Dalibor Vesely
The Architectonics of Embodiment
In today's lession we are talking about the
architecture and the complex phenomenon of corporeality, which was talken about even before from Vitruvius who compares the human body with the building refering the perfect proportions.
The nation of body
The most critical aspect of the role of the body in understanding reality is the relation be- tween the body and that which truly exists. T body is used to designate not only con- ceptual but also material reality. The body for Plato is not a given or something that can be isolated or defined as an entity; rather, it is part of a process of ordering within the domain of necessity.
The body appears as a relatively stable structure ordered in the context of reality as a whole (cosmos).
This is probably the first consistent formulation of a relationship between the human body and the rest of reality, which is better known as microcosm, and is later referred to in the Middle Ages as minor mundus.There is little doubt that the phenomenon of microcosm poses serious difficulties to modern thinking.To appreciate the real meaning of microcosm and its contemporary relevance, we should look more closely at the deep reciprocity that exists between the human body and the world and, by implication, between the human body and architecture.The analogy of body and architecture, or body and cosmos, would be incomprehensible without a mediating link or structure between such pontologically different realities.
The metaphorical natyre of analogy, represented numerically as a form of proportion, suggests that underlying proportion is always present a deeper level of articulation, coextensive with the articulation of the world as a whole.
Scrutinizing the ontological foundations of proportion reveals its equivalence to embodiment: that which manifests itself as a proportionality or analogy of the visible and in- visible, sensible and intelligible levels of reality. This revelation challenges the conventional understanding of proportion as a static harmony of different elements and supplies a more authentic understanding, where proportion is an open and dynamic paradigm of media- tion and participation of the visible phenomena in the unity of the world, in the one and the good.
The ontological meaning of embodiment is closely linked with the phenomena of pro- portion, in the sense that one speaks for the other. In the primary tradition in which pro- portion is understood dialectically, the relationship between different levels of reality coincides with the degree of their embodiment. This was most clearly expressed in the late medieval philosophy of light:It is clear that light through the infinite multiplication of it- self extends matter into finite dimensions that are smaller and larger according to certain proportions that they have to one another and thus light proceeds according to numerical and non-numerical proportions
If we accept that the hierarchy of reality is articulated in a precise proportional manner as a world, then we may be able to describe the process as the architectonics of embodiment in which architecture itself plays a very important role. Architecture represents the most el- ementary mode of embodiment that enables the more articulated levels of culture, includ- ing numbers and ideas, to be situated in reality as a whole.
The Architectonics of Embodiment
In today's lession we are talking about the
architecture and the complex phenomenon of corporeality, which was talken about even before from Vitruvius who compares the human body with the building refering the perfect proportions.
The nation of body
The most critical aspect of the role of the body in understanding reality is the relation be- tween the body and that which truly exists. T body is used to designate not only con- ceptual but also material reality. The body for Plato is not a given or something that can be isolated or defined as an entity; rather, it is part of a process of ordering within the domain of necessity.
The body appears as a relatively stable structure ordered in the context of reality as a whole (cosmos).
The openness of the ordering process speaks not only about the contingency of the world but also about the contingent nature of the body. Contingency in this case stems from the tension between the conditions and possibilities of what is perceived as the cosmological process itself.
Also we have learned by Aristotle that more on the particularity of the essential structure of things or bodies and their substance.That only particular substances are self subsistent does not mean, of course, that they are the only substances that exist. Aristotle insists that there can be no action without contact and that everything that either acts or is acted upon is a body; in other words, the only things that truly exist are material bodies. Aristotle himself had feared that if the existence of immaterial substances ever came to be doubted, physics, and not metaphysics, would be considered the first science. Aristotelian understanding of corporeality led the Vitruvian doctrine of the body came into existence, but in the Vitruvian understanding of corporeality we see that the relation of body and soul is no longer clear.
In the primary tradition that goes back to Plato and Aristotle, and remained alive until recent times, the body is always seen as linked with the soul, which in turn is related to the animated structure of reality as a whole.If a living body or thing is ever absolutely at rest, we shall have a motionless thing in which motion is originated by the thing itself and not from without. This is probably the first consistent formulation of a relationship between the human body and the rest of reality, which is better known as microcosm, and is later referred to in the Middle Ages as minor mundus.There is little doubt that the phenomenon of microcosm poses serious difficulties to modern thinking.To appreciate the real meaning of microcosm and its contemporary relevance, we should look more closely at the deep reciprocity that exists between the human body and the world and, by implication, between the human body and architecture.The analogy of body and architecture, or body and cosmos, would be incomprehensible without a mediating link or structure between such pontologically different realities.
The metaphorical natyre of analogy, represented numerically as a form of proportion, suggests that underlying proportion is always present a deeper level of articulation, coextensive with the articulation of the world as a whole.
Scrutinizing the ontological foundations of proportion reveals its equivalence to embodiment: that which manifests itself as a proportionality or analogy of the visible and in- visible, sensible and intelligible levels of reality. This revelation challenges the conventional understanding of proportion as a static harmony of different elements and supplies a more authentic understanding, where proportion is an open and dynamic paradigm of media- tion and participation of the visible phenomena in the unity of the world, in the one and the good.
The ontological meaning of embodiment is closely linked with the phenomena of pro- portion, in the sense that one speaks for the other. In the primary tradition in which pro- portion is understood dialectically, the relationship between different levels of reality coincides with the degree of their embodiment. This was most clearly expressed in the late medieval philosophy of light:It is clear that light through the infinite multiplication of it- self extends matter into finite dimensions that are smaller and larger according to certain proportions that they have to one another and thus light proceeds according to numerical and non-numerical proportions
If we accept that the hierarchy of reality is articulated in a precise proportional manner as a world, then we may be able to describe the process as the architectonics of embodiment in which architecture itself plays a very important role. Architecture represents the most el- ementary mode of embodiment that enables the more articulated levels of culture, includ- ing numbers and ideas, to be situated in reality as a whole.
Architecture represents the most elementary mode of embodiment that enables the more articulated levels of culture, including numbers and ideas, to be situated in reality as a whole. To conclude i want to say that the architectonics of embodiment reveal the most essential characteristics of proportion.
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