interpretation
with the unfortunate result that, like the relativist, every
interpretation could be said to be right. On this view,
attempting to achieve an understanding of the meaning of a
building apart from the extraneous interpretations is a futile
exercise.
Rejecting the absolutist view outright, Goodman suggests
passing through radical relativism and resolute deconstructionism
to an interpretive position of constructive relativism. A
relativism that is constructive sees some construals as wrong;
and taking the deconstructivist methodology, reconstructs an
10
interpretation of building meaning that admits its
provisionality. Goodman’s search for how well a building works as
an art work hinges on definitions of rightness, that is, how the
exemplified formal architectural components correspond to one
another and to the whole, or how it expresses, denotes or refers.
There are no general rules for determining meaning, but Goodman
does offer suggestions regarding kinds of meanings. Buildings
have meaning. A work of architecture that we physically enter
affects all our senses and all our cognitive activities such that
they transform, alter, inform, and reorganize our experience,
that is, remake our world how we “see, feel, perceive, conceive,
comprehend” (R 48).
The question need not bother us if there is only one right interpretation of any text; for then the work can be identified indifferently with the text or with the right interpretation – there is just the one text, the one right interpretation, the one work. That a text has a single rightinterpretation that is determined by and is entirely in accord with the author’s intentions has been, and perhaps still is, like absolute realism, the most popular view. But like absolute realism, is untenable. (R 55)
The absolutist world is lost and with it, “All notions of
pure givenness and unconditional necessity and of a single
11
correct perspective and system of categories are lost as well” (R
49). Even so, there is in Goodman no reduction to relativism or a
rejection of being able to state that an interpretation is false.
Conflicting statements are each true in their respective
worldviews. There can be a variety of these systems; each
constructed according to its own values, representations and
symbols. Correct statements come from a corresponding worldview,
that is, a representational system where that statement is indeed
correct. “The mistake comes in thinking of such systems as
devices for representing an antecedent reality. Rather, by
determining the categories in terms of which its realm is to be
described, a representation system determines the sorts of things
its world consists of” (R 51). The experience of the formal
elements is an interpretation; interpretation is an act and an
event.8 Each event is distinct and so is each interpretation.
As was stated above, this study will not compare buildings
to other art works in the hope of finding an aesthetic definition
of a building. Nevertheless, the analogical application of
8 Vandevelde 36, 43, 44.
12
language theory to art works, specifically architecture, has a
number of strengths. I proceed by applying one concession - a
building is analogous to a literary work for both are single
entities subject to various interpretations. In his essay on
Interpretation and Identity, Goodman developed a methodology of
interpretation from literary works, which I will apply to
architecture. “Our question is whether the availability of
multiple right interpretations of a single text in a single world
gives rise to multiple works associated with that text” (R 54,
italics original). Like Goodman, my task here is to investigate the
nature of interpretation within a worldmaking milieu. Goodman
rejects the absolutist claim that there is one correct
interpretation of a building’s meaning that is founded upon the
identity of the architect and his intention. Among the several
reasons given that counter absolutist claims, I am interested in
investigating the premise of architect intentionality. This
seemingly plausible standard of identity founded upon architect
intention founders when there are buildings for whom no architect
is identifiable.9 Also, buildings may have meanings that the
9 This standard does not apply as easily to the many anonymous buildings for which intention, architect, and meaning that are constantly encountered
13
architect never intended, and even could never have imagined. As
the absolutist argument for identity fades by denying that there
is one right interpretation because there is one building that
stands as the physical embodiment of the architect’s intention,
for the relativist, this absence of an architect’s intention in
an extent building leads them to deny that there is any right or
wrong interpretation.
Goodman believes that architecture, of all the arts, “makes
us aware that interpretation cannot be so easily distinguished
from the work” (R 45). There is meaning in architecture and so
all construals cannot be stripped away. Understanding the
different accounts within the symbol systems simply understands
that they are each true descriptions in different worlds,
descriptions of different things. Goodman states that these
different accounts, “increases the importance of distinguishing
between right and wrong versions” (R 52). Not every
interpretation is correct, and there are interpretations that may
through out our lives, but rather those unique and distinctive buildings with whom we live, that we experience, and which have some notable meaning. Even though we have not yet discovered what this meaning might be and how it is found.
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be substantiated as possessing more rightness than another. Each
system is active in its description of the world. Whether that
system is mathematical, scientific, religious, or whatever the
world is made, it is an artifact, and so, it is subject to
interpretation. The identity of a building is, for Goodman, the
history of its construction, but this history includes more than
the merely construction activities. How, and for what purpose a
building was constructed provides some information as to the
meaning of the building. History can contribute to the
formulation of identity, but history itself is an interpretation,
and so, is subject to the same criteria of rightness.
Interpretation of a building would include all its various symbol
systems, their contemporary meaning, and their current meaning.
Goodman notes that, “nothing is gained by assigning conflicting
interpretations to different worlds as we assign conflicting
versions of different world. For the question how correct but
conflicting interpretations can concern a single text is no less
problematic than the question how they can concern a single work”
(R 56).
15
In concluding this section on representational identity, I
note that Goodman’s philosophical works seek to overcome what has
developed in Modernity that the arts are epistemologically
distinct and less accurate than the sciences. Both art and
science are epistemological systems that stand in an equal
relation to worldmaking. His philosophy seeks rather to
investigate the worlds we experience through their appropriate
symbol systems in order to deconstruct their hold on our
cognitive faculties. To accomplish this Goodman posits a symbol
system that is to be understood a class of symbols within a
correlated field of reference. In addition, the relations among
the symbols can be indirect and do at times relate to one another
along an extensive web of reference. In any event, it is the
comparison of the versions that is fruitful not their
condensation. What is philosophically interesting for Goodman is
not the positing of a neutral version lying beneath these other
versions, but rather his interest is in the, “overall
organization embracing them” (WW 5). The epistemological
activities of ordering are the ways of worldmaking. Worldmaking
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is the result of what is literally or metaphorically exemplified
or expressed, whether spoken or shown.
Goodman’s philosophy of symbols is a form of discourse on
what is cognized, but it is also a description of the process of
cognition itself. Cognitive processes that lead to a rightness
criteria include the technical tools that analyze the referential
functions of symbols. Goodman’s aesthetics describe how,
“emotions function cognitively,” where the, “work of art is
apprehended through the feelings as well as through the senses”
(LA 248). Sensory and emotive experiences are related in complex
ways to the properties of objects. In addition, emotions function
in combination with cognition as complementary means of knowing.
There are no clear separations among what one might label a
perception or a conception, and a feeling. Each and all of these
intermingle and interact resisting distinctions that would
divide, for example, the emotive and non-emotive aspects of an
aesthetic experience. In asserting that emotion is a form of
17
cognition, Goodman states that any distinction of thought from
emotion is merely linguistic.10
Historical Identity
For Goodman, architectural identity cannot be separated from
its history of production. While this statement is important, and
has been employed on several occasions in this paper, it should
be noted that this conclusion is based upon Goodman’s need to
distinguish between a painting and an exact copy of it in a
culture of mechanical reproduction, and a forgery from the
original. The authentic painting of two visually
indistinguishable art works can only be determined by referring
to its provenance. Lagueux asserts that for “Goodman, the very
notion of a painting's authenticity involved in this question
presumes that the painting's own identity cannot be determined
without reference to the historical conditions of its production”
(Lagueux 20). Goodman suggests the term autographic to describe
works of art where not even the ‘most exact duplication of it
10 As we take leave of this discussion, it should be noted that their importance will be integral to the conclusion of the paper that suggests a solution to the problem of architectural identity can be found in developing atheory of polyscopic cognition.
18
does not thereby count as genuine,” and allographic to describe
works of art whose distinct instances, like a building or a
musical performance, are each considered to be equally
authentic.11 Multiple houses built from the same plan with
similar materials are not forgeries. Each is an instance of the
plan just as prints from an etching are authentic instances of
the artist’s original plate. As was said above, architectural
identity here derives both from a description of the history of
production to the instance of the end product, from plan to
building. This is not the case with painting, but even if the
building plans are stolen or that the end product is falsely
attributed to a particular architect, the building is not a
forgery. It appears that for Goodman the architectural notational
system is the distinguishing characteristic between autographic
and allographic. The specific requirement that Goodman proposes
necessary between the notational system of architectural plan
(drawing, etc.) is that the drawing transcend the individual and
should be understood in such a way so as to produce the building,
in other words, that the end product conform to the plan.12 “But
11 LA 113.12 LA 120.
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architecture seems to differ from music in that testing for
compliance of a building with the specifications requires not
that these be pronounced, or transcribed into sound, but that
their application be understood” (LA 120). Architecture assumes
and presupposes a language of what is expressed and what is
expressible in the building. In the narrative description of a
building and what it represents is found a relationship present
in all language between predicate and its object. Understanding
this narrative relationship of the “characteristics of
representation as a special kind of denotation” is, for Goodman,
a “grave misconception” that makes resemblance a feature that
distinguishes representation from denotation.
Goodman concedes that the current state of the architectural
notational system is not the same kind of system as that of
musical notation and neither is it as exact. There are the
correct notes to be played as they are written in the score even
if there is some variation in the kind of instruments that play
it. A builder, on the other hand, can substitute materials and is
often not expected to be more precise than within a 1/32 inch
20
deviation. And even if it is realistic to concede that a musical
performance with mistakes is still the work of the composer there
comes problems in deciding at what point the number of mistakes
degrades the piece so much that it does not even qualify as a
rendition of the composition. Art work identity, especially in
architecture, would benefit from the acceptance of gradations of
authenticity and from greater specificity of designation. This
openness, when applied to building identity, would allow for
greater flexibility when considering the degrees and methods of
architectural restoration; for example, in reconsidering a
currently unpopular restoration technique, anastylosis, and
reconstruction using original elements. The outright rejection of
anastylosis is based on a too strong argument regarding
historical building identity and an arbitrary degree of
dissimilarity. The new parts have to look very different from the
old parts so as to not foist a forgery on the public. The common
restorative practice is a compromise that makes it clear which
make sure the restored parts remain visibly, even dramatically,
distinct. With the acceptance of this suggested revised
understanding of a realistic relativity of historical identity,
21
the restoration debate could admit to the discussion using
original structural parts in non-original placement, or blending
the repairs invisibly with the rest of the building.
The ideal object of what the art work was in the mind of the
artists and what she finally created as her intended fulfillment
of the idea. That there is a single, ideal, originary object is
the result of the illusion of Platonism. Those who would seek the
ideal object so as to identify an art work labor fruitlessly for
there is no ideal in space and time. Supposedly, there is a
moment when all the pertinent research is completed and the art
work is finally identified as being X. This process already
assumes a method that can discern what is important and pertinent
before even getting to the conclusion. It disregards, by
definition, information judged to be superfluous, and that genre
of information is historical events that impinge on the identity.
This method determines that there is one identity, an original
event when, in our study, a building that is completed, and so
judges what is pertinent, the construction process, and what is
not, what come after that. The conclusion is, the real art work
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can only be X and nothing that happens to it can change its ideal
identity. If it becomes another thing through age or some other
agent of change then it is a different thing. To restore a
building to its identity as being X, it has to be identified as
X, so that any conservationist will know what to do.13 Michel
Foucault suggests a methodology of archaeology and genealogy to
define the historic conditions and an investigation into the
elements that compose the history, including the history of its
production. The method is to think ‘backwards’ from the event of
the building to the rules, regularities and practices that
occasion their appearance. Interpretation of the various world-
making symbol systems of a building is a form of genealogy from
which one could more clearly discover its identity.
Goodman’s philosophy of symbols is a form of discourse on
what is cognized, but it is also a description of the process of
cognition itself. Cognitive processes that lead to a rightness
criteria include the technical tools that analyze the referential
functions of symbols. Goodman’s aesthetics describe how,
13 Gennette 21
23
“emotions function cognitively,” where the, “work of art is
apprehended through the feelings as well as through the senses”
(LA 248). Sensory and emotive experiences are related in complex
ways to the properties of objects. In addition, emotions function
in combination with cognition as complementary means of knowing.
There are no clear separations among what one might label a
perception or a conception, and a feeling. Goodman states that
each and all intermingle and interact resisting distinctions that
would divide, for example, the emotive and non-emotive aspects of
an aesthetic experience. In asserting that emotion is a form of
cognition, Goodman makes any distinction of thought from emotion
as merely linguistic. History is in the service of life-as-art,
where the past is a means of strength in the present by defining
human identity within the created social space of the building.
The built environment is not to be understood only as the means
of determining personal, individual autonomy, but as the public
space with social dimensions that define the human experience.
The built environment serves the public. Social practice precedes
individual consciousness and it is in the experience and
interpretation of our experience within built space that defines
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our social being. Essential to our social being is language for
human being is being in language. In this sense, architecture is
art, culture and historical text. As such, it is part of the
horizon in which we live and through which our worldview is
shaped. How we experience a building is informed by what we
understand a building’s function to be, because buildings have
intentions.14 The building that is experienced, confirms and
establishes a relationship among individual and community and in
this way, it constitutes a certain way of being in the world. The
building identifies human being as much as human being is
identified in our shared built environment. As we build we are
constructed, and it is in this sense that Gadamer speaks of the
fusion of horizons where there exists a mutual self-understanding
between us and the aesthetic object, which is here, the building.
As we live with buildings, there is a dialogue, a process that in
its reciprocity co-determines both the identity of human being
and the building. The building creates a certain kind of person.
It projects an anthropology that constitutes the person.15 A
building exists within a tradition and even as it seeks to
14 Arheim 117.15 Dufrenne 1973, liii
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innovate and break with tradition the building itself, as an
event requires both participation and interpretation.
Functional Identity
Function is a value of utility that assumes human need so
that the form of the building can fulfill it. Functionalism is an
aspect of intention in architecture when a building is a public,
cultural, and historical structure. For example, when the formal
elements of the building facilitate the most efficient movement
of building’s participants or that the structure of the building
facilitates social gathering or open views so as to see some
important ritual activity. Here, the architectural value is
founded upon the fulfillment of its function. It is in this
worldview that the function of the building assumes a number of
metaphorical perspectives. The functionalist architecture
metaphor interprets the interrelation of human social, economic,
political, and religious purposes within biological and
evolutionary schema. According to this metaphorical
understanding, function is related to the active purpose of the
organism to achieve its continued survival and fulfillment of its
26
procreative instincts. Winters notes that, architectural
functionality is a biological metaphor that applies the
efficiencies of mechanical or technical processes to buildings.
On this biological evolutionary view, when something is
functional, it seeks to fulfill essential physical needs. The
building's functionality represents both the fulfillment of human
physical necessity, and so also, represents metaphysically the
nature of a human being. Echoing Descartes and the early moderns,
bodies are biological mechanisms, and so, the building is a
mimetic expression of that world-view. The building is designed
in such a way so as to solve physically a particular mechanical
problem. Oddly enough, the opposite can also be expressed: the
building mechanically solves a particular limitation of human
physical nature. The criterion of judgment is efficiency, and the
value of the building is in its adherence to the combination of
the metaphors of biological and technological functionality.
The success of the building fulfilling its functionality is
found, first, in how the problem is formulated, and then in how
that problem is functionally solved. On the one hand, it is a
technical solution to a particular problem. On the other hand, it
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is an ethical, social, economic, and political concern where each
can be solved through the technical efficiency. Foucault sees
architecture as a kind of techne, a technique using elements of
the sciences like, for example, physics; it is a practical
rationality governed by a conscious goal and is “rigorously
indivisible” from the history of ideas and thought.16 Arnheim
thinks that architecture assumes and presupposes a language of
what is expressed and what is expressible in the building. How we
experience a building is informed by what we understand a
building’s function to be, because buildings have intentions.17
In this way, functionalism is a historically determined form of
cognition that informs our understanding of a building. The
evolutionary metaphor can be expanded to include the technical,
that is, architectural structural solution that can solve other,
non-essential, human needs and activities. On this
interpretation, functionalism can serve social, economic,
political, religious purposes, even when function is understood
from its biological and evolutionary metaphors.
16 Foucault, 1980, 253.17 Arheim 1977, 117.
28
The function of a building informs our understanding of
building identity and for some philosophers the relationship of
form to function serves as the critical criteria of aesthetic
judgment. Goodman states that the modernist philosophy of
architecture, which states that, ‘form follows function ‘fails to
take into account that ‘function, is itself a symbol.
Functionalism is concerned with interpreting buildings according
to the intended activities for which it was designed and are to
take place within it. Nevertheless, a building can facilitate so
many other activities that the original intentionality and
functionality of architect and even the building itself fade so
that they can be regarded as merely one element among many. The
function of a building informs our understanding of building
identity and can also serve as critical criteria of aesthetic
judgment. Goodman thinks that the relationship between a
building’s aesthetic elements and its functional design are
highly complex, ranging from “interdependence to mutual
reinforcement to outright contention” (R 32). Symbolic
functioning is not always aesthetic and how and what a building
29
may mean may have little or nothing to do with its architectural
form.
In conclusion, architecture is a visual art and so must be
assessed according to its visual elements even if the building is
strictly a functional construction. Even strictly functional
elements or purposes are visual even if they are not aesthetic.
Winters states that architecture cannot be deciphered like a text
for it does not represent, express, or imitate.18 Language is the
structural counter-part of architecture.19 Functionalism can be a
criterion of appreciation as when the relationship of form to
function is a part of our judgment of its beauty. Form is the
unity of the sensuous and meaning. There are other functional
purposes and so the expression and fulfillment, that is, the form
of the function becomes a central aesthetic concern. The
aesthetic is part of the expressed form of a building and the
criterion is how well it achieves its purpose of fulfilling the
human activities that are to take place within. The function is a
visual element that shows the participant how to act, that is,
18 Winters 11.19 Winters 64.
30
how to move within it so as to increase the efficiency of their
activities. Within this paradigm are the assumptions of
technological minimalism that reduces or eliminates what is
considered inessential movement. Only those movements that
directly fulfill the purpose of an action are necessary. Here the
ancient ontology of substance and accident are assumed for
efficiency is reified as the activity of stripping away
unessential movements in order to accomplish the goal.
Biographical Identity
Identifying a building as that of such-and-such an architect
is both philosophically uninteresting, and conflates
identification with identity. Granting that such a designation
provides some information it is insufficient in addressing the
more interesting philosophical question of identity; an argument
that smoothes over the questions of personal identity and its
relationship to artifacts. The argument proceeds something like
this: the architect, like the author, has an intentional,
31
psychological and historical relationship to his object.20
Evidence of biographical identity draws upon the architect’s
building plans and drawings that lie behind the building. It is
equally as plausible to say that the building contributes to the
identity of the architect rather than the other way around. Here,
we encounter the standard metaphors of biography as spatial as
when an architect’s intentions are described as ‘lying behind the
building.’ Similarly, the idea of the building lies in the
imagination as an ideal thought object that the architect
translates into a drawing and then into a structure. The assumed
relationship here is that the building is intentionally the
architect’s work, and so also, it is the artistic expression of
the autonomous, individualized architect. Included in this
understanding of a building are the words of the architect that
describe what the building is supposed to mean and how it is
structure reflects a specific narrative event. Documentary proof
is privileged as evidence of intentionality, and the preferred
interpretation is that the document requires thinking back from
it to the architect and the idea in his head as he wrote. Another
20 Ricoeur, 1991, 107.
32
part of this reflecting back from document to architect is a
mental reenactment, that is, a form of intuition of the original
thought of the architect. This method of discovery of the
identity of the architect is supposed to restore or establish the
identity of the building’s intention by referring to what lies
behind.21
Identifying architect-with-building can only be made when an
individual architect and building are so labeled, but positing
that the building is a representation of an architect’s intention
does not provide the philosophical understanding of building
identity that is being sought in this paper. Another limitation
of his mode of identification is that it is applicable mostly for
more contemporary buildings and is irrelevant for most pre-modern
structures for whom there is no single architect, and less so,
for some buildings which take generations to build. The further
back in time the less accurate this mode is. Still, the problem
remains that this mode of identification has not yet been
sufficiently proven to provide understanding of what the building
21 Tanke 385.
33
means. That the architect may be invisible, that is, unknown, but
their construction is not, then relies other forms of identity
such as historical or functional. The architect as creator is
identified by the properties of their construction. Attributions
of architect-identity would be arbitrary for there is no method
that can classify which formal elements of a building relate to
an individual and which do not.
Certainly, it is the case that an architect’s buildings
possess features that are described analogously as ‘signature
elements’ such as the linearity of Frank Lloyd Wright. Here is an
instance where the definition of building identity is one of
mimetic correspondence for the building is said to represent
those formal characteristics employed by the architect in such as
way so as to be thematic of his style. Specific combinations of
formal elements in the building are said to represent the
identity of the architect. It is this association of certain
formal elements combined in a certain way that identify the
architect. This argument for identity is affirming the consequent
when those formal elements can be recognized without reference to
34
an architect even if it is accurate to describe the formal
combination as signature of a particular architect. Knowing which
architect built that structure adds little to the identity of the
building beyond explaining how the unique combination of certain
formal elements is indicative of that architect. As was said
above, the unique combination of formal elements has more value
in identifying a painting and distinguishing it from other
similar paintings or in efforts to ascertain forgery than it does
in architecture. Biography provides some sufficient information,
but it is not necessary in determining building identity. Echoing
Goodman, Ricoeur is instructive here regarding over-valuing
biographical identity as the necessary condition of building
identity when he suggests that no one version is exhaustive yet
“the world may be more than each version without being apart from
it. It is the very experience of making that yields that of
discovering. And discovering is to confront the opacity of the
world” (Ricoeur 178). Biographical identity is still subject to
interpretation for the life of an architect, his plans and
buildings are, like any historical document, subject to
interpretation.
35
Foucault redeems the shallowness of the architect as
originator of the building by placing him in the larger context
of various overlapping worldviews that converge in the building.
This back and forth interpretive process begins with the building
and traces backwards to the rules and practices that occasion
their appearance, and forward again to the building and how it
instantiates the architect’s intention. The imaginary discovery
of the architect’s intention is grounded in Foucault’s logic of
the archaeological process as a method of historical analysis
that uncovers deeper levels of knowledge embodied in the built
structure as a public, cultural product, and historical event.
For Foucault, intention could be ‘unconscious’ when it is part of
a larger cultural milieu of power/knowledge, or as Thomas Kuhn
put it, a historical, epistemological paradigm.
In addition to Goodman’s rejection of absolute realism, he
also faults the assumption that even if the author’s, or in our
case, the architect’s, intention can be discovered, knowing these
intentions of a work doesn’t “determine correctness of
36
interpretation; for the significance of a work often diverges
from, and may transcend or fall short of, what the author had in
mind” (R 55). Another problem with attributing an individual
architect’s intention as being realized in his building falters
when there are no extant plans. If plans are like texts that are
considered to be an expression of the architect’s intention it is
still the case that buildings differ from one another in their
relationship to the architect and that plans themselves differ
from one another and to their relationship to the building. Plans
are not a guide to determining the identity of the building.22 If
plans can be found and if they can be attributed to an individual
architect and if there is enough left of the building to make
some degree of attribution between them, then some degree of
identity can be established. Nevertheless, the architect’s
identity is one element in determining the building’s identity
rather than its sole or even primary criterion. “Understanding a
work may be quite different from understanding what the author
intended by it” (R 55). Buildings do not always retain the
intention of the architect and come to mean differently and even
22 A more detailed discussion of architectural plans can be found under Notational Identity.
37
to function in ways never envisioned by the architect and perhaps
in ways contrary to the building’s intention, for example, the
Parisian museum, Musee D’Orsay, originally a train station.
But for distinguishing allographic from autographic works, all that counts is whether or not identity of the work – quite apart from any particular question of author or opus –is independent of history of production. […] Of course, for any work, autographic or allographic, determination of authorship, opus, period, and so on, are aspects of history of production. What distinguishes an allographic work is that identification of an object or event as an instance of the work depends not at all upon how or when or by whom thatobject or event was produced. (MM, 140)
The tangential idea of forgery will occupy us only briefly.
Goodman and others have a concern regarding the meaning of a
forgery as it directly relates to identity and authenticity.
Authenticity is an aspect of identity. It is determined by the
history of production of the work (provenance). So, even though
in architecture the history of the production is important to
establish authenticity, it is still impossible to forge a
building. An architectural work cannot be forgery; rather, it is
an instance of a work.23 Every building is authentic, as is a
23 This is at odds with the notion of authenticity, which is important in determining what kind of restorative technologies to pursue for a building in
38
musical performance of a Mozart symphony or theatrical
performance of an Ibsen play. “Any building that conforms to the
plans and specifications, any performance of the text in
accordance with the stage directions, is as original an instance
of the work as any other. But architecture seems to differ from
music in that testing for compliance of a building with the
specification requires not that these be pronounced, or
transcribed into to sound, but that their application be
understood” (LA 120). Each performance is an instance of the art
work. One could forge a manuscript, but the performance is a
realized instance of the work. In this instance architecture is
more like a performance than a unique object created by an
identified artist. Certainly, the building can be mislabeled as
being the idea of a particular architect when it is not. On the
other hand, even as a building is unique as an object and
according to its production, it is not analogous to a painting,
sculpture, or written work of literature all of which can be
forged. Proof of authenticity of these art forms is based upon
the history of their production and the identity of the artist.
the architectural conservation debate. Restorative activities are founded uponwhat is and isn’t authentic to the building.
39
The need for provenential identification is vital in those art
forms where value is founded upon the artist creating a unique
object. Arguing forgery or debating authorship may determine
value, but such insecurities do not change the status of the art
work as something that exists, as is the case with buildings.
By stating there are no buildings that are forgeries, it may
be conceded that the building’s architect could be attributed
wrongly, but the building itself, like a musical performance,
cannot be a forgery. Identification is not identity. Musical
scores and performances of those scores “may vary in correctness
and quality and even in ‘authenticity’ of a more esoteric kind;
but all correct performances are equally genuine instances of the
work” (LA 113). Scores may be identical and they can identify the
same particular musical composition but the score is not the same
work as the different performances of the work. “Architectural
plans, like musical scores, may sometimes define works as broader
than we usually take them. For the architect’s specifications of
materials and construction (whether written out separately or
part of the plans) can no more be considered integral parts of a
40
score than can the composer’s verbal specifications of tempo” (LA
219). Even more detailed ‘plans-plus-specifications’ Goodman
labels as more like a script than a musical score. Lack of
specificity in architectural plans is that which Goodman
identifies as the reason it lacks the full force of a notational
system. But the lack of rigor is not sufficient to make the
building less of an instance of the work of the architect.
Variations in materials and lack of exactitude in architectural
plans do not change the identity of that particular existing
building.24 Given this flexibility, Lagueux’s assertion that
Goodman would reject even a perfect copy, forgery, or
reconstruction for the historical conditions of its production
differ from the original is not completely accurate. “A forgery
of a work of art is an object falsely purporting to have the
history of production requisite for the (or an) original of the
work” (LA 122).
24 This condition of inexactitude is analogous to a musical composition being performed by an ensemble featuring more, less or different instruments than those for which it is scored, in that, the performance would still be labeled as the composition of the composer.
41
My discussion of identity builds upon Ricoeur’s distinction
that substitutes identity-as-idem (being the same) with identity-
as-ipse (oneself as self-same) – with the understanding that the
difference is merely the difference between formal identity and
narrative identity.25 The building is only analogously like a
text, discourse, speech or dialogue; though it does show a
narrative identity by how it expresses meaning to individuals and
communities. Ricoeur sees a disjunction between the meaning of
the building and the intention of the architect or his lived
experience.26 While on its surface, this echoes the romantic
ideal of personal creativity of the architect being separated
from the historical horizon in which he lives, Ricoeur is not a
romantic. In the building is inscribed the intention of the
architect, but the impossibility of a detailed translation of
formal elements into text shows how these objects are separate.
To ‘read’ the architect out of the building’s physical structure
is an interpretive act subject to the same interpretive criteria
discussed above by Goodman. Even for the architect who builds a
25 Ricoeur, 1988, 246. Questions that remain to be clarified in Ricoeur: Is the architect idem and the building ipse or is it the reverse? Or, are both idem or are both ipse?26 Ricoeur, 1991, 121.
42
revolutionary and world-making structure it is still the case
that the building is an event that is present for the people of
that time, and all subsequent times for the building shares its
setting even if it is intended to be innovative. The architect’s
work reflects his own historical milieu even as it draws its
participants from other worldviews while it points to yet
another.
Authenticity or Value Identity
The question regarding identity and value is related to the
notion of authenticity. Authenticity is a world-version value and
even though value is a principle shared among versions it is to
be regarded as nothing more than an ordering schema, and that
each schema is a world-version, rather than a version of the
world. The latter position implies that there is some objective
world, a transcendent version; an idea rejected by Goodman, and
just as each world is equally legitimate each may be right or
wrong. Terms denote - they apply as labels to whatever they name,
43
or describe or represent.27 Like the label of ‘authentic,’ or
‘intrinsic’ refers to or represents a certain kind of value.
Intrinsic is a label representing a value in a symbol system that
includes its own meaning and interpretation. Intrinsic represents
the same kind of symbolic valuing system as that which labels
things as beautiful or ugly.28 The attributes of what can be
given the qualitative label of intrinsic are those things that
are already identified in the symbol system of the worldview as
that which quantitatively possessing those values. The
unavoidable conclusion is that the attribution of intrinsic value
begs the question. “A work of art can express or exemplify
properties intrinsic within its structure which are treated
metaphorically while it can represent something that exists
objectively to which it refers. Many works of art historically
have done both” (Donnell-Kotrozo 361). The identity of some
buildings is that they have intrinsic value and so the discussion
asks, ‘What is it that makes it possess these values?’ Here, the
discussion founders in circularity as the different valuing
systems of the diverse building identifiers describe why the site
27 WW 102ff. and LA 40ff.28 LA 255ff.
44
has the values it does because it has already been identified as
possessing an intrinsic value.
The investigation of architectural identity encounters early
on systems of value that propose criteria for determining
identity. Values are presumed to contribute to identity, and so,
the problem of identity is to be investigated in terms of the
values that are supposed to compose the definition from the
identity of the object in question.29 Intrinsic value is proposed
as that which most essentially defines a building. Attempting to
describe how building identity is derived from a valuation
schema, ethicist Dale Jamieson proposes four definitions of
intrinsic value. First, it is an a priori declaration that it is
often self-evident.30 Such declarations of intrinsic value are
not the same as saying that the valuing source is intrinsic for
the valuing source is distinct from the object of value. In other
words, the source of intrinsic value is not in the building
itself, rather the building represents that objective value
29 The object under discussion here will always be some kind of building even when described variously as ‘site’ or some similar designation; it is a structure that remains extant to some degree.30 Jamieson 68ff.
45
source. Secondly, intrinsic value is identified as a value that
comes from the object. The object itself declares its intrinsic
value without relying on this value being established
independently of the object or the valuer. Thirdly, the
declaration of intrinsic value is a threshold for moral
consideration. Finally, intrinsic value is determined by what it
represents; that is, the object represents a universal value over
and above the object itself and this representation of is of a
shared value. In any of Jamieson’s definitions, the building’s
intrinsic value is the source of its identity.
This final definition bridges the idea of value and
representation as the adjective, ‘intrinsic’ that modifies
‘value’ is a label. And because it is the case that labels say as
much about those who would employ them and to what they are
intended to describe it will be helpful to investigate first how
a label functions. First, the intrinsic label presumes that
values are of different kinds and that they can be identified,
sorted and organized according to properties. The diverse
properties of value are brought together under the ‘intrinsic’
label. Here, a certain kind of order is emphasized in this
46
worldview, so that, the value obtains a qualitative distinction.
Valuing in this way presumes an ordering schema that represents a
specific worldview. It is how value is ordered that is one of the
identifying features to this or any worldview. Intrinsic value is
just one of the orders of value in this kind of worldview.
Narrative Identity
Identity is both a narrative description and a practical
category that answers the question, ‘What is that?”31 In the
practical category, the question is asked of a building; and so
the question, ‘Who did this?’ regards architects in general, and
those architects of particular buildings. Questions of personal
identity seek a proper name. This study will investigate the
relationship of the ‘who’ to the ‘what’ presuming that buildings
can and do have an identity. And when the point in this inquiry
is reached that answers the ‘who’ of biographical identity, it
will be to the building that the important questions will be
asked. Identity presumes some degree of constancy and so to speak
of a building is to tell the story of its constancy, its presence
31 Ricoeur, 1988, 246.
47
in human experience, and speaking of it in this way gives it a
narrative identity. Self-constancy in narrative constitutes
individual and communal identity, but a building is itself not a
narrative though it possesses elements that make it analogous to
a narrative, in that it has and gives identity. Neither is a
building a text, though it is the subject of narrative and text,
and texts may appear on a building. Buildings are analogous to
texts in the sense that both are complete objects in which the
relationship between building and individual, like text and
reader, is not literally a dialogue, but both are ‘read.’ Ricoeur
proposes substituting “identity understood in the sense of being
the same (idem)” with an “identity understood in the sense of
oneself as self-same [soi-meme] (ipse). The difference between idem
and ipse is nothing more than the difference between a substantial
or formal identity and a narrative identity” (Ricoeur, 1988,
246). For Ricoeur, narrative identity can be applied to a
building as a form of narrative, because, first, the identity of
the building is formulated in a narrative, and second, the
building has existed historically as an event and socially as
part of the lives of people.
48
Identity is a narrative description and understanding how
the narrative describes the building is one of interpretation. As
an object, a building cannot self define, but is the subject of
the languages which I would take in its most broad sense to
include all the modes of expression that humans use to define
ourselves.32 The narrative is a mode of expression and one of the
most constant aspects of identity is the architecture that
expresses and defines the individual and their community.
Narrative identity is a reciprocal relationship between the
cultural object and the individual in their community. “We become
full human agents, capable of understanding ourselves and hence
of defining our identity, through our acquisition of rich human
languages of expression” (Taylor 33). The narrative becomes the
history that identifies and so also, it becomes subject to
interpretation. The building is an expression that identifies and
despite the changes that might occur to the edifice, it remains a
constant element of expression that defines the individual and
community. Dramatic examples of this kind include monumental
32 Taylor 33
49
structures like Beijing’s Forbidden City, Solomon’s Temple in
Jerusalem and Pericles’ Acropolis in Athens.
Now that the preliminary investigation into the varieties of
building definition, there is some value in reminding us of
Goodman’s definition: a “building is a work of art only insofar
as it signifies, means, refers, symbolizes in some way” (R 33);
and, in regards to worldmaking and identity, he says that,
“identity or constancy in a world is identity with respect to
what is with that world as organized” (WW 8). On this view, the
architectural structure qua building is an event that has a
material beginning, it continues as a presence in human
consciousness, and so can be interpreted similarly to an art work
and as a historical event, that is, an object of cognition with
multiple interpretive layers. This history will enable us to
apply Goodman’s theory of representation to the symbol systems
operative in a particular building. “Identification rests upon
organization into entities and kinds” (WW 8). The identity of a
building is, for Goodman, the history of its construction, but
this history includes more than the merely construction
50
activities. But Goodman’s definition of identity includes those
elements that comprise the historical conditions of the
construction of a building, but how are those historical
conditions defined. In this way, identity is determined by and
dependent upon recognition, that is, a cognitive acceptance,
affirmation, agreement or acknowledgment of the elements that
compose the building. On the other hand, identity is ahistorical,
because at different times what constitutes identity has been
defined differently. Buildings, like archaeological sites, are
subject to interpretation, which are attempts to establish
identity. We value what we are, or it is the case that, what we
value establishes our identity. It is in this way that valuing is
a relationship not a conclusion.
Goodman’s world-making symbol systems are founded upon an
understanding of metaphor. Ricoeur echoes Goodman’s meta-theory
when he states that, “metaphor is a transference that affects the
possession of predicates by some specific thing, rather than the
application of these predicates to something” (Ricoeur 1979,
234). Ricoeur agrees that Goodman’s worldmaking stating that the,
51
“enigma of metaphorical discourse is that it invents: what it
creates, it discovers; and what it finds, it invents” (Ricoeur
1979, 239). Metaphors help constitute aspects of reality, in
other words, a world is necessarily a world under a certain
description, it is a world that is seen from a certain
perspective. Metaphors are a combination of two operations, the
first inverts reference while the second inverts transference.33
For Ricoeur Goodman’s theories of worldmaking work in two ways:
first, language and symbolism remake reality; and, second,
metaphors create perspectives that possess the power of
reorganizing our perception of things. Ricoeur observes that
Goodman takes metaphor, which is part of language, and applies it
to his definition of symbol system.34 It is this broad
application of metaphor that Ricoeur thinks Goodman and Aristotle
agree, metaphor is not one figure of discourse among others, “but
the transference principle common to all of them” (Ricoeur RM
237). In a similar way, Wheelwright says metaphors endowed with
integrative properties are symbols and so he posits that there
are different levels of metaphor according to their degree of 33 Ricoeur 234.34 Ricoeur 238.
52
stability, comprehensiveness, and appeal, etc. Similarly, Black
says metaphor creates the resemblance, rather than finding and
expressing it.35
Ricoeur’s critique of Goodman is generally favorable with
many areas of agreement. There are though several applications of
his premises that Ricoeur finds areas that require further
investigation. First, Ricoeur thinks Goodman definitions of
reference are too general and that his privileging linguistic
analysis slights the broader historical context. Second, on the
one hand his narrow historicism is faulted. On the other hand,
there is insufficient support for how it is that each symbol
system in each worldview is similarly organized within human
cognition. Third, the justification that his categorical system
rightly “shows the condition for the possibility of
meaningfulness in our use of system structures” (Ricoeur 177).
Fourth, Goodman’s concept of understanding as a kind mode of
reference of our world versions. Finally, Goodman metaphorically
applying expressions usually used in the activities of production
35 Ricoeur 237 Note 41and 352.
53
to the realm of knowledge categories. Ricoeur asks what the
relationship of knowing is to making that Goodman combines in a
similar category world-making, work of art, production of meaning?
Architecture is a worldmaking activity that creates a way of
looking, a way of seeing and being seen.
54
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